Capitol Hill Middle School and High School situation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Similar story for Maury and SWS grads at Eliot-Hine, but even less rosy. Situation only a little better for Watkins and Ludlow grads at Stuart Hobson.

The fact remains that more than 2/3 of high SES Hill families who went with DCPS for elementary school have left the system by 6th grade.

I don't see any reason for that to change in the next 5 years, possibly 10.

As long as there’s no coherent effort to integrate them, it won’t happen. People can cry white privilege and Brookings however much they want, but any policymaker who actually thinks integration is a desirable goal will have to use carrots.

Thing thing about America is that you have freedom to move. If your schools suck, you can move. Middle class AA families seem to move to PG/MoCo and upper class families move to NoVa, Western MoCo or NoVa. Unless DCPS makes a targeted effort to retain these middle and upper class families, the situation will be one of adverse selection. DCPS figured it out in the Wilson/Deal/Hardy areas; they just refuse to do it on Cap Hill.

well that’s my point. as long as people have the ability to exit, anyone who wants to integrate the MS and HS on the Hill is going to have to proactively figure out to keep them by considering their interests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Similar story for Maury and SWS grads at Eliot-Hine, but even less rosy. Situation only a little better for Watkins and Ludlow grads at Stuart Hobson.

The fact remains that more than 2/3 of high SES Hill families who went with DCPS for elementary school have left the system by 6th grade.

I don't see any reason for that to change in the next 5 years, possibly 10.

As long as there’s no coherent effort to integrate them, it won’t happen. People can cry white privilege and Brookings however much they want, but any policymaker who actually thinks integration is a desirable goal will have to use carrots.

Thing thing about America is that you have freedom to move. If your schools suck, you can move. Middle class AA families seem to move to PG/MoCo and upper class families move to NoVa, Western MoCo or NoVa. Unless DCPS makes a targeted effort to retain these middle and upper class families, the situation will be one of adverse selection. DCPS figured it out in the Wilson/Deal/Hardy areas; they just refuse to do it on Cap Hill.

Yes, because DCPS can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Integrating Hardy is their current focus, probably a 10-year project. Once they've integrated Hardy, they'll surely get to us, by which time our kids will be in college.

What happens on the Hill is that a really small number of high SES families don't mind that DCPS doesn't make a targeted effort to retain them at the middle school level. They enroll in neighborhood middle schools anyway. Their cooperation lets politicians off the hook. It's easy to paint refusenik parents--the great majority of us--as the problem when a few families have embraced the current DCPS middle school arrangement, and those that don't aren't organized politically.

What are you hoping DCPS will do? Track all the high preforming ES to one MS, or offer tracking or something else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Similar story for Maury and SWS grads at Eliot-Hine, but even less rosy. Situation only a little better for Watkins and Ludlow grads at Stuart Hobson.

The fact remains that more than 2/3 of high SES Hill families who went with DCPS for elementary school have left the system by 6th grade.

I don't see any reason for that to change in the next 5 years, possibly 10.

As long as there’s no coherent effort to integrate them, it won’t happen. People can cry white privilege and Brookings however much they want, but any policymaker who actually thinks integration is a desirable goal will have to use carrots.

Thing thing about America is that you have freedom to move. If your schools suck, you can move. Middle class AA families seem to move to PG/MoCo and upper class families move to NoVa, Western MoCo or NoVa. Unless DCPS makes a targeted effort to retain these middle and upper class families, the situation will be one of adverse selection. DCPS figured it out in the Wilson/Deal/Hardy areas; they just refuse to do it on Cap Hill.

Yes, because DCPS can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Integrating Hardy is their current focus, probably a 10-year project. Once they've integrated Hardy, they'll surely get to us, by which time our kids will be in college.

What happens on the Hill is that a really small number of high SES families don't mind that DCPS doesn't make a targeted effort to retain them at the middle school level. They enroll in neighborhood middle schools anyway. Their cooperation lets politicians off the hook. It's easy to paint refusenik parents--the great majority of us--as the problem when a few families have embraced the current DCPS middle school arrangement, and those that don't aren't organized politically.

Some of them even have positive experiences and outcomes. Their kids grow academically and get exposure to a broader cross section of student with different backgrounds. That's not because DCPS is a credible system or serves everyone well and it may depend on your kid and your tolerance for that. There is so much handwringing about having kids siloed with 'like' kids. There are still NW DC families who enroll at the usual suspect independents because they fret that Deal and Wilson are just too urban or not tailored enough to their narrow interests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Similar story for Maury and SWS grads at Eliot-Hine, but even less rosy. Situation only a little better for Watkins and Ludlow grads at Stuart Hobson.

The fact remains that more than 2/3 of high SES Hill families who went with DCPS for elementary school have left the system by 6th grade.

I don't see any reason for that to change in the next 5 years, possibly 10.

As long as there’s no coherent effort to integrate them, it won’t happen. People can cry white privilege and Brookings however much they want, but any policymaker who actually thinks integration is a desirable goal will have to use carrots.

Thing thing about America is that you have freedom to move. If your schools suck, you can move. Middle class AA families seem to move to PG/MoCo and upper class families move to NoVa, Western MoCo or NoVa. Unless DCPS makes a targeted effort to retain these middle and upper class families, the situation will be one of adverse selection. DCPS figured it out in the Wilson/Deal/Hardy areas; they just refuse to do it on Cap Hill.

Yes, because DCPS can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Integrating Hardy is their current focus, probably a 10-year project. Once they've integrated Hardy, they'll surely get to us, by which time our kids will be in college.

What happens on the Hill is that a really small number of high SES families don't mind that DCPS doesn't make a targeted effort to retain them at the middle school level. They enroll in neighborhood middle schools anyway. Their cooperation lets politicians off the hook. It's easy to paint refusenik parents--the great majority of us--as the problem when a few families have embraced the current DCPS middle school arrangement, and those that don't aren't organized politically.

What are you hoping DCPS will do? Track all the high preforming ES to one MS, or offer tracking or something else?

DP. I do think combinging at least two of the smaller middles schools, if not all three, would make sense on a number of levels. I think "tracking" is a loaded work and unclear concept. What I would do if I were a policymaker *actually interested* in getting neighborhood buy-in is hold a series of open-ended focus groups to discover the pain points. I would also make a commitment that all kids would have access to math and English classes that reflect their ability level, for all three years. Simultaneously I would commit to an enriched math and English program for the lower performers that focused on providing additional resources to them (rather than a ham-handed "Algebra for All" approach that doesn't work.) And I would fund behavioral techs and evidence-based advisors to deal with behavioral issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Similar story for Maury and SWS grads at Eliot-Hine, but even less rosy. Situation only a little better for Watkins and Ludlow grads at Stuart Hobson.

The fact remains that more than 2/3 of high SES Hill families who went with DCPS for elementary school have left the system by 6th grade.

I don't see any reason for that to change in the next 5 years, possibly 10.

As long as there’s no coherent effort to integrate them, it won’t happen. People can cry white privilege and Brookings however much they want, but any policymaker who actually thinks integration is a desirable goal will have to use carrots.

Thing thing about America is that you have freedom to move. If your schools suck, you can move. Middle class AA families seem to move to PG/MoCo and upper class families move to NoVa, Western MoCo or NoVa. Unless DCPS makes a targeted effort to retain these middle and upper class families, the situation will be one of adverse selection. DCPS figured it out in the Wilson/Deal/Hardy areas; they just refuse to do it on Cap Hill.

Yes, because DCPS can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Integrating Hardy is their current focus, probably a 10-year project. Once they've integrated Hardy, they'll surely get to us, by which time our kids will be in college.

What happens on the Hill is that a really small number of high SES families don't mind that DCPS doesn't make a targeted effort to retain them at the middle school level. They enroll in neighborhood middle schools anyway. Their cooperation lets politicians off the hook. It's easy to paint refusenik parents--the great majority of us--as the problem when a few families have embraced the current DCPS middle school arrangement, and those that don't aren't organized politically.

What are you hoping DCPS will do? Track all the high preforming ES to one MS, or offer tracking or something else?

Offer honor classes across all subjects and end feeder rights.

[Anonymous]

+100, exactly. It won’t happen in our lifetimes, but it should.

[Anonymous]

End feeder rights to force CH kids into their own schools instead of OOB Ward 3 schools?

[Anonymous]

You're way out of date. Hardly any CH kids attend Ward 3 schools OOB in 2021. Supply for JKLM etc. spots that put a family on a path to Deal and Wilson is now a tiny fraction of demand. 20 years ago, plenty of Hill kids took that route.

The reality is that BASIS has become the neighborhood MS for Brent, and to a lesser extend for Maury, Watkins, Ludlow and SWS, along CH Montessori, Latin, DCI and several small MS charters (Two Rivers, Inspired Teaching etc.)

More Brent 4th grade graduates have attended BASIS for 5th grade in the last five or six years than 4th grade at Brent.

[Anonymous]

CH schools have been remarkably successful in getting UMC families to lower their academic standards. While in a CH ES I felt almost ashamed to be asking about whether my kids could receive above grade-level work. Those sorts of questions made me feel like some sort of a racist tiger parent who didn't care about diversity, the struggling kids, or the achievement gap. In the NW schools the idea that you would accept "grade level" work for your child is embarrassing, because good parents don't accept that if their child is capable of more. CH schools tend to offer more diversity and less academic rigor. The NW schools tend to offer less diversity and more opportunities for academic advancement. It might not NEED to be a trade-off, but our reality in DC is that it is, and it is no surprise that CH families peel off as they get into later elementary, and definitely for MS if they don't get into the charters, as priorities shift. If families are honest with themselves that they value diversity over rigor, then that is a perfectly respectable choice to make. But they shouldn't fool themselves into thinking they are getting the same academic experience that they would get elsewhere, and they shouldn't shame the families that don't have the same priorities. I think that the PP who said that the families who accept the CH MS situation provide DCPS the cover that they need not to do anything is spot-on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:CH schools have been remarkably successful in getting UMC families to lower their academic standards. While in a CH ES I felt almost ashamed to be asking about whether my kids could receive above grade-level work. Those sorts of questions made me feel like some sort of a racist tiger parent who didn't care about diversity, the struggling kids, or the achievement gap. In the NW schools the idea that you would accept "grade level" work for your child is embarrassing, because good parents don't accept that if their child is capable of more. CH schools tend to offer more diversity and less academic rigor. The NW schools tend to offer less diversity and more opportunities for academic advancement. It might not NEED to be a trade-off, but our reality in DC is that it is, and it is no surprise that CH families peel off as they get into later elementary, and definitely for MS if they don't get into the charters, as priorities shift. If families are honest with themselves that they value diversity over rigor, then that is a perfectly respectable choice to make. But they shouldn't fool themselves into thinking they are getting the same academic experience that they would get elsewhere, and they shouldn't shame the families that don't have the same priorities. I think that the PP who said that the families who accept the CH MS situation provide DCPS the cover that they need not to do anything is spot-on.

I see what you're getting at but think you're making something of a sweeping statement. The frustrating reality is that the academic challenge situation varies widely from DCPS school to school in a city without a law on Gifted and Talented education. MD and VA have mandated GT education since the 80s while DC still doesn't.

Pre-Covid, our CH ES was prepared to teach math 1-2 years ahead of grade level to upper grades students, and not just on a computer program. A few 5th graders were being pulled out every year to learn 7th grade math. That certainly wasn't the story at the JKLM school our oldest attended briefly several years ago.

Agree about DCPS getting the cover they need not to provide appropriate middle school challenge from the small number of CH parents who enroll at JA, EH or SH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Meeting benchmarks and testing to grade level standards is one thing for elementary school. By middle school a child needs to be challenged to achieve their full potential and taught how to work hard to overcome challenges. Scoring a 5 on PARCC shows they meet benchmarks, but has nothing to do with whether they are being held to THEIR highest standard. So I personally don’t care about white kids’ test scores except when they’re being held up to show the school should be “good enough.” When that happens I know to look much more closely at what is actually happening in the classroom.

THIS. Just because they are on grade level on PARCC does not mean that they are reaching their full potential. All those BS studies that says high SES kids will do fine in low performing schools - their definition of fine is going to college. That’s a given.

Show me a rigorous back to back study of similarly high SES kids going to Jefferson/Eastern vs going to Basis and compare their outcomes on SAT scores, AP exams, GPA at similarly ranked colleges, etc…. That is a real study to look at outcomes, not just going to college.

I don’t need the study above to know the answer. Just talk to any high school teacher in a poorly performing school what percentages of their kids fail out of college, struggle in college, etc….

Academic peer group matters a lot in middle and high school. Those that don’t think so, feel free to send your kid to Jefferson.

BTW I’m not white either.

I happen to know a number of the high SES kids who've gone through Brent and on to Jefferson Academy in the last few years, from the neighborhood. I'd wager that these particular kids will ultimately do just fine in HS and college. It's not difficult to picture them having great careers eventually. These kids come from brainy, adventurous, resourceful families where reading voraciously for fun is standard. The UMC families who choose JA tend to be close-knit.

I don't want my own children to attend Jefferson Academy for a variety of reasons. That said, I'm not convinced, or concerned, that the UMC Brent grads who end up at JA for middle school will be hurt by poor or mediocre educational outcomes down the track.

The people from Brent who went on to JA bailed after a year so……

So you encourage Brent parents to send their kids but you won’t send your own…….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:CH schools have been remarkably successful in getting UMC families to lower their academic standards. While in a CH ES I felt almost ashamed to be asking about whether my kids could receive above grade-level work. Those sorts of questions made me feel like some sort of a racist tiger parent who didn't care about diversity, the struggling kids, or the achievement gap. In the NW schools the idea that you would accept "grade level" work for your child is embarrassing, because good parents don't accept that if their child is capable of more. CH schools tend to offer more diversity and less academic rigor. The NW schools tend to offer less diversity and more opportunities for academic advancement. It might not NEED to be a trade-off, but our reality in DC is that it is, and it is no surprise that CH families peel off as they get into later elementary, and definitely for MS if they don't get into the charters, as priorities shift. If families are honest with themselves that they value diversity over rigor, then that is a perfectly respectable choice to make. But they shouldn't fool themselves into thinking they are getting the same academic experience that they would get elsewhere, and they shouldn't shame the families that don't have the same priorities. I think that the PP who said that the families who accept the CH MS situation provide DCPS the cover that they need not to do anything is spot-on.

+1. The standards are so low in DC and when anyone questions it or pushes for higher standards, they are called racist.

The reason why NW schools have much higher standards is because they have a good percentage of kids who perform on and above grade level and can offer higher programming.

When only 7% of kids at Jefferson are above grade level in ELA and 1% in math and the overwhelming majority are below grade level, good luck getting buy in with above grade level work. The teachers need to spend all their time and resources trying to get these kids to do better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Meeting benchmarks and testing to grade level standards is one thing for elementary school. By middle school a child needs to be challenged to achieve their full potential and taught how to work hard to overcome challenges. Scoring a 5 on PARCC shows they meet benchmarks, but has nothing to do with whether they are being held to THEIR highest standard. So I personally don’t care about white kids’ test scores except when they’re being held up to show the school should be “good enough.” When that happens I know to look much more closely at what is actually happening in the classroom.

THIS. Just because they are on grade level on PARCC does not mean that they are reaching their full potential. All those BS studies that says high SES kids will do fine in low performing schools - their definition of fine is going to college. That’s a given.

Show me a rigorous back to back study of similarly high SES kids going to Jefferson/Eastern vs going to Basis and compare their outcomes on SAT scores, AP exams, GPA at similarly ranked colleges, etc…. That is a real study to look at outcomes, not just going to college.

I don’t need the study above to know the answer. Just talk to any high school teacher in a poorly performing school what percentages of their kids fail out of college, struggle in college, etc….

Academic peer group matters a lot in middle and high school. Those that don’t think so, feel free to send your kid to Jefferson.

BTW I’m not white either.

I happen to know a number of the high SES kids who've gone through Brent and on to Jefferson Academy in the last few years, from the neighborhood. I'd wager that these particular kids will ultimately do just fine in HS and college. It's not difficult to picture them having great careers eventually. These kids come from brainy, adventurous, resourceful families where reading voraciously for fun is standard. The UMC families who choose JA tend to be close-knit.

I don't want my own children to attend Jefferson Academy for a variety of reasons. That said, I'm not convinced, or concerned, that the UMC Brent grads who end up at JA for middle school will be hurt by poor or mediocre educational outcomes down the track.

The people from Brent who went on to JA bailed after a year so……

So you encourage Brent parents to send their kids but you won’t send your own…….

Most of them haven't bailed, let alone all.

I'm not hearing this poster encouraging Brent parents to send their kids to JA. All she said that she doubts that the UMC in-boundary kids who attend will come out the other side as weak HS and college students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CH schools have been remarkably successful in getting UMC families to lower their academic standards. While in a CH ES I felt almost ashamed to be asking about whether my kids could receive above grade-level work. Those sorts of questions made me feel like some sort of a racist tiger parent who didn't care about diversity, the struggling kids, or the achievement gap. In the NW schools the idea that you would accept "grade level" work for your child is embarrassing, because good parents don't accept that if their child is capable of more. CH schools tend to offer more diversity and less academic rigor. The NW schools tend to offer less diversity and more opportunities for academic advancement. It might not NEED to be a trade-off, but our reality in DC is that it is, and it is no surprise that CH families peel off as they get into later elementary, and definitely for MS if they don't get into the charters, as priorities shift. If families are honest with themselves that they value diversity over rigor, then that is a perfectly respectable choice to make. But they shouldn't fool themselves into thinking they are getting the same academic experience that they would get elsewhere, and they shouldn't shame the families that don't have the same priorities. I think that the PP who said that the families who accept the CH MS situation provide DCPS the cover that they need not to do anything is spot-on.

+1. The standards are so low in DC and when anyone questions it or pushes for higher standards, they are called racist.

The reason why NW schools have much higher standards is because they have a good percentage of kids who perform on and above grade level and can offer higher programming.

When only 7% of kids at Jefferson are above grade level in ELA and 1% in math and the overwhelming majority are below grade level, good luck getting buy in with above grade level work. The teachers need to spend all their time and resources trying to get these kids to do better.

You're talking just about DCPS middle schools? Fact is, Brent, SWS and Maury on Cap Hill now enroll and retain a higher % of white/high SES kids than some of the DCPS programs in Upper NW (e.g. Stoddert, Eaton and Hearst). Most CH DCPS ES grads attend public middle schools that are almost as white/high SES as Deal, namely BASIS and Latin.

JA is basically irrelevant to CH parents as long as BASIS clears its WL, or almost does. 2020 was a tough year for 5th grade admission to BASIS, with a WL running into the 300s. This summer, the BASIS WL is less than 50 names.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Similar story for Maury and SWS grads at Eliot-Hine, but even less rosy. Situation only a little better for Watkins and Ludlow grads at Stuart Hobson.

The fact remains that more than 2/3 of high SES Hill families who went with DCPS for elementary school have left the system by 6th grade.

I don't see any reason for that to change in the next 5 years, possibly 10.

As long as there’s no coherent effort to integrate them, it won’t happen. People can cry white privilege and Brookings however much they want, but any policymaker who actually thinks integration is a desirable goal will have to use carrots.

Thing thing about America is that you have freedom to move. If your schools suck, you can move. Middle class AA families seem to move to PG/MoCo and upper class families move to NoVa, Western MoCo or NoVa. Unless DCPS makes a targeted effort to retain these middle and upper class families, the situation will be one of adverse selection. DCPS figured it out in the Wilson/Deal/Hardy areas; they just refuse to do it on Cap Hill.

Yes, because DCPS can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Integrating Hardy is their current focus, probably a 10-year project. Once they've integrated Hardy, they'll surely get to us, by which time our kids will be in college.

What happens on the Hill is that a really small number of high SES families don't mind that DCPS doesn't make a targeted effort to retain them at the middle school level. They enroll in neighborhood middle schools anyway. Their cooperation lets politicians off the hook. It's easy to paint refusenik parents--the great majority of us--as the problem when a few families have embraced the current DCPS middle school arrangement, and those that don't aren't organized politically.

What are you hoping DCPS will do? Track all the high preforming ES to one MS, or offer tracking or something else?

DP. I do think combinging at least two of the smaller middles schools, if not all three, would make sense on a number of levels. I think "tracking" is a loaded work and unclear concept. What I would do if I were a policymaker *actually interested* in getting neighborhood buy-in is hold a series of open-ended focus groups to discover the pain points. I would also make a commitment that all kids would have access to math and English classes that reflect their ability level, for all three years. Simultaneously I would commit to an enriched math and English program for the lower performers that focused on providing additional resources to them (rather than a ham-handed "Algebra for All" approach that doesn't work.) And I would fund behavioral techs and evidence-based advisors to deal with behavioral issues.

Jefferson actually does some of this already. My friend’s child was taking 7th grade math this year as a 6th grader at Jefferson. The teacher had a whole class of 6th grade students taking 7th grade math.