Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

I don’t understand how Maury parents say they put in the work? Were they active in the school community before their children started? Have most of tbe families had kids at the school for 10 years? What’s the “work” these posters speak of? Why can’t it be replicated wherever your kid goes? From what I see, owning on the hill since 2009, is that a lot of the success of Maury is because the neighborhood became more gentrified….

Yes the work was done a while ago. Miner parents should reach out to the oldsters to find out. The first place to start is getting a new principal who takes recruiting IB families as a goal. Connecting with former Maury families who are currently “doing the work” at EH could also be good. And look up what was done at Deal and Hardy to increase IB attendance- I believe that the admins literally went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

Deal and Hardy have an extremely affluent inbound that has only become more affluent as the years have progressed-plus they feed into Wilson/Jackson-Reed! My mother in law sent her kids to Hardy-including my husband! It was a good school then! The point is that there is a direct correlation between affluent families moving to the area and school improvement. The way the boundary lines are drawn for Miner, it is not possible.
I am happy to connect with Maury parents “doing the work” and I invite every poster on this thread to come visit Miner and see what’s going on there yourself.

Agreed.

I will say that one question I have for the DME is precisely why a boundary redraw was thrown out as an option. I have some suspicions as to why, but would love to hear this explained more fully. For those from Maury who attended their DME meeting, can you offer any detail?

It's very obvious to me that a major cause of the disparities between Maury and Miner have to do with the fact that Miner takes on the vast majority of the low income kids in the neighborhood and Maury has almost none. Of course Maury winds up with higher test scores and better IB buy in. Obviously there have been committed families at Maury throughout who have also "done the work" but ignoring this basic fact as though the schools draw from identical populations is just silly. I think it's reasonable to argue that we need to address those disparities, because right now it feels like the entire neighborhood (both Hill East and Capitol Hill as a whole) writes off Miner as a school simply because of where it's located. It makes sense the DME has focused in on Miner as part of the boundary study, IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

Almost any school can get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level if they would pull them into classes as a group. It's much harder to get a critical mass in each of a grade's classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

Maybe. Brent has just 6% at risk and isn't being forced to cluster, but that's because none of the schools around Brent are struggling as much as Miner.

I actually think the DME has created a narrow enough set of parameters for this action that it doesn't feel like something likely to happen at our school, assuming we can ever succeed in getting the IB buy in we need to improve. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Brent and Tyler are a very natural cluster or choice set. Hill families prioritize language so a lot of Brent families would take Tyler. The DME criteria excluding Brent-Tyler was clearly reverse-engineered to exclude them.

I really disagree, primarily because Tyler is already doing well. Isn't one of the suggestions for Miner to introduce something like language immersion to attract more IB families? Tyler's IB percentages is still low but it does attract higher SES families from both in and OOB who want immersion, and its at risk percentage is a much more manageable level (40% versus Miner's 65%).

I also don't understand how a cluster between an immersion school and a non-immersion school would work. You'd have to introduce a brand new immersion program to one of the schools. In fact, I think that would be the primary objection to a proposed cluster, not a reason Brent would be more interested in combining.

It's fine to argue against the Maury/Miner cluster but claims like this just don't make sense. Brent/Tyler does not make sense as a cluster at all, no one had to "reverse-engineer" anything to reject it.

I’m not here to disagree with any of your practical concerns. But there is in fact a vast disparity between Brent and Tyler and Brent is eveb more privileged than Maury. And on the theory that the disparity alone is unjust, it ought to have been considered. I stand by my belief that there was someone pushing DME specifically to do the Maury-Miner cluster and they came up with outcome-driven metrics not to consider LT and Brent as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

I don’t understand how Maury parents say they put in the work? Were they active in the school community before their children started? Have most of tbe families had kids at the school for 10 years? What’s the “work” these posters speak of? Why can’t it be replicated wherever your kid goes? From what I see, owning on the hill since 2009, is that a lot of the success of Maury is because the neighborhood became more gentrified….

Yes the work was done a while ago. Miner parents should reach out to the oldsters to find out. The first place to start is getting a new principal who takes recruiting IB families as a goal. Connecting with former Maury families who are currently “doing the work” at EH could also be good. And look up what was done at Deal and Hardy to increase IB attendance- I believe that the admins literally went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

Deal and Hardy have an extremely affluent inbound that has only become more affluent as the years have progressed-plus they feed into Wilson/Jackson-Reed! My mother in law sent her kids to Hardy-including my husband! It was a good school then! The point is that there is a direct correlation between affluent families moving to the area and school improvement. The way the boundary lines are drawn for Miner, it is not possible.
I am happy to connect with Maury parents “doing the work” and I invite every poster on this thread to come visit Miner and see what’s going on there yourself.

I just think you are wrong on the Miner demographics. It’s not going to be 5% but if their was neighborhood buy-in there would likely be something more along the lines of 30% at risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

I don’t understand how Maury parents say they put in the work? Were they active in the school community before their children started? Have most of tbe families had kids at the school for 10 years? What’s the “work” these posters speak of? Why can’t it be replicated wherever your kid goes? From what I see, owning on the hill since 2009, is that a lot of the success of Maury is because the neighborhood became more gentrified….

Yes the work was done a while ago. Miner parents should reach out to the oldsters to find out. The first place to start is getting a new principal who takes recruiting IB families as a goal. Connecting with former Maury families who are currently “doing the work” at EH could also be good. And look up what was done at Deal and Hardy to increase IB attendance- I believe that the admins literally went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

Deal and Hardy have an extremely affluent inbound that has only become more affluent as the years have progressed-plus they feed into Wilson/Jackson-Reed! My mother in law sent her kids to Hardy-including my husband! It was a good school then! The point is that there is a direct correlation between affluent families moving to the area and school improvement. The way the boundary lines are drawn for Miner, it is not possible.
I am happy to connect with Maury parents “doing the work” and I invite every poster on this thread to come visit Miner and see what’s going on there yourself.

Agreed.

I will say that one question I have for the DME is precisely why a boundary redraw was thrown out as an option. I have some suspicions as to why, but would love to hear this explained more fully. For those from Maury who attended their DME meeting, can you offer any detail?

It's very obvious to me that a major cause of the disparities between Maury and Miner have to do with the fact that Miner takes on the vast majority of the low income kids in the neighborhood and Maury has almost none. Of course Maury winds up with higher test scores and better IB buy in. Obviously there have been committed families at Maury throughout who have also "done the work" but ignoring this basic fact as though the schools draw from identical populations is just silly. I think it's reasonable to argue that we need to address those disparities, because right now it feels like the entire neighborhood (both Hill East and Capitol Hill as a whole) writes off Miner as a school simply because of where it's located. It makes sense the DME has focused in on Miner as part of the boundary study, IMO.

DME didn't offer any detail, they just said they tried to redraw the boundary vertically instead of horizontally and it didn't make a difference.

I too don't understand why they can't gerrymander the boundary to stick some of the housing projects in Maury, then shift some of the Maury boundary closest to Miner over to Miner to make room. Boom. Solved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

I don’t understand how Maury parents say they put in the work? Were they active in the school community before their children started? Have most of tbe families had kids at the school for 10 years? What’s the “work” these posters speak of? Why can’t it be replicated wherever your kid goes? From what I see, owning on the hill since 2009, is that a lot of the success of Maury is because the neighborhood became more gentrified….

Yes the work was done a while ago. Miner parents should reach out to the oldsters to find out. The first place to start is getting a new principal who takes recruiting IB families as a goal. Connecting with former Maury families who are currently “doing the work” at EH could also be good. And look up what was done at Deal and Hardy to increase IB attendance- I believe that the admins literally went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

Deal and Hardy have an extremely affluent inbound that has only become more affluent as the years have progressed-plus they feed into Wilson/Jackson-Reed! My mother in law sent her kids to Hardy-including my husband! It was a good school then! The point is that there is a direct correlation between affluent families moving to the area and school improvement. The way the boundary lines are drawn for Miner, it is not possible.
I am happy to connect with Maury parents “doing the work” and I invite every poster on this thread to come visit Miner and see what’s going on there yourself.

Agreed.

I will say that one question I have for the DME is precisely why a boundary redraw was thrown out as an option. I have some suspicions as to why, but would love to hear this explained more fully. For those from Maury who attended their DME meeting, can you offer any detail?

It's very obvious to me that a major cause of the disparities between Maury and Miner have to do with the fact that Miner takes on the vast majority of the low income kids in the neighborhood and Maury has almost none. Of course Maury winds up with higher test scores and better IB buy in. Obviously there have been committed families at Maury throughout who have also "done the work" but ignoring this basic fact as though the schools draw from identical populations is just silly. I think it's reasonable to argue that we need to address those disparities, because right now it feels like the entire neighborhood (both Hill East and Capitol Hill as a whole) writes off Miner as a school simply because of where it's located. It makes sense the DME has focused in on Miner as part of the boundary study, IMO.

I share your questions about the boundaries. Looking at the map, it seems like the boundaries could be redrawn to send more of Hill East to Miner, but send Azeez-Bates or the Pentacle to Maury and/or LT. This would look obviously gerrymandered but not any more ridiculous than the current Cluster map.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

I don’t understand how Maury parents say they put in the work? Were they active in the school community before their children started? Have most of tbe families had kids at the school for 10 years? What’s the “work” these posters speak of? Why can’t it be replicated wherever your kid goes? From what I see, owning on the hill since 2009, is that a lot of the success of Maury is because the neighborhood became more gentrified….

Yes the work was done a while ago. Miner parents should reach out to the oldsters to find out. The first place to start is getting a new principal who takes recruiting IB families as a goal. Connecting with former Maury families who are currently “doing the work” at EH could also be good. And look up what was done at Deal and Hardy to increase IB attendance- I believe that the admins literally went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

Deal and Hardy have an extremely affluent inbound that has only become more affluent as the years have progressed-plus they feed into Wilson/Jackson-Reed! My mother in law sent her kids to Hardy-including my husband! It was a good school then! The point is that there is a direct correlation between affluent families moving to the area and school improvement. The way the boundary lines are drawn for Miner, it is not possible.
I am happy to connect with Maury parents “doing the work” and I invite every poster on this thread to come visit Miner and see what’s going on there yourself.

I just think you are wrong on the Miner demographics. It’s not going to be 5% but if their was neighborhood buy-in there would likely be something more along the lines of 30% at risk.

Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

Almost any school can get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level if they would pull them into classes as a group. It's much harder to get a critical mass in each of a grade's classrooms.

Agreed. Even with the shockingly bad decline in test scores at Miner there are still enough kids at or approach grade level to be put together for instruction. But tracking in ES has been totally rejected. Which never fails to amaze me because this hurts black kids the most.

BTW Miner’s PARCC scores have really taken a nosedive in the past 5 years. School needs some kind of drastic intervention but this isn’t it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

I don’t understand how Maury parents say they put in the work? Were they active in the school community before their children started? Have most of tbe families had kids at the school for 10 years? What’s the “work” these posters speak of? Why can’t it be replicated wherever your kid goes? From what I see, owning on the hill since 2009, is that a lot of the success of Maury is because the neighborhood became more gentrified….

Yes the work was done a while ago. Miner parents should reach out to the oldsters to find out. The first place to start is getting a new principal who takes recruiting IB families as a goal. Connecting with former Maury families who are currently “doing the work” at EH could also be good. And look up what was done at Deal and Hardy to increase IB attendance- I believe that the admins literally went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

Deal and Hardy have an extremely affluent inbound that has only become more affluent as the years have progressed-plus they feed into Wilson/Jackson-Reed! My mother in law sent her kids to Hardy-including my husband! It was a good school then! The point is that there is a direct correlation between affluent families moving to the area and school improvement. The way the boundary lines are drawn for Miner, it is not possible.
I am happy to connect with Maury parents “doing the work” and I invite every poster on this thread to come visit Miner and see what’s going on there yourself.

I just think you are wrong on the Miner demographics. It’s not going to be 5% but if their was neighborhood buy-in there would likely be something more along the lines of 30% at risk.

Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Want to show me the numbers? There’s no question there could be more high SES IB families. Maybe never the same as Hardy but many more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

I don’t understand how Maury parents say they put in the work? Were they active in the school community before their children started? Have most of tbe families had kids at the school for 10 years? What’s the “work” these posters speak of? Why can’t it be replicated wherever your kid goes? From what I see, owning on the hill since 2009, is that a lot of the success of Maury is because the neighborhood became more gentrified….

Yes the work was done a while ago. Miner parents should reach out to the oldsters to find out. The first place to start is getting a new principal who takes recruiting IB families as a goal. Connecting with former Maury families who are currently “doing the work” at EH could also be good. And look up what was done at Deal and Hardy to increase IB attendance- I believe that the admins literally went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

Deal and Hardy have an extremely affluent inbound that has only become more affluent as the years have progressed-plus they feed into Wilson/Jackson-Reed! My mother in law sent her kids to Hardy-including my husband! It was a good school then! The point is that there is a direct correlation between affluent families moving to the area and school improvement. The way the boundary lines are drawn for Miner, it is not possible.
I am happy to connect with Maury parents “doing the work” and I invite every poster on this thread to come visit Miner and see what’s going on there yourself.

Agreed.

I will say that one question I have for the DME is precisely why a boundary redraw was thrown out as an option. I have some suspicions as to why, but would love to hear this explained more fully. For those from Maury who attended their DME meeting, can you offer any detail?

It's very obvious to me that a major cause of the disparities between Maury and Miner have to do with the fact that Miner takes on the vast majority of the low income kids in the neighborhood and Maury has almost none. Of course Maury winds up with higher test scores and better IB buy in. Obviously there have been committed families at Maury throughout who have also "done the work" but ignoring this basic fact as though the schools draw from identical populations is just silly. I think it's reasonable to argue that we need to address those disparities, because right now it feels like the entire neighborhood (both Hill East and Capitol Hill as a whole) writes off Miner as a school simply because of where it's located. It makes sense the DME has focused in on Miner as part of the boundary study, IMO.

DME didn't offer any detail, they just said they tried to redraw the boundary vertically instead of horizontally and it didn't make a difference.

I too don't understand why they can't gerrymander the boundary to stick some of the housing projects in Maury, then shift some of the Maury boundary closest to Miner over to Miner to make room. Boom. Solved.

they “tried”?? they did not try very hard unless they are claiming that they can only draw straight N/S E/W boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

I don’t understand how Maury parents say they put in the work? Were they active in the school community before their children started? Have most of tbe families had kids at the school for 10 years? What’s the “work” these posters speak of? Why can’t it be replicated wherever your kid goes? From what I see, owning on the hill since 2009, is that a lot of the success of Maury is because the neighborhood became more gentrified….

Yes the work was done a while ago. Miner parents should reach out to the oldsters to find out. The first place to start is getting a new principal who takes recruiting IB families as a goal. Connecting with former Maury families who are currently “doing the work” at EH could also be good. And look up what was done at Deal and Hardy to increase IB attendance- I believe that the admins literally went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

Deal and Hardy have an extremely affluent inbound that has only become more affluent as the years have progressed-plus they feed into Wilson/Jackson-Reed! My mother in law sent her kids to Hardy-including my husband! It was a good school then! The point is that there is a direct correlation between affluent families moving to the area and school improvement. The way the boundary lines are drawn for Miner, it is not possible.
I am happy to connect with Maury parents “doing the work” and I invite every poster on this thread to come visit Miner and see what’s going on there yourself.

I just think you are wrong on the Miner demographics. It’s not going to be 5% but if their was neighborhood buy-in there would likely be something more along the lines of 30% at risk.

Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Want to show me the numbers? There’s no question there could be more high SES IB families. Maybe never the same as Hardy but many more.

What numbers do you want? A breakdown of income, multi-family housing, and the school zone? Are you talking about the current demographics of the student population currently at Miner? Are you talking about the distribution of wealth at Deal/Hardy vs Maury? Or Miner?
I am confused, because you can go online and find this data yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

I don’t understand how Maury parents say they put in the work? Were they active in the school community before their children started? Have most of tbe families had kids at the school for 10 years? What’s the “work” these posters speak of? Why can’t it be replicated wherever your kid goes? From what I see, owning on the hill since 2009, is that a lot of the success of Maury is because the neighborhood became more gentrified….

Yes the work was done a while ago. Miner parents should reach out to the oldsters to find out. The first place to start is getting a new principal who takes recruiting IB families as a goal. Connecting with former Maury families who are currently “doing the work” at EH could also be good. And look up what was done at Deal and Hardy to increase IB attendance- I believe that the admins literally went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

Deal and Hardy have an extremely affluent inbound that has only become more affluent as the years have progressed-plus they feed into Wilson/Jackson-Reed! My mother in law sent her kids to Hardy-including my husband! It was a good school then! The point is that there is a direct correlation between affluent families moving to the area and school improvement. The way the boundary lines are drawn for Miner, it is not possible.
I am happy to connect with Maury parents “doing the work” and I invite every poster on this thread to come visit Miner and see what’s going on there yourself.

I just think you are wrong on the Miner demographics. It’s not going to be 5% but if their was neighborhood buy-in there would likely be something more along the lines of 30% at risk.

Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Want to show me the numbers? There’s no question there could be more high SES IB families. Maybe never the same as Hardy but many more.

What numbers do you want? A breakdown of income, multi-family housing, and the school zone? Are you talking about the current demographics of the student population currently at Miner? Are you talking about the distribution of wealth at Deal/Hardy vs Maury? Or Miner?
I am confused, because you can go online and find this data yourself.

I think the people claiming a cluster is the only way to get SES balance are the ones who have to show me the data. To me it seems obvious that an effort to attract IB families could lower the at-risk rate well below 40%. Disprove that if you like.

[Anonymous]

But wanting to attract an IB population is no longer a dcps priority and even principals who support this need to be quiet about it or they will be accused of not wanting “equity”. It is no longer 2005.

I think it's possible, just not at Miner right now. Garrison has a principle like this who has attracted more IB buy in without alienating longtime OOB or low income families.

I think the disparities at Miner are presently too great to do this. Reworking the boundary, exploring a cluster, these should all be on the table if you care about improving Miner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

I don’t understand how Maury parents say they put in the work? Were they active in the school community before their children started? Have most of tbe families had kids at the school for 10 years? What’s the “work” these posters speak of? Why can’t it be replicated wherever your kid goes? From what I see, owning on the hill since 2009, is that a lot of the success of Maury is because the neighborhood became more gentrified….

Yes the work was done a while ago. Miner parents should reach out to the oldsters to find out. The first place to start is getting a new principal who takes recruiting IB families as a goal. Connecting with former Maury families who are currently “doing the work” at EH could also be good. And look up what was done at Deal and Hardy to increase IB attendance- I believe that the admins literally went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

Deal and Hardy have an extremely affluent inbound that has only become more affluent as the years have progressed-plus they feed into Wilson/Jackson-Reed! My mother in law sent her kids to Hardy-including my husband! It was a good school then! The point is that there is a direct correlation between affluent families moving to the area and school improvement. The way the boundary lines are drawn for Miner, it is not possible.
I am happy to connect with Maury parents “doing the work” and I invite every poster on this thread to come visit Miner and see what’s going on there yourself.

I just think you are wrong on the Miner demographics. It’s not going to be 5% but if their was neighborhood buy-in there would likely be something more along the lines of 30% at risk.

Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Want to show me the numbers? There’s no question there could be more high SES IB families. Maybe never the same as Hardy but many more.

What numbers do you want? A breakdown of income, multi-family housing, and the school zone? Are you talking about the current demographics of the student population currently at Miner? Are you talking about the distribution of wealth at Deal/Hardy vs Maury? Or Miner?
I am confused, because you can go online and find this data yourself.

I think the people claiming a cluster is the only way to get SES balance are the ones who have to show me the data. To me it seems obvious that an effort to attract IB families could lower the at-risk rate well below 40%. Disprove that if you like.

If you were the DME or the mayor, making demands like this might work. But you're not, anymore than I am. I don't have to prove anything to you.

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Anonymous wrote:People should not feel like they are dependent on lottery luck to get their child a proper education!! Per https://dme.dc.gov/page/about-dme

The DME is responsible for developing and implementing the Mayor's vision for academic excellence and creating a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce).

Is DME fulfilling this job?!?! If you don’t feel like they are, it’s your job to let them know. The best thing is the entire Hill can come out and demand answers all at once. Don’t let them split you into tiny school boundary areas where you are breaking each other down. That’s how colonialists would divide and conquer. Unite and remember who has the power here.

They keep claiming that everything is in the idea stage. So demand new ideas that actually create “a high-quality education continuum from birth to 24 (from early childhood to K-12 to post-secondary and the workforce)”!!! Don’t let them get away with saying “this worked in a completely different state that is barely similar to ours so I’m guessing it will work here too, so let’s put your kids through this next experiment!”

The problem with trying to unite the Hill around this issue is that presently there is great variability in school quality on the Hill. My kids are not at Maury or Miner, and I am sympathetic to the fact that this process has really sucked and understand why Maury and Miner parents are upset.

But truthfully, my kids go to a school with a lot more issues than Maury (thankfully fewer than Miner but their problems are like ours but more severe, so I commiserate). I have little interest in the status quo and retaining Maury's current status doesn't benefit my family in any way. I can even see the appeal in making Maury a little worse in order to make Miner a lot better-- from a utilitarian perspective, there's something to that, even if of course if I were a Maury parent, that idea would make me mad.

But I'm not a Maury parent and I am not fortunate enough to send my kids to Brent or LT, so I have little to lose in this scenario. I might even gain, depending on how it all shakes out. It's not really in my self-interest to oppose the cluster.

It is absolutely in your self-interest to oppose the cluster. Because whatever struggles your school is having, DME is saying “hey, all those kids need is some more white kids around!” DME has no plans to support your school. DME is wasting time, money and social capital on a window-dressing plan to make itself look good.

I have no love for the DME but I don't think that's what he's saying. Also, and I know people don't like to admit this, but sometimes the main thing a school needs really is more higher income families. More high income families means more resources and it usually means you get a critical mass of kids on or above grade level. This is honestly the main thing our school needs.

But if parents put a lot of work in to build an appealing school, and you get more buy-in from those families, then DME will come after you, too. There will never be enough of these kids to go around. There will always be an equity issue.

I don’t understand how Maury parents say they put in the work? Were they active in the school community before their children started? Have most of tbe families had kids at the school for 10 years? What’s the “work” these posters speak of? Why can’t it be replicated wherever your kid goes? From what I see, owning on the hill since 2009, is that a lot of the success of Maury is because the neighborhood became more gentrified….

Yes the work was done a while ago. Miner parents should reach out to the oldsters to find out. The first place to start is getting a new principal who takes recruiting IB families as a goal. Connecting with former Maury families who are currently “doing the work” at EH could also be good. And look up what was done at Deal and Hardy to increase IB attendance- I believe that the admins literally went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

Deal and Hardy have an extremely affluent inbound that has only become more affluent as the years have progressed-plus they feed into Wilson/Jackson-Reed! My mother in law sent her kids to Hardy-including my husband! It was a good school then! The point is that there is a direct correlation between affluent families moving to the area and school improvement. The way the boundary lines are drawn for Miner, it is not possible.
I am happy to connect with Maury parents “doing the work” and I invite every poster on this thread to come visit Miner and see what’s going on there yourself.

I just think you are wrong on the Miner demographics. It’s not going to be 5% but if their was neighborhood buy-in there would likely be something more along the lines of 30% at risk.

Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Want to show me the numbers? There’s no question there could be more high SES IB families. Maybe never the same as Hardy but many more.

What numbers do you want? A breakdown of income, multi-family housing, and the school zone? Are you talking about the current demographics of the student population currently at Miner? Are you talking about the distribution of wealth at Deal/Hardy vs Maury? Or Miner?
I am confused, because you can go online and find this data yourself.

I think the people claiming a cluster is the only way to get SES balance are the ones who have to show me the data. To me it seems obvious that an effort to attract IB families could lower the at-risk rate well below 40%. Disprove that if you like.

If you were the DME or the mayor, making demands like this might work. But you're not, anymore than I am. I don't have to prove anything to you.

Just as an aside, it's always interesting to watch lawyers, consultants, and politicos in DC encounter the supreme dysfunction of DCPS and other city agencies for the first time. This is why, historically, wealthy people in DC sent their kids to private or lived outside the district. You will not be able to use the tactics you use at work to accomplish things. It's not, as they say, how it's done.