Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

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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.

There are not enough high-income families to do this in DCPS. It’s not a plan at ALL. And in fact I actually do not think all a school needs is “more higher income families.” I think if it’s say a 70-30 split it’s more likely that the needs of the high-risk kids will be sidelined and they will be grouped together in the remedial classes and reading groups, with extreme test score gaps within the school.

People who believe UMC families are magic need to get a little more specific. PTA bakesales are nice but they actually do not provide all the support in behavior and academics that at-risk kids need. If anything (and I say this from first had experience) “active” parents in a high SES school gang up on “problem” kids to get them disciplined more harshly.

The funny thing is that there are many high SES families were both parents work full-time, and so can't participate in PTA bakesales, etc. anyway. Yes, they might be able to cut a check, but is that all DME is looking for? Or are they looking for the high SES parents who can also be "popping in to read to their K kid's classroom" as one parent put it earlier? Because as people return to office work, are there really that many of those kinds of families around?

The Hill used to have a ton of this kind of family. It didn't used to be filled with super high-SES two income couples in million dollar row homes. It used to be filled with feds and non-profit folks and even, like, teachers and stuff. When a family did have a higher earner, very often it was a one-income family with a SAHM. Even many of the fed families had SAHMs, at least when the kids were small. The cluster, SWS, CHML, Brent, even Maury -- a lot of the movement for these schools came from stay-at-home parents or middle class families with more flexible schedules. They weren't built out by high powered lawyers and consultants. Those folks generally just wrote off the public schools and sent their kids to private back then.

Right. These were the families that could "do the work." But how many of those families are still around? Is this who DME is depending on? What is DME trying to achieve by having SES balance? Do they just want different SES families in the same building, or are they expecting something else? It's unclear.

[Anonymous]

Logically, after dust settles down, Payne or Watkins would benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Logically, after dust settles down, Payne or Watkins would benefit.

I am just confused as to why this would be the case. Why would parents who are angry about Maury being forced into cluster with Miner choose Watkins for upper grades over staying at Maury (but with Miner kids mixed in)? While I am not advocating for the cluster to be forced on anyone, it's actually hard to know where Maury families would go if it is -- the cluster won't be as good as Maury of 2023, but I don't understand what the draw would be for Watkins.

Also it sounds like a lot of the objections stem from a split campus and doing early grade drop off at Miner. Peabody is a heck of a lot further away than Miner.

Payne I can see, if families want to avoid dual drop-off and a cluster model. Plus it's close. I also think Tyler will get interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Logically, after dust settles down, Payne or Watkins would benefit.

Payne maybe. It seems like it’s on an upward trajectory. Watkins has a long history of pretty toxic dynamics between people who live on the Hill and leadership/OOB parents who do not live on the Hill, and it’s extremely inconvenient to the Maury boundary. I don’t see it being a landing spot for Maury families.

[Anonymous]

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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.

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.

While we are throwing out dumb suggestions, Brent/Van Ness cluster!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Logically, after dust settles down, Payne or Watkins would benefit.

Payne maybe. It seems like it’s on an upward trajectory. Watkins has a long history of pretty toxic dynamics between people who live on the Hill and leadership/OOB parents who do not live on the Hill, and it’s extremely inconvenient to the Maury boundary. I don’t see it being a landing spot for Maury families.

+1

[Anonymous]

Regarding anecdotal evidence regarding Maury IB, buy-in.

I remember being at Argonaut with my wife before we had kids. There was a group of parents there planning something. They struck up conversation and we got a full court press about parents staying in the neighborhood and the school was going to be great. I had similar conversations in Lincoln Park as well -- and this was before we had kids.

I remember someone in-bounds for Payne being shocked that they couldn't get in OOB when it used to be "you just signed up". Maybe 2011?

Around maybe 2012 I was involved in a home sale in 15th Street NE in December. The house had 6 offers and all 6 were from the Payne boundary and the furthest away was 8 blocks.

It seemed very organic but very well organized. The old building didn't deter anyone. The trailers were our little village.

Location wise, metro wasn't close. Barracks Row, EM, and H Street weren't that close. It's like everyone bought in-bounds just for Maury and the community Maury provided.

I always think of that group of parents we met at the Argonaut. They were like "you gotta send your kids, when you have them, to Maury". They were so enthusiastic and sincere. I often wondered how many different times they repeated the sentiment to others. It worked on us!

[Anonymous]

* the Argonaut example was maybe 2007 or 2008.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:People choose Miner for a lot of reasons. They don't want language instruction or they don't want Montessori for whatever reason. Or because they think Two Rivers stinks. Same for SSMA. Or because they want Eliot-Hine rights. Or because they need a self-contained classrooms and Miner's what they're offered.

"I'm choosing Miner because it gives me a path to EH." Said no one, ever, on Earth.

More myopia.

If you lived East of the river, you absolutely would seek out an EH feed. Where do you think all the OOB kids at EH and Eastern come from, friend?

By the way, if you are a Maury parent and this is your attitude about its MS feed, go ahead and leave because of the cluster. You were always going to leave anyway, and you aren't really the asset to the community you think you are.

That's a silly response. The people whom you dismiss are invested in trying to keep their ES on a positive track, and by association, EH on a positive trajectory. If those people pull out you'll have an EH with 60% at risk and 20% special ed. Sure, your kid and every other one in that school will be in a failing environment, but at least you'll feel morally superior. After all that's what counts, right?

Like it or not, UMC families who attend DCPS schools are an asset. Don't take my word for it, ask DME and DCPS. They're about to upend two schools to spread around the very people you dismiss. You don't have to like us, but you darn well sure need us to have a functioning public school system. If that hurts to hear, TFB.

The problem isn’t that you are seen as unneeded. The problem (and I’m not speaking about you personally) is that some of the UMC people look down on the at risk students. One person on that townhall even used the words “dilute our population.” And those comments stand out, even if they aren’t representative of a community as a whole.

I hear what you are saying and I understand the sentiment. I would ask you to consider what it means to "look down on" at risk students. If I don't want 60% of my school to be at risk, is that "looking down on" them? Or is that an acknowledgement that all data tells us the challenges that come with at risk require significant resources and that those kids tend to need intervention to catch up. Is it "looking down on at risk" to want my above grade level kid to be catered to as well, with coursework appropriate to their level and not just being warehoused?

I understand why "dilute" is a cringy and imprecise way to describe the issue. If we take our Language Police Hats off for a moment and react to what they meant, are they wrong to have expressed concern that if the demographics shift there may well be some challenges that accompany that? Do they not have the right to express that concern?

Sure that’s fair. Everyone has the right to express concerns. It’s also fair to say hey, step up and help your neighbors by ensuring even kids who don’t have your advantages get a good education. Because even if your school is suddenly more at risk, your specific child isn’t going to be directly affected. He’s still going to get good grades. He’s still going to score well on PARCC (or whatever the new test they have switched to is called). And now a kid who is at risk is going to have access to a school with stability and support. And your kid’s school might be a 4 star or even a 3 star instead of a 5, but it’s not going to hurt him because there are still going to be the high performing kids at Maury play even a few from Miner (they’re rare but they exist).

I will reply because (at least from my perspective) this is a respectful and substantive conversation.

If I'm being honest, my emotional reaction to "step up and help your neighbors" is to scream "9+%!!!" That's the tax rate for every marginal dollar of income I earn. You can ask me to do more, but, with all due respect, the UMC folks who are told constantly they don't support low income communities are paying for the social services and interventions in those schools. So I don't react well when people act like I'm not contributing. I'd also suggest to you that you simply do not know whether more at risk kids will directly affect my kid. Two of my kids are now in MS. I can assure you that behavioral issues in upper ES derail learning on a near daily basis. You simply don't know what the impact will be, because even DME doesn't have projections (will they still be Title 1? what to enrollment projections look like?) Yes, my kid will do well on PARCC. But I will share with you some wisdom of a parent with an older kid. A 4 or 5 on PARCC does not mean the kid is at or above grade level. My oldest was getting 4s and 5s. Then they got to a non-DCSP MS and took a real national assessment test. The results were not pretty. We had to remediate, and my kid was top of his class in ES.

The gains at Maury were hard fought over a number of years. I think it a bit dismissive and possibly even disrespectful for you to come along and dismiss these concerns with "there there, your kid will be fine." You don't know that. Whether Maury is still Maury in 6 years or is Watkins is a big deal. Same way at risk folks don't want their existence and concerns dismissed, UMC families don't want our concerns and demands for a quality education dismissed with phrases like "good enough" and "you'll be fine".

I think I'm not supposed to say this part out loud, but I am happy to help, but NOT if it means my kid gets a sub-par education. Not if it means my kid is in classes constantly disrupted by fights and outbursts. Not if it means my kid is way behind when they leave DCPS. I will not apologize for not being ok with sacrificing my kids' educations in the name of some perverted view of "equity."

And there is the Maury sentiment in a nutshell:

1). You say you make more money and you already do enough so you shouldn’t have to do more. YOU GO TO PUBLIC SCHOOL.

2). You’re right, no one can know if your kids will be directly affected or not. Guess what, that means you also don’t know if there will be a horrible detriment to your child. While I can understand not wanting your kid to be an experiment, just remember if you want to control all the aspects of who attends your school, maybe you should PAY FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL.

3). I made the PARCC comments because that’s what everyone has been basing the academics on. I actually totally agree that standardized tests aren’t the answer to determining how well kids are doing, but at the end of the day the point is your kid will be fine (hence the woman who commented that her upper grader at Miner scored in the 99th percentile city wide despite being with all those awful at-risk children).

4). Also you say you had to remediate AND that you left DCPS. So you aren’t someone who is going to make the effort to stick with DCPS anyway and you have the money for tutoring. You are really not helping your case here.

5). At least you admit you aren’t supposed to say the “not in my backyard” comment out loud. But you did. You make all these comments about fights in class and outbursts. Why don’t you just say “I don’t want poor Black kids in my class.” And yes I may have made the race comment but we all know what you meant.

Too much to respond to everything. I left DCPS middle schools because they aren't good enough. They were even worse 4 years ago when we had to make the decision. That response is lazy. It is a creative way to ignore or dismiss people whose opinions you don't like. I have a kid in ES now. I pay taxes now. I get a voice now. You don't have to like it. Too bad.

P.S. I didn't say "I make more money". I said I pay insanely high taxes that pay for programs. So I don't have patience for people like you telling me I don't contribute. You want my money but you don't want me to contribute to discussions on where and how it is spent, unless it is to be an amen chorus for people like you.

I don’t want your money. I don’t even necessarily agree with the cluster/merger. I do want people like you to realize you are the reason schools like Miner and Eliot-Hine and countless others need help because you leave when it gets tough because it’s not “good enough” and you get mad when people have the audacity to ask you to do more. It’s easy to run away. The people who worked hard to make Maury the good school it is today didn’t run away. I watched them work hard. Really hard. And people like you benefitted from that. Now maybe it’s time for other kids to benefit from it too.

The you don't want low student to teacher ratios. You don't want interventionists and mental health specialists and crossing guards and curriculum updates and books and computers and everything else that funds public education. What you seem to want to is to cut off your nose to spite your face. Genius!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hey all. Billy Lynch here, your local fair housing attorney who specializes in housing and school integration. Thought I’d drop some evidenced-based research into this riveting anonymous discussion. TLDR- integrated schools help all students and do not affect white student performance.

http://school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo10.pdf

Integrationists in this thread: I see you and applaud you.

What Billy knows and the rest of you seem not to understand is that this type of post can be made here, but in court it would get Billy sanctioned because this isn't cut and dry. There are studies that conclude otherwise. There's nuance here. If you think there's "one study that solves the problem" then you deserve the kind of low brow, catering to people who don't know better crap being peddled here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey all. Billy Lynch here, your local fair housing attorney who specializes in housing and school integration. Thought I’d drop some evidenced-based research into this riveting anonymous discussion. TLDR- integrated schools help all students and do not affect white student performance.

http://school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo10.pdf

Integrationists in this thread: I see you and applaud you.

Ok Billy: #1. Maury IS integrated
#2. There will never be enough white students in DCPS to integrate it
#3. There is no evidence that this particular change will help at-risk kids
#4. Integration could happen if DCPS adopted a voluntary approached that considered the IB parents preferences, but for some reason this is considered verboten
#5. Where do your kids go to school?

#6. Gonzaga (where Billy went to high school) is private and 75% white
#7. Loyola Chicago (where Billy went to undergrad) is private and 7% AA
#8. Catholic (where Billy went to law school) is private, 70% white and 6% AA
#9. Harvard Kennedy School (where Billy was a Fellow)...well, you know

By all means, Billy. Lecture us some more from your glass house and pristine throne.

[Anonymous]

Welcome back haters.

[Anonymous]

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At the end of the day some of us are trying to engage with human behavior as it actually is and make our predictions data-based and realistic. Are you?

Absolutely and data shows that kids who go to a more diverse school (whether racially, socioeconomically, or academically) can benefit ALL the students.

No it does not. Busing (which is basically what this is) is pretty much universally accepted to be a failure by all sides. In contrast, creating diversity through actual community participation - ie creating schools where IB families chose to go - can result in positive impacts. But at the end of the day there are not enough rich white kids to be the medicine to fix DCPS - and that it what fundamentally makes this a PR exercise and not a legitimate attempt for DCPS to solve its problems.

This is not "basically" busing. If they cluster the schools, no one will be bussed. They will go to their IB, neighborhood school unless they choose to lottery out or go private.

Bussing is when you take kids in one neighborhood and put them on an actual bus to send them to a school in another neighborhood. It has nothing to do with this situation at all.

Combining schools like this to redistribute demographics is just busing on a small scale. Obviously.

Busing as a concept requires that the district physically transport kids to another school. If you can walk to the school in question, it's not busing.

When opponents to the cluster plan say stuff like "this is basically busing" in outrage, it becomes harder to argue that there is not a racial component to their objections. Read a freaking book about desegregation.

I mean, this is a plan intended to move kids around to change the racial demographics of the school. It’s the same thing. There’s absolutely NOTHING racist in questioning whether this helps black kids. What does seem oddly racist is the DME’s belief that a majority black school cannot be a good school, and that the only way for it to be “improved” is to add white kids. PS Maury is desegregated.

Well, that was literally the theory in Brown v. Board—not because a majority black school can’t be great, but because those schools are chronically under-resourced, and whites kids and their parents bring resources (and demands for resources that get responses) with them. So take it up with Thurgood Marshall, I guess. And that’s what is happening at Miner, by the way. There are tons of wonderful, dedicated parents there, but the segregation also means it is a higher proportion of parents who don’t have things like regular work hours or any extra help, or paid leave, so it’s just harder to keep tabs on the school and even do things like volunteer and lobby for changes. It’s not just about the money the PTA can bring, it’s a critical mass of watchful and involved parents who—busy as they may be—have the privilege and flexibility to participate in the school.

1. Miner is not under resourced
2. Even if it is, that can be solved by DCPS giving it more resources
3. There are almost no analogs or relevant facts as between this instance and Brown
4. If a Maury parent had argued the Maury parents are more watchful and engaged you and your buddies would have been all over it as further evidence of racism and "putting Miner families down".

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:People choose Miner for a lot of reasons. They don't want language instruction or they don't want Montessori for whatever reason. Or because they think Two Rivers stinks. Same for SSMA. Or because they want Eliot-Hine rights. Or because they need a self-contained classrooms and Miner's what they're offered.

"I'm choosing Miner because it gives me a path to EH." Said no one, ever, on Earth.

More myopia.

If you lived East of the river, you absolutely would seek out an EH feed. Where do you think all the OOB kids at EH and Eastern come from, friend?

By the way, if you are a Maury parent and this is your attitude about its MS feed, go ahead and leave because of the cluster. You were always going to leave anyway, and you aren't really the asset to the community you think you are.

That's a silly response. The people whom you dismiss are invested in trying to keep their ES on a positive track, and by association, EH on a positive trajectory. If those people pull out you'll have an EH with 60% at risk and 20% special ed. Sure, your kid and every other one in that school will be in a failing environment, but at least you'll feel morally superior. After all that's what counts, right?

Like it or not, UMC families who attend DCPS schools are an asset. Don't take my word for it, ask DME and DCPS. They're about to upend two schools to spread around the very people you dismiss. You don't have to like us, but you darn well sure need us to have a functioning public school system. If that hurts to hear, TFB.

The problem isn’t that you are seen as unneeded. The problem (and I’m not speaking about you personally) is that some of the UMC people look down on the at risk students. One person on that townhall even used the words “dilute our population.” And those comments stand out, even if they aren’t representative of a community as a whole.

I hear what you are saying and I understand the sentiment. I would ask you to consider what it means to "look down on" at risk students. If I don't want 60% of my school to be at risk, is that "looking down on" them? Or is that an acknowledgement that all data tells us the challenges that come with at risk require significant resources and that those kids tend to need intervention to catch up. Is it "looking down on at risk" to want my above grade level kid to be catered to as well, with coursework appropriate to their level and not just being warehoused?

I understand why "dilute" is a cringy and imprecise way to describe the issue. If we take our Language Police Hats off for a moment and react to what they meant, are they wrong to have expressed concern that if the demographics shift there may well be some challenges that accompany that? Do they not have the right to express that concern?

Sure that’s fair. Everyone has the right to express concerns. It’s also fair to say hey, step up and help your neighbors by ensuring even kids who don’t have your advantages get a good education. Because even if your school is suddenly more at risk, your specific child isn’t going to be directly affected. He’s still going to get good grades. He’s still going to score well on PARCC (or whatever the new test they have switched to is called). And now a kid who is at risk is going to have access to a school with stability and support. And your kid’s school might be a 4 star or even a 3 star instead of a 5, but it’s not going to hurt him because there are still going to be the high performing kids at Maury play even a few from Miner (they’re rare but they exist).

I will reply because (at least from my perspective) this is a respectful and substantive conversation.

If I'm being honest, my emotional reaction to "step up and help your neighbors" is to scream "9+%!!!" That's the tax rate for every marginal dollar of income I earn. You can ask me to do more, but, with all due respect, the UMC folks who are told constantly they don't support low income communities are paying for the social services and interventions in those schools. So I don't react well when people act like I'm not contributing. I'd also suggest to you that you simply do not know whether more at risk kids will directly affect my kid. Two of my kids are now in MS. I can assure you that behavioral issues in upper ES derail learning on a near daily basis. You simply don't know what the impact will be, because even DME doesn't have projections (will they still be Title 1? what to enrollment projections look like?) Yes, my kid will do well on PARCC. But I will share with you some wisdom of a parent with an older kid. A 4 or 5 on PARCC does not mean the kid is at or above grade level. My oldest was getting 4s and 5s. Then they got to a non-DCSP MS and took a real national assessment test. The results were not pretty. We had to remediate, and my kid was top of his class in ES.

The gains at Maury were hard fought over a number of years. I think it a bit dismissive and possibly even disrespectful for you to come along and dismiss these concerns with "there there, your kid will be fine." You don't know that. Whether Maury is still Maury in 6 years or is Watkins is a big deal. Same way at risk folks don't want their existence and concerns dismissed, UMC families don't want our concerns and demands for a quality education dismissed with phrases like "good enough" and "you'll be fine".

I think I'm not supposed to say this part out loud, but I am happy to help, but NOT if it means my kid gets a sub-par education. Not if it means my kid is in classes constantly disrupted by fights and outbursts. Not if it means my kid is way behind when they leave DCPS. I will not apologize for not being ok with sacrificing my kids' educations in the name of some perverted view of "equity."

And there is the Maury sentiment in a nutshell:

1). You say you make more money and you already do enough so you shouldn’t have to do more. YOU GO TO PUBLIC SCHOOL.

2). You’re right, no one can know if your kids will be directly affected or not. Guess what, that means you also don’t know if there will be a horrible detriment to your child. While I can understand not wanting your kid to be an experiment, just remember if you want to control all the aspects of who attends your school, maybe you should PAY FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL.

3). I made the PARCC comments because that’s what everyone has been basing the academics on. I actually totally agree that standardized tests aren’t the answer to determining how well kids are doing, but at the end of the day the point is your kid will be fine (hence the woman who commented that her upper grader at Miner scored in the 99th percentile city wide despite being with all those awful at-risk children).

4). Also you say you had to remediate AND that you left DCPS. So you aren’t someone who is going to make the effort to stick with DCPS anyway and you have the money for tutoring. You are really not helping your case here.

5). At least you admit you aren’t supposed to say the “not in my backyard” comment out loud. But you did. You make all these comments about fights in class and outbursts. Why don’t you just say “I don’t want poor Black kids in my class.” And yes I may have made the race comment but we all know what you meant.

Too much to respond to everything. I left DCPS middle schools because they aren't good enough. They were even worse 4 years ago when we had to make the decision. That response is lazy. It is a creative way to ignore or dismiss people whose opinions you don't like. I have a kid in ES now. I pay taxes now. I get a voice now. You don't have to like it. Too bad.

P.S. I didn't say "I make more money". I said I pay insanely high taxes that pay for programs. So I don't have patience for people like you telling me I don't contribute. You want my money but you don't want me to contribute to discussions on where and how it is spent, unless it is to be an amen chorus for people like you.

I don’t want your money. I don’t even necessarily agree with the cluster/merger. I do want people like you to realize you are the reason schools like Miner and Eliot-Hine and countless others need help because you leave when it gets tough because it’s not “good enough” and you get mad when people have the audacity to ask you to do more. It’s easy to run away. The people who worked hard to make Maury the good school it is today didn’t run away. I watched them work hard. Really hard. And people like you benefitted from that. Now maybe it’s time for other kids to benefit from it too.

The you don't want low student to teacher ratios. You don't want interventionists and mental health specialists and crossing guards and curriculum updates and books and computers and everything else that funds public education. What you seem to want to is to cut off your nose to spite your face. Genius!

ITA. The people who go on about parents “working hard” truly have an inflated sense of what PTAs do. About 90% of the effort is pointless, like ever more elaborate teacher appreciation days. The PTA activities are nice but in NO WAY provide what at-risk kids need. What active high SES parents are successful at sometimes is exerting pressure to get rid of teachers/admins/even kids they don’t like. But if only 30% (what we can expect given Watkins results) they aren’t even going to be able to do that. Most of what looks like a “good school” for a high SES school is just teachers teaching to a higher median.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey all. Billy Lynch here, your local fair housing attorney who specializes in housing and school integration. Thought I’d drop some evidenced-based research into this riveting anonymous discussion. TLDR- integrated schools help all students and do not affect white student performance.

http://school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo10.pdf

Integrationists in this thread: I see you and applaud you.

Bless you, but these people do not care about that. They don't want the yucky poor people diluting their pure, good, rich person school.

We are reading different threads somehow. By far the nastiest comments have been about (presumed) Maury parents.

Saying "wow some of these comments and reactions are very nasty and hurtful to Miner families" is not, in itself, nasty.

I mean, in the last few pages, we had people pointing out that the comment from a Maury parent that combining with Miner would "dilute" Maury's population was a seriously offensive statement, and it's apparent from some of the responses that people aren't even sure why. Like some of the Maury parents on here actually DEFENDED language that sounds like a quote from a white person in Alabama in 1956. And now I'm sure you'll tell me that saying that is nasty. But it's not! Talking about how how all the poor black kids from Miner will "dilute" your school if they merge is nasty. I cannot believe people don't see this.

Thank you. Not only has the language been defended, but repeated.

The "diluted" language was inserted from someone saying Maury parents said it and there was a transcript. It has not been verified. It might be true, it might not. But the person who provided the "diluted" quote said it was on a meeting transcript. That was not used by a poster on DCUM.

Following on this, I am the person who restated it in a reply. I stated I understood it was cringeworthy and I understood why it bothered people. I then asked whether, if rephrased, the point about increasing dramatically at risk and special ed was a worthwhile point of discussion even if it was introduced in a manner I also find cringe. It is easy to play "work police" as a means of avoidance for topics and concepts you don't want to address and to vilify messengers instead of substantively addressing the message. It has been used to stifle good faith discussion and brow beat anyone with dissenting opinions into silence. Thankfully, people are no longer being silences by these cheap rhetorical devices.