MacArthur is the new Walls

[Anonymous]

All I can hope is that these posts turn off other families on the wait list, thereby increasing the odds that my kids gets a spot off the waitlist!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All I can hope is that these posts turn off other families on the wait list, thereby increasing the odds that my kids gets a spot off the waitlist!

Haha this forum is always making Basis, Walls, JR and now MacArthur sound like horrible schools. But then you look at the waitlists and clearly people want to go there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I can hope is that these posts turn off other families on the wait list, thereby increasing the odds that my kids gets a spot off the waitlist!

Haha this forum is always making Basis, Walls, JR and now MacArthur sound like horrible schools. But then you look at the waitlists and clearly people want to go there!

True but reality is that many EOTP families with no better options are desperate and willing to accept substandard schools and options.

They don’t want to move to the burbs which is an option for all and can’t afford private. It’s their reality.

But everyone knows the quality of public schools in the city is not very good and are willing to accept it. No one is moving from the burbs to the city for the schools while there is plenty for the reverse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I can hope is that these posts turn off other families on the wait list, thereby increasing the odds that my kids gets a spot off the waitlist!

Haha this forum is always making Basis, Walls, JR and now MacArthur sound like horrible schools. But then you look at the waitlists and clearly people want to go there!

True but reality is that many EOTP families with no better options are desperate and willing to accept substandard schools and options.

They don’t want to move to the burbs which is an option for all and can’t afford private. It’s their reality.

But everyone knows the quality of public schools in the city is not very good and are willing to accept it. No one is moving from the burbs to the city for the schools while there is plenty for the reverse.

What? Look at the curriculum and college results at Walls, JR, and BASIS. It's completely, completely fine and the upper limit is fantastic.

You will never make me move to the suburbs, anonymous suburbanite!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I can hope is that these posts turn off other families on the wait list, thereby increasing the odds that my kids gets a spot off the waitlist!

Haha this forum is always making Basis, Walls, JR and now MacArthur sound like horrible schools. But then you look at the waitlists and clearly people want to go there!

True but reality is that many EOTP families with no better options are desperate and willing to accept substandard schools and options.

They don’t want to move to the burbs which is an option for all and can’t afford private. It’s their reality.

But everyone knows the quality of public schools in the city is not very good and are willing to accept it. No one is moving from the burbs to the city for the schools while there is plenty for the reverse.

Some of those schools listed have great college acceptances. Many kids graduate and go on to be productive members of society. Why are you acting like going to BCC is the only way to accomplish those things?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All I can hope is that these posts turn off other families on the wait list, thereby increasing the odds that my kids gets a spot off the waitlist!

I hope you get in!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I can hope is that these posts turn off other families on the wait list, thereby increasing the odds that my kids gets a spot off the waitlist!

I hope you get in!!

Thank you!!!

[Anonymous]

I stumbled into this thread and would like to know the following.
We were a Mann family and moved away, considering moving back.
We remember Mann fondly as a neighborhood school and walked to classmate’s homes for playdates, etc.
From this thread, I understand that from middle school onward the schools are no longer neighborhood schools, is that correct? We had a lot of international diversity in our class, people from all over the world. If the diversity discussion in this thread different.
I would understand that there were enough families to fill the local school, so why are there children from other areas?
We have a rising middle grade student and the friend group has two children going to Hardy but three going to a close-by private middle school/high school. I’m trying to understand as we are originally not from the area, abd we went to private school in our own country, but were so in love with our public school experience in Mann.
Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I stumbled into this thread and would like to know the following.
We were a Mann family and moved away, considering moving back.
We remember Mann fondly as a neighborhood school and walked to classmate’s homes for playdates, etc.
From this thread, I understand that from middle school onward the schools are no longer neighborhood schools, is that correct? We had a lot of international diversity in our class, people from all over the world. If the diversity discussion in this thread different.
I would understand that there were enough families to fill the local school, so why are there children from other areas?
We have a rising middle grade student and the friend group has two children going to Hardy but three going to a close-by private middle school/high school. I’m trying to understand as we are originally not from the area, abd we went to private school in our own country, but were so in love with our public school experience in Mann.
Thank you!

Hardy MS is approximately 90% feeder school (Mann, Eaton, Key, Stoddert, Hyde). Mann sends between 18 and 28 kids to Hardy each year — generally about half of the fifth grade cohort.

— Mann parent

[Anonymous]

+1. Hardy is a "neighborhood school" for a larger-drawn neighborhood. Kids from all of the feeder elementaries arrive in a cohort of people they know from fifth grade and then make new friends, most of whom come from the other feeder elementaries. You drive a little farther than before for sleepovers etc, but the kids are also older and are taking the bus to school.

This year's eighth graders will be the first class pipelined to MacArthur that does not have the option to grandfather into Jackson Reid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I can hope is that these posts turn off other families on the wait list, thereby increasing the odds that my kids gets a spot off the waitlist!

Haha this forum is always making Basis, Walls, JR and now MacArthur sound like horrible schools. But then you look at the waitlists and clearly people want to go there!

True but reality is that many EOTP families with no better options are desperate and willing to accept substandard schools and options.

They don’t want to move to the burbs which is an option for all and can’t afford private. It’s their reality.

But everyone knows the quality of public schools in the city is not very good and are willing to accept it. No one is moving from the burbs to the city for the schools while there is plenty for the reverse.

As someone who grew up in DC and the public schools here- these elitist takes are incredibly bizarre to me. My friends and I all went to JR, formerly Wilson and some are very high profile, all successful, and most still live in the dc area. The friend groups are all still extremely tight knit too. So much so that my kids are going through all the feeders at DCPS and having a similar experience to mine- they love it and all their friends.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for answering my question about Mann and feeders to Hardy! Very helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I can hope is that these posts turn off other families on the wait list, thereby increasing the odds that my kids gets a spot off the waitlist!

Haha this forum is always making Basis, Walls, JR and now MacArthur sound like horrible schools. But then you look at the waitlists and clearly people want to go there!

True but reality is that many EOTP families with no better options are desperate and willing to accept substandard schools and options.

They don’t want to move to the burbs which is an option for all and can’t afford private. It’s their reality.

But everyone knows the quality of public schools in the city is not very good and are willing to accept it. No one is moving from the burbs to the city for the schools while there is plenty for the reverse.

As someone who grew up in DC and the public schools here- these elitist takes are incredibly bizarre to me. My friends and I all went to JR, formerly Wilson and some are very high profile, all successful, and most still live in the dc area. The friend groups are all still extremely tight knit too. So much so that my kids are going through all the feeders at DCPS and having a similar experience to mine- they love it and all their friends.

I think a lot of people think they know a certain school well but they don’t. I find in actual conversations that people know very little about any school outside the one their child attends. People on this forum constantly post statements that are demonstrably false (like they could possible know the AP scores or college admissions of all kids in their child’s classes). Or that a school doesn’t offer a class that it actually does.

[Anonymous]

Corrected: MacArthur is the new safety school.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Most of the OOB is coming from JR feeder. Some from Oyster-Adams.

I don’t think so since the majority of OOB are black

Like there are no IB Black kids at JR. SMH.

Never said that and there might be a few but MacArthur is majority black and a title 1 school so majority of black kids are not IB for JR. Data is data and not anecdotal or just because you know a family here and there.

I’ve already asked this question earlier on this thread but no one answered - can you please advise what official resource I can see this information at about MacArthur, e.g the title 1 status and demographics?

NP. I think the "all black kids are OOB" claim for either school is ridiculous and I know of no data that OSSE/DCPS publishes that you could even infer that from. But with respect to the data we do have:

The just released SY23-24 enrollment audit (here: https://osse.dc.gov/node/1720871)

JR: 556 black students (28%) and 557 at-risk students (28%)

MacArthur: 135 black students (57%) and 98 at-risk students (41%)

I don't know a ton about Title 1 eligibility but that at-risk percentage is in line with other schools with Title 1 status.

The only data we have on IB participation rates is from this document (here: https://dme.dc.gov/page/sy2021-22-public-school-enrollments-dcps-boundary) from SY21-22, which is obviously missing MacArthur and definitely does not break down by race or at-risk status. But:

Deal: 78% of students IB (306 students OOB)

Hardy: 62% of students IB (294 students OOB)

Wilson: 64% of students IB (738 students OOB)

So data confirms that MacArthur is majority black and title 1 with that many at risk kids. It’s almost 1/2 at risk.

Sure there is no IB data yet but it’s pretty obvious that majority OOB are black and at risk since race correlates closely with SES in this town.

There is no way that MacArthur is going to be any kind of top performing school with such a large percentage of at risk kids who likely have siblings that will be pulled into the school. No way unless the school uses a large portion of its resources to support these kids.

I'm sorry, are you the same poster who said "data is data"? This is not data.

Race isn't such a surefire proxy for SES. For example, Shepherd Elementary, a Deal feeder, is 47% black, 7% at risk, and 64% IB.

Shepherd is the outlier in that the UMC black families congregate there but in the rest of the city, race does correlate with SES.

The only other small area of town that might be an outlier is Hillcrest.

But above are 2 small sections of the city. Everywhere else everyone knows race correlates with SES.

Absolutely not. I live in the middle of the city (ward 2 school and ward 5 house) and I have many UMC black friends. Ivy grads, professors, etc. Mostly new residents, not generational DC people, who want a good enough school but don't want to send their kids to an overwhelming white school (to avoid racism).

Make more black friends. Race DOES NOT correlate with SES

Wow. That's a strikingly poor understanding of what correlation is. It's a mathematical/statistical term that measures how closely two things track each other. In DC, white and high SES are highly correlated. That the correlation is different between black and high SES is statement of a statistical property of the data rather than any sort of judgmental statement towards high SES black families or your friends. It's really unrelated to high SES black families at all and rather a reflection of the relative absence of low SES white families and how that translates to average measures of the different demographic populations.

Would love to see this data you keep referring to while citing your anecdotal experience. My guess is data would show that both white/high SES and black/low SES are correlated but that white/high SES is much more highly correlated than black/low SES is. The degree of correlation differs, probably even more significantly so when you're talking about families opting into schools with desirable characteristics.

NP. I don’t get why a few people are trying to dispute this. In this town, of course white is correlated with high SES and black is correlated with low SES. Just because your black family is the exception or you know a black family that is doesn’t mean it disputes the data.

I would argue the degree of correlation is greater in black and low SES. There are no poor whites in this town. All the low, poor SES families are black.

We’re disputing it because you’re acting like there are no black UMC or MC people in DC which is totally ignorant.

Girl stop begging for white people on DCUM to see you. Go join J&J or District Motherhued and stop worrying about the ignorance of randoms.