Coffee in Lincoln Park with David Catania
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Anonymous
What a strange, and wrong, assumption. Anyone who says something you don't like is a troll, eh? Interesting. |
Anonymous
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The way people bicker on this board reminds me not to expect the CH MS mess to get sorted out before the next boundary review, around 2024. We're no closer than we were to having at least one MS program most neighbors are excited about than we were when the boundary review kicked off, eighteen months ago. Indeed, we're farther away. Apparently, strong City Council candidates like Elissa Silverman don't even understand the basics.
Capitol Hill's best hope for middle and high school is obviously another high-performing 5th or 6th-12th charter or two opening within range. Maybe second campuses for BASIS and Latin? I'm done with advocating for a DCPS option at any rate. I don't see any hope in under 15 years, no matter how many smart sounding options are bandied about here. |
Anonymous
| ^^ I have been watching and advocating around the middle school situation for a while and I am afraid I need to agree with this. The charter sector will expand to absorb the demand at the middle/high school level and the DCPS sector will diminish screaming the whole time that it is all the fault of the charter schools stealing their students. Just watch. |
Anonymous
Maybe lobby the family who owns International Graduate University to lease it out? I guess I'd be in favor of a charter option, but I'm not quite ready to give up on DCPS. Though I get why you are! Thanks for all your work advocating, and hopefully others in the neighborhood will pick up the baton! |
Anonymous
I don't need "truly high" criteria - I just want to know that more than half the students in my kids English class won't be illiterate! Not a huge request here DCPS. |
Anonymous
But it is a huge request (and I am in favor of your request). Three out of four kids are not proficient based on the DC CAS - and that test in and of itself is not a great measure of proficiency and the numbers are likely worse. Wait until the PARC results come out and we have a better assessment of where DC kids actually stand. Most indications are that all kids in every category will see their standing fall relative to the DC CAS. It's a huge ask to create a majority proficient school because there is a ton of opposition to it. DC politics will punish anyone involved in such an idea. Well-intended education advocates will resist the idea, calling it re-segregation and racist, or at least not needed and counter-productive. Cluster types will resist the creation of a competing school, or resist any messing with their beloved school and the status quo. The Chancellor will resist because she's trying to make deliberate and thoughtful moves, and not go with the flavor of the month. It just is a BFD to create a selective admission school in Ward 6 or most anywhere in DC. When asked about the idea of a selective admmission school on the Hill, Catania said in an aside that DCPS needs to create the proposed selective admission school in Ward 7, and get it up and running before there's political space for more selective schools in other areas of the city. That takes time. Anyway, charters can move relatively quick and get a majority proficient school up and running quickly (see Latin, or BASIS which in three years has enrollment over 500). DCPS, just because of the way it is, needs a longer time to make radical changes. Don't expect a Ward Six selective admission school any time soon, it's just how it is. |
Anonymous
| And there you have it pp, DCPS isn't going to move quickly enough, so charters will take over. I know, if done right, this could be sold. Kids that can't test in need help - give it to them, make the schools attractive to the people who think "oh my kid isn't gonna get in - you're discriminating against my kid!" Sell Jefferson a the specialized school, with extra after care and extracurricular options. Lower student:teacher ratio, amazing sports facilities. Get a GD PR campaign together an get it done already, otherwise you're posing you're greatest assets and still not managing to teach the kids in most need. Lays needs to realize she's in a crisis situation and instead of shrugging her shoulders because "there will be more" she needs to move the ball forward. Now. |
Anonymous
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Posing = losing. Lays = Kaya.
Sorry. |
Anonymous
"Truly high" poster here -- I said that because SH is so small, but it could fit that kind of population from all of the Ward 6 schools if the bar was set high enough. It's the school that makes the least sense and breaks up the community. EH and Jefferson have so much more space and athletic facilities that they could be the default schools for everyone who wasn't a very top student, but still good students who enjoy things like football, marching band, soccer, baseball, etc. BASIS has already proven that families who prioritize classes over extracurriculars do exist on the Hill, but a lot of families aren't comfortable with that (see all the Hill defectors to Ward 3 schools and the lucky ones who got into Latin). SH as college prep could ease the pressure and the combination of all these schools into Eastern could work (if they drop the ridiculous IB program and go the AP route -- don't think they are too far down that path to make a change). |
Anonymous
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It's a new middle school charter or two or nothing. DCPS just isn't going to run with the ball.
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Anonymous
I agree. The middle schools have been configured to ensure that none will become neighborhood Hill schools. I could same the same for Watkins. The salvation is apparently/unfortunately charters schools. Someone mentioned International/National Graduate University as a possibility. That place is currently defunct. Maybe a charter school could finance the acquisition; there are companies that provide financing for charters. IGU would be an outstanding campus for a charter middle school, and right next to Watkins. How convenient! Maybe the top floor of Watkins could serve as a magnet middle school - test in. Or make an ES French immersion there. Do something different! Then you could have three classes (versus 5) per grade in the Watkins ES that would actually make the place a neighborhood IB school. If Watkins ES doesn't shrink, it'll never be a neighborhood school. IB Ludlow-Taylor people will abandon Watkins, leaving it even less of a Hill school (which it just isn't at all now anyhow). Why not have a school that actually serves the neighborhood and which the neighborhood embraces? So called high SES families taking their tax money and moving to the 'burbs doesn't help anyone, unless you like vacant buildings and not to hear kids playing. On my street, there aren't any more kids playing. There were, until they got to ES. Thanks DCPS 
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Anonymous
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I'm hoping that Hill parents will react in disgust to the new middle school feeder plan by putting together their own charter middle school proposal, and soon. I've got too much else on to lead the charge, but would help if others did.
The problem the founders would obviously encounter is that the charter board isn't in the business of supporting the creation of schools catering to high SES Ward 6 residents. When high SES/white parents turn up at Two Rivers, YY or wherever, the charter board is OK with it as long as high SES white kids don't constitute a majority. But a school that would primarily serve them from the get go almost certainly wouldn't be granted a charter. E.g. AppleTree LP wouldn't have been opened if that franchise and the charter board had understood who would enroll. The parent founders would need to be cagey, making it sound like many low SES and AA kids would enroll (knowing that this won't be the case if the school were located in the heart of Cap Hill and the academics were BASIS level). |
Anonymous
| ^^^this post is a troll and sarcastic obviously. I hope. The best outcome would be a charter or DCPS middle school that would have a good mix of all kinds of kiddos, with a core of strong students and supportive parents. No need to be cagey. That is exactly what would happen with a few tweaks to feeder patterns or programming. |
Anonymous
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Pointing out the obvious is hardly trolling.
The crux of the problem is that we've got a critical mass of high SES/mostly white gentrifiers on Cap Hill without an acceptable middle school, because of the achievement gap as much as anything else (achievement chasm really). Ergo, if a highly academic new middle school charter opened in Ward 6, it wouldn't necessarily be much more diverse than Brent, SWS or Maury's lower grades. Therein lies the problem. DC Charter wouldn't go for it. They might let BASIS open a second campus though. Latin's leadership says they don't want to scale up their model. |
Anonymous
| I think you have a very narrow view of our city and our school system. You should get out and look around and read DCUM less.. There are able and accomplished students of all races and backgrounds who would flock to such a school in ward 6. After all it was AA parents and stakeholders who lobbied for ( and got ) a test in middle school in ward 7. |