Washington Hebrew

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So it's fine that a limited but generally wealthy subgroup of the DC population would attend this school? You have no problem with that?

If they only attract a limited subgroup, they'll fail. The economics of charter schools are harsh. Even lousy DCPS schools don't have to worry about paying for their facilities, whereas the best charters have to combine gymnasiums, auditoriums, and cafeterias into one room (only one single example of the drastic inequality). Without a critical number of students, they simply can't succeed economically. And, in order to get their critical mass, they'll have to be appealing to enough DCPS refugees to stay afloat. If you're inbounds for Lafayette (NW) or Brent (the Hill)and in the mood for an experiment, you might try it but you might equally feel that the commute is not worth the complications.

So, what this is really about is the upper NW fear that the school would drain (inbounds) students from JKLM, raising the proportion of OOB students. Let's be honest - that's really what the online freakout is about.

[Anonymous]

This really gets at why DC is in the charter school business, at the real nitty gritty level. Is it for diversity in educational approach or residential diversity?

Are charter schools supposed to be a chance for all to benefit from superior education through a unique educational approach?

If so, why would DC citizens want a school that would strongly interest a narrow population of relatively young Jewish parents and be of mild interest to the rest of the City, presuming that non-Jewish parents might be interested based essentially on a stereotype that Jewish people are well-educated and inculcate children at home and at school with a drive to succeed and that, by association, these non-Jewish children would succeed by going to school with Jewish children.

Or are they supposed to be a way for middle class parents in gentrifying areas to stay in the City while allowing their darling children to get an education better than that offered at their long-failing neighborhood schools?

If this is the case, it is something that is hard to admit, but something that many parents in DC strive to find. Don't like Noyes? Put your kid in Langdon if you can. Don't like Bell? Cap City could be a good choice. Everybody reading these boards is probably interested in playing this game to some degree.

In some sense, strivers always seek to separate themselves from those they know are mired in a cycle of failure. But everyone should think about whether charter schools exist just to create a set of "striver class" schools so that kids who are better prepared because they are well cared for, read to, educated at home, and prepared to learn do not have to be surrounded by children beset by the plagues of poverty - poor attention spans, experiences of quick resort to violence, lack of school preparation, tumultous home lives, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In some sense, strivers always seek to separate themselves from those they know are mired in a cycle of failure. But everyone should think about whether charter schools exist just to create a set of "striver class" schools so that kids who are better prepared because they are well cared for, read to, educated at home, and prepared to learn do not have to be surrounded by children beset by the plagues of poverty - poor attention spans, experiences of quick resort to violence, lack of school preparation, tumultous home lives, etc.

Name one successful DCPS school with a majority of its students econ-disadvantaged. And then tell us where your kid will attend ES, MS and HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This really gets at why DC is in the charter school business, at the real nitty gritty level. Is it for diversity in educational approach or residential diversity?

Are charter schools supposed to be a chance for all to benefit from superior education through a unique educational approach?

If so, why would DC citizens want a school that would strongly interest a narrow population of relatively young Jewish parents and be of mild interest to the rest of the City, presuming that non-Jewish parents might be interested based essentially on a stereotype that Jewish people are well-educated and inculcate children at home and at school with a drive to succeed and that, by association, these non-Jewish children would succeed by going to school with Jewish children.

Or are they supposed to be a way for middle class parents in gentrifying areas to stay in the City while allowing their darling children to get an education better than that offered at their long-failing neighborhood scho

ols?

If this is the case, it is something that is hard to admit, but something that many parents in DC strive to find. Don't like Noyes? Put your kid in Langdon if you can. Don't like Bell? Cap City could be a good choice. Everybody reading these boards is probably interested in playing this game to some degree.

In some sense, strivers always seek to separate themselves from those they know are mired in a cycle of failure. But everyone should think about whether charter schools exist just to create a set of "striver class" schools so that kids who are better prepared because they are well cared for, read to, educated at home, and prepared to learn do not have to be surrounded by children beset by the plagues of poverty - poor attention spans, experiences of quick resort to violence, lack of school preparation, tumultous home lives, etc.

And YOU do what? Leave your child in a high poverty school in a system that has proven they don't know how to successfully educate them? Did you make that choice or do you just want everyone else to do it?, By the way, I am not talking elementary school, I am asking you where your child goes/ will go for a secondary education. I have a feeling you are a big hypocrite.

[Anonymous]

I would never put my kid in Noyes, my IB school. If it hadn't been for a charter school, I'd move. So my presence does decrease residential segregation. However, obviously by opting out of Noyes, I do not decrease school segregation. I say this, because I believe your hypothesis has a grain of truth. Charter schools allow the city the retain parents in neighborhoods that are gentrifying, but aren't helping desegregate DCPS in those same neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Who are these people that want to fix schools with other people's kids?

I have yet to meet an anti-charter zealot with kids in Garfield ES (6% proficient) or Johnson MS (15% proficient), or schools like them.

I have met a bunch of people from east of the River and all over town with kids in charters, and they are thanking their lucky stars their family has that option.

[Anonymous]

The Jewish Primary Day School on 16th Street, what neighborhoods do their students come from? I'd think the Hebrew Charter would appeal to the same parents (Jewish) and charter schools like Latin have found buildings on the 16th St corridor, so that location might work.

Is Jewish Primary day nervous about competition?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And YOU do what? Leave your child in a high poverty school in a system that has proven they don't know how to successfully educate them? Did you make that choice or do you just want everyone else to do it?, By the way, I am not talking elementary school, I am asking you where your child goes/ will go for a secondary education. I have a feeling you are a big hypocrite.

I mean this: if people admit that charters are for strivers and your typical DCPS is only for those without proper support systems or incentives to learn, we might take a different approach to our failing local DCPS schools. Basically, if these are schools for people who are bound to fail because their families don't care, then we should emphasize wraparound care, helping the kids socially and emotionally due to their real needs, and THEN get down to education. If charters are for those who were going to make it anyway, then they can just be in the business of straight-up education for kids who are ready to be receptive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And YOU do what? Leave your child in a high poverty school in a system that has proven they don't know how to successfully educate them? Did you make that choice or do you just want everyone else to do it?, By the way, I am not talking elementary school, I am asking you where your child goes/ will go for a secondary education. I have a feeling you are a big hypocrite.

I mean this: if people admit that charters are for strivers and your typical DCPS is only for those without proper support systems or incentives to learn, we might take a different approach to our failing local DCPS schools. Basically, if these are schools for people who are bound to fail because their families don't care, then we should emphasize wraparound care, helping the kids socially and emotionally due to their real needs, and THEN get down to education. If charters are for those who were going to make it anyway, then they can just be in the business of straight-up education for kids who are ready to be receptive.

Can't speak for everyone, but in our case we can happily do DCPS for ES and hopefully for HS (SWW/Wilson/Banneker/Elington). It's the MS thing that confounds us.

[Anonymous]

Not surprising that the high schools in DCPS that would make you happy are all selective admissions ( or maybe you don't mean academies at Wilson?)

Perhaps Middle school confounds you because there are no selective admission options?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not surprising that the high schools in DCPS that would make you happy are all selective admissions ( or maybe you don't mean academies at Wilson?)

Perhaps Middle school confounds you because there are no selective admission options?

MS confounds me because there are no good DCPS options for my family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not surprising that the high schools in DCPS that would make you happy are all selective admissions ( or maybe you don't mean academies at Wilson?)

Perhaps Middle school confounds you because there are no selective admission options?

MS confounds me because there are no good DCPS options for my family.

I don't think a Hebrew ES would solve this problem. Even if it eventually went to MS, I could see families attending only because there weren't other options they'd prefer, like a MS IB program, or a more widely spoken language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who are these people that want to fix schools with other people's kids?

I have yet to meet an anti-charter zealot with kids in Garfield ES (6% proficient) or Johnson MS (15% proficient), or schools like them.

I have met a bunch of people from east of the River and all over town with kids in charters, and they are thanking their lucky stars their family has that option.

Congratulations! You win the thread!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who are these people that want to fix schools with other people's kids?

I have yet to meet an anti-charter zealot with kids in Garfield ES (6% proficient) or Johnson MS (15% proficient), or schools like them.

I have met a bunch of people from east of the River and all over town with kids in charters, and they are thanking their lucky stars their family has that option.

Actually, being thankful for having other options is not the same as being pro-charter as this comment hints at. Families could prefer that their neighborhood schools are improved, but be thankful that since they're not being improved, they have other options .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who are these people that want to fix schools with other people's kids?

I have yet to meet an anti-charter zealot with kids in Garfield ES (6% proficient) or Johnson MS (15% proficient), or schools like them.

I have met a bunch of people from east of the River and all over town with kids in charters, and they are thanking their lucky stars their family has that option.

Congratulations! You win the thread!

Not exactly. There is nothing here that proves that when DC families say they want charters, it's a Hebrew charter they want above everything else.