Is Brent the best school in Capitol hill?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:13:54 my point exactly...if you ever think DC will have a middle-school to test-in you are bonkers. If you are a true Washingtonian, then you will know that DCPS proposed testing-in middle schools and it was determined the best served community would have been in Ward 7. That is because Ward 7 has the most elementary school-aged children. Specialty schools at the high-school level is a choice, a specialty school at the middle-school would be confrontational.

But why? Aren't charter schools, none with proximity preference, already causing controversy on various levels, leading to talk of allowing proximity preference, with Gray himself weighing in? Charters don't even provide transportation for poor kids who are admitted without great controversy erupting. The parent-funded bus that runs from Capitol Hill to Latin sets parents back, what, nearly $1,000 a school year. Who's making an issue of that one (wish somebody would). Less controversial seeming issues are being stared down and times they are a changin'.

[Anonymous]

+1. I wouldn't rule anything out once Gray (and Henderson?) goes, almost certainly in 2014 at the scandal ridden rate he's going.

You will see more charter middle schools popping up and could see test-in middle schools, proximity preference for charters, a SH feed for Brent and Maury, even a magnet or two within SH.

[Anonymous]

They will pop up but will poop out too. Remember only the strong will survive and if it is new and improved every AA with a living relative in the vicinity will trek to that test-in school.

[Anonymous]

Who cares? ^^^^^^ I totally don't get your point.

[Anonymous]

Is Brent the best school ON Capitol Hill?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is Brent the best school ON Capitol Hill?

Many argue that Two Rivers is in fact the best school on Capitol Hill. But I don't see that remaining true. David Brooks summed up why in this NYTimes piece the other day:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120711/WIRE/120719920/1070/OPINION?Title=BROOKS-No-easy-choices-as-American-schism-widens

Two Rivers has higher test scores than Brent for now because it has had more high-SES kids in testing grades, period. It doesn't hurt that administrators and teachers do a good job there, but soon, Brent's test scores will be higher simply because the school will have a greater percentage of upper-middle-class kids from 3rd grade up. Pretending that a charter thrives because of fine teaching is to buy into a false dogma- all you need for kids to do well are great teachers. It seems what you really need are great fathers and good jobs for parents, a comparative rarity for urban AA kids in this country.

[Anonymous]

^^^ Wow! Finally it has clicked to get an excellent free education in DC you have to be rich. What are the poor black people gonna do? I mean that with all sincerity in my most southern-dainty dialect.

Please, respond before I finish my mint julep.

[Anonymous]

20:34 -- Hill parents don't want to fill their schools with white children, we want to fill our schools with children who want to be in school and won't disrupt learning. Testing in would go a long way to enure that the childrenand families in a school care about their education. And, if you test in, you can be tossed out if you don't keep up your grades and behave well. This model works for children at all economic levels.

What we have now are schools where the higher SES children are somehow supposed to rub off on their peers and how dare we think about disciplining the few poor out of control AA children. And how dare we not spend all the school's funds on programs for these children while ignoring the more advanced children, of all backgrounds.

Either you treat the children in the schools like students who shoul all get a chance to excel at all levels or you treat them like social work cases and only focus on triage. DCPS is in triage mode.

[Anonymous]

22:02, just by your response. You are a troll and so be it. Hush.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Either you treat the children in the schools like students who shoul all get a chance to excel at all levels or you treat them like social work cases and only focus on triage. DCPS is in triage mode.

Well put. I would add that the public schools (charters included) do not have the luxury of weeding out the more difficult cases as the private schools do. On some level, they have little choice but to deal with more challenging students and much of their baggage. The public schools will struggle to retain families beyond ES as the families with little to no baggage do not want their kids held back in order for their school to shoulder the weight of those social work cases

My urban public school had differentiated learning. Some kids got picked on by kids who shared the school if not the same classrooms, but in the classroom the advanced kids were not burdened by slower learners or dicipline cases. The mainstream tracts were also appropriately paced for the abilities of the students, and kids who bahaved appropriately and could handle the work were slotted according to their abilities.

[Anonymous]

08:30 -- Bravo.

[Anonymous]

Testing in is segregation by another name. I think that schools need to cater to the neighborhood population, whatever that may be, both advanced learners and not. Otherwise, we're going to be in the absurd situation (like in NYC) where you have to pay for a test prep coach for your FOUR YEAR OLD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Testing in is segregation by another name. I think that schools need to cater to the neighborhood population, whatever that may be, both advanced learners and not. Otherwise, we're going to be in the absurd situation (like in NYC) where you have to pay for a test prep coach for your FOUR YEAR OLD.

You don't have to pay for the test prep -it's no longer hard to come by for free.

Even paying for test prep doesn't sound nearly as bad to me as the absurd situation we're in, where the city's population is 40% white while the public high school population is 2% white. At least NYC supports a public school population that looks something like city demographics right through 12th grade. I attended Stuyvesant and it wasn't a segregated school - we had all kinds of kids, all kinds of kids coming out of full-fledged gifted and talented ES and MS programs. Most of the kids weren't white, they were Asian, from low-income or lower-middle-class backgrounds. They worked their tales off, supported by education hungry families, and deserved to be there.

As long as DC insists on tossing the most academic kids into classes with the least academic kids right through middle school, forget it. Most of those who can will continue to vote with their feet. Even open enrollment AP classes at SWW,Wilson, Banneker etc. don't work very well. Few of those kids get into top colleges mainly because their SAT and AP test scores are too low, and they don't take enough honors classes.

[Anonymous]

DC doesn't have as large a population as NYC and the fact of the matter is, "testing-in" will have the end result of segregation by race and socio-economic status: well off mostly whites in "gifted" and poor AA in regular classes. Everyone knows this. So keep harping about it and save up for private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is Brent the best school ON Capitol Hill?

Many argue that Two Rivers is in fact the best school on Capitol Hill. But I don't see that remaining true. David Brooks summed up why in this NYTimes piece the other day:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120711/WIRE/120719920/1070/OPINION?Title=BROOKS-No-easy-choices-as-American-schism-widens

Two Rivers has higher test scores than Brent for now because it has had more high-SES kids in testing grades, period. It doesn't hurt that administrators and teachers do a good job there, but soon, Brent's test scores will be higher simply because the school will have a greater percentage of upper-middle-class kids from 3rd grade up. Pretending that a charter thrives because of fine teaching is to buy into a false dogma- all you need for kids to do well are great teachers. It seems what you really need are great fathers and good jobs for parents, a comparative rarity for urban AA kids in this country.

This is why I hate questions like this. Two Rivers, the school where a teacher tied up a 2nd grader and didn't get fired? Better you say because their test scores are higher, maybe not. Two Rivers whose kids when they go to other schools find that you know maybe a spelling test wouldn't have been so bad. There are many there or who have left because they aren't happy with the administration.

I've seen a lot of posts saying Brent's early ed. programs don't compare to Peabody. I don't agree. Brent has an amazing group of early ed. teachers who have done a great job.


Best comes down to opinion.