what have Hill parents demanded of middle schools?
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Anonymous
| This is so much simpler than it seems. It's a collective action problem. If everyone sent their kids to the local middle school, then the school would reflect the economic and social diversity of the community. Just do it. |
Anonymous
| Like lemmings off a cliff. |
Anonymous
| Can parents really "clean house" and get teachers fired? Is that a realistic expectation for the results of parent involvement? I think parents are at least somewhat dependent on having a like minded administrator. I really liked The suggestion that principals be judged,at least in part, on in bounds enrollment--with address verification auditing, of course. |
Anonymous
Why would you assume that? I attended Deal in the early 90s, but I knew smart, bright kids who commuted from all over the city to attend Jefferson. They went on to SWW, Wilson, Banneker and even some of the top private schools. Like I said, it was one of the city's better middle schools. So what changed that it is no longer considered a viable option? |
Anonymous
| My understanding it that it is now much more difficult under IMPACT to get rid of a teacher as long as students are showing the requisite progression, which can be a function of a number of factors including changing demographics. Rhee and her cadre of new principals had no tolerance for the old guard of teachers mired in a culture of social promotion. |
Anonymous
Amidon and Thomson? |
Anonymous
The situation with Jefferson was that it had a super dynamic hard ass principal who for many years ran a separate honors program there in math and sciences. Recruited the best students from around the city and set them up in a tracked honors program that was entirely separate from the rest of the school. Then these great students were graduates on to Wilson High School. Once this principal left and tracking like this fell out of favor, Jefferson lost its luster. If a school is not able to attract a good concentration of excellent students either through its boundary ( Deal ) or a de facto honors magnet program ( Jefferson and Hardy of the past ), it has little hope of being seen as a good school. This says to me that the idea of simply tossing a few high performing students in with large numbers of academically struggling kids is never going to benefit either group. |
Anonymous
| ^^ interesting, thanks for the explanation pp. |
Anonymous
| Which of the other middle schools were considered "one of the better"? I have heard from several friends that many NW families avoided even Deal in the 80s and early 90s. |
Anonymous
Seriously, how dare folks behave as if they're entitled to a high-quality public education for their children! |
Anonymous
AAARRRRGHHH! But there IS no one "local middle school" for Capitol Hill! There are 3 schools that serve the area and those 3 schools are packed with OOB kids. If Stuart-Hobson were limited to only Capitol Hill residential kids (best of the 3 since is is most centrally located), then, sure, it would be easy for Stuart-Hobson to reflect the Capitol Hill community. Brent feeds into TWO capitol hill middle schools and neither are S-H, even though S-H is closest to Brent. IT's NOT a collective action problem-- it's DCPS having a screwed up feeder system that undermines any collective action by the parents. |
Anonymous
Do you mean before or after desegregation? If after, I'd imagine it has a lot to do with increased expectations. |
Anonymous
| I hope the boundary conversation includes breaking up the cluster middle school lock on Stuart Hobson. |
Anonymous
I am not a fan of either the Cluster model in general or specifically how it has been carried out on the Hill. But the Cluster doesn't have a lock on Hobson when JO Wilson and Ludlow Taylor also feed into Hobson. it is not just Watkins alone. What the Cluster has is a disproportionate say in how things will happen in Ward Six due to its immense size. |
Anonymous
| Not just its immense size but also the political influence of the middle class AA families who rely on Stuart Hobson as their go to middle school |