test-in dcps middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pp^^ sorry but you are very much out of touch with the rest of your city. Deal could ONLY happen because of its wealthy, well-educated inboundary population and then the addition of Dr. Kim and the IB MYP program. And yes, we undertand that the neighborhood was not embracing Deal until recently. but the base of a highly educated inboundary population along with functional feeder schools is THE key to whatwvwr happened at Deal. This can't be ignored when you start offering your opinion on what should happen in the rest of the city.

There is no other school ( Hardy maybe? ) that shares this critical element. Stuart Hobson has no real boundary population ( it is tiny ) and relies on a feeder system is somewhat uneven.

This is not true. Dr. Kim didn't come after wealthy, well-educated folks embraced Deal, she came before. Can we stop ignoring the fact that there are some successful schools here that are not all high SES - hello, Banneker anyone (60% free and reduced lunch). It's not high SES alone. Obviously it's not widespread in DC but I get really sick of folks just pinning the success ALL on high SES. It cannot be replicated so can we find other ideas that are actually doable and make sense for DC?

[Anonymous]

Read more carefully. You are proving my point. Yes, we know that the deal neighborhood was not using deal in big numbers until after dr.kim. But the fact that the school is located in a wealthy, well-educated neighborhood--with successful feeder elementaries--allowed the school to build on its momentum by having automatic entry for large numbers of successful students coming from a) the neighborhood and b) the strong feeder elementary schools.

That won't work in other parts of the city where a neighborhood school gets a great principal, great curriculum but the large numbers of inboundary students have academic and social issues and the feeder elementary schools are failing to teach the basic academics to a 6th grade level.

Banneker works without the neighborhood because it is a selective admissions school that lets in the best, brightest and most motivated regardless of SES. The city outside of upper northwest maybe needs more of that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp^^ sorry but you are very much out of touch with the rest of your city. Deal could ONLY happen because of its wealthy, well-educated inboundary population and then the addition of Dr. Kim and the IB MYP program. And yes, we undertand that the neighborhood was not embracing Deal until recently. but the base of a highly educated inboundary population along with functional feeder schools is THE key to whatwvwr happened at Deal. This can't be ignored when you start offering your opinion on what should happen in the rest of the city.

There is no other school ( Hardy maybe? ) that shares this critical element. Stuart Hobson has no real boundary population ( it is tiny ) and relies on a feeder system is somewhat uneven.

This is not true. Dr. Kim didn't come after wealthy, well-educated folks embraced Deal, she came before. Can we stop ignoring the fact that there are some successful schools here that are not all high SES - hello, Banneker anyone (60% free and reduced lunch). It's not high SES alone. Obviously it's not widespread in DC but I get really sick of folks just pinning the success ALL on high SES. It cannot be replicated so can we find other ideas that are actually doable and make sense for DC?

given the changing demographics of the neighborhoods I don't see why the Deal model is not replicable for Hardy, FS@SWW and ... I know it would be a Massive turn around ... but Cardozo, given how the gentrified a of Logan, Colombia Heights, Bloomingdale and le droit park are spawning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While it might skew high-SES, there will also be plenty of low-SES kids who can and will make the cut. So why deny the low-SES kids the opportunity also? Seems like cutting your own nose off to spite your face.

And also, how would a test in school get a bigger slice? There's no inherent greater cost in running a test-in school - and in fact potentially LESS as the test-in group will probably also have less overhead in terms of disciplinary issues, special needs, et cetera - the areas that do rack up significant costs.

But what if there weren't? Do you think the powers that be in DC would let this happen? DC has the largest black/white performance gap of any place in the nation based on many different tests. Any reasonably difficult test would skew very heavily white.

Then isn't this blatant discrimination against whites?

It's "hold the whites back - oh, and by the way, the bright blacks must suffer along with them" - typical DC mentality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you could also consider a strong curriculum in lieu of test in situations. Like the IB middle years for middle school. Everybody would get a chance but maybe not all would want to do it in the end.

Wouldn't work as it would just get clogged up by kids who aren't up to par for a strong curriculum, along with a bunch of whiny parents bitching about said strong curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Melissa Kim did research on creating high quality school programming for an ethnically and SES diverse group of students. She did this because this is what she was set on building from day one. She did not inherit a school that was diverse in this way. Deal was a very different school. If it could be done for Deal, it could be done for SH, FS, Hardy, and Cardozo. Maybe not all at once, but it can be done. There are enough strong ES now scattered around DC that it could create a stronger feeder system for different middle schools in the city.

[Anonymous]

"Scattered" is the key word here. It will not work if large numbers of students are arriving at the school in 6th grade who are not reading and doing math on grade level. I mean it will work as a school for those students and depending on the quality, it would be able to move them ahead past illiteracy.

But it will not keep the strong students in the system and become a strong enrollment draw for DCPS until it becomes a place where most of the students are doing ok academically when they begin 6th grade. That is the Deal secret sauce-along with the expertise of Melissa Kim.

[Anonymous]

It holds whites back, please it ain't like they are running so far ahead of the other races. Stop making it such a black and white issue for progress and just a black issue for regress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read more carefully. You are proving my point. Yes, we know that the deal neighborhood was not using deal in big numbers until after dr.kim. But the fact that the school is located in a wealthy, well-educated neighborhood--with successful feeder elementaries--allowed the school to build on its momentum by having automatic entry for large numbers of successful students coming from a) the neighborhood and b) the strong feeder elementary schools.

That won't work in other parts of the city where a neighborhood school gets a great principal, great curriculum but the large numbers of inboundary students have academic and social issues and the feeder elementary schools are failing to teach the basic academics to a 6th grade level.

Banneker works without the neighborhood because it is a selective admissions school that lets in the best, brightest and most motivated regardless of SES. The city outside of upper northwest maybe needs more of that

If Deal was turned around then what is the argument for a test-in only middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:good luck testing into Stuyvessant if you haven't either come from the "right" middle school or the right "cram school" for prep

Stuyvesant graduate here...no fancy feeder school or private school. Just regular old PS 189 - and many other like me in our graduating class. We did look at old tests for prep at my public school but that's really it. My niece and nephew are still in NY and they also just went to regular public schools and both are at magnets.

As a DC parent, I am baffled by why we can't just have some magnet schools like that in DC. I know parent input and tutoring skew the balance toward those with means or will.... but that's life in general with anything competitive. Quality public education in DC is so much luck and chance and charter school pixie dust....oi!

There are lots of magnets. Stuyvesant is brutally competitive, even more so than when any adult on this board would be discussing 20-30+ years of earlier admission patterns. It's not all means. in many cases it's motivation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this is the thing--if you did some testing or competitive application at the end of elementary school there would still be some kids who would be eligible to go even from the worst schools (esp. if you did a broad cutoff and then lotteried after that or did top 5% of students from each school as an alternative). waiting til high school makes it impossible for those children.

-signed, person from asian country where poor parents were able to go to great schools and college because of testing

Yes testing, constant testing is part of the Asian system, but very few parents, white or black would tolerate what Asian parents put there kids through. Maybe the parents at Basis. Personally after reading Amanda Riply's book I can see why it makes sense to do that level of rigorous testing, but I can't imagine it happening. Can you imagine a situation where every test has the grades ranked for each child with their name in public? Parents could not cope with the humiliation of that failure. First we would need to stop giving trophies for just playing and saying good job for everything. Too big a challenge. No matter what the issue is the weak elementrys, you can do another high functioning Deal if you have strong elementary schools. Some of the issue is poverty, but it is also getting richer more focused curriculum.

you've got that model wrong. It's not all winners and losers. Even with rankings, there are clear performance baselines in these testing regimes. Many parents will be fine with their kids in the middle or bottom of a pack where most of the children succeed because they understand the material. If none succeed, who cares if about being on top?

[Anonymous]

DCUM for the millionth time, DCPS has several really good test in high schools (Banneker and Mckinley) that the majority of you won't send your children to because god forbid your kid be the only white kid in the room.

Let's be real. You want test in and high performing but you always want majority white too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM for the millionth time, DCPS has several really good test in high schools (Banneker and Mckinley) that the majority of you won't send your children to because god forbid your kid be the only white kid in the room.

Let's be real. You want test in and high performing but you always want majority white too.

There is a big difference between not wanting your child to be a lonely only and wanting your child to be part of a majority. Most parents of any race/ethnicity do not want their children to be the onlies in a school. Black, white, Indian, Middle Eastern, .... whatever. There have been numerous posts on the Virginia schools site of AA parents looking for the highest AA population in certain areas, same for Indian and others. However IME, most parents do not mind if their child is not part of a majority group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM for the millionth time, DCPS has several really good test in high schools (Banneker and Mckinley) that the majority of you won't send your children to because god forbid your kid be the only white kid in the room.

Let's be real. You want test in and high performing but you always want majority white too.

Wilson isn't majority white. Deal isn't majority white. Walls isn't majority white. You have no idea what you're talking about.

[Anonymous]

Nobody wants a majority white school. Nobody. Now shove off.