S/o next great white hope: Breakthrough Montessori

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. You're very mean.

New poster here.
Nope, OP is not mean, just honest.
Please, everyone, get real.
Charters are there for people who feel they need to avoid their neighborhood dcps schools. State the truth. Really, if you lived next door to a JKLM you wouldn't give a rat ass about a "Green World"or for your child to be in a montessori setting with kids of multiple ages in the same class. Be honest with yourself at least .

We lived inbounds for a JKLM and still go to a charter. I really think you don't know what you are talking about.

there are very, very few of you though. This is a fact that has remained constant for the past decade.

The only statistically significant exception to this is that not-seriously-wealthy parents of multiple children who are inbound for Key or Mann do, indeed, send kids to BASIS and Latin instead of Hardy.

But very, very, very few parents skip Murch, Mann, and Janney for Flavor of the Month elementary grade charters and schlep cross-town to do so.

two in this tiny thread and another at my school. I imagine we are 10% of charters that offer something a good neighborhood school can't (Montessori, immersion, experiential with a soecial ed focus). More would be there except for the commute. If a Montessori charter opened in ward 3, it would be full of JKLM parents. Not everyone wants a "good" traditional school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. You're very mean.

New poster here.
Nope, OP is not mean, just honest.
Please, everyone, get real.
Charters are there for people who feel they need to avoid their neighborhood dcps schools. State the truth. Really, if you lived next door to a JKLM you wouldn't give a rat ass about a "Green World"or for your child to be in a montessori setting with kids of multiple ages in the same class. Be honest with yourself at least .

We lived inbounds for a JKLM and still go to a charter. I really think you don't know what you are talking about.

there are very, very few of you though. This is a fact that has remained constant for the past decade.

The only statistically significant exception to this is that not-seriously-wealthy parents of multiple children who are inbound for Key or Mann do, indeed, send kids to BASIS and Latin instead of Hardy.

But very, very, very few parents skip Murch, Mann, and Janney for Flavor of the Month elementary grade charters and schlep cross-town to do so.

And there are more parents at these schools who may have just picked flavor of the month but then got hooked on the value of Montessori of bilingualism and who didn't move to a neighborhood with a good IB school as expected when their kid hit PK4 or K. They also now don't want a good neighborhood school

two in this tiny thread and another at my school. I imagine we are 10% of charters that offer something a good neighborhood school can't (Montessori, immersion, experiential with a soecial ed focus). More would be there except for the commute. If a Montessori charter opened in ward 3, it would be full of JKLM parents. Not everyone wants a "good" traditional school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And the award for missing the point goes to PP!

I think multiple PPs have been missing the point.

The original point was that the charter application said "we want to serve underserved children", but the actions scream "we are going to open a gentrifier catnip school (GCS) in the central gentrification district".

The least they could have done was open the GCN school in underserved children district to promote more mixing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And the award for missing the point goes to PP!

No. Addressing the point that PP was threatening to leave the District for burbs if it wasn't for charters, and that would make the rest of the left-behinds so sad. The left-behinds would be so sad 'cause they wouldn't have the tax base of the defectors. Like in the 1980s.

1. the departed will be immediately replaced by childless people who contribute just as much tax base
2. the District has always been home to affluent parents, even in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, before PP arrived with all of his fancy taxable income.
3. his fancy taxable income isn't all that. It's only in the aggregate that it means anything
4. if the aggregate left for Vienna because no charter schools, see #1.

It's always been this way in DC, this cycle. The differential now is due to increase in numbers, not some sea-change of school-attendance philosophy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And the award for missing the point goes to PP!

No. Addressing the point that PP was threatening to leave the District for burbs if it wasn't for charters, and that would make the rest of the left-behinds so sad. The left-behinds would be so sad 'cause they wouldn't have the tax base of the defectors. Like in the 1980s.

1. the departed will be immediately replaced by childless people who contribute just as much tax base
2. the District has always been home to affluent parents, even in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, before PP arrived with all of his fancy taxable income.
3. his fancy taxable income isn't all that. It's only in the aggregate that it means anything
4. if the aggregate left for Vienna because no charter schools, see #1.

It's always been this way in DC, this cycle. The differential now is due to increase in numbers, not some sea-change of school-attendance philosophy

+1

[Anonymous]

We're IB for a well-regarded Ward 6 school but are planning on moving if we get into Breakthrough or one of the other Montessori charters (which we ranked 1, 2, 3). I'm sure our DD would do just fine at our IB school or one of the other DCPS schools nearby (many of which we did rank lower down on our list) but I just think she'd do even better in Montessori. We didn't apply for any immersion programs, etc. But I visited a "Tools of the Mind" program in a local DCPS school and I just found it to be way more academic than I think is developmentally appropriate for a 3 year old (e.g. the tour guides boasting that even the PK3s were writing their play plans by the end of the year, not even just drawing pictures anymore). I'm very grateful for all the options DC offers for ECE, and obviously TotM is much much better for young brains than no PK or low-quality care, but at the same time I think we can still do better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And the award for missing the point goes to PP!

No. Addressing the point that PP was threatening to leave the District for burbs if it wasn't for charters, and that would make the rest of the left-behinds so sad. The left-behinds would be so sad 'cause they wouldn't have the tax base of the defectors. Like in the 1980s.

1. the departed will be immediately replaced by childless people who contribute just as much tax base
2. the District has always been home to affluent parents, even in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, before PP arrived with all of his fancy taxable income.
3. his fancy taxable income isn't all that. It's only in the aggregate that it means anything
4. if the aggregate left for Vienna because no charter schools, see #1.

It's always been this way in DC, this cycle. The differential now is due to increase in numbers, not some sea-change of school-attendance philosophy

No, many neighborhoods would not attract childless couples nor would they attract families able to pay private school tuition and huge mortgages. Housing prices would simply be less in Brookland, Petworth, eckington, edgewood, 16th street heights etc. and that would mean a smaller tax base. The huge housing cost increases in much of the gentrifying city was absolutely fueled by families who into charters or who hoped to. Sure logan circle or U street or the hill east or Trinidad doesn't need us for houses and thsu taxable income to skyrocket, but many other places in the city do. Without charters, brookland houses would go for 450,000- 500,000 tops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The 2014 crop didn't have much for the woe-is-me-"I live in the District but can't educate my kids with those of my neighbors but man I better not pay tuition" crowd. Washington Global, once promising to set up shop in underprivileged territory finds a home at L'Enfant Plaza and looks more a place to send your kid after Brent than anything.

The 2015 crop promises a breakthrough with Breakthrough Montessori, for whom the primary breakthrough will be the realization by some parents newly trying to figure out the lottery that as a new school it's not likely to be nearly full of children of "longtime DC residents." The rest of the school offerings appear to be oriented to whoever lives in "Wards 7 and 8." (Srsly, who are those people?)

Suddenly it will break on to everyone's lists in Wards 1, 4, and 5 and we will all avow a deep and abiding interest in a fully implemented model Montessori school, ranking it right behind dual language and environmental protection and artsy creativity as must-haves for a child's education, never mind whatever the kid watches on the iPad at home. Just you watch.

Here's a breakthrough: how about no more schools with themes that that are a fig leaf for avoidance of DCPS and some uplift and integration through community participation instead?

#TakingDrugsonEasterMonday

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And the award for missing the point goes to PP!

No. Addressing the point that PP was threatening to leave the District for burbs if it wasn't for charters, and that would make the rest of the left-behinds so sad. The left-behinds would be so sad 'cause they wouldn't have the tax base of the defectors. Like in the 1980s.

1. the departed will be immediately replaced by childless people who contribute just as much tax base
2. the District has always been home to affluent parents, even in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, before PP arrived with all of his fancy taxable income.
3. his fancy taxable income isn't all that. It's only in the aggregate that it means anything
4. if the aggregate left for Vienna because no charter schools, see #1.

It's always been this way in DC, this cycle. The differential now is due to increase in numbers, not some sea-change of school-attendance philosophy

No, many neighborhoods would not attract childless couples nor would they attract families able to pay private school tuition and huge mortgages. Housing prices would simply be less in Brookland, Petworth, eckington, edgewood, 16th street heights etc. and that would mean a smaller tax base. The huge housing cost increases in much of the gentrifying city was absolutely fueled by families who into charters or who hoped to. Sure logan circle or U street or the hill east or Trinidad doesn't need us for houses and thsu taxable income to skyrocket, but many other places in the city do. Without charters, brookland houses would go for 450,000- 500,000 tops.

though I will add that the city doesn't care about us (middle class families in charters who are driving up house prices in Brookland by 300,000 or so) because we just don't have the numbers money-wise or vote-wise to matter. So 1.2.3.4. poster is still more or less right. Though the city does like all the developer cash they get from the developers gentrifying our neighborhood. . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're IB for a well-regarded Ward 6 school but are planning on moving if we get into Breakthrough or one of the other Montessori charters (which we ranked 1, 2, 3). I'm sure our DD would do just fine at our IB school or one of the other DCPS schools nearby (many of which we did rank lower down on our list) but I just think she'd do even better in Montessori. We didn't apply for any immersion programs, etc. But I visited a "Tools of the Mind" program in a local DCPS school and I just found it to be way more academic than I think is developmentally appropriate for a 3 year old (e.g. the tour guides boasting that even the PK3s were writing their play plans by the end of the year, not even just drawing pictures anymore). I'm very grateful for all the options DC offers for ECE, and obviously TotM is much much better for young brains than no PK or low-quality care, but at the same time I think we can still do better.

You were given a poor description of Tools. The kids are not actually writing plans.

[Anonymous]

Given the change in demographics in the city, I have no problem with the Charter movement, nor the new programs DCPS is offering.

Signed, AA native Washingtonian

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Here's a breakthrough: how about no more schools with themes that that are a fig leaf for avoidance of DCPS and some uplift and integration through community participation instead?

Here's a question. How old are your children? With this mentality, not yet born, I hope. If you've got 15 or 20 years to quest for the "uplift and integration through community participation" you'll need to make Jefferson Academy anywhere near as desirable as Deal for neighborhood residents across the socioeconomic spectrum, go for it. We'll applaud you as we scrimp to cover college tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And the award for missing the point goes to PP!

I think multiple PPs have been missing the point.

The original point was that the charter application said "we want to serve underserved children", but the actions scream "we are going to open a gentrifier catnip school (GCS) in the central gentrification district".

The least they could have done was open the GCN school in underserved children district to promote more mixing.

+1 they totally BSed their way through the charter application process.

[Anonymous]

It's strange when people say that Montessori school = white students. Shining stars has more black and Latinos than white. Lee is pretty much 50/50 and has AA families driving all the way from ward 7 and 8.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's strange when people say that Montessori school = white students. Shining stars has more black and Latinos than white. Lee is pretty much 50/50 and has AA families driving all the way from ward 7 and 8.

OP thought s/he was cute with the great white hope reference.

Shining Stars and Lee have relatively low % of low income students, 28% and 20%. The model appears to appeal to a certain demographic.