Will this finally get DCPS to create magnet schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Magnet schools will not attract white families to send their children to majority black schools. It makes them feel uncomfortable and we all know that if the school is majority black it must not be a safe environment. What will make them send their children there would be enough white students attending the school so that the families would not feel like a minority. Wilson is a good example of this.

Oh, tell me more...Is Shepherd unsafe? The color of one's skin does NOT make people unsafe, you bigot. Poverty and injustice are the problems. I hope you don't speak like this around your children.

+1. I have never heard of discipline or behavior problems at Banneker. Ever. But have at Wilson - almost every week. You would think an all black magnet would be the safest haven for your snowflake. You guys are missing out. Shhhh.

[Anonymous]

Again, another honest parents.. Whites will not send their children to any school where they are not going to be in the majority. Enough of this nonsense about PARCC criteria and diversity. The solution is to create great schools in all communities and maintain DISCIPLINE and then let the chips fall where they may. Short history lesson, during segregation, blacks schools and students were proficient without testing. The standard for performance was created by a desire to be better. What happened, - DESEGREGATION AND THE NOTION THAT BLACK KIDS HAD TO GO TO SCHOOL WITH WHITES IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Again, another honest parents.. Whites will not send their children to any school where they are not going to be in the majority. Enough of this nonsense about PARCC criteria and diversity. The solution is to create great schools in all communities and maintain DISCIPLINE and then let the chips fall where they may. Short history lesson, during segregation, blacks schools and students were proficient without testing. The standard for performance was created by a desire to be better. What happened, - DESEGREGATION AND THE NOTION THAT BLACK KIDS HAD TO GO TO SCHOOL WITH WHITES IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE.

Your "honesty" doesn't jive with the facts at my kids school, which is about 10% white. More than 50% black, more than 30% Hispanic.

[Anonymous]

PPs are trying to solve 2 different problem.

If you want to address the DCPS diversity issue -- you can chip away at it by creating magnets for middle or elementary school with some sort of SWW/Banneker type admission criteria (multiple criteria considered). It would be a high performing school but not necessarily a FCPS AAP or MCPS HGC environment.

Other PPs simply want a program for gifted or very high achieving students. If that's the goal, then it should be created without worrying about the ethnicity of the student body.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Again, another honest parents.. Whites will not send their children to any school where they are not going to be in the majority. Enough of this nonsense about PARCC criteria and diversity. The solution is to create great schools in all communities and maintain DISCIPLINE and then let the chips fall where they may. Short history lesson, during segregation, blacks schools and students were proficient without testing. The standard for performance was created by a desire to be better. What happened, - DESEGREGATION AND THE NOTION THAT BLACK KIDS HAD TO GO TO SCHOOL WITH WHITES IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE.

Um ok, then those white parents who don't move to NW DC need to move themselves to all-white neighborhoods. What's your proposition exactly, that DCPS set out to create majority white charters? Do you even listen to yourself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PPs are trying to solve 2 different problem.

If you want to address the DCPS diversity issue -- you can chip away at it by creating magnets for middle or elementary school with some sort of SWW/Banneker type admission criteria (multiple criteria considered). It would be a high performing school but not necessarily a FCPS AAP or MCPS HGC environment.

Other PPs simply want a program for gifted or very high achieving students. If that's the goal, then it should be created without worrying about the ethnicity of the student body.

But you can't have a fair gifted program unless it takes SES factors into account, so you do have to worry about ethnicity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Again, another honest parents.. Whites will not send their children to any school where they are not going to be in the majority. Enough of this nonsense about PARCC criteria and diversity. The solution is to create great schools in all communities and maintain DISCIPLINE and then let the chips fall where they may. Short history lesson, during segregation, blacks schools and students were proficient without testing. The standard for performance was created by a desire to be better. What happened, - DESEGREGATION AND THE NOTION THAT BLACK KIDS HAD TO GO TO SCHOOL WITH WHITES IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE.

I don't think this is always true. I think many people of any race/ethnicity don't want their kids to be the "lonely only," but are more comfortable with them being one of several kids of their background in a classroom or cohort. For example, there are IB and OOB white families at Shepherd, despite it being 80% AA overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Magnet programs alone will not attract diversity. Any parent with a brain, will not send their child to a school or program without observing the behavioral of children. In most DC Public Schools the dominant cultural will prevail. Unfortunately, and most of the schools have no discipline.

it will, actually, have an opposite result. just look at MCPS and FXX magnets - mostly Asian/white kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PPs are trying to solve 2 different problem.

If you want to address the DCPS diversity issue -- you can chip away at it by creating magnets for middle or elementary school with some sort of SWW/Banneker type admission criteria (multiple criteria considered). It would be a high performing school but not necessarily a FCPS AAP or MCPS HGC environment.

Other PPs simply want a program for gifted or very high achieving students. If that's the goal, then it should be created without worrying about the ethnicity of the student body.

But you can't have a fair gifted program unless it takes SES factors into account, so you do have to worry about ethnicity.

I totally agree. I just think that the PP complaining about the SWW process/criteria and, to a lesser extent, the OP shouldn't latch onto a study about segregation in DC schools as the reason why "DCPS should finally create magnet schools."

FWIW Magnets also come in all forms -- not just or gifted / advanced students. You could create an elementary or middle school art or music magnet, one for STEM, etc. You could also make some city-wide language immersion schools with dual lotteries for entry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PPs are trying to solve 2 different problem.

If you want to address the DCPS diversity issue -- you can chip away at it by creating magnets for middle or elementary school with some sort of SWW/Banneker type admission criteria (multiple criteria considered). It would be a high performing school but not necessarily a FCPS AAP or MCPS HGC environment.

Other PPs simply want a program for gifted or very high achieving students. If that's the goal, then it should be created without worrying about the ethnicity of the student body.

But you can't have a fair gifted program unless it takes SES factors into account, so you do have to worry about ethnicity.

I totally agree. I just think that the PP complaining about the SWW process/criteria and, to a lesser extent, the OP shouldn't latch onto a study about segregation in DC schools as the reason why "DCPS should finally create magnet schools."

FWIW Magnets also come in all forms -- not just or gifted / advanced students. You could create an elementary or middle school art or music magnet, one for STEM, etc. You could also make some city-wide language immersion schools with dual lotteries for entry.

True but it will cost a lot of money to set-up and run multiple programs. Also, DCPS may not be able to fill the programs to full capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Again, another honest parents.. Whites will not send their children to any school where they are not going to be in the majority. Enough of this nonsense about PARCC criteria and diversity. The solution is to create great schools in all communities and maintain DISCIPLINE and then let the chips fall where they may. Short history lesson, during segregation, blacks schools and students were proficient without testing. The standard for performance was created by a desire to be better. What happened, - DESEGREGATION AND THE NOTION THAT BLACK KIDS HAD TO GO TO SCHOOL WITH WHITES IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE

The fact that AAs as a whole performed better in schools during segregation had a lot to do with upper middle class AA kids going to school with poor AA KIDS, helping to raise the tide. There were no private schools to go to. Also, the teachers had high standards because they too were AA and had a lot to prove to white society..."We are just as good if not better" mentality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Magnet programs alone will not attract diversity. Any parent with a brain, will not send their child to a school or program without observing the behavioral of children. In most DC Public Schools the dominant cultural will prevail. Unfortunately, and most of the schools have no discipline.

it will, actually, have an opposite result. just look at MCPS and FXX magnets - mostly Asian/white kids.

Magnets didn't create this...past white flight did. The AA population isn't as large in MCPS and FCPS as it is in DC.

[Anonymous]

98% of 3rd graders scored below a 5 on PARCC.

I think DC needs to direct its resources to serve the majority of its students, not the outliers. Expand SEM to all schools, but don't create magnets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, most people I know in DC read the magnet posts from VA and MD with horror. We don't want our kids treated that way.

Treated what way? I went to a magnet school in MCPS and don't have any idea what you could be talking about. (Though I don't read the VA/MD boards now.)

The prepping, testing, measuring and comparing IQs, in or out, bussing, bullying and bashing ... those threads are horrid.

FWIW, DH and I both were in such programs too, and we are more than happy with how our DCPS schools handle our kids advanced needs. I know not all schools do this well, but they could if they followed the model of the schools who are doing it well. DCPS knows how, they just need to implement it everywhere.

Grade level of your children please? Advanced needs easy to address in elementary. In DCPS even on-grade level instruction difficult to come by in most middle schools. So your kids are either in elementary school or else a handful of middle or high schools. THAT is not a solution for the whole city

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Magnet schools will not attract white families to send their children to majority black schools. It makes them feel uncomfortable and we all know that if the school is majority black it must not be a safe environment. What will make them send their children there would be enough white students attending the school so that the families would not feel like a minority. Wilson is a good example of this.

I'm not clear on which definition of a magnet school was the author using, or PPs are using, are you? A test-in magnet? A magnet magnet formed around a curricular theme (music, art, STEM etc.) students lottery into?

Pretty clearly, without test-in magnets, which both DCPS and DCPS continue to resist below HS, most high SES families outside Upper NW will bail somewhere between K and 10th grade, regardless of race. We can also only get so far without the strong affirmative action-based admissions at the best HS test-in program - Walls.