DCPS considering moving Hardy to MacArthur Blvd, current Hardy would become a HS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you move the current hardy ms to the old GDS - the commute for Eaton families will be very hard. You are going to redistribute some of janney to new Hardy. There are no bus options currently in play and metro will need to add lines.

By keeping hardy where it is - and opening a new high school - give kids who are in hardy and deal the option of where they want to enroll.

The gds location is hard to get to - and the neighborhood is not ready for an influx of teens

I don’t understand your last line - the neighborhood is not ready for an influx of teens. How does a neighborhood prepare for an influx of teens? Is any neighborhood ready for it or is it just foisted on a neighborhood and they deal with it?

[Anonymous]

I believe it’s like in prison. Grandma on MacArthur Blvd has to go punch the biggest teen on the nose to show her who’s boss.

[Anonymous]

This would make Hardy way harder to get to from anywhere via Metro right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only way DCPS can "force" people to go to other high schools is by economically gerrymandering a feeder pattern that is comprised of more than 80% households at or over median income for the DMV---which, for a family of 4--- is $126,000. This could actually be done in Capitol Hill, and, perhaps in upper NW to Roosevelt.

Then ensure that there are honors classes which have prerequisites to enrollment---none of this "honors for all" or "AP for everyone" BS. Adopt discipline policies that will remove disruptive children from the classroom and put them in in-school suspension or --for kids who are violent---transferring them out to a school designed to treat children who are struggling with those behaviors.

But none of those things will happen because the "woke" progressives who run education in this city will deem it "inequitable". The city could have created a very high performing middle school on the Hill in the last boundary redraw but instead chose not to---thus the continuous outflow of Hill kids to charters.

Thus we have multi-million dollar fully renovated high schools in this city (Dunbar, Coolidge, Cardozo) at substantial under capacity, with the middle and upper middle class parents of the city clamoring to be fed to Ward 3, gaming the system to get fed to Ward 3 OOB, or else directing their energies to a few charters. And if those options don't work out, those parents decamp to other jurisdictions or go private.

The failure to understand that parents (regardless of race or income) who care about their kids education will vote with their feet has never sunk in with the DCPS bureaucracy. Nor, apparently, has it sunk in with the Council.

I’m waiting for someone to demonstrate actual bad outcomes from these policies. Have outcomes for the kids who would have been tracked to honors in the old system changed? Are they suddenly doing worse on PARCC, AP tests, SATs? I haven’t seen or heard any evidence of that; instead, it’s a lot of complaining about the policy without providing any hard evidence that it’s had actual negative impact.

[Anonymous]

obviously, the Honors for All and AP for all or whateverz didn't result in white children and their assimilated friends being segregated into hermetically sealed cohorts, so I'm not going to get what I want out of your high school for my preschooler. Byeeee we're going to St. Albans, TJ or Poolesville unless you give me my pure pure tracking!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s needed is to get students from Wilson into other existing high schools. DCPS has plenty of real estate, just not the programming.

Meanwhile, try to get a bus to old GDS from anywhere but McArthur Blvd. It would mean middle school students could only get there by there parent’s driving, and HS students could only get there by driving themselves.

Which is why buying the building, without thinking about how it would be used, was such a waste of money.

Can they add a bus line? I mean, why not? Bus lines change all the time. Hardy would be a beautiful HS IMO. Have not seen old GDS up close - my concern is it prob needs some major investment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe it’s like in prison. Grandma on MacArthur Blvd has to go punch the biggest teen on the nose to show her who’s boss.

Too funny!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only way DCPS can "force" people to go to other high schools is by economically gerrymandering a feeder pattern that is comprised of more than 80% households at or over median income for the DMV---which, for a family of 4--- is $126,000. This could actually be done in Capitol Hill, and, perhaps in upper NW to Roosevelt.

Then ensure that there are honors classes which have prerequisites to enrollment---none of this "honors for all" or "AP for everyone" BS. Adopt discipline policies that will remove disruptive children from the classroom and put them in in-school suspension or --for kids who are violent---transferring them out to a school designed to treat children who are struggling with those behaviors.

But none of those things will happen because the "woke" progressives who run education in this city will deem it "inequitable". The city could have created a very high performing middle school on the Hill in the last boundary redraw but instead chose not to---thus the continuous outflow of Hill kids to charters.

Thus we have multi-million dollar fully renovated high schools in this city (Dunbar, Coolidge, Cardozo) at substantial under capacity, with the middle and upper middle class parents of the city clamoring to be fed to Ward 3, gaming the system to get fed to Ward 3 OOB, or else directing their energies to a few charters. And if those options don't work out, those parents decamp to other jurisdictions or go private.

The failure to understand that parents (regardless of race or income) who care about their kids education will vote with their feet has never sunk in with the DCPS bureaucracy. Nor, apparently, has it sunk in with the Council.

I’m waiting for someone to demonstrate actual bad outcomes from these policies. Have outcomes for the kids who would have been tracked to honors in the old system changed? Are they suddenly doing worse on PARCC, AP tests, SATs? I haven’t seen or heard any evidence of that; instead, it’s a lot of complaining about the policy without providing any hard evidence that it’s had actual negative impact.

That’s the beauty of the plan. Nobody looks for underperformance by overperformers. The harm is diffuse, difficult to capture, and unimportant to the people it doesn’t impact.

For the people who go through school with insufficient challenge and wasted time, it can matter very much. But our educational environment is not concerned about academic excellence these days.

[Anonymous]

^^ And by educational environment, I mean DCPS, where the idea seems to be that if you can do okay, you are not worthy of attention. The private schools still esteem high academic achievement.

[Anonymous]

They’d definitely have to do something about transportation to MacArthur Blvd and probably increase it to the Hardy/Ellington area as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They’d definitely have to do something about transportation to MacArthur Blvd and probably increase it to the Hardy/Ellington area as well.

High schools need protected bike lanes from every corner of their boundaries.

[Anonymous]

I don’t get it. This actually seems like a workable plan. People in the Wilson feeder want “local” schools, the schools are overcrowded. This will result in more of what people want - local schools. Plus there may be more “seats” for OOB students.

So why all the kvetching?

[Anonymous]

Because it’s not free smart guy.

[Anonymous]

What else is being considered for GDS? I assumes it would be just additional MS .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only way DCPS can "force" people to go to other high schools is by economically gerrymandering a feeder pattern that is comprised of more than 80% households at or over median income for the DMV---which, for a family of 4--- is $126,000. This could actually be done in Capitol Hill, and, perhaps in upper NW to Roosevelt.

Then ensure that there are honors classes which have prerequisites to enrollment---none of this "honors for all" or "AP for everyone" BS. Adopt discipline policies that will remove disruptive children from the classroom and put them in in-school suspension or --for kids who are violent---transferring them out to a school designed to treat children who are struggling with those behaviors.

But none of those things will happen because the "woke" progressives who run education in this city will deem it "inequitable". The city could have created a very high performing middle school on the Hill in the last boundary redraw but instead chose not to---thus the continuous outflow of Hill kids to charters.

Thus we have multi-million dollar fully renovated high schools in this city (Dunbar, Coolidge, Cardozo) at substantial under capacity, with the middle and upper middle class parents of the city clamoring to be fed to Ward 3, gaming the system to get fed to Ward 3 OOB, or else directing their energies to a few charters. And if those options don't work out, those parents decamp to other jurisdictions or go private.

The failure to understand that parents (regardless of race or income) who care about their kids education will vote with their feet has never sunk in with the DCPS bureaucracy. Nor, apparently, has it sunk in with the Council.

I’m waiting for someone to demonstrate actual bad outcomes from these policies. Have outcomes for the kids who would have been tracked to honors in the old system changed? Are they suddenly doing worse on PARCC, AP tests, SATs? I haven’t seen or heard any evidence of that; instead, it’s a lot of complaining about the policy without providing any hard evidence that it’s had actual negative impact.

That’s the beauty of the plan. Nobody looks for underperformance by overperformers. The harm is diffuse, difficult to capture, and unimportant to the people it doesn’t impact.

For the people who go through school with insufficient challenge and wasted time, it can matter very much. But our educational environment is not concerned about academic excellence these days.

You rock, PP Exactly. I earned straight As in high school with little effort. Junior year, I went to the Europe as an exchange student, where I was informed I needed urgent remediation in my strongest subjects to handle college work down the pike. Great wake-up call, leading me to an Ivy for college.