Ludlow-Taylor getting a new a new Principal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Concrete suggestions on how L-T could raise in-boundary percentages? Brent and Maury in-boundary parents with kids in the upper grades (I am not one) are the local experts on the subject. Growing LT with one's children is just too big a headache for most in-boundary gentrifiers in a city where lottery seats at far more diverse and upper middle-income friendly schools can be found without much trouble. Look at this thread - posters are called racist at the drop of a hat when the truth is almost always a lot more complicated.

First, the high volume traffic and high anxiety on this public schools forum is proof positive that it is "much trouble" to get a seat at one of these schools.

Next, the "truth" of your "headache" isn't about finding friendliness to your middle income. DCPS - or rather MySchoolDC - is very clearly courting gentrifiers, and anyone with an ounce of objectivity could see that the DME proposals have been designed to corral families into their neighborhood schools. At the very least, the unified lottery pretty much forced everyone to take a look at the school down the street, something that parents with other options didn't do previously.

Finally, if you're taking shortcuts - like IB participation - to determine the quality of a school, you are indeed an -ist of some sort. Not wanting your child to be an only is totally understandable. So is the feeling that factors beyond your control, like poverty or a large percentage of English language learners, will dilute the quality of instruction at a school. But the problem comes when you expect - and pressure - a principal, and by context a teacher, to eliminate that factor from a classroom. This is a city with great economic disparity, and when you enter the public school system, you accept that and (for those not in the homogenous upper NW) look for the schools that know how to deal with it.

That's the success of charter schools. They've got the support of a broad range of families and the autonomy to experiment and find solutions that meet diverse needs. If you want your neighborhood school to succeed, commit to the "headache" and convince your neighbors to do the same.

But don't hamstring the school's leaders and staff with your elitist requirements that only upper income kids attend.

This, this, this.

[Anonymous]

^^^^^ +1 to the last PP. Make the place better! Make a great neighborhood where families stay.

[Anonymous]

We weren't successful in the lottery as you predict. So we have to stay and fight. Others leave, and that's a loss.

[Anonymous]

^You certainly don't have to stay and fight. You could move, go private for at least a year if you can possibly afford it, home school, take an OOB spot, head to Sela etc. In-boundary parents of little ones still take these steps all the time.

The more LT parents and staff members come at those considering voting with their feet with PC guilt trips, the less they're likely to accomplish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^You certainly don't have to stay and fight. You could move, go private for at least a year if you can possibly afford it, home school, take an OOB spot, head to Sela etc. In-boundary parents of little ones still take these steps all the time.

The more LT parents and staff members come at those considering voting with their feet with PC guilt trips, the less they're likely to accomplish.

I'm not in the LT community, but I doubt they want you.

[Anonymous]

Why should it matter whom they want? LT is supposed to be a neighborhood school, one that community members of all stripes are most welcome to send their children to. So bring on the neighbors, poor, middle-class and wealthy, left leaning and right leaning, AA, white, Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern, foreign, contrarian and PC.

[Anonymous]

^^^ Ah, take a look around you. The neighborhood is looking awfully high-SES. Those people tend to have higher expectations, they pay more taxes, and they expect some bang for the buck. Right now they're paying for an empty shell (as far as the 'hood is concerned). That's a problem that needs correcting.

[Anonymous]

+100.

[Anonymous]

Seeing how small L-T is, it would not take too much neighborhood buy-in to fill the classes with IB kids. But if IB patents won't send them, then by all means welcome OOB.

Also, I wonder how PC the LT PTA really is, or if they were just making the best of Cobbs and waiting for a change, knowing that nothing but PC would work anyhow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seeing how small L-T is, it would not take too much neighborhood buy-in to fill the classes with IB kids. But if IB patents won't send them, then by all means welcome OOB.

Also, I wonder how PC the LT PTA really is, or if they were just making the best of Cobbs and waiting for a change, knowing that nothing but PC would work anyhow.

Does this mean that IB LT families will stop their ridiculous push for SWS proximity preference?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ Ah, take a look around you. The neighborhood is looking awfully high-SES. Those people tend to have higher expectations, they pay more taxes, and they expect some bang for the buck. Right now they're paying for an empty shell (as far as the 'hood is concerned). That's a problem that needs correcting.

Sigh..... I'd get all the "Ludlow is terrible" statements if Ludlow was in fact a really low performing school. But LT and Maury are basically identical in terms of performance (well actually Ludlow has more advanced students). I guarantee you if Ludlowhad the same IB rates as Maury then suddenly it would become an 2nd tier, it school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ Ah, take a look around you. The neighborhood is looking awfully high-SES. Those people tend to have higher expectations, they pay more taxes, and they expect some bang for the buck. Right now they're paying for an empty shell (as far as the 'hood is concerned). That's a problem that needs correcting.

Sigh..... I'd get all the "Ludlow is terrible" statements if Ludlow was in fact a really low performing school. But LT and Maury are basically identical in terms of performance (well actually Ludlow has more advanced students). I guarantee you if Ludlowhad the same IB rates as Maury then suddenly it would become an 2nd tier, it school.

You don't have buy in from a lot of the neighborhood, yet. Hopefully that'll happen ASAP with the new principal. Don't you want a neighborhood school? Are you even IB to L-T, or just trolling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ Ah, take a look around you. The neighborhood is looking awfully high-SES. Those people tend to have higher expectations, they pay more taxes, and they expect some bang for the buck. Right now they're paying for an empty shell (as far as the 'hood is concerned). That's a problem that needs correcting.

Sigh..... I'd get all the "Ludlow is terrible" statements if Ludlow was in fact a really low performing school. But LT and Maury are basically identical in terms of performance (well actually Ludlow has more advanced students). I guarantee you if Ludlowhad the same IB rates as Maury then suddenly it would become an 2nd tier, it school.

You don't have buy in from a lot of the neighborhood, yet. Hopefully that'll happen ASAP with the new principal. Don't you want a neighborhood school? Are you even IB to L-T, or just trolling?

Different poster, but I really don't give a damn about "neighborhood schools." In a city with the residential segregation of the district (both racial and economic), I just don't think they make sense.

[Anonymous]

Good point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ Ah, take a look around you. The neighborhood is looking awfully high-SES. Those people tend to have higher expectations, they pay more taxes, and they expect some bang for the buck. Right now they're paying for an empty shell (as far as the 'hood is concerned). That's a problem that needs correcting.

Sigh..... I'd get all the "Ludlow is terrible" statements if Ludlow was in fact a really low performing school. But LT and Maury are basically identical in terms of performance (well actually Ludlow has more advanced students). I guarantee you if Ludlowhad the same IB rates as Maury then suddenly it would become an 2nd tier, it school.

You don't have buy in from a lot of the neighborhood, yet. Hopefully that'll happen ASAP with the new principal. Don't you want a neighborhood school? Are you even IB to L-T, or just trolling?

Different poster, but I really don't give a damn about "neighborhood schools." In a city with the residential segregation of the district (both racial and economic), I just don't think they make sense.

but did the old approach of not emphasizing neighborhood schoolls get you integrated schools? Or just families goiing to privates and the suburbs?

Wouldn't a reasonable proportion of OOB (20%?) combined with more attention to inclusionary zoning to get better SES residential integration be more likely to succeed in getting integrated schools, while also getting the benefits of neighborhood schools?