Lottery season reminder: your kids don't need to hear about DCUM stuff

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So who is actually attending Anacostia HS if it's not the Anacostia students?

There’s like 250 students enrolled. There are good reasons to keep it open- the kids in the neighborhood go to charters and privates and if one of those goes down they need a place to put the kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So who is actually attending Anacostia HS if it's not the Anacostia students?

Hardly anyone. It's tiny. Fewer than 250 students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So who is actually attending Anacostia HS if it's not the Anacostia students?

Only 246 enrolled last year. 71% (174) live IB, 16% (40) IB for Ballou, 5% (13) IB for Woodson, 8% (19) from other schools not specified.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:the pp was not saying participating in the lottery was elitist or classist. they were saying that the way some people fully write off schools that are not super popular and competitive to get a spot at in the lottery and/or schools with lower student test scores as bad schools to be avoided at all
cost can be driven by anxiety and bias…

I don't know about that. My kid went to a title 1 school for elementary, and there was this kind of judgement on upper income parents not to lottery out. But when lower income families lotteried into a better school, no one said anything (because of course they should be trying to find the best educational path for their child).

The difference is when upper income families leave, they take their resources, and often the time they have to volunteer and be advocates for the school, with them, and there is a real cumulative effect as many families do that, especially as title 1 schools can quickly teeter between having solid or insufficient parent engagement. The other difference is that the upper income family’s child (presuming the school has reasonable leadership and good teachers) is likely to do well at that school or nearly anywhere, while the lower income child may be benefited from being at a school that is more resourced than their in-bounds option.

This is the part that actually might not be true. How do you know that the outcome for an upper income kid may actually be stifled by a less challenging school?

This. It’s pretty obvious that kid coming out of a poorly performing school with majority below grade level is not going to do as well or reach their full potential as coming out of a higher performing school with majority above grade level.

This is especially true in DCPS where teaching, especially middle school and up, is to the lowest common denominator since there is no tracking of all subjects.

Parents at these schools are definitely supplementing a lot to make up for deficits. They just don’t let it be known as public info to all.

My kids attended a Title 1 elementary, and I don't know of any of the upper income kids that did formal supplementing like Mathnasium (not saying it didn't happen, but I don't think it was prevalent). The majority of kids at the school were not at grade level, but there was still a solid cohort getting 4s and 5s on their CAPE. Do I think my kids could have learned more at a different school? Yes. Absolutely. Was I sometimes frustrated by it? Sure. But do I think they were stifled in a way that hurt their long term trajectory? No. For me, I don't think that there needs to be a race to get through content. They've taken accelerated math in MS, they're curious, they read a lot of novels (which is also pushed by the MS), and they like school most of the time. They've also learned a lot by not being in a socioeconomically homogenous environment--some of it good, and some of it is tough, but they seem well grounded despite growing up with relative privilege. They'll have time in HS to take a lot more advanced content, and I think their foundation is solid for them to do that. Obviously, that is not a universal experience for every family, and I'm not speaking from a place of having a student with a learning disability or a social anxiety disorder for example, but this idea that every family will be stuck supplementing endlessly has not been our experience, nor has it been the experience of most of the families we know in similar situations to ours.

Anecdotal

Tell us which middle school your kid is at and their objective standardized test scores and percentages. Elementary is low stakes. Middle and higher, stakes much higher. Also it is additive that each year kid is not leaning as much adds up quickly.

Also it’s not either/or. There are good performing schools with a mixture of diverse kids and income. In fact, you could argue the popular immersion charters are much more diverse in both than title 1 schools which many is very homogenous.

Socioeconomics aside, most people are seeking a better option than what's available to them by right. The vast majority of middle and high school students opt out of their IB school.

At the high school level, Jackson-Reed has a 65% IB participation rate. The next highest IB participation rate is MacArthur, with 28%. Every other school is lower than that, with Anacostia at the bottom: only 6% of students zoned for Anacostia actually attend the school.

At the middle school level, Oyster-Adams, Hardy, and Deal are all above 75%. The next highest is John-Francis at 40%.

This is a very important point. "Playing the lottery" is not an elitist activity; in fact it is most utilized by people who are not in the "elite" income class and a lottery is inherently fair.

ward 3 comes to closest to an elitist environment in that it takes money to buy a home there, and then you get the decent schools as a result of that.

[Anonymous]

Playing the lottery is not elitist. Believing that a title 1 school could never possibly be any good is. I hear a lot of the only middle schools in DC that are any good at all and should ever be considered are Deal, Hardy, Latin, Basis, and DCI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Playing the lottery is not elitist. Believing that a title 1 school could never possibly be any good is. I hear a lot of the only middle schools in DC that are any good at all and should ever be considered are Deal, Hardy, Latin, Basis, and DCI.

On the evidence we have, that list of middle schools are the only good middle schools in DC… and “good” is stretching it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Playing the lottery is not elitist. Believing that a title 1 school could never possibly be any good is. I hear a lot of the only middle schools in DC that are any good at all and should ever be considered are Deal, Hardy, Latin, Basis, and DCI.

On the evidence we have, that list of middle schools are the only good middle schools in DC… and “good” is stretching it

Says who?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Playing the lottery is not elitist. Believing that a title 1 school could never possibly be any good is. I hear a lot of the only middle schools in DC that are any good at all and should ever be considered are Deal, Hardy, Latin, Basis, and DCI.

On the evidence we have, that list of middle schools are the only good middle schools in DC… and “good” is stretching it

There is some proportion of parents for whom the "good enough" threshold only includes these schools. Could be a variety of things -- rigorous science classes, the option for very advanced math, reading full novels (i guess this one is sadly up for debate). I am one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Playing the lottery is not elitist. Believing that a title 1 school could never possibly be any good is. I hear a lot of the only middle schools in DC that are any good at all and should ever be considered are Deal, Hardy, Latin, Basis, and DCI.

On the evidence we have, that list of middle schools are the only good middle schools in DC… and “good” is stretching it

Says who?

The parents who have high performing kids………

I also agree that they are good but nothing great but it’s the best that we have in this town.

The city is utterly failing lots of kids with social promotion when the overwhelming majority of kids in middle and high school are not just below grade level but way below grade level. Like single digit percentages of kids on grade level. It’s shocking.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]Playing the lottery is not elitist. Believing that a title 1 school could never possibly be any good is. I hear a lot of the only middle schools in DC that are any good at all and should ever be considered are Deal, Hardy, Latin, Basis, and DCI.[/quote]

How do you have any idea what the other parents are planning or thinking? Unless you're particularly close to the family, the most you know is that they put a particular school on their lottery list.

Telling your elementary-aged kid that their friends' parents are elitist and anxiety-ridden because they ~put a particular school on their lottery list~ is totally bonkers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Playing the lottery is not elitist. Believing that a title 1 school could never possibly be any good is. I hear a lot of the only middle schools in DC that are any good at all and should ever be considered are Deal, Hardy, Latin, Basis, and DCI.

On the evidence we have, that list of middle schools are the only good middle schools in DC… and “good” is stretching it

There is some proportion of parents for whom the "good enough" threshold only includes these schools. Could be a variety of things -- rigorous science classes, the option for very advanced math, reading full novels (i guess this one is sadly up for debate). I am one.

I’m not sure if any DCPS middles have advanced science. I do know that some not on this list offer very advanced math (assuming that means geometry in 8th) and are requiring students to read full novels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Playing the lottery is not elitist. Believing that a title 1 school could never possibly be any good is. I hear a lot of the only middle schools in DC that are any good at all and should ever be considered are Deal, Hardy, Latin, Basis, and DCI.

On the evidence we have, that list of middle schools are the only good middle schools in DC… and “good” is stretching it

There is some proportion of parents for whom the "good enough" threshold only includes these schools. Could be a variety of things -- rigorous science classes, the option for very advanced math, reading full novels (i guess this one is sadly up for debate). I am one.

I’m not sure if any DCPS middles have advanced science. I do know that some not on this list offer very advanced math (assuming that means geometry in 8th) and are requiring students to read full novels.

Very advanced math to me means Algebra 2 by 8th, which Deal, BASIS and DCI do. not sure about Hardy and Latin, but I'm positive there is no other middle school that offers it.

(advanced math would be Geometry by 8th, and the standard path would be Algebra by 8th. Anything less than that is completely inappropriate for a college-bound kid).

Science education at DCPS is terrible through the end of middle school. BASIS and Latin both do it well, as evidenced by their Science CAPE scores.

These are things that start to matter to parents who have high expectations for their kids. As someone said earlier, learning less starts to compound and is harder to correct as the kids get older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Playing the lottery is not elitist. Believing that a title 1 school could never possibly be any good is. I hear a lot of the only middle schools in DC that are any good at all and should ever be considered are Deal, Hardy, Latin, Basis, and DCI.

My kids went to a Title 1 elementary school. It was fine. But you look at the middle and high school options, and they become a lot narrower and harder to justify if your kid is at or above grade level and you want a school that's targeted toward meeting their academic needs.

You might also think several more DCPS middle schools are fine, but the high schools they feed to aren't. If you can pay for private or move if your kid doesn't get into a selective admissions high school that's ok, but not everyone wants that or can.

[Anonymous]

There are 3 title 1 middle schools on or near the Hill. All 3 have at least 1 solidly not title 1 feeder elementary school as well as a less title 1 feeder elementary school (or two). I read the earlier poster who got attacked as addressing this very particular dynamic where rumors that the middle schools are bad sometimes run very hot at the elementary school level based on little more than test scores, demographics, and conjecture and kids oftentimes struggles to understand that these sometimes wild rumors are just rumors or opinions as opposed to fact. Next to no one in DC is judging anyone for any choices that are made at the middle school or high school level. But talking to people who actually have kids at various middle schools can sometimes be a useful exercise.

[Anonymous]

Pretty much none of the area private schools offer 8th grade advanced algebra. If your kid is a perfect fit for Basis or has rights to Deal and is strong at math, great do advanced algebra. But labeling that a non-negotiable for a good enough middle school for academically minded families seems like cherry-picking an arbitrary data point or moving the goalposts.