Petition to keep School-Within-School (SWS) a true neighborhood school!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if so many of you want to keep this "gem" citywide, why not make all DCPS citywide? If you schlep your kids across town from NW to go to this gem, why shouldn't the same opportunity be offered to Hill parents? Let's get rid of IB completely. That would be fair.

What a great idea! Can you start a petition for that, too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if so many of you want to keep this "gem" citywide, why not make all DCPS citywide? If you schlep your kids across town from NW to go to this gem, why shouldn't the same opportunity be offered to Hill parents? Let's get rid of IB completely. That would be fair.

Works for me! You are welcome to do so at my in-bounds school, HD Cooke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if so many of you want to keep this "gem" citywide, why not make all DCPS citywide? If you schlep your kids across town from NW to go to this gem, why shouldn't the same opportunity be offered to Hill parents? Let's get rid of IB completely. That would be fair.

What a great idea! Can you start a petition for that, too?

+1

[Anonymous]

The thing I don't get is all the vitriol that is directed toward the Hill. A lot of people seem to have the attitude that the Hill doesn't "deserve" more good schools because we already have some. Guess what folks? It's not a zero-sum game. Bitching about the (relatively high) quality of schools on the Hill will not improve the (relatively low) quality of schools elsewhere. Ten years ago, there was one decent school option on the Hill (Cluster). Now there are 4-6, depending on who you ask and their standards. That is the result of a lot of sweat equity and money by parents on the Hill, and it is absolutely replicable elsewhere.

I guess that's DCUM for you though... Better to bitch anonymously on the internet than to get off your ass and fix the problem...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if so many of you want to keep this "gem" citywide, why not make all DCPS citywide? If you schlep your kids across town from NW to go to this gem, why shouldn't the same opportunity be offered to Hill parents? Let's get rid of IB completely. That would be fair.

What a great idea! Can you start a petition for that, too?

+1

Great idea! My kids would love JKLMM, I am sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing I don't get is all the vitriol that is directed toward the Hill. A lot of people seem to have the attitude that the Hill doesn't "deserve" more good schools because we already have some. Guess what folks? It's not a zero-sum game. Bitching about the (relatively high) quality of schools on the Hill will not improve the (relatively low) quality of schools elsewhere. Ten years ago, there was one decent school option on the Hill (Cluster). Now there are 4-6, depending on who you ask and their standards. That is the result of a lot of sweat equity and money by parents on the Hill, and it is absolutely replicable elsewhere.

I guess that's DCUM for you though... Better to bitch anonymously on the internet than to get off your ass and fix the problem...

I think you mean, better to lobby DCPS for special access than to get off your ass and fix your in-bounds school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing I don't get is all the vitriol that is directed toward the Hill. A lot of people seem to have the attitude that the Hill doesn't "deserve" more good schools because we already have some. Guess what folks? It's not a zero-sum game. Bitching about the (relatively high) quality of schools on the Hill will not improve the (relatively low) quality of schools elsewhere. Ten years ago, there was one decent school option on the Hill (Cluster). Now there are 4-6, depending on who you ask and their standards. That is the result of a lot of sweat equity and money by parents on the Hill, and it is absolutely replicable elsewhere.

I guess that's DCUM for you though... Better to bitch anonymously on the internet than to get off your ass and fix the problem...

Is this mean to be ironic, or just unintentionally hilarious? The whole point of this conversation is that there is a small slice of Hill families who absolutely do not want to put their sweat equity and money into their in-bounds school and claim that the relative success enjoyed by other Hill schools is absolutely NOT replicable at Ludlow Taylor. So, yes, I agree with you that this talk of proximity preference is pure nonsense.

[Anonymous]

This is a little like the movement to get a new Ward 3 middle school. The in-boundary families do not like Hardy because there is too high of an OOB attendance and they want something comparable to Deal, even though I believe that Hardy is the second highest performing middle school in the city. If families chose not to attend their in-boundary school and work to make it something they like, why should DCPS build them a new one when there is a list of schools that need significantly more improvement than Hardy.

(As an aside, this is not intended to bash Hardy, I have high expectation for Hardy. I am referring to the entitlement attitude of the in-boundary families that think something new should be built for them when what would fix their school (to the extent it needs fixing in their eyes) would be actually attending it.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hill real estate is all over the place due to the incredible variation in houses. Where else do teeny 2BRs abut million-dollar corner Victorians? However, there is no doubt that school boundaries are among the many factors that influence price.

Historical note: That's because in the old days, the servants for the big Victorian on the corner lived in the teeny 2 bedroom next door.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if so many of you want to keep this "gem" citywide, why not make all DCPS citywide? If you schlep your kids across town from NW to go to this gem, why shouldn't the same opportunity be offered to Hill parents? Let's get rid of IB completely. That would be fair.

school choice for DCPS?? OMG -- then they'd be just like charters!

(except for the union, of course, and IMPACT)

[Anonymous]

Reading through this, tt's hard to fathom why parents who care so much about their kids' education let themselves get jerked around so much by DCPS.

[Anonymous]

This school is not the "Hill" it is a northeast located school. Giving it to a neighborhood that doesn't give a fudge about school boundaries and their true demographics is such a Paula Deen hidded agenda.

[Anonymous]

^ Not hard to fathom when well-educated parents who want to live in the city and can't afford privates are such a small slice of the electoral pie.

The reason the Hill gentrifiers aren't getting SWS as a neighborhood school, or one first-rate Hill middle school program, and are getting the idiot Cobbs woman at Ludlow-Taylor year after year, is that they can't swing any election beyond that for an ANC commissioner.

High-SES parents are just not very important to city politicians, even within Ward 6. Realtors will tell you that only around one-quarter of those buying rowhouses on the Hill care about schools, at least at the time they buy. This helps explain why real estate is hot in the Payne, L-T, Miner and JO Wilson Districts, although all these schools are essentially failing Anacostia schools on the Hill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing I don't get is all the vitriol that is directed toward the Hill. A lot of people seem to have the attitude that the Hill doesn't "deserve" more good schools because we already have some. Guess what folks? It's not a zero-sum game. Bitching about the (relatively high) quality of schools on the Hill will not improve the (relatively low) quality of schools elsewhere. Ten years ago, there was one decent school option on the Hill (Cluster). Now there are 4-6, depending on who you ask and their standards. That is the result of a lot of sweat equity and money by parents on the Hill, and it is absolutely replicable elsewhere.

I guess that's DCUM for you though... Better to bitch anonymously on the internet than to get off your ass and fix the problem...

Is this mean to be ironic, or just unintentionally hilarious? The whole point of this conversation is that there is a small slice of Hill families who absolutely do not want to put their sweat equity and money into their in-bounds school and claim that the relative success enjoyed by other Hill schools is absolutely NOT replicable at Ludlow Taylor. So, yes, I agree with you that this talk of proximity preference is pure nonsense.

You are ignorant of the history of SWS. It WAS a neighborhood school and it was built by families on the Hill. Almost every kid who is there currently is an inbounds Hill kid. It hasn't even experienced one class of students from a citywide draw yet. It is an historically neighborhood school; the petition seeks to return it to a school that serves the neighborhood in which it is located, just like every other DCPS school (except the Montessori one).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ Not hard to fathom when well-educated parents who want to live in the city and can't afford privates are such a small slice of the electoral pie.

The reason the Hill gentrifiers aren't getting SWS as a neighborhood school, or one first-rate Hill middle school program, and are getting the idiot Cobbs woman at Ludlow-Taylor year after year, is that they can't swing any election beyond that for an ANC commissioner.

High-SES parents are just not very important to city politicians, even within Ward 6. Realtors will tell you that only around one-quarter of those buying rowhouses on the Hill care about schools, at least at the time they buy. This helps explain why real estate is hot in the Payne, L-T, Miner and JO Wilson Districts, although all these schools are essentially failing Anacostia schools on the Hill.

So the city doesn't care about young gentrifiers? That's hard to believe.

I suspect it's more that DCPS knows that young middle class families are willing to jump though hoops to stay in DC while getting a good education for their kids, so it gives DCPS an advantage.