Hardy middle school .... question about the student racial make-up.

[Anonymous]

The discussion has been sidetracked, but I'm glad that PPs have identified the problem of DCPS' deep-rooted paternalism being a drag for parents. Fact is, it scares away, and drives away, many high performing students in DC all the way from K - 12th.
Thankfully, DCPS is coming under new pressure to mature as a system and become more flexible.

DCPS dragged its heels on MS honors classes for a really long time. In the last few yeras, some of us would have been onboard for Hardy rather than head to BASIS if the math at Hardy had been more serious. Hardy is finally offering 7th grade algebra.

Undeniably, the main reason there are few Asians at Hardy, and elsewhere in DCPS, has a lot to do with lack of challenge and flexibility.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My son gets called names like cracker or referenced as white boy but it doesn’t bother him. He has friends of all races there. He said there is nothing to worry about. He doesn’t let things bother him though. His friends parents are wanting to take their son out of school though because of things like that. My daughter has no terrible issues at hardy either and she is blonde haired and blue eyed. She has said that she has had trouble making friends though, unfortunately.

Come on, only one public school in the entire city enrolls enough Asian students to pull PARCC scores for Asians out by subgroup. That's Deal - they have at least 25 Asian kids taking the PARCC. Even YuYing and DCI don't.

There are dozens of white kids at Hardy and hardly any Asians, same as in the Hardy feeders. OP is wise to be concerned.

No - BASIS has at least 25 Asian students as well.

Do you have a link showing PARCC scores for BASIS Asian students pulled out by subgroup? I can't find one.

Maybe a question we should be asking ourselves here is why are there so few Asian students in our DC public schools. No more than 10% at any particular school, and 0% isn't uncommon, just not a lot wherever you look. Before you say, oh, that's just DC demographics for you, if you're looking for Asians, head to Rockville. Think again.

Our in-boundary middle school--Stuart Hobson--and high school--Dunbar--are both 0% Asian, which won't work for this Asian immigrant family. We may try to lottery into Hardy but are more likely to head to MoCo, like a gazillion DC Asians before us. One problem is that every DC public middle and high school we might have access to would force instruction in an Indo European language on us (Latin, Spanish). No thanks.

That sure is a weird "problem" to single out when you are living in a Western country.

Right, weird problem, forcing kids to learn Spanish in public school (not a national language of the US last time I checked) to attend by-right schools. There's a corpus of case law from Western states stemming from the issue. Asian immigrant parents in Cal, Nevada, Utah etc. have sued public school systems for forcing Spanish on their children, and have won in court or settled in almost every case on civil rights grounds. Partly as a result, few states still do this, but DC does. It's common for kids to be forced to study an Indo European language in DC public schools. The (higher performing) suburban municipalities in this Metro area don't do this. They don't do it because they'd much rather support families teaching their children difficult Asian languages than penalize the families for not being "Western" enough.

Sorry, but as a European who grew up with "forced" English instruction and then a choice of French or Latin, I will shake my head at those "civil rights" suits. But we know that in the US, you can sue for anything. Do the schools then have to offer the difficult Asian languages the families want to teach, or is the sole point to protect their kids from exposure to Spanish?

Do you want to learn, or are you looking for more ammunition to knock Asians in DC public schools?

Asian languages are super difficult to learn well, particularly their writing systems, so best to start young and stay focused through the teen years. With knowledge of at least 3,000 characters supporting basic literacy in Japanese and Chinese, immigrants from these countries tend not to want their kids bogged down with mandatory instruction in Indo-European languages on the road to taking AP and/or International Baccalaureate exams in Asian languages. If the kids want to study Spanish etc. in college and later on, fine.

Also, Asian immigrant families tend not to rely on school instruction to raise their kids bilingual and biliterate. They do the work at home, and participate in parent-run heritage language programs on weekends. But in DC, unless a school is willing to work with you not to insist on instruction in an Indo-European language, or perhaps basic Chinese that's far too easy for the child (at Deal, BASIS, Wilson, DCI), or you bring a case to the DC PS Ombudsman challenging the requirement, you can't get out of it. This is one reason Asian immigrant families leave DC public schools. You may think it entitled and silly of them ask to be left alone to pursue private language learning goals while using by-right schools, but they don't. Fortunately, neither do the state and Federal court judges hearing the mandatory language instruction-related lawsuits they bring.

Perhaps best for the conversation to return to the subject of pros and cons of Asians and Asian-Caucasian 11 year-olds enrolling at Hardy.

I am not at all looking for any ammunition to knock Asian-Americans in DC public schools and have actually been one of the defenders of the OP in my previous posts on this thread. I still have little sympathy for the particular plight you describe regarding language instruction and how it supposedly detracts from their private endeavors. Foreign language instruction in American high schools is not that hard or burdensome that it should be "bogging" anyone down, and there are good arguments to be made for every American to learn at least some Spanish. But I can see that you have an axe to grind and probably a history of fighting DCPS on this, so it's not like I'm trying to convince you of anything.

NP. When I read posts like this, I get why there are so few Asian families DCPS.

Christ, the Asian immigrant families aren't asking for sympathy or battles with the system. They're asking to be left alone or supported to excel academically. There's a reason MoCo, Arlington, Fairfax, Louden County etc. pump resources into helping immigrant families build on math and languages skills acquired outside school. They do it so their students can knock it out of the park on standardized language tests later. DCPS attracts few families like that.

Other than Spanish immersion, DCPS language classes are for beginners and the math isn't for high fliers either. Deal, Hobson, Hardy it's ALL THE SAME.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The discussion has been sidetracked, but I'm glad that PPs have identified the problem of DCPS' deep-rooted paternalism being a drag for parents. Fact is, it scares away, and drives away, many high performing students in DC all the way from K - 12th.
Thankfully, DCPS is coming under new pressure to mature as a system and become more flexible.

DCPS dragged its heels on MS honors classes for a really long time. In the last few yeras, some of us would have been onboard for Hardy rather than head to BASIS if the math at Hardy had been more serious. Hardy is finally offering 7th grade algebra.

Undeniably, the main reason there are few Asians at Hardy, and elsewhere in DCPS, has a lot to do with lack of challenge and flexibility.

+100, yes.

[Anonymous]

Most DCPS parents want diversity in a school and "equity" in education over challenge and good management from the center.

Most Asian parents want challenge first & last.

If they can, they move where test scores are high. End of story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like you're not allowed to talk about this stuff without being called a racist. So flame away, I guess.

My kid is going into 6th grade. Hardy is mostly black kids, some hispanic, and a few whites.

1. If you have an Asian kid, are you okay with the racial makeup of the school?
2. If you have a white kid are you okay with the racial make up of the school?

My kids are both asian and white. Dh is Asian. One dd looks Asian and one dd looks white. I'm more worried about my white kid at Hardy than my Asian kid. Weird to comment that way, but easier short-hand.

What is it that you believe these majority "black and brown" kids are going to do to your children?

Really? What do ANY children do to other minority children? Did you not grow up on a minority playground? Have you always lived in a black neighborhood and have had very little interaction with whites? Yeah. I didn't think so.

[Anonymous]

I'm Asian, at a Hardy feeder.

We're aiming for BASIS or privates.

Too many low-performing kids at Hardy and not convinced that the quality of the teaching is where we want it to be.

The number of Asian students at Hardy is of secondary concern.

[Anonymous]

Both my kids at Hardy take Chinese. They love the teacher and the class. They both hated the Spanish classes but I think mostly because all the kids knew the language already in those classes. It made them feel singled out. My son also loved Latin when he was taking that at Basis. We moved from that school though because we wanted more family time and less homework.

[Anonymous]

My kid is Asian and at Wilson which is 30% white. It is totally fine. Went to Deal for middle and did not experience any issues there.
I know White familes at Hardy and they seem happy. I wouldn't worry too much about being the minority.

Also, I'm Asian but believe that you really should know decent Spanish if you live in the US.
Imagine being a doctor and not speaking Spanish? Very limiting in my opinion.
It is fine to do Spanish and another language if you want to add Chinese.
I wish I spoke Spanish. I think I will try and learn it myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son gets called names like cracker or referenced as white boy but it doesn’t bother him. He has friends of all races there. He said there is nothing to worry about. He doesn’t let things bother him though. His friends parents are wanting to take their son out of school though because of things like that. My daughter has no terrible issues at hardy either and she is blonde haired and blue eyed. She has said that she has had trouble making friends though, unfortunately.

Come on, only one public school in the entire city enrolls enough Asian students to pull PARCC scores for Asians out by subgroup. That's Deal - they have at least 25 Asian kids taking the PARCC. Even YuYing and DCI don't.

There are dozens of white kids at Hardy and hardly any Asians, same as in the Hardy feeders. OP is wise to be concerned.

No - BASIS has at least 25 Asian students as well.

Do you have a link showing PARCC scores for BASIS Asian students pulled out by subgroup? I can't find one.

Maybe a question we should be asking ourselves here is why are there so few Asian students in our DC public schools. No more than 10% at any particular school, and 0% isn't uncommon, just not a lot wherever you look. Before you say, oh, that's just DC demographics for you, if you're looking for Asians, head to Rockville. Think again.

Our in-boundary middle school--Stuart Hobson--and high school--Dunbar--are both 0% Asian, which won't work for this Asian immigrant family. We may try to lottery into Hardy but are more likely to head to MoCo, like a gazillion DC Asians before us. One problem is that every DC public middle and high school we might have access to would force instruction in an Indo European language on us (Latin, Spanish). No thanks.

That sure is a weird "problem" to single out when you are living in a Western country.

Right, weird problem, forcing kids to learn Spanish in public school (not a national language of the US last time I checked) to attend by-right schools. There's a corpus of case law from Western states stemming from the issue. Asian immigrant parents in Cal, Nevada, Utah etc. have sued public school systems for forcing Spanish on their children, and have won in court or settled in almost every case on civil rights grounds. Partly as a result, few states still do this, but DC does. It's common for kids to be forced to study an Indo European language in DC public schools. The (higher performing) suburban municipalities in this Metro area don't do this. They don't do it because they'd much rather support families teaching their children difficult Asian languages than penalize the families for not being "Western" enough.

NP. Whether you like it or not, your little Asian children are going to grow up in a country that is increasingly of Hispanic/ Latin descent, language and culture. Spanish is no more being "forced" on them than it is on any other Americans. They are being instructed in a language that will be beneficial to them living here in years to come.

Sorry, cutes, but Mandarin is not likely to gain that level of popularity any time soon.

[Anonymous]

The point PP was making was that parents should be given a choice where language instruction goes in a country with one national language, English. In Canada, the government reasonably requires almost all the kids to study French in government schools.

If you want Spanish for your children in public school all the way up, fantastic! Go for it! If you prefer that your children focus on learning a different language also taught at the AP and International Baccalaureate levels, just as good!

WotP, in the JKLM schools and at Deal, Hardy and Wilson, parents are given a choice of language, or no language in elementary school. EotP, DCPS generally forces all the kids to study a single language, usually Spanish, all the way from PreS3.

One city, two sets of rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The point PP was making was that parents should be given a choice where language instruction goes in a country with one national language, English. In Canada, the government reasonably requires almost all the kids to study French in government schools.

If you want Spanish for your children in public school all the way up, fantastic! Go for it! If you prefer that your children focus on learning a different language also taught at the AP and International Baccalaureate levels, just as good!

WotP, in the JKLM schools and at Deal, Hardy and Wilson, parents are given a choice of language, or no language in elementary school. EotP, DCPS generally forces all the kids to study a single language, usually Spanish, all the way from PreS3.

One city, two sets of rules.

DCPS WOTP elementary schools do not all give a choice of language; only recently did they even begin to teach Spanish as a DCPS class. Some/most offer pay on your own before/after school language taught outside of the DCPS curriculum. Janney only offers language if you pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The point PP was making was that parents should be given a choice where language instruction goes in a country with one national language, English. In Canada, the government reasonably requires almost all the kids to study French in government schools.

If you want Spanish for your children in public school all the way up, fantastic! Go for it! If you prefer that your children focus on learning a different language also taught at the AP and International Baccalaureate levels, just as good!

WotP, in the JKLM schools and at Deal, Hardy and Wilson, parents are given a choice of language, or no language in elementary school. EotP, DCPS generally forces all the kids to study a single language, usually Spanish, all the way from PreS3.

One city, two sets of rules.

DCPS WOTP elementary schools do not all give a choice of language; only recently did they even begin to teach Spanish as a DCPS class. Some/most offer pay on your own before/after school language taught outside of the DCPS curriculum. Janney only offers language if you pay.

^^and DCPS has no participation in the after school part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son gets called names like cracker or referenced as white boy but it doesn’t bother him. He has friends of all races there. He said there is nothing to worry about. He doesn’t let things bother him though. His friends parents are wanting to take their son out of school though because of things like that. My daughter has no terrible issues at hardy either and she is blonde haired and blue eyed. She has said that she has had trouble making friends though, unfortunately.

Come on, only one public school in the entire city enrolls enough Asian students to pull PARCC scores for Asians out by subgroup. That's Deal - they have at least 25 Asian kids taking the PARCC. Even YuYing and DCI don't.

There are dozens of white kids at Hardy and hardly any Asians, same as in the Hardy feeders. OP is wise to be concerned.

No - BASIS has at least 25 Asian students as well.

Do you have a link showing PARCC scores for BASIS Asian students pulled out by subgroup? I can't find one.

Maybe a question we should be asking ourselves here is why are there so few Asian students in our DC public schools. No more than 10% at any particular school, and 0% isn't uncommon, just not a lot wherever you look. Before you say, oh, that's just DC demographics for you, if you're looking for Asians, head to Rockville. Think again.

Our in-boundary middle school--Stuart Hobson--and high school--Dunbar--are both 0% Asian, which won't work for this Asian immigrant family. We may try to lottery into Hardy but are more likely to head to MoCo, like a gazillion DC Asians before us. One problem is that every DC public middle and high school we might have access to would force instruction in an Indo European language on us (Latin, Spanish). No thanks.

That sure is a weird "problem" to single out when you are living in a Western country.

Right, weird problem, forcing kids to learn Spanish in public school (not a national language of the US last time I checked) to attend by-right schools. There's a corpus of case law from Western states stemming from the issue. Asian immigrant parents in Cal, Nevada, Utah etc. have sued public school systems for forcing Spanish on their children, and have won in court or settled in almost every case on civil rights grounds. Partly as a result, few states still do this, but DC does. It's common for kids to be forced to study an Indo European language in DC public schools. The (higher performing) suburban municipalities in this Metro area don't do this. They don't do it because they'd much rather support families teaching their children difficult Asian languages than penalize the families for not being "Western" enough.

Sorry, but as a European who grew up with "forced" English instruction and then a choice of French or Latin, I will shake my head at those "civil rights" suits. But we know that in the US, you can sue for anything. Do the schools then have to offer the difficult Asian languages the families want to teach, or is the sole point to protect their kids from exposure to Spanish?

Do you want to learn, or are you looking for more ammunition to knock Asians in DC public schools?

Asian languages are super difficult to learn well, particularly their writing systems, so best to start young and stay focused through the teen years. With knowledge of at least 3,000 characters supporting basic literacy in Japanese and Chinese, immigrants from these countries tend not to want their kids bogged down with mandatory instruction in Indo-European languages on the road to taking AP and/or International Baccalaureate exams in Asian languages. If the kids want to study Spanish etc. in college and later on, fine.

Also, Asian immigrant families tend not to rely on school instruction to raise their kids bilingual and biliterate. They do the work at home, and participate in parent-run heritage language programs on weekends. But in DC, unless a school is willing to work with you not to insist on instruction in an Indo-European language, or perhaps basic Chinese that's far too easy for the child (at Deal, BASIS, Wilson, DCI), or you bring a case to the DC PS Ombudsman challenging the requirement, you can't get out of it. This is one reason Asian immigrant families leave DC public schools. You may think it entitled and silly of them ask to be left alone to pursue private language learning goals while using by-right schools, but they don't. Fortunately, neither do the state and Federal court judges hearing the mandatory language instruction-related lawsuits they bring.

Perhaps best for the conversation to return to the subject of pros and cons of Asians and Asian-Caucasian 11 year-olds enrolling at Hardy.

I am not at all looking for any ammunition to knock Asian-Americans in DC public schools and have actually been one of the defenders of the OP in my previous posts on this thread. I still have little sympathy for the particular plight you describe regarding language instruction and how it supposedly detracts from their private endeavors. Foreign language instruction in American high schools is not that hard or burdensome that it should be "bogging" anyone down, and there are good arguments to be made for every American to learn at least some Spanish. But I can see that you have an axe to grind and probably a history of fighting DCPS on this, so it's not like I'm trying to convince you of anything.

NP. When I read posts like this, I get why there are so few Asian families DCPS.

Christ, the Asian immigrant families aren't asking for sympathy or battles with the system. They're asking to be left alone or supported to excel academically. There's a reason MoCo, Arlington, Fairfax, Louden County etc. pump resources into helping immigrant families build on math and languages skills acquired outside school. They do it so their students can knock it out of the park on standardized language tests later. DCPS attracts few families like that.

Other than Spanish immersion, DCPS language classes are for beginners and the math isn't for high fliers either. Deal, Hobson, Hardy it's ALL THE SAME.

So which is it, that the Spanish instruction is a burden that interferes with their higher extracurricular endeavors, or is it not challenging enough? Or is this about students being able to customize their public school experience completely? What if some other family (assuming you won't just extend this privilege to Asians) decides that trigonometry is really detracting from their academic pursuits?

As an immigrant from a country where high school is a lot more academically challenging than in this country, but where foreign language instruction is mandatory with limited choices, I would say that individually helping kids excel academically is a completely separate issue from whether they can opt out of foreign language instruction that is part of the school's general curriculum (and I don't doubt that other school systems do a better job at it than DCPS).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd watch out with Hardy, OP. My own Asian kids have been subjected to occasional crappy treatment at a mostly white DCPS elementary WotP. Half a dozen AA kids have pulled on the corner of their eyes to make fun of my children's "slanty" eyes repeatedly, and unkindly mimicked them speaking the Asian language we speak at home. The school handled the situation well and the bullying has mostly stopped. But we're not going to touch any DC public school that's mostly AA for MS or HS. The reality is that there's a good deal of jealously of high-achieving Asian immigrant students in low SES AA circles in this city. You can flame away at OP and this PP without changing that.

OMG!!!! How dare you say anything like this!!!! AA kids can do no wrong!!! So can't anything other minorities!!! There must be something your Asian kids do to offend them first! You think you Asians are so smart?! You think you Asians work so hard?! So what!!!

- the usual rhetoric on this board

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The point PP was making was that parents should be given a choice where language instruction goes in a country with one national language, English. In Canada, the government reasonably requires almost all the kids to study French in government schools.

If you want Spanish for your children in public school all the way up, fantastic! Go for it! If you prefer that your children focus on learning a different language also taught at the AP and International Baccalaureate levels, just as good!

WotP, in the JKLM schools and at Deal, Hardy and Wilson, parents are given a choice of language, or no language in elementary school. EotP, DCPS generally forces all the kids to study a single language, usually Spanish, all the way from PreS3.

One city, two sets of rules.

NP, there's a kernel of truth to this argument.

Our IB MS, Stuart Hobson, doesn't offer nearly the challenge or flexibility that Hardy and Deal do. We've checked into both for our 4th grader and can't see ourselves enrolling at SH. Waaay too much paternalism in the mix in that building.

From where I sit, DCPS intransigence is an SES and geography issue, not a race issue. They can't get away with it WotP like they can EotP. Anybody who's enrolled in schools in both swathes of the city probably know what I'm talking about.