Ludlow-Taylor getting a new a new Principal

[Anonymous]

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.

You clearly don't live in the highly diverse L-T District, and don't have little children. Public response to Deputy Mayor for Education Abigail Smith's recent boundary and feeder proposals tells us that the great majorty of DC parents do in fact do give a damn about neighborhood schools. Murial Bowser can't rest easy before November mainly because they do.

What doesn't make sense is DCPS pretending that supposedly high-achieving "neighborhood" schools like Watkins, JO Wilson and L-T serve their neighborhoods. DC needs to chose its school feeder model. If it wants to scrap neighborhood schools, like Boston and San Fran essentially did long ago, OK, get on with it. If it wants to build strong neighborhood schools, OK, do that instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

I don't know that you can compare the "old approach." The city continues to change dramatically -- it depends on what time frame you're talking about when you say "old," how the economy & political situation were different, etc. In the 1970s, it seemed like there were white kids at Brent, but not at other EOTP schools; most of the white kids I knew on the Hill attended private schools. OTOH, that was within a decade of the riots on H Street. Or take Payne -- yeah, you can say the demographics today don't reflect the IB demographics, but 20 years ago, the corner of 15th & D SE was pretty much a 24/7 crack market. Even Barracks Row is markedly different from what it was just a decade ago.

I don't honestly have the patience to sort through all the charter school demographics, but my impression is that many charter schools are markedly more diverse than the nearby DCPS schools, as are specialized citywide schools like Logan Montessori and SWW.

I think schools should focus on serving the students they have with the strongest academic program they can provide. I think DCPS central office should reward capable & motivated teachers and administrators (I would put Cobbs among those) with greater autonomy to create strong programs and get rid of those who've lost (or never had) the skill and enthusiasm to do a great job.

I also think that, no matter how good a school is or what DCPS does, white parents will be reluctant to attend schools that are less than 10 percent white or more than 80 percent black. I don't know how to address that -- me telling people to get over themselves on DCUM obviously isn't doing the trick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

With Muriel Bowser paying a lot of lip service to neighborhood proximity preference for charters who agree to it, and the SWS leadership advocating for neighborhood preference ever since the program was evicted from Watkins, I can't see the families stopping just yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You clearly don't live in the highly diverse L-T District, and don't have little children.

You're half right -- I have a young child at LT, but I am in-boundary for a different Ward 6 school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

With Muriel Bowser paying a lot of lip service to neighborhood proximity preference for charters who agree to it, and the SWS leadership advocating for neighborhood preference ever since the program was evicted from Watkins, I can't see the families stopping just yet.

That's absurd. SWS is supporting exactly the opposite of what you've stated. They do not want neighborhood proximity preference and they've made that clear to DME and Chancellor (as well as the SWS school community)

No one was ever "evicted"-- whatever that means in this context. And what an odd word choice ... if you want your thoughts and words to be taken seriously, put an ounce of thought into what you post.

[Anonymous]

^I'm not buying it. The SWS principal plugged for a neighborhood preference even before moving out of Peabody. He used to say so publically, it wasn't a secret. I also know that many parents and teachers didn't want to leave Peabody. I don't believe that SWS' leadership would block a modest neighborhood preference/set-aside if the Bowser administration encouraged them to offer one. If you do, your prerogative.

[Anonymous]

Now that all these non-Hill people are in SWS, they think they own it. SWS owes something to the community in which it resides, and a proximity preference would be a start. We need to keep Hill kids on the Hill, and learning in safe environments. But this thread is about L-T, and its evolution into a neighborhood school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^I'm not buying it. The SWS principal plugged for a neighborhood preference even before moving out of Peabody. He used to say so publically, it wasn't a secret. I also know that many parents and teachers didn't want to leave Peabody. I don't believe that SWS' leadership would block a modest neighborhood preference/set-aside if the Bowser administration encouraged them to offer one. If you do, your prerogative.

I'm not up with the current info. coming from SWS but this is not correct. He advocated for SWS to become a neighborhood school, perhaps at Van Ness, where there wasn't one currently. He never advocated to be plunked down in the middle of another catchment and take it over. The IB carryover from the Cluster was to minimize disruption during the transition year at Logan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^I'm not buying it. The SWS principal plugged for a neighborhood preference even before moving out of Peabody. He used to say so publically, it wasn't a secret. I also know that many parents and teachers didn't want to leave Peabody. I don't believe that SWS' leadership would block a modest neighborhood preference/set-aside if the Bowser administration encouraged them to offer one. If you do, your prerogative.

You obviously haven't read the official school position on this and signed off by the LSAT, which states unequivocally that neighborhood preference is not in the school's best interest. The lone dissenter was the non-parent community on LSAT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now that all these non-Hill people are in SWS, they think they own it. SWS owes something to the community in which it resides, and a proximity preference would be a start. We need to keep Hill kids on the Hill, and learning in safe environments. But this thread is about L-T, and its evolution into a neighborhood school.

And SWS remaining a specialized school does nothing to dimish LT as a neighborhood school. In fact, it provides LT an opportunity to better attract from its boundary catchment beyond K. That's up to the school to make that happen.

"all these non-Hill people"? SWS still draws heavily from Cap Hill - probably more than LT past K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now that all these non-Hill people are in SWS, they think they own it. SWS owes something to the community in which it resides, and a proximity preference would be a start. We need to keep Hill kids on the Hill, and learning in safe environments. But this thread is about L-T, and its evolution into a neighborhood school.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now that all these non-Hill people are in SWS, they think they own it. SWS owes something to the community in which it resides, and a proximity preference would be a start. We need to keep Hill kids on the Hill, and learning in safe environments. But this thread is about L-T, and its evolution into a neighborhood school.

What nonsense are you spouting? Of course the school "belongs" to its students and parents. SWS draws heavily from the Hill and will continue to do so. Proximity preference for SWS would hinder the growth of L-T as a neighborhood school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now that all these non-Hill people are in SWS, they think they own it. SWS owes something to the community in which it resides, and a proximity preference would be a start. We need to keep Hill kids on the Hill, and learning in safe environments. But this thread is about L-T, and its evolution into a neighborhood school.

Just reading this made my IQ drop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now that all these non-Hill people are in SWS, they think they own it. SWS owes something to the community in which it resides, and a proximity preference would be a start. We need to keep Hill kids on the Hill, and learning in safe environments. But this thread is about L-T, and its evolution into a neighborhood school.

Just reading this made my IQ drop.

^^^ Oh so sad. Maybe there's a pull-out for you with tutor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now that all these non-Hill people are in SWS, they think they own it. SWS owes something to the community in which it resides, and a proximity preference would be a start. We need to keep Hill kids on the Hill, and learning in safe environments. But this thread is about L-T, and its evolution into a neighborhood school.

Just reading this made my IQ drop.

^^^ Oh so sad. Maybe there's a pull-out for you with tutor.

But is our children learning?