ludlow-taylor
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Anonymous
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Something's gotta give. As the years go by, the Stanton Park to H St. neighborhood will only become pricer and pricer, whiter and whiter, and more and more high-SES, like the entire Hill. Spots at charters and OOB at in-demand local schools (SWS, Maury, Brent, Logan, Tyler SI) will be harder and harder to come by. Eventually, IB LT parents are going to organize to push for sweeping change.
I hope parents and the powers that be take notice when the LT DCPS web page, updated soon after CAS results come out in August, shows that the IB population fell a tad for SY 2012-2013, for the second year running. Maybe nobody much will care that the IB population is dropping at Ludlow until more DC public kids are in charters than DCPS. I'd wager that will be true by SY 2015-2016. The momentum is there - 0% in charters in the late 90s, nearly 45% for the upcoming school year. |
Anonymous
It sounds like you're assuming that DCPS doesn’t want more schools to go Charter. I assume the opposite – based on Kaya’s actions of closing more and more DCPS schools and asking for her own chartering authority. It’s only speculation, but it’s looking like Kaya’s job now is to preside over the demise of DCPS, after which she’ll be taken care of professionally by the charter movement. If that speculation is on target, then if she’s reading here, she will see no reason to improve L-T for IB parents. As many have written here, although you’d like your kids to be able to walk to school, what’s most important is that they get a good education – and you have the means and the will to do it. You’ll keep your house on the Hill, apply to several charter schools, play the lottery and drive your kids to Brookland or wherever to you need to go. Thus, simply by virtue of being parents who want a good education for their kids, (without breaking the bank or moving to the burbs), you unintentionally and unconsciously play into the hands of those who want to switch DC to a charter system. Your kids’ scores will bring up the Charter scores, while DCPS scores fall, because there are fewer kids of engaged parents in them, making charters look more and more successful than DCPS. In this scenario, there is no incentive for DCPS to make L-T or any school more welcoming to engaged IB parents. I don’t know the L-t principal, but from reading here, she sounds perfect for the job of facilitating Charter growth. |
Anonymous
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^Sounds like you're assuming that Kaya is going to last in DC beyond her mayor, unlike Rhee. I doubt it. Gray has become so unpopular that he may not even run again.
Not having a viable neighborhood school for gentrifiers is hurting the Stanton Park neighborhood. Realtor friends tell me that the LT District (along with the Payne District) has started to attract a higher percentage of gentrifying empty nesters than young families. It's not a safe assumption that most IB parents will simply tough it out at the Brookland charters. I know a good many who have given up after a year or two because the commute has exhausted them. More seem to move to Upper NW all the time. The Stanton Park crowd is aware that the most successful schools in the city are in fact neighborhood schools, not charters. There aren't any charters with DC-CAS pass rates in the 70s and 80s while Lafayette's is in the 90s. Few government employees find a commute to Brookland attractive, since there are hardly any Federal office buildings en route from the Hill. The first step to turning around LT is supporting a Ward 6 DC City Council candidate who believes that LT is worth fighting for as a bona fide neighborhood school from the platform of the DC City Council Committee on Education. |
Anonymous
| mostly true. i'd give l-t five years or so before cobbs goes and ib parents get serious about turning the school around |
Anonymous
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I think charterization will go on with or without Henderson or Gray - just as it started before either one of them were in charge and has accelerated under their watch, though neither one of them actively advocated charters before they were in control.
I think it's a bus that DC (and other cities) are on that won't stop unless engaged parents want to do something about it and I don't see the will there. (I wish I did). Some parents may move to another part of town to avoid commuting, but right now, some don't have to - they get lucky in the lottery and get into a good charter near or in their gentrifying neighborhood. The latest talk is of tweaking the system to allow "neighborhood charters." If this happens, there will be less will for parents to support DCPS. Imagine if L-T became a charter and neighborhood families who applied had priority: Current engaged parents would have a huge incentive, it seems to me, to take the plunge and try to enroll their kids in L-T. It would practically guarantee that more "people like us" would be in the school. The inevitable rising scores resulting from having more middle class kids would be used by the charter movement and the city (whoever is mayor) to show the benefits of getting out of DCPS and going charter. Parents will know the truth, but won’t bother calling anyone out on it as long as their kids are getting a good education. It will happen in more and more gentrifying neighborhoods, until DCPS central office will have to downsize. No problem for central office staff, though, as they will prime candidates for administrative jobs in charter schools. At this point DCPS will be overseeing only the few magnet schools and good neighborhood schools in upper NW that didn’t need gentrifying. Then those schools can become charters, too! Why not? For instance, there could be a JKLM charter group preserving the already great DCPS schools. Parents might balk at first, but if their kids can stay in their same good neighborhood schools, what do they care, really? I’d love to be wrong about this because I don’t want to see public money being turned over to private entities for their benefit, with no benefit to the kids. Can anyone convince me that this isn’t what’s happening or why it wouldn’t or shouldn’t work? |
Anonymous
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As long as gentrifying parents are willing to jump through the hoops that charter supporters (incl Kaya Henderson) put before them, I'm afraid a charter take-over of DCPS is inevitable.
They can't do it without the implicit support of the parents and so far, they're getting it. |
Anonymous
| Question: What makes the early childhood program at LT better than the other programs at the school? I am a prospective parent and I can't figure this out. Help! |
Anonymous
I'm not sure that the early childhood program really is better than the rest of the school, but it is more diverse and more inbound parents are willing to take a chance at age 3 and age 4 than in older grades. It also is reggio inspired for the early childhood and a couple of the teachers really take that seriously at LT (not all for sure and there are some early childhood teachers who pay very little attention to the reggio approach). |
Anonymous
If a charter take-over of LT would mean that I would be able and willing to send my IB 4 year old there to K and above, great, bring it on. Preschool was OK, partly because we ignored depressing PTA politics. But we're not enthusiastic about K or 1st and won't stay for PreK if we get a better spot over the summer (likely, since we're near the top on two charter waiting lists for coveted spots). We've been a little surprised to see some die-hard seeming booster parents hitting the road after PreK. I was under the impression that these folks would tough it out. |
Anonymous
free all day preschool. And actually even in a failing school the ece programs are usually good |
Anonymous
We're choosing AppleTree Lincoln Park to avoid having a somewhat depressing DC public school come with preschool. But we would have gone for LT PreS3, or JO Wilson, or Payne (in at all of them!) if we hadn't landed a desirable charter spot. All the free all-day preschool options around here seem fine to us. |
Anonymous
| The ECE teachers probably work very hard and are probably quite hurt to be thought of as free day care. |
Anonymous
| They'll live. They get paid regular teachers salaries, unlike the great majority of daycare providers and preschool teachers in this country. |
Anonymous
Pp notice I said free PRESCHOOL. The cost of paying out of pocket for all good quality day preschool in the dc area is not cheap. And most dc schools have great preschool programs even if the academics in upper grades aren't as good. Also teaching preschool is hard! I know many experienced teachers who are scared to teach preschool. |
Anonymous
| Probably one of the hardest jobs out there! I know I could never do it in a million years. |