Looking for some feedback on Eastern HS?
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Anonymous
Thanks for making my point for me. None of those are strong or even decent academic choices. |
Anonymous
If your kid can only succeed when surrounded by tons of kids from rich and well-educated families, you have a point--and you should probably look at private, or at least a public in a very wealthy area. But there are kids doing well at all of these charter schools (look at the Coke Scholar from Cap City, for example), other charters (DCI and Latin, for example), and in DCPS too. Using public schools in a city that is majority-minority and has high child poverty rates is going to be different than the experience in a more wealthy and homogenous suburb. That's not to say DC schools are perfect--I'd make some very big changes if I were the DCPS chancellor! But if you turn your nose up at a dozen + schools educating thousands of kids and don't think any student is getting a decent education, I'd have to disagree. |
Anonymous
Well maybe then Weedon’s daughter should have stayed at Eastern? To claim YOUR kid has the right to select a high academic achieving school, but MY kid has to make do at a failing school, is the height of hypocrisy. |
Anonymous
Oh I agree that Weedon is a hypocrite and I'm glad he's not on the SBOE anymore. But I don't think his kid should be punished, or have fewer choices than any other kid, as a result of her dad. And I also think the city would be better off if more kids went to their in-bound schools. I just think there are ways to encourage that other than restricting choice. |
Anonymous
The bigger issue is that DCPS willfully refuses to structure middle and high schools in a way that would encourage a larger percentage of the families with kids under the age of 18 to use those schools. Less than 25% of the students under age 18 are high poverty but over 45% of the students currently using DCPS are. That means that there is a huge bleed of families---wealthy AND middle class---white and minority---from DCPS. And no, families should not just be told that they need to shell out $45K or more per year or else move. They pay taxes. They too have a right to a school system that meets their needs. |
Anonymous
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You're right, PP. +1000.
DCPS higher ups would work much harder to incentivize families across the SES to enroll in neighborhood middle and high schools if voters, city council members and the Mayor forced their hand. |
Anonymous
How is he a hypocrite? His daughter goes to Walls and his son goes to Eastern. These are decisions made by the kids. What do want him to do, force his child to go to Eastern to align with HIS philosophy? |
Anonymous
What was fascinating about that story in the Post all those years ago is that it's very clear that some people DID expect him to do that, and good for him and his wife for understanding that doesn't make sense. But that story should illustrate how being very rigid about perspectives on these issues is unproductive and fails kids. Expecting all parents to send their kids to IB schools even when those IB schools explicitly do not meet the needs of that specific child is unreasonable. But expecting parents to be able to find alternatives to IB school when there are so few available and many are simply out of reach for most families (because they are restricted by limited admissions, lottery luck, location, or in the case of private schools, cost) is also not reasonable. It's great Weedon's daughter found a school in Walls that both met her needs AND was accessible to her. There are many students in DC for whom that doesn't happen, because there are lots of students who either won't get into Walls or an application HS of their choice, or will get in but it's no the right fit, but who are also not served by their neighborhood schools. Pretending the neighborhood schools are great doesn't make this better. |
Anonymous
| Pretending that struggling neighborhood schools are acceptable to the great majority of UMC parents doesn't make it better either. But what's the point of grumbling here in a city where politicians don't seem to get voted out over neighborhood school issues? We saved for private for years so we wouldn't have to move if we lacked lottery luck and got shut out of Walls. As it were, both things have happened. |
Anonymous
Yes, yes he should. But what really happened is that he changed his ideology in a self-serving way once faced with the actual facts of HS. Now since he has not recanted, it’s “IB for thee, but not for me (if I get a kid into Walls.)” |
Anonymous
Yeah, that was my understanding at the time -- that he shamed other parents for not attending their IB. |
Anonymous
I mean, people expected it because he was a loud voice expressly and impliedly arguing that we should all send our kids to the IB, no ifs ands or buts. But when the reality of HS hit him, he made and exception … for himself. Yes, he made the right choice for his kid. Nobody begrudges him that. The highly annoying thing is that his prior advocacy was all built on moral haranguing uniformed by reality. |
Anonymous
And where does your kid go to high school? |
Anonymous
Because MC and LMCs are too busy working to post on DCUM. |
Anonymous
How do we know that Eastern’s IB program isn’t full of high achieving students? |