Deciding whether to try for latin
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Anonymous
Okay, how about the past two or three years? Tell us, how's the growth? |
Anonymous
Banneker is nice. JR is nice. |
Anonymous
Charters are still growing faster, especially in Wards 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. The overall lead is smaller primarily because fewer DCPS kids in Wards 7 and 8 are dropping out of school. Congrats? |
Anonymous
This. And I'm fine with charters and will do the MS lottery. But we spent several years at a title 1 elementary in a not great part of town and if the city's charters had to do what those schools did, they'd all fail. Charters are crap at working with most at risk kids. Basically they can handle kids who are at risk but still have very supportive family networks, which is a tiny sliver of the entire at risk population. But our T1 had a large population of homeless kids as we as kids with really serious home issues. The school was amazing with these kids, basically offering a lot of social services on top of education. Charters don't have the connection to social services or, frankly, the will. They can't do it. Right now though, charters are offering something for kids in a different underserved group -- high achieving kids. That's why we need both DCPS and charters. It's too hard to meet the needs of the entire population in one system. |
Anonymous
Where are you getting your data? And are you including adult ed programs? Just for example I compared OSSE enrollment spreadsheet totals of UPSFF students from the current school year and the 23-24 school year. Over that period DCPS is up 1.34% and charters are up 0.47%. |
Anonymous
They got a school that is performing about how demographics would predict, very similar to Girls Global and KIPP Legacy. Roosevelt serves 1000 students who have other options but choose Roosevelt. If you're referring to the renovation, the city got a nice renovation that alleviates overcrowding and maintains safety and functionality. And I believe the modernization cost about $125-$136 million so not sure where you're getting your cost figure. Please do tell us all about Eagle Academy. How much did this elementary school pay its director? How was its academic performance? What is the lawsuit about? Yaaaay, charters! |
Anonymous
This. I'm not really sure we need charters inevitably, because many cities are more successful with magnets, but I agree serving high achieving kids is necessary. This idea that charters, who can kick out any underperforming or difficult kid, are doing the same work as DCPS is simply not true. And the charters aren't even preparing more or less hand selected kids all that well. If you look at risk pools they are not good. By no means am I defending DCPS, but people are comparing apples to oranges. The charter system works for a handful of the aforementioned at risk but dedicated families, but it mostly works for a lot of wealthy and UMC families whose kids won't make it to a selective HS. It's safety schools for the already privileged who don't want to pay for private. It creates a terrible cycle where good DCPS schools in less affluent areas fight for their lives while mediocre charters rest of the laurels and parents being assured the problem kid in their child's class gets kicked out November 1 after the books close and the money for that kid doesn't follow them and stays at the charter. |
Anonymous
I've never even heard of Eagle Academy but I have heard of Roosevelt High School and Ballou and Woodson and Coolidge and Dunbar and Eastern and Anacostia, and I've also read about how poor black kids in a number of states in the deep south are kicking so much ass on standardized tests.... |
Anonymous
Well then you're not informed enough to have an intelligent discussion. Eagle is bad enough that the council had an oversight hearing about it. https://dccouncil.gov/event/committee-of-the-whole-public-oversight-hearing-19/ If you haven't heard of Eagle, why don't you fill us in on why Rocketship has lost so much enrollment and their test scores are so terrible? Or why KIPP's performance is so poor that one of their schools was nearly closed just recently? Or if you'd like to talk about high schools, tell us all about this one's sudden collapse. https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/186259/the-dc-public-charter-school-board-didnt-intervene-in-a-financially-troubled-school/ |
Anonymous
As for the South, the data is way less positive than you seem to think. https://mississippitoday.org/2025/09/25/mississippi-schools-backslide-on-academic-progress/ https://www.chalkbeat.org/2025/10/28/lessons-from-the-southern-surge-on-naep/ |
Anonymous
I'm actually not defending Roosevelt here, though I think Ballou which has a lot of adults pursuing degrees, Coolidge, and Eastern are all weird additions. But besides that it's both true that the city has failed Roosevelt and also Eagle Academy was an unmitigated disaster that cost a lot of money and failed a lot of kids. Yes. SOME Southern states have surged, though mostly due to long-term investment, and it's also true that they had a lot of room for growth from dead last. No one wants to admit that American education is the issue. It's a piece meal approach that lets parents with means more or less decide their kid's learning and that creates an untenable and not good overall education system. DC is failing but it's not failing in a vacuum. And it's failing in part because parents want to control every single part of their kid's lives and education, even when they are not terribly well equipped to do so and at the expense of the citizenry overall. |
Anonymous
Well not to deflect from the Latin discussion but DCI has pretty darn good facilities and beautiful building. So that’s that. |
Anonymous
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Here is the button line. If you have a high performing kid EOTP, then the charter middle schools talked about on here - Latin, Basis, DCI will serve your kid much better. If you have an on grade level kid, the charter will also serve your kid better because they have a big enough cohort to teach on grade level material, Now I’m not saying your on grade level kid can’t go to DCPS middle schools, but it will be easy and they will be at the top of the heap. They won’t have to work much or very hard because the cohort is so low performing. |
Anonymous
Agree except that I would include WOTP kids as well. No dcps middle or high school is serving their students. |
Anonymous
Yep. The parents of all those Ivy League admits must be kicking themselves for sending their kids to Latin. Latin obviously didn’t meet their needs. |