Anyone NOT taking their SWS PK spot?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[quote=Anonymous
(2) The animosity that everyone has toward people living around the new SWS who are agitating for proximity. The mood seems to be, "well, you're doing well enough financially -- why should you get a nice neighborhood school?" I have a feeling that if a citywide school (like SWS) was placed in the middle of the poorest neighborhood in Ward 8, but kids from those neighborhoods were only allowed in through the lottery, then people on DCUM would be singing a different tune about what's fair with regard to proximity.

City-wide preference for SWS obviously won't help the hapless LT crowd, but it also won't help SWS. The program has been strong as much because it has the lowest percentage of FARMs kids EotP as anything else. LT will only turn around once the building is renovated, the principal goes, and Tommy Wells, who doesn't give a damn, also goes. It will start to turn eventually, maybe in 5 years. In the meantime, SWS will slip, because it won't be as high-SES in a few years and will lose some PTA cohesion and momentum/fund-raising capacity as a result. The principal and teachers want neighborhood preference, won't get it, and may go themselves as a result. Great. Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, or at least make it ill.

This is nonsense. There are plenty of citywide schools that are highly successful. Keeping poor people out is not a good solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: In the meantime, SWS will slip, because it won't be as high-SES in a few years and will lose some PTA cohesion and momentum/fund-raising capacity as a result. The principal and teachers want neighborhood preference, won't get it, and may go themselves as a result. Great. Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, or at least make it ill.

You are seriously talking out of your ass

[Anonymous]

This is nonsense. There are plenty of citywide schools that are highly successful. Keeping poor people out is not a good solution.

Perhaps you could define "highly successful" here in early 21st Century America for us. I'd go with test scores in the 80s/90s, like JKLM and, soon, Brent and Maury. I'd also go with six-figure PTAs to pay for necessary support staff and supplies (librarians for small schools, teachers aides above K, smart boards, strong extra-curricular programs and decently stocked art, music and science rooms).

Tell me, which city-wide schools perform on the level of JKLM and Brent? Logan Montessori? Keeping the percentage of high-SES kids high is the only thing that works well in a city with an abysmally run school system and no city-financed gifted and talented programs. The poor kids who join the gaggle of high-SES kids accrue the benefit in a big way of course.

[Anonymous]

The fourth grade math and reading proficiencies for Capitol Hill Montessori are higher than those for Brent.

[Anonymous]

See also Benjamin Banneker High School.

[Anonymous]

And what about the citywide charters? I'm sure Haynes, Stokes, Yu Ying, etc. could safely be called successful. I think that MV and IT will have great scores once they get that far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:See also Benjamin Banneker High School.

Oh, right, with average SAT scores lower than the national average for both reading and math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fourth grade math and reading proficiencies for Capitol Hill Montessori are higher than those for Brent.

True, but give Brent a year or two. The PTA and principal are on the road to ensuring that more and more high-SES families to stay, e.g. permitting 3rd to 5th graders to loop up a year, or even two, for math from the fall, unheard of in DCPS. Oh, and, yea, the PTA pays for the extra math instructor. No secret that CH Montessori's principal is a flake who drives too many parents away.

DCPS just doesn't provide the inputs for high-performing schools without big PTA bucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And what about the citywide charters? I'm sure Haynes, Stokes, Yu Ying, etc. could safely be called successful. I think that MV and IT will have great scores once they get that far.

Not to me. They all do a great job on early ed, that is if you're not looking for a dual-immersion program like Oyster (where kids learn the target language both from peers and instructors).

High-SES parents in the upper grades at these schools often barely hang on. This is partly because the PTAs can't raise money for support staff like at JKLM and Brent. SWS could do that if it stayed a neighborhood school, and only if.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what about the citywide charters? I'm sure Haynes, Stokes, Yu Ying, etc. could safely be called successful. I think that MV and IT will have great scores once they get that far.

Not to me. They all do a great job on early ed, that is if you're not looking for a dual-immersion program like Oyster (where kids learn the target language both from peers and instructors).

High-SES parents in the upper grades at these schools often barely hang on. This is partly because the PTAs can't raise money for support staff like at JKLM and Brent. SWS could do that if it stayed a neighborhood school, and only if.

SWS already raises more than you probably realize and will gain new families. There's no exodus of the current families. There may be minor attrition, but it's a highly committed and engaged group of families. These families are more welcoming of new families seeking out the program than some of the cynics posting here seem to realize (haven't read anything insightful enough to suggest these cynics are current SWS families). Haters hate . . . whatever

When did it become JKLMB? Or lets compare Deal to Jefferson. C'mon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what about the citywide charters? I'm sure Haynes, Stokes, Yu Ying, etc. could safely be called successful. I think that MV and IT will have great scores once they get that far.

Not to me. They all do a great job on early ed, that is if you're not looking for a dual-immersion program like Oyster (where kids learn the target language both from peers and instructors).

High-SES parents in the upper grades at these schools often barely hang on. This is partly because the PTAs can't raise money for support staff like at JKLM and Brent. SWS could do that if it stayed a neighborhood school, and only if.

Well, guess what? SWS has only been an early ed program so far. There haven't been many years of upper grades at a lot of these schools so far, so I'll guess we'll have to wait and see. You could just as easily say that parents at Brent are "barely hanging on," since they don't have a middle school program to feed to. Oh wait, they've started to feed to...citywide programs like Latin and Basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Well, guess what? SWS has only been an early ed program so far. There haven't been many years of upper grades at a lot of these schools so far, so I'll guess we'll have to wait and see. You could just as easily say that parents at Brent are "barely hanging on," since they don't have a middle school program to feed to. Oh wait, they've started to feed to...citywide programs like Latin and Basis.

At this juncture in history, you can't have a great DC public school above early ed without a neighborhood feed. You can certainly have an OK one--a Logan Montessori,or an Oyster, or a Yu Ying--but that's it with this mayor and this chancellor. When you visit JKLM, or Brent, you get it - you see the extra stuff they have and the high-end playgrounds. You hear PTA parents talking like human resource consultants, vetting this admin and that teacher or aide. You learn about community members without children supporting the schools in various ways partly to give their property values a boost.

As a Brent parent who started at SWS (and donated many construction toys) I can't see myself "barely hanging on" through 5th grade. We plan to go strong to the end, at least if Brent keeps on teaching 6th grade math, then private, like other parents. Some of us aren't going to be satisfied with Latin (almost no MS ability grouping) or BASIS (weak facilities) but we'll stick with our IB ES.

SWS could be another Brent or Maury with a boundary, LT's would have done it, but not without.

[Anonymous]

I actually think that SWS and Brent are in similar situations. The reason that it is tough for Brent parents told on for 5th grade is the middle school problem. SWS may be faced with that problem too. But hopefully with a citywide lottery (neighborhood preference or not) it will be at least as diverse as Brent. Currently a bit of a problem at SWS.

[Anonymous]

^ Be careful what you wish for if "diversity" means more low-SES kids who struggle, fewer involved parents, and a PTA that can't raise nearly as much as those at Maury and Brent (six figures). I still expect a city-wide lottery to deliver a lesser product than a neighborhood school would've (explaining why we turned down 2 Rivers). Many of those cool construction toys were paid for by IB Cluster parents.

We've lost a good many neighbors in the Brent District over the years, mostly parents worried about what would happen in grades 3-5. They might have stayed for the advanced math Principal Young is arranging for the fall, and all the resources the school has now, from Chinese instruction to a dozen smart boards, to big plasma TVs in almost every classroom, to a stronger teaching staff every year.

[Anonymous]

2 Rivers scores and Brent scores are very similar. Just saying.