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DC Public and Public Charter Schools
Why doesn't DC have a competitive public high school like Stuyvesant in NYC?
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Anonymous
Local School Restructuring Team. |
Anonymous
From WashPost: "From first grade through junior high, Jessica spent one day each week in a special program for gifted and talented children. Those classes left a mark on Jessica. "They tell you, 'You guys, you are smarter than most people,' " recalls Jessica, whose closest friends remain the girls she met in that program at age 7. Jessica finds it curious that she and several of her gifted classmates became underemployed slackers with attitudes. She wonders if that traces back to the lessons they learned in the gifted program. "You kind of create your own moral universe," Jessica says. "It's like, well, I like myself. If other people don't like me, then whatever. I'm out of here." The point is, G&T may not be the best way to go. Perhaps strengthening the DCPS curriculum for all students while differentiating the level of rigor makes more sense. Unless the goal is simply to have a special school or program. At the HS level, we already have those schools/programs at Banneker, Walls, and Wilson. My neighbor's son at Walls is attending classes at GW. How much more accelerated can you get? |
Anonymous
Oh brother - because some self-involved bimbo who participated in a G&T program became a self-proclaimed “underemployed slacker,” you draw the conclusion that G&T “may not be the best way to go.” Well, as long as you have good reasons for your opinion . . . 
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Anonymous
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Actually it's a fair point. I know several high IQ gifted people who develped an attitude and never found their place in the world. 150 and higher IQ types. They did not have G&T programs at their public schools, but understood from teachers that they were gifted.
As for started a school, are there legal barriers? School Without Walls acts like a private, with interviews and a test. (Not sure if Banneker administers a test.) Why not another? |
Anonymous
| as for startING a school. I need more coffee! |
Anonymous
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Different poster than PPP - But I agree that creating a G&T program may not be the best approach for supporting kids who need more. I think what makes my skin crawl is this whole notion of seperating out kids who are "gifted" and applying a label - I don't want that for my kid. It just smacks of elitism and segregation and we know who will be segregated from who. And it gives regular teachers an excuse not to push mediocre students.
To the OP who seems like he/she wants to pursue establishing an accelerated high school - I think it only makes sense to first evaluate what we have currently (Banneker, Walls) and see how those can be expanded somehow. But if you are really hot to pursue this I would start by contacting the Chancellor's office first, just to find out what their plans are - Unfortunately I see that DCPS does not yet have a Chief Academic Officer. Anyway good luck with this, OP. |
Anonymous
| In the not-too-distant past, Clifford Janey talked about starting a Latin High School at Eastern. With a demonstration of parent interest, perhaps Chancellor Rhee could revive this idea. |
Anonymous
I think it get it. You're saying the middle and upper-middle class AA parents of students at Banneker don't particularly want to see a diverse school. They're happy with the racial mix exactly where it is. Hmm - could be. |
Anonymous
That is not what the poster said at all. "I am a white person whose children attended a historically AA elementary school, that a group of inboundary racially diverse families tried to infuse with new energy and academic rigor. We were thwarted at ever turn. The school remains 90% to 95% AA. Candidates for LSRT continue to write statements about needing this school to be for "students of color". I truly feel like I've experienced a small bit of discrimination There was no reference to Banneker - there was specific mention of the experience being about an elementary school. |
Anonymous
TR Ahlstrom, the departed founder of Washington Latin Public Charter, used to tell parents interested in the school that Janey had suggested he base entrance to WLPCS on entrance exams. This is how Boston Latin admissions are run. Ahlstrom declined, or so he told us, because he thought the tests to incoming 5th graders would discriminate against kids from the lower-performing DC public elementaries. Also, Ahlstrom would point out that Boston Latin has small percentages of minorities and this has raised tensions at the school. (It was always a bit hard to tell what was going on behind the scenes with Ahlstrom, but some of this makes sense at least.) Janey subsequently talked for a while about doing his own Latin school with test-based admissions at Eastern, but left before he got anything going. But in any case, at least during Janey's day, we can conclude that public charter schools had some chance of doing test-based admissions. I don't know if the environment has changed since then. |
Anonymous
Janey never had authority to approve that change to charter school law. Janey, and now Rhee, oversee the DCPS schools, a category that doesn't include Latin or other charter schools. So, whether or not Janey told Ahlstrom this had nothing to do with whether or not Latin could have instituted an entrance exam. Given how firmly the PCSB has reacted to other schools that proposed entrance exams, I doubt Latin would have been successful. |
Anonymous
| School for Walls administers an admissions test. Why couldn't another school? |
Anonymous
| Truly: what are you afraid of if your kid is one of the few that is white in a school? Please, please spell it out for me, non-AA folks. My kid is a white kid in a school that is 98% brown. She is in a younger grade. So many white parents pull their kids out of the school by K in part b/c of, ahem, 'diversity' issues. Has anyone been mean to my kid for being white? Uh, no. She gets hugs from the 5th and 6th graders when she walks down the hall. She loves her school. Her idea of beauty isnt Barbie but among many things, black women, thank God. But I guess the assumption here is any white kid in a school that is largely AA will get--what?--jumped? |
Anonymous
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I haven't hear a single white parent claim their white children would get jumped in a majority minority school.
Get over yourself, PP. My white children are currently in a school that is majority minority and will stay there as long as they are happy and the academics are good. |
Anonymous
| They would never ever say it, of course. But reading through the code isnt hard. |