The Middle School Problem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

The middle class middle students are concentrated at one middle school in the city. This leaves a very small amount of kids sprinkled at Hardy, SH, and charters. The remaining students are in deep poverty and don’t have adequate support and facing things at home that you can’t even imagine. If middle schools are 90% at risk are you really blaming the school or city that only 1/3 of those students are at level? You should be advocating for social justice, affordable housing, and jobs before even you can see the impact in the schools.

What does that even mean? How does "social justice" magically turn an uneducated single parent with too many children to support, few basic skills, and (perhaps) a substance abuse problem into a responsible citizen and effective parent?

Do you think that uneducated single moms drop from the sky, or do you think that a larger social context plays a role in their development? For example - if a boy starts getting followed around by store clerks who think he’ll steal stuff and stopped by police (including being held at gunpoint) by the time he’s 12, do you think he’s more or less likely to be a « responsible citizen »? If a family is only shown apartments in high crime areas (despite their ability to pay the rent elsewhere) do you think they are more or less likely to raise kids who are « responsible citizens »?

Actually, I think a major factor in multi-generational poverty is a culture that tolerates or encourages destructive behavior and devalues behaviors that could break the cycle. And I think this is as true in WV "hollows" as it is in blighted urban centers. And "culture" here includes the near-term material and sexual gratification that's beamed at us endlessly in music and video.

Do you think that this culture you describe dropped from the sky? Or could it have anything to do with the institutional racism that I described? There is a ton of research which shows:

- Most white people, view black kids as being older than they are. The research I saw said that on average whites see black kids as on average 4 years older, so they see black 12 year olds as 16. This leads them to react to kid behavior differently than they do with white kids, which results in dramatically higher involvement of black youth with the criminal justice system for the same behaviors that white kids tend to get away with.

- Starting in preschool, black kids are suspended and expelled at a dramatically higher rate than white kids for the same behaviors.

- Black kids are very much more likely to be charged as adults for crimes, more likely to be convicted than whites based on similar evidence, and sentenced more harshly for the same crimes.

- Black moms are reported for child abuse and neglect much more than white moms for the exact same behaviors.

- Buying a home is a huge catalyst of the kinds of middle class values that you are talking about (and to accumulating wealth). Between the 1930s and the 1970s, the US government spend billions of dollars subsidizing white home ownership, but the FHA and VA loans that were used for that were much less available to black aspiring homeowners due to a combination of restrictive deeds, redlining, etc. Fast forward 40 years and predatory lending (especially in the 2008 financial crisis) focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, and the subsequent foreclosure crisis decimated black home ownership, which dropped 23% between 2005 and 2009. You really see this in places like Cleveland - banks there were found guilty of all kinds of fraud specifically targeting minorities, and the result was that in black east side neighborhoods, more than 15% of houses were foreclosed and eventually abandoned by banks, and many have been torn down. That rate of vacancy and dereliction also destroys the value of surrounding homes, so whole neighborhoods that were up and coming residential neighborhoods in 2006 are largely vacant now and the people who scrimped and saved to buy a house and own part of the middle class American dream have lost all their equity --- often without having been foreclosed on or ever missing a payment. Cleveland.com has an amazing article on this with Google Earth images from before and after the foreclosure crisis -- a thriving neighborhood from 2006 is now mostly vacant lots where derelict houses have been razed.

The point is that the culture and behaviors that your are bemoaning exist in a context, and in many ways that context is one of black kids, moms and homeowners having the deck stacked against them in a lot of ways. Sure, through heroic effort people can overcome the odds and become successful, but it shouldn't take a heroic effort, and that context is something that we as a society can do something about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

The middle class middle students are concentrated at one middle school in the city. This leaves a very small amount of kids sprinkled at Hardy, SH, and charters. The remaining students are in deep poverty and don’t have adequate support and facing things at home that you can’t even imagine. If middle schools are 90% at risk are you really blaming the school or city that only 1/3 of those students are at level? You should be advocating for social justice, affordable housing, and jobs before even you can see the impact in the schools.

What does that even mean? How does "social justice" magically turn an uneducated single parent with too many children to support, few basic skills, and (perhaps) a substance abuse problem into a responsible citizen and effective parent?

Do you think that uneducated single moms drop from the sky, or do you think that a larger social context plays a role in their development? For example - if a boy starts getting followed around by store clerks who think he’ll steal stuff and stopped by police (including being held at gunpoint) by the time he’s 12, do you think he’s more or less likely to be a « responsible citizen »? If a family is only shown apartments in high crime areas (despite their ability to pay the rent elsewhere) do you think they are more or less likely to raise kids who are « responsible citizens »?

Actually, I think a major factor in multi-generational poverty is a culture that tolerates or encourages destructive behavior and devalues behaviors that could break the cycle. And I think this is as true in WV "hollows" as it is in blighted urban centers. And "culture" here includes the near-term material and sexual gratification that's beamed at us endlessly in music and video.

Do you think that this culture you describe dropped from the sky? Or could it have anything to do with the institutional racism that I described? There is a ton of research which shows:

- Most white people, view black kids as being older than they are. The research I saw said that on average whites see black kids as on average 4 years older, so they see black 12 year olds as 16. This leads them to react to kid behavior differently than they do with white kids, which results in dramatically higher involvement of black youth with the criminal justice system for the same behaviors that white kids tend to get away with.

- Starting in preschool, black kids are suspended and expelled at a dramatically higher rate than white kids for the same behaviors.

- Black kids are very much more likely to be charged as adults for crimes, more likely to be convicted than whites based on similar evidence, and sentenced more harshly for the same crimes.

- Black moms are reported for child abuse and neglect much more than white moms for the exact same behaviors.

- Buying a home is a huge catalyst of the kinds of middle class values that you are talking about (and to accumulating wealth). Between the 1930s and the 1970s, the US government spend billions of dollars subsidizing white home ownership, but the FHA and VA loans that were used for that were much less available to black aspiring homeowners due to a combination of restrictive deeds, redlining, etc. Fast forward 40 years and predatory lending (especially in the 2008 financial crisis) focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, and the subsequent foreclosure crisis decimated black home ownership, which dropped 23% between 2005 and 2009. You really see this in places like Cleveland - banks there were found guilty of all kinds of fraud specifically targeting minorities, and the result was that in black east side neighborhoods, more than 15% of houses were foreclosed and eventually abandoned by banks, and many have been torn down. That rate of vacancy and dereliction also destroys the value of surrounding homes, so whole neighborhoods that were up and coming residential neighborhoods in 2006 are largely vacant now and the people who scrimped and saved to buy a house and own part of the middle class American dream have lost all their equity --- often without having been foreclosed on or ever missing a payment. Cleveland.com has an amazing article on this with Google Earth images from before and after the foreclosure crisis -- a thriving neighborhood from 2006 is now mostly vacant lots where derelict houses have been razed.

The point is that the culture and behaviors that your are bemoaning exist in a context, and in many ways that context is one of black kids, moms and homeowners having the deck stacked against them in a lot of ways. Sure, through heroic effort people can overcome the odds and become successful, but it shouldn't take a heroic effort, and that context is something that we as a society can do something about.

That's a lot of words, none of which apply to the multi-generational poor whites I referenced in WV "hollows".

Here's a thought: in DC, suspensions used to track misbehavior. Now, disruptive kids are kept in class to avoid inconvenient statistics.

There is an epidemic of juvenile street crime these days -- you know, those groups of 15 year olds attacking pedestrians or menacing metro riders -- and they get a wrist slap and quickly released. So they keep at it.

IMO, when a 15 year old brutally attacks and stomps a passerby, he SHOULD be locked away, not for his benefit or rehabilitation, but for the protection of society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

The middle class middle students are concentrated at one middle school in the city. This leaves a very small amount of kids sprinkled at Hardy, SH, and charters. The remaining students are in deep poverty and don’t have adequate support and facing things at home that you can’t even imagine. If middle schools are 90% at risk are you really blaming the school or city that only 1/3 of those students are at level? You should be advocating for social justice, affordable housing, and jobs before even you can see the impact in the schools.

What does that even mean? How does "social justice" magically turn an uneducated single parent with too many children to support, few basic skills, and (perhaps) a substance abuse problem into a responsible citizen and effective parent?

Do you think that uneducated single moms drop from the sky, or do you think that a larger social context plays a role in their development? For example - if a boy starts getting followed around by store clerks who think he’ll steal stuff and stopped by police (including being held at gunpoint) by the time he’s 12, do you think he’s more or less likely to be a « responsible citizen »? If a family is only shown apartments in high crime areas (despite their ability to pay the rent elsewhere) do you think they are more or less likely to raise kids who are « responsible citizens »?

Actually, I think a major factor in multi-generational poverty is a culture that tolerates or encourages destructive behavior and devalues behaviors that could break the cycle. And I think this is as true in WV "hollows" as it is in blighted urban centers. And "culture" here includes the near-term material and sexual gratification that's beamed at us endlessly in music and video.

Do you think that this culture you describe dropped from the sky? Or could it have anything to do with the institutional racism that I described? There is a ton of research which shows:

- Most white people, view black kids as being older than they are. The research I saw said that on average whites see black kids as on average 4 years older, so they see black 12 year olds as 16. This leads them to react to kid behavior differently than they do with white kids, which results in dramatically higher involvement of black youth with the criminal justice system for the same behaviors that white kids tend to get away with.

- Starting in preschool, black kids are suspended and expelled at a dramatically higher rate than white kids for the same behaviors.

- Black kids are very much more likely to be charged as adults for crimes, more likely to be convicted than whites based on similar evidence, and sentenced more harshly for the same crimes.

- Black moms are reported for child abuse and neglect much more than white moms for the exact same behaviors.

- Buying a home is a huge catalyst of the kinds of middle class values that you are talking about (and to accumulating wealth). Between the 1930s and the 1970s, the US government spend billions of dollars subsidizing white home ownership, but the FHA and VA loans that were used for that were much less available to black aspiring homeowners due to a combination of restrictive deeds, redlining, etc. Fast forward 40 years and predatory lending (especially in the 2008 financial crisis) focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, and the subsequent foreclosure crisis decimated black home ownership, which dropped 23% between 2005 and 2009. You really see this in places like Cleveland - banks there were found guilty of all kinds of fraud specifically targeting minorities, and the result was that in black east side neighborhoods, more than 15% of houses were foreclosed and eventually abandoned by banks, and many have been torn down. That rate of vacancy and dereliction also destroys the value of surrounding homes, so whole neighborhoods that were up and coming residential neighborhoods in 2006 are largely vacant now and the people who scrimped and saved to buy a house and own part of the middle class American dream have lost all their equity --- often without having been foreclosed on or ever missing a payment. Cleveland.com has an amazing article on this with Google Earth images from before and after the foreclosure crisis -- a thriving neighborhood from 2006 is now mostly vacant lots where derelict houses have been razed.

The point is that the culture and behaviors that your are bemoaning exist in a context, and in many ways that context is one of black kids, moms and homeowners having the deck stacked against them in a lot of ways. Sure, through heroic effort people can overcome the odds and become successful, but it shouldn't take a heroic effort, and that context is something that we as a society can do something about.

That's a lot of words, none of which apply to the multi-generational poor whites I referenced in WV "hollows".

Here's a thought: in DC, suspensions used to track misbehavior. Now, disruptive kids are kept in class to avoid inconvenient statistics.

There is an epidemic of juvenile street crime these days -- you know, those groups of 15 year olds attacking pedestrians or menacing metro riders -- and they get a wrist slap and quickly released. So they keep at it.

IMO, when a 15 year old brutally attacks and stomps a passerby, he SHOULD be locked away, not for his benefit or rehabilitation, but for the protection of society.

Both posters are correct. However, society is becoming less racist overtime and many poor folks still aren't changing behaviors

If you graduate school get a job and then get married and have kids there is less than a 4% chance you will be in poverty

And I also agree more with prior poster. Teenagers aren't dumb. They know they can get away with stuff or just cry racism and stupid naive liberal whites will look the other way.

If woke white folks actually cared about black folks they would encourage more discipline and responsibility and set and demand higher standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

The middle class middle students are concentrated at one middle school in the city. This leaves a very small amount of kids sprinkled at Hardy, SH, and charters. The remaining students are in deep poverty and don’t have adequate support and facing things at home that you can’t even imagine. If middle schools are 90% at risk are you really blaming the school or city that only 1/3 of those students are at level? You should be advocating for social justice, affordable housing, and jobs before even you can see the impact in the schools.

What does that even mean? How does "social justice" magically turn an uneducated single parent with too many children to support, few basic skills, and (perhaps) a substance abuse problem into a responsible citizen and effective parent?

Do you think that uneducated single moms drop from the sky, or do you think that a larger social context plays a role in their development? For example - if a boy starts getting followed around by store clerks who think he’ll steal stuff and stopped by police (including being held at gunpoint) by the time he’s 12, do you think he’s more or less likely to be a « responsible citizen »? If a family is only shown apartments in high crime areas (despite their ability to pay the rent elsewhere) do you think they are more or less likely to raise kids who are « responsible citizens »?

Actually, I think a major factor in multi-generational poverty is a culture that tolerates or encourages destructive behavior and devalues behaviors that could break the cycle. And I think this is as true in WV "hollows" as it is in blighted urban centers. And "culture" here includes the near-term material and sexual gratification that's beamed at us endlessly in music and video.

Do you think that this culture you describe dropped from the sky? Or could it have anything to do with the institutional racism that I described? There is a ton of research which shows:

- Most white people, view black kids as being older than they are. The research I saw said that on average whites see black kids as on average 4 years older, so they see black 12 year olds as 16. This leads them to react to kid behavior differently than they do with white kids, which results in dramatically higher involvement of black youth with the criminal justice system for the same behaviors that white kids tend to get away with.

- Starting in preschool, black kids are suspended and expelled at a dramatically higher rate than white kids for the same behaviors.

- Black kids are very much more likely to be charged as adults for crimes, more likely to be convicted than whites based on similar evidence, and sentenced more harshly for the same crimes.

- Black moms are reported for child abuse and neglect much more than white moms for the exact same behaviors.

- Buying a home is a huge catalyst of the kinds of middle class values that you are talking about (and to accumulating wealth). Between the 1930s and the 1970s, the US government spend billions of dollars subsidizing white home ownership, but the FHA and VA loans that were used for that were much less available to black aspiring homeowners due to a combination of restrictive deeds, redlining, etc. Fast forward 40 years and predatory lending (especially in the 2008 financial crisis) focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, and the subsequent foreclosure crisis decimated black home ownership, which dropped 23% between 2005 and 2009. You really see this in places like Cleveland - banks there were found guilty of all kinds of fraud specifically targeting minorities, and the result was that in black east side neighborhoods, more than 15% of houses were foreclosed and eventually abandoned by banks, and many have been torn down. That rate of vacancy and dereliction also destroys the value of surrounding homes, so whole neighborhoods that were up and coming residential neighborhoods in 2006 are largely vacant now and the people who scrimped and saved to buy a house and own part of the middle class American dream have lost all their equity --- often without having been foreclosed on or ever missing a payment. Cleveland.com has an amazing article on this with Google Earth images from before and after the foreclosure crisis -- a thriving neighborhood from 2006 is now mostly vacant lots where derelict houses have been razed.

The point is that the culture and behaviors that your are bemoaning exist in a context, and in many ways that context is one of black kids, moms and homeowners having the deck stacked against them in a lot of ways. Sure, through heroic effort people can overcome the odds and become successful, but it shouldn't take a heroic effort, and that context is something that we as a society can do something about.

That's a lot of words, none of which apply to the multi-generational poor whites I referenced in WV "hollows".

Here's a thought: in DC, suspensions used to track misbehavior. Now, disruptive kids are kept in class to avoid inconvenient statistics.

There is an epidemic of juvenile street crime these days -- you know, those groups of 15 year olds attacking pedestrians or menacing metro riders -- and they get a wrist slap and quickly released. So they keep at it.

IMO, when a 15 year old brutally attacks and stomps a passerby, he SHOULD be locked away, not for his benefit or rehabilitation, but for the protection of society.

Both posters are correct. However, society is becoming less racist overtime and many poor folks still aren't changing behaviors

If you graduate school get a job and then get married and have kids there is less than a 4% chance you will be in poverty

And I also agree more with prior poster. Teenagers aren't dumb. They know they can get away with stuff or just cry racism and stupid naive liberal whites will look the other way.

If woke white folks actually cared about black folks they would encourage more discipline and responsibility and set and demand higher standards.

Wow. How patronizing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. The lack of quality middle school options is hurting DCPS.

Let me give you an example - my family.
We are in a top rated elementary school with a long long waitlist. We like it and our son is having a great great experience. We’re decently engaged with the PTO. We’d stay in this school no problem.

BUT, the middle school feeder pattern is not good. So every year we play the lottery and list Lafayette, Murch, Janney, Bancroft, Oyster, etc. If we got into a school like Lafayette we’d probably enroll.
Why?
Access to Deal.


The lack of middle school options is holding back DCPS’s elementary schools.

Then you should be lobbying to end OOB feeder rights. There are at least 30 OOB kids at our WOTP elementary school. Half black and half white. Almost all really good students with involved parents. This must be similar to other WOTP schools. There are probably 400ish of these kids spread across the Ward 3 schools. These kids could be the foundation of a great EOTP middle school. It’s not a question anymore about being the first family to be forced to try it, it would be hundreds of families. It’s really the only way out of this mess.

As someone who owns a house in close-in Bethesda, I think this is a great idea. Top notch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

The middle class middle students are concentrated at one middle school in the city. This leaves a very small amount of kids sprinkled at Hardy, SH, and charters. The remaining students are in deep poverty and don’t have adequate support and facing things at home that you can’t even imagine. If middle schools are 90% at risk are you really blaming the school or city that only 1/3 of those students are at level? You should be advocating for social justice, affordable housing, and jobs before even you can see the impact in the schools.

What does that even mean? How does "social justice" magically turn an uneducated single parent with too many children to support, few basic skills, and (perhaps) a substance abuse problem into a responsible citizen and effective parent?

Do you think that uneducated single moms drop from the sky, or do you think that a larger social context plays a role in their development? For example - if a boy starts getting followed around by store clerks who think he’ll steal stuff and stopped by police (including being held at gunpoint) by the time he’s 12, do you think he’s more or less likely to be a « responsible citizen »? If a family is only shown apartments in high crime areas (despite their ability to pay the rent elsewhere) do you think they are more or less likely to raise kids who are « responsible citizens »?

Actually, I think a major factor in multi-generational poverty is a culture that tolerates or encourages destructive behavior and devalues behaviors that could break the cycle. And I think this is as true in WV "hollows" as it is in blighted urban centers. And "culture" here includes the near-term material and sexual gratification that's beamed at us endlessly in music and video.

Do you think that this culture you describe dropped from the sky? Or could it have anything to do with the institutional racism that I described? There is a ton of research which shows:

- Most white people, view black kids as being older than they are. The research I saw said that on average whites see black kids as on average 4 years older, so they see black 12 year olds as 16. This leads them to react to kid behavior differently than they do with white kids, which results in dramatically higher involvement of black youth with the criminal justice system for the same behaviors that white kids tend to get away with.

- Starting in preschool, black kids are suspended and expelled at a dramatically higher rate than white kids for the same behaviors.

- Black kids are very much more likely to be charged as adults for crimes, more likely to be convicted than whites based on similar evidence, and sentenced more harshly for the same crimes.

- Black moms are reported for child abuse and neglect much more than white moms for the exact same behaviors.

- Buying a home is a huge catalyst of the kinds of middle class values that you are talking about (and to accumulating wealth). Between the 1930s and the 1970s, the US government spend billions of dollars subsidizing white home ownership, but the FHA and VA loans that were used for that were much less available to black aspiring homeowners due to a combination of restrictive deeds, redlining, etc. Fast forward 40 years and predatory lending (especially in the 2008 financial crisis) focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, and the subsequent foreclosure crisis decimated black home ownership, which dropped 23% between 2005 and 2009. You really see this in places like Cleveland - banks there were found guilty of all kinds of fraud specifically targeting minorities, and the result was that in black east side neighborhoods, more than 15% of houses were foreclosed and eventually abandoned by banks, and many have been torn down. That rate of vacancy and dereliction also destroys the value of surrounding homes, so whole neighborhoods that were up and coming residential neighborhoods in 2006 are largely vacant now and the people who scrimped and saved to buy a house and own part of the middle class American dream have lost all their equity --- often without having been foreclosed on or ever missing a payment. Cleveland.com has an amazing article on this with Google Earth images from before and after the foreclosure crisis -- a thriving neighborhood from 2006 is now mostly vacant lots where derelict houses have been razed.

The point is that the culture and behaviors that your are bemoaning exist in a context, and in many ways that context is one of black kids, moms and homeowners having the deck stacked against them in a lot of ways. Sure, through heroic effort people can overcome the odds and become successful, but it shouldn't take a heroic effort, and that context is something that we as a society can do something about.

Thank you for posting--I thought I was the only one that posts this sort of thing. While it's all true, posters like PP will just tune it out, unfortunately. Also, I doubt they even have a kid in any DC public school--my guess is a suburban poster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few approaches:

1 - do not let Deal / Hardy take any kids who do not have current rights to them. Audit HARD enrollment. If policy is if you move OOB during elementary school you no longer have rights to the feeder pattern - enforce it.

You need to get a critical mass of kids at the other middle schools. The only way you do it is cut off path to Deal / Hardy.

2- start building an interest in the other schools - and make everyone aware of successes. Have events in the fall of 4th grade across feeder schools to start building community. it needs to be a community thing - not just the "problem" of the Principal at the Middle School.

Families need to know that their child is going to be safe, learn, have friends, have opportunities to try new things.

If DCPS committed resources to creating a real path - not flavor of the month. You can make traction. But when Principals never know what budget / staff they might or might not have next year. And put on them mandates to react to without - they are left fighting fires all the time.

So you want to cut everyone else out of deal and hardy and advertise other middle schools to the rest of the city (lie to them??) so they stay out of deal/hardy.

Wow. FWIW I think deal/hardy aren’t great either.

How big can Deal get?

What’s your solution?

Seriously, it is way, way, way too big already. They cannot send every middle school kid in the city to one school.

The solution doesn’t involve doing nothing but shutting kids out of the one half decent middle. Make smaller neighborhood schools - Capitol Hill for instance doesn’t even have their own middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Ward 6 could figure out the MS issue, there would not be a HS issue. If everyone would just stay with their feeders, you would have a HS that would rival Wilson.

That being said, most of the families I know feel good about their HS choices. The challenge are the years in between elementary and high school.

You must have some very well-off Ward 6 friends. I can't imagine feeling good about HS choices unless you can afford a private.

We would be fine sending to SH - the problem is HS. Not all kids are going to get into Walls; there is McKinley and Ellington but kid may not be interested in tech, the Arts. And there is Banneker but I'd prefer Eastern over Banneker for commute reasons.

There's already data floating around that indicates that if all Ward 6 families sent their kids to the three MS and then Eastern, you'd have a very solid, well-performing cohort. Problem is that so many families are already down the road of charters, privates, etc that it's going to take longer than it might have for the MS and HS to fill with a well-performing cohort. I think Deal/Wilson benefited from timing - Rhee was newly-in and charters didn't command the numbers of students that they now do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

The middle class middle students are concentrated at one middle school in the city. This leaves a very small amount of kids sprinkled at Hardy, SH, and charters. The remaining students are in deep poverty and don’t have adequate support and facing things at home that you can’t even imagine. If middle schools are 90% at risk are you really blaming the school or city that only 1/3 of those students are at level? You should be advocating for social justice, affordable housing, and jobs before even you can see the impact in the schools.

What does that even mean? How does "social justice" magically turn an uneducated single parent with too many children to support, few basic skills, and (perhaps) a substance abuse problem into a responsible citizen and effective parent?

Do you think that uneducated single moms drop from the sky, or do you think that a larger social context plays a role in their development? For example - if a boy starts getting followed around by store clerks who think he’ll steal stuff and stopped by police (including being held at gunpoint) by the time he’s 12, do you think he’s more or less likely to be a « responsible citizen »? If a family is only shown apartments in high crime areas (despite their ability to pay the rent elsewhere) do you think they are more or less likely to raise kids who are « responsible citizens »?

Actually, I think a major factor in multi-generational poverty is a culture that tolerates or encourages destructive behavior and devalues behaviors that could break the cycle. And I think this is as true in WV "hollows" as it is in blighted urban centers. And "culture" here includes the near-term material and sexual gratification that's beamed at us endlessly in music and video.

Do you think that this culture you describe dropped from the sky? Or could it have anything to do with the institutional racism that I described? There is a ton of research which shows:

- Most white people, view black kids as being older than they are. The research I saw said that on average whites see black kids as on average 4 years older, so they see black 12 year olds as 16. This leads them to react to kid behavior differently than they do with white kids, which results in dramatically higher involvement of black youth with the criminal justice system for the same behaviors that white kids tend to get away with.

- Starting in preschool, black kids are suspended and expelled at a dramatically higher rate than white kids for the same behaviors.

- Black kids are very much more likely to be charged as adults for crimes, more likely to be convicted than whites based on similar evidence, and sentenced more harshly for the same crimes.

- Black moms are reported for child abuse and neglect much more than white moms for the exact same behaviors.

- Buying a home is a huge catalyst of the kinds of middle class values that you are talking about (and to accumulating wealth). Between the 1930s and the 1970s, the US government spend billions of dollars subsidizing white home ownership, but the FHA and VA loans that were used for that were much less available to black aspiring homeowners due to a combination of restrictive deeds, redlining, etc. Fast forward 40 years and predatory lending (especially in the 2008 financial crisis) focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, and the subsequent foreclosure crisis decimated black home ownership, which dropped 23% between 2005 and 2009. You really see this in places like Cleveland - banks there were found guilty of all kinds of fraud specifically targeting minorities, and the result was that in black east side neighborhoods, more than 15% of houses were foreclosed and eventually abandoned by banks, and many have been torn down. That rate of vacancy and dereliction also destroys the value of surrounding homes, so whole neighborhoods that were up and coming residential neighborhoods in 2006 are largely vacant now and the people who scrimped and saved to buy a house and own part of the middle class American dream have lost all their equity --- often without having been foreclosed on or ever missing a payment. Cleveland.com has an amazing article on this with Google Earth images from before and after the foreclosure crisis -- a thriving neighborhood from 2006 is now mostly vacant lots where derelict houses have been razed.

The point is that the culture and behaviors that your are bemoaning exist in a context, and in many ways that context is one of black kids, moms and homeowners having the deck stacked against them in a lot of ways. Sure, through heroic effort people can overcome the odds and become successful, but it shouldn't take a heroic effort, and that context is something that we as a society can do something about.

Thank you for posting--I thought I was the only one that posts this sort of thing. While it's all true, posters like PP will just tune it out, unfortunately. Also, I doubt they even have a kid in any DC public school--my guess is a suburban poster.

np: While much of the list above may be true, it is not the whole story. In fact, the list and the post above that can both be true at the same time.

As these things relate to DCPS, the items I bolded are not relevant to the many kids that are going to ES that are overwhelmingly black. These items do not explain the academic struggles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

The middle class middle students are concentrated at one middle school in the city. This leaves a very small amount of kids sprinkled at Hardy, SH, and charters. The remaining students are in deep poverty and don’t have adequate support and facing things at home that you can’t even imagine. If middle schools are 90% at risk are you really blaming the school or city that only 1/3 of those students are at level? You should be advocating for social justice, affordable housing, and jobs before even you can see the impact in the schools.

What does that even mean? How does "social justice" magically turn an uneducated single parent with too many children to support, few basic skills, and (perhaps) a substance abuse problem into a responsible citizen and effective parent?

Do you think that uneducated single moms drop from the sky, or do you think that a larger social context plays a role in their development? For example - if a boy starts getting followed around by store clerks who think he’ll steal stuff and stopped by police (including being held at gunpoint) by the time he’s 12, do you think he’s more or less likely to be a « responsible citizen »? If a family is only shown apartments in high crime areas (despite their ability to pay the rent elsewhere) do you think they are more or less likely to raise kids who are « responsible citizens »?

Actually, I think a major factor in multi-generational poverty is a culture that tolerates or encourages destructive behavior and devalues behaviors that could break the cycle. And I think this is as true in WV "hollows" as it is in blighted urban centers. And "culture" here includes the near-term material and sexual gratification that's beamed at us endlessly in music and video.

Do you think that this culture you describe dropped from the sky? Or could it have anything to do with the institutional racism that I described? There is a ton of research which shows:

- Most white people, view black kids as being older than they are. The research I saw said that on average whites see black kids as on average 4 years older, so they see black 12 year olds as 16. This leads them to react to kid behavior differently than they do with white kids, which results in dramatically higher involvement of black youth with the criminal justice system for the same behaviors that white kids tend to get away with.

- Starting in preschool, black kids are suspended and expelled at a dramatically higher rate than white kids for the same behaviors.

- Black kids are very much more likely to be charged as adults for crimes, more likely to be convicted than whites based on similar evidence, and sentenced more harshly for the same crimes.

- Black moms are reported for child abuse and neglect much more than white moms for the exact same behaviors.

- Buying a home is a huge catalyst of the kinds of middle class values that you are talking about (and to accumulating wealth). Between the 1930s and the 1970s, the US government spend billions of dollars subsidizing white home ownership, but the FHA and VA loans that were used for that were much less available to black aspiring homeowners due to a combination of restrictive deeds, redlining, etc. Fast forward 40 years and predatory lending (especially in the 2008 financial crisis) focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, and the subsequent foreclosure crisis decimated black home ownership, which dropped 23% between 2005 and 2009. You really see this in places like Cleveland - banks there were found guilty of all kinds of fraud specifically targeting minorities, and the result was that in black east side neighborhoods, more than 15% of houses were foreclosed and eventually abandoned by banks, and many have been torn down. That rate of vacancy and dereliction also destroys the value of surrounding homes, so whole neighborhoods that were up and coming residential neighborhoods in 2006 are largely vacant now and the people who scrimped and saved to buy a house and own part of the middle class American dream have lost all their equity --- often without having been foreclosed on or ever missing a payment. Cleveland.com has an amazing article on this with Google Earth images from before and after the foreclosure crisis -- a thriving neighborhood from 2006 is now mostly vacant lots where derelict houses have been razed.

The point is that the culture and behaviors that your are bemoaning exist in a context, and in many ways that context is one of black kids, moms and homeowners having the deck stacked against them in a lot of ways. Sure, through heroic effort people can overcome the odds and become successful, but it shouldn't take a heroic effort, and that context is something that we as a society can do something about.

That's a lot of words, none of which apply to the multi-generational poor whites I referenced in WV "hollows".

Here's a thought: in DC, suspensions used to track misbehavior. Now, disruptive kids are kept in class to avoid inconvenient statistics.

There is an epidemic of juvenile street crime these days -- you know, those groups of 15 year olds attacking pedestrians or menacing metro riders -- and they get a wrist slap and quickly released. So they keep at it.

IMO, when a 15 year old brutally attacks and stomps a passerby, he SHOULD be locked away, not for his benefit or rehabilitation, but for the protection of society.

None of what you said is in any way relevant to the post you responded to.

WV "hollows" is not a thing. It's "holler". It sounds like you know even less about multi generational poverty in WV (the kind my family experienced) than you do about poverty in DC. Certainly given the radical depopulation of Appalachia as families move to where there are jobs (as mine did), it's a totally different situation and not really relevant to DC middle schools.

Juvenile street crime, like all non-white collar crime, is decreasing over time. Violent and property crime in the DMV is a fraction of what it was 20 years ago.

The things you didn't respond to:

- Differential treatment of black youth FOR THE SAME BEHAVIORS as white youth
- Differential charging and sentencing of black youth FOR THE SAME OFFENSES as white youth
- Differential reporting of abuse and neglect of black moms FOR THE SAME BEHAVIORS as white moms
- Decreases in black homeownership due to intentional targeting of minorities by banks for predatory lending

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK so I love this thread but haven’t seen this historical POV represented: Deal was once upon a time and not long ago a POS that no one wanted. And then people seized on it and it became this “thing.” People don’t know it who aren’t from here or didn’t have kids at the right time.

My point is that you and I could be the people that cross the barrier or break some line with our kids. And I think it happens by showing up: at Stuart Hobson, at Hardy, at MacFarland, these places where we know students who live within the boundaries can hack it at Algebra, humanities and the like. If you’re willing to jump, DCPS will jump with you. I firmly believe that and to the extent that (for lack of a better term) motivated educated parents agitate for this - we get the advanced classes, we get the electives for our kids. Shunning these places is a fearful move. Moving in and demanding excellence is a great thing for everyone - us and all our neighbors.

This! Deal started to turn when around 2005-ish. I remember my neighbors all saying they were going to “try” Deal. These were Janney families.

in the super historical POV, we're still living with the impact of decades of defacto socioeconomic segregation from the mid1960s, where few white or well off families attended anywhere but a handful of WOTP elementary schools (before that Hardy (then Gordon Jr. High) was known for fluctuating 60/40 white/black.. http://www.burleith.org/burleith-history)

In the mid-2000s, Deal hit the tipping point of gentrification or re-integration. Hardy is in the middle of it now, especially with the switch from Eaton -- this year's 6th was around 70% and that percentage would've been higher if they didn't add to the total # of students in the class when the principal fought to keep more diversity.

There are also the Basis and DCI factors (and long waiting lists at Latin which is almost impossible to get into) - where many families are choosing them as options from other places in the city before going to SH, etc., but that may change too...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK so I love this thread but haven’t seen this historical POV represented: Deal was once upon a time and not long ago a POS that no one wanted. And then people seized on it and it became this “thing.” People don’t know it who aren’t from here or didn’t have kids at the right time.

My point is that you and I could be the people that cross the barrier or break some line with our kids. And I think it happens by showing up: at Stuart Hobson, at Hardy, at MacFarland, these places where we know students who live within the boundaries can hack it at Algebra, humanities and the like. If you’re willing to jump, DCPS will jump with you. I firmly believe that and to the extent that (for lack of a better term) motivated educated parents agitate for this - we get the advanced classes, we get the electives for our kids. Shunning these places is a fearful move. Moving in and demanding excellence is a great thing for everyone - us and all our neighbors.

This! Deal started to turn when around 2005-ish. I remember my neighbors all saying they were going to “try” Deal. These were Janney families.

in the super historical POV, we're still living with the impact of decades of defacto socioeconomic segregation from the mid1960s, where few white or well off families attended anywhere but a handful of WOTP elementary schools (before that Hardy (then Gordon Jr. High) was known for fluctuating 60/40 white/black.. http://www.burleith.org/burleith-history)

In the mid-2000s, Deal hit the tipping point of gentrification or re-integration. Hardy is in the middle of it now, especially with the switch from Eaton -- this year's 6th was around 70% and that percentage would've been higher if they didn't add to the total # of students in the class when the principal fought to keep more diversity.

There are also the Basis and DCI factors (and long waiting lists at Latin which is almost impossible to get into) - where many families are choosing them as options from other places in the city before going to SH, etc., but that may change too...

SH starting an honors program is also a huge selling point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. The lack of quality middle school options is hurting DCPS.

Let me give you an example - my family.
We are in a top rated elementary school with a long long waitlist. We like it and our son is having a great great experience. We’re decently engaged with the PTO. We’d stay in this school no problem.

BUT, the middle school feeder pattern is not good. So every year we play the lottery and list Lafayette, Murch, Janney, Bancroft, Oyster, etc. If we got into a school like Lafayette we’d probably enroll.
Why?
Access to Deal.


The lack of middle school options is holding back DCPS’s elementary schools.

Then you should be lobbying to end OOB feeder rights. There are at least 30 OOB kids at our WOTP elementary school. Half black and half white. Almost all really good students with involved parents. This must be similar to other WOTP schools. There are probably 400ish of these kids spread across the Ward 3 schools. These kids could be the foundation of a great EOTP middle school. It’s not a question anymore about being the first family to be forced to try it, it would be hundreds of families. It’s really the only way out of this mess.

As someone who owns a house in close-in Bethesda, I think this is a great idea. Top notch.

But here’s the thing. The vast majority of EOTP homeowners can’t afford to buy in close in suburbs like Bethesda. And for lots of reasons they are not going to move to the far outer burbs. So if DCPS were to end OOB, then most of the hipsters would have very little choice to stay and fix the IB schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. The lack of quality middle school options is hurting DCPS.

Let me give you an example - my family.
We are in a top rated elementary school with a long long waitlist. We like it and our son is having a great great experience. We’re decently engaged with the PTO. We’d stay in this school no problem.

BUT, the middle school feeder pattern is not good. So every year we play the lottery and list Lafayette, Murch, Janney, Bancroft, Oyster, etc. If we got into a school like Lafayette we’d probably enroll.
Why?
Access to Deal.


The lack of middle school options is holding back DCPS’s elementary schools.

Then you should be lobbying to end OOB feeder rights. There are at least 30 OOB kids at our WOTP elementary school. Half black and half white. Almost all really good students with involved parents. This must be similar to other WOTP schools. There are probably 400ish of these kids spread across the Ward 3 schools. These kids could be the foundation of a great EOTP middle school. It’s not a question anymore about being the first family to be forced to try it, it would be hundreds of families. It’s really the only way out of this mess.

As someone who owns a house in close-in Bethesda, I think this is a great idea. Top notch.

But here’s the thing. The vast majority of EOTP homeowners can’t afford to buy in close in suburbs like Bethesda. And for lots of reasons they are not going to move to the far outer burbs. So if DCPS were to end OOB, then most of the hipsters would have very little choice to stay and fix the IB schools.

Doubt that. They can always move to MD or VA or like us send their kids to private school for middle school. Live in Ward 5 and we come from a DCI feeder but chose private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

The middle class middle students are concentrated at one middle school in the city. This leaves a very small amount of kids sprinkled at Hardy, SH, and charters. The remaining students are in deep poverty and don’t have adequate support and facing things at home that you can’t even imagine. If middle schools are 90% at risk are you really blaming the school or city that only 1/3 of those students are at level? You should be advocating for social justice, affordable housing, and jobs before even you can see the impact in the schools.

What does that even mean? How does "social justice" magically turn an uneducated single parent with too many children to support, few basic skills, and (perhaps) a substance abuse problem into a responsible citizen and effective parent?

Do you think that uneducated single moms drop from the sky, or do you think that a larger social context plays a role in their development? For example - if a boy starts getting followed around by store clerks who think he’ll steal stuff and stopped by police (including being held at gunpoint) by the time he’s 12, do you think he’s more or less likely to be a « responsible citizen »? If a family is only shown apartments in high crime areas (despite their ability to pay the rent elsewhere) do you think they are more or less likely to raise kids who are « responsible citizens »?

Actually, I think a major factor in multi-generational poverty is a culture that tolerates or encourages destructive behavior and devalues behaviors that could break the cycle. And I think this is as true in WV "hollows" as it is in blighted urban centers. And "culture" here includes the near-term material and sexual gratification that's beamed at us endlessly in music and video.

Do you think that this culture you describe dropped from the sky? Or could it have anything to do with the institutional racism that I described? There is a ton of research which shows:

- Most white people, view black kids as being older than they are. The research I saw said that on average whites see black kids as on average 4 years older, so they see black 12 year olds as 16. This leads them to react to kid behavior differently than they do with white kids, which results in dramatically higher involvement of black youth with the criminal justice system for the same behaviors that white kids tend to get away with.

- Starting in preschool, black kids are suspended and expelled at a dramatically higher rate than white kids for the same behaviors.

- Black kids are very much more likely to be charged as adults for crimes, more likely to be convicted than whites based on similar evidence, and sentenced more harshly for the same crimes.

- Black moms are reported for child abuse and neglect much more than white moms for the exact same behaviors.

- Buying a home is a huge catalyst of the kinds of middle class values that you are talking about (and to accumulating wealth). Between the 1930s and the 1970s, the US government spend billions of dollars subsidizing white home ownership, but the FHA and VA loans that were used for that were much less available to black aspiring homeowners due to a combination of restrictive deeds, redlining, etc. Fast forward 40 years and predatory lending (especially in the 2008 financial crisis) focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, and the subsequent foreclosure crisis decimated black home ownership, which dropped 23% between 2005 and 2009. You really see this in places like Cleveland - banks there were found guilty of all kinds of fraud specifically targeting minorities, and the result was that in black east side neighborhoods, more than 15% of houses were foreclosed and eventually abandoned by banks, and many have been torn down. That rate of vacancy and dereliction also destroys the value of surrounding homes, so whole neighborhoods that were up and coming residential neighborhoods in 2006 are largely vacant now and the people who scrimped and saved to buy a house and own part of the middle class American dream have lost all their equity --- often without having been foreclosed on or ever missing a payment. Cleveland.com has an amazing article on this with Google Earth images from before and after the foreclosure crisis -- a thriving neighborhood from 2006 is now mostly vacant lots where derelict houses have been razed.

The point is that the culture and behaviors that your are bemoaning exist in a context, and in many ways that context is one of black kids, moms and homeowners having the deck stacked against them in a lot of ways. Sure, through heroic effort people can overcome the odds and become successful, but it shouldn't take a heroic effort, and that context is something that we as a society can do something about.

When the 1964 Civil Rights Act was enacted the AA out of wedlock birthdate was 25%. In the decades since, not only has it not gotten better, it has gotten exponentially worse. And now stands close to a staggering 75%. It’s a tragedy.