Wilson in 10 years?
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Anonymous
| We're trying to decide whether to buy a (hopefully, long-term) house in upper NW DC or Bethesda or Chevy Chase, MD. I hear good things about the elementary schools and Deal, but we're not sure about Wilson. Does anyone have insight on what changes may or may not come in the coming years? |
Anonymous
This is the $64,000 question. DCPS is almost out of gimmicks to allow unfettered access to the Wilson pipeline within the next 5 years it should be at least 75% IB which should greatly transform the school. And tough decision remains on which IB ES needs to get reassigned. It remains to be seen how DCPS will react to this trend. But, many parents of younger kids who live close to Wilson intend to fight this out. |
Anonymous
| I agree with PP. Current trends suggest that Wilson should be largely IB in the next 10 years. That likely means a group of students that is fairly high performing, which should translate to a high functioning school. But DCPS seems to dislike the "equity optics" of having a high functioning school in NW while other schools are struggling, so it will look for ways to ensure students from other neighborhoods can attend Wilson in maximum numbers. When the numbers of IB students were lower, DCPS could use the feeder network to accomplish this goal. The high IB number of students will make this harder. So I predict DCPS will force some sort of "choice set" or systemwide lottery on everyone. Whatever mechanism DCPS chooses, the result will be to drag down the performance of Wilson to match other schools. |
Anonymous
I agree. And local parents are much more active now and in many ways have the means to try to influence the process. Having said that, although things have changed somewhat, the power center of D.C. politics still doesn't reside in the areas around Wilson. Honestly, it will be fascinating to see how this plays out. |
Anonymous
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It will be fine. Not perfect, but then no high school is. Statistically, if your kid is from an upper middle class home with educated parents, they will do great wherever they attend school.
--Currently Wilson parent and future Wilson parent in 3 years |
Anonymous
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The kids I know who went to Wilson 10 years ago did very well, got into great universities, did well there and have successful careers - - as will the students of today and those of 10 years from now.
There also will always be parents who worry about sending their 2-year old to a large urban high school some day, and there will always be parents whose kids get to 8th grade and they realize that school isn't the best choice for them. There will be many more who get there and realize that they were just newbie parents when they worried about high school for their toddler. Their child will tell them that they want to go to Wilson, and the parent will realize that the school has everything they need to be successful even though not every student at the school will be as successful as their own children. Many parents will recognize that this is a good thing in terms of their child's own development. Parents on DCUM will always spout worries, rumors, pet peeves, and generally amplify the best and worst of schools. Sometimes they do it to complain and sometimes to try to gain momentum to change something specific. But it is never a full picture of a school. And parents who are active in their child's school will often feel that they are doing more for a school than the parents who were there a decade ago (and they are usually wrong about that). |
Anonymous
Responding to PP's points in reverse order ...
I think your long-term viewpoint here is wise and useful. It's easy to think the present-day issues are more significant, more difficult, more *everything*, so it's wise to keep perspective that there always were issues in the past (some similar, some different), and there will always be issues in the future (some similar, some different).
I need to push back on your broad statement in two ways: 1. I certainly know kids who went to Wilson 10 years ago and did very well, but I also know kids who struggled and still struggle. Not every student at a school like Wilson will do well. The school presents many opportunities, but also many hurdles for students. Some students seize on the opportunities, while others are tripped up by the hurdles. I suspect you did not really mean to suggest that every kid at Wilson does fine, so we likely are in agreement here with this clarification. 2. For the subset of kids who "did well" after Wilson, did they do well because of Wilson ... or did they do well despite Wilson? I honestly do not know the answer. It probably depends on the specific kid situation. Some kids did well because they were lucky enough to avoid the pitfalls of Wilson (or maybe they had enough parental guidance or were innately wise enough, or some other factor). IMHO, we need to work together as parents, and with the wise heads at DCPS, to reduce the hurdles at Wilson and increase the opportunities, so that more kids do well and fewer struggle. My fear and frustration, however, is that different people define the goals differently. Many parents want to remove hurdles at Wilson (e.g., overcrowding, disruptive students). Other parents and many at DCPS seem to see those same aspects at Wilson as opportunities rather than hurdles, because those aspects reflect the opportunities of Wilson being offered to a wide array of kids from other parts of the city. I do not know the solutions to these hard problems. Maybe there are many different solutions, or maybe there is no true solution and the problem cannot be solved with the tools currently available to DCPS. I do disagree, however, with the worldview that DCPS should just open all schools to as many students as possible to spread the opportunity wide. That approach feels good in the short term, but it's a recipe for long term mediocrity. First, it offers opportunity to only the small percentage of students lucky enough to end up at Wilson, and abandons the many others who are sent to other schools. Second, it allows DCPS to ignore development of other schools because the appearance of "equity" is achieved. Third, because it's the high-performing students themselves who boost Wilson's test scores and make it an attractive destination, it's ultimately destructive to Wilson if DCPS pushes those high-performing students out to make room for more low-performing students who desperately need the opportunity Wilson offers. I do feel that DCPS and interested parents would be more productive in developing solutions if they focus less on the "achievement gap," and more on just raw improvement of the underperforming students. Worrying about the achievement gap, whether it's between rich-and-poor or between different racial groups or otherwise, just pits people against one another. It also focuses people on trying to seize short term steps to shrink the gap (often by watering down the successful schools), rather than the more difficult long-term steps to make other underperforming schools and students do better. |
Anonymous
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I'm a parent of 7 and 10 year olds (currently in a DCPS elementary) and while I have little problem with my kids attending an "inner city" high school like Wilson I do worry a lot about over crowding.
The school is currently overcrowded and the rising elementary school feeder classes are much larger than they were when the current Wilson students were in grade school. The city is doing nothing about it beyond hoping to lose kids to attrition to MCPS and privates. And I have ZERO and I mean ZERO hope that they will change anything. Two of my kids will do fine in a mega high school with large classes. One may not. We are saving for private high school for all 3. We want to have the option. |
Anonymous
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OP, I honestly would not worry too much about ten years from now. Too much can happen and too much is unpredictable.
The best bet if you have to make one is that things will stay largely the same - that Wilson will not be perfect, but that kids from highly educated homes with highly motivated parents that are able to get get them a little help when needed will do fine at Wilson. But things could go either way - in both DC and MoCo. It is easy to see the schools in either place getting better or worse over that long a time period. Focus on the medium term - get into a location with good elementary schools, and that will get you about a decade where you know you don't have to move. After that ten year period, reassess. You never know what your situation will be. |
Anonymous
There is literally nothing 'inner city' about Wilson. |
Anonymous
Uh, not exactly accurate. There are definite Yale and Jail tracks (and some in-between), and let's not pretend otherwise. |
Anonymous
Even the "jail' track isn't what you would find at Cardozo or Ballou. Only 33% of students are economically disadvantaged at this point. |
Anonymous
True. But, the school literally has students from every ward in the city (only half are IB for the school), so it is truly an urban school, even if it is not in a totally urban location. |
Anonymous
And even those who are economically disadvantaged have parents who are sufficiently engaged to have enrolled them at Wilson, which puts them on a better track than those still at their neighborhood school. |
Anonymous
| The property taxes will be higher in MD but honestly, these days you can get more bang for your buck buying a house in Chevy Chase/Bethesda than in NW DC. Plus you get awesome schools, plus you have congressional representation. If I had it to do over again I would probably go the close-in Maryland route. |