Deal Expansion

[Anonymous]

If a lot of the "middle-class" parents with kids in pre-K kept them in their current schools, the scores would go up -- but a lot of parents don't want to do that -- they want to schools to be good before they opt in.

A losing battle.

[Anonymous]

middle class parents will try a new charter, though, so it's not that the school has to be 'proven', just not chronically failing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP there is a lot of what you say I agree with, but you argue there is not enough proficient kids to go around. That most likely is true so how do you get enough proficient kids? The problem is still in the elementaries.

Strangely, elementaries may be losing proficient students prior to the testing grades, or early in the testing grades ( anyone yet done an analysis of scores at 3rd vs.6th grade? ) due to bad prospects for middle school. So improvement in elementary schools may not filter upwards unless middle schools do something drastic to up their game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP there is a lot of what you say I agree with, but you argue there is not enough proficient kids to go around. That most likely is true so how do you get enough proficient kids? The problem is still in the elementaries.

Strangely, elementaries may be losing proficient students prior to the testing grades, or early in the testing grades ( anyone yet done an analysis of scores at 3rd vs.6th grade? ) due to bad prospects for middle school. So improvement in elementary schools may not filter upwards unless middle schools do something drastic to up their game.

[Anonymous]

Kids that would feed to Hardy start leaving in 4th even if their parents aren't wealthy because it is easier to move schools before grade 6. They go to Latin, moco, and private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really. Building fantastic middle schools in other wards that would allow kids to stay in their own neighborhoods would probably increase segregation. Should we avoid that action? Be honest in your terms. Racial segregation isn't the issue here. The big issue is segregated access to quality education seeing everything in terms of race and racism is holding dc back.

Missing from this line of thought is that the desirable schools – elementary, middle or high schools – have a majority of students at grade level. Generally, unless a school has mostly proficient students, it will not be sought after. And no one, with a reasonable amount of money, can simply create a desirable school east of the park. That’s what makes DC so darn tough – there are not enough proficient students to go around and make every school attractive to parents. It’s a deficit model. East of the park I’d bet DCPS is about 25% proficient.

Parents instinctively want their child to be surrounded by smart and well behaved kids. Parents don’t want long-range planning for their child; they want to see a school working before their child enrolls. Parents don’t want their child to be an agent of social change, they want their children simply join an already existing strong cohort.

Parents of non-proficient also want to send their kids to schools that are majority proficient – it stretches their kid upward.

If parents instinctively want a school that is majority proficient, there’s no way to give them that without selective enrollment/admission.

The quickest way to improve DCPS is create as many majority proficient schools as possible. Doing so helps more struggling students than is currently the case. And creating more majority proficient and desirable schools will attract/retain proficient students – creating a positive feedback loop that strengthens the system.

Additionally, the higher a school’s proficiency and the larger its enrollment, the less expensive a school is to operate. And that savings should be used to fund the best remediation schools possible for whatever students cannot enroll in majority proficient schools.

As a parent, I feel like DCPS can monkey around all they want with buildings, with programs, with this and that, but for me, the disqualifier is a cohort that is mostly below grade level.

It ain’t pretty, but the quickest way to improve DCPS is create as many majority proficient schools as possible.

Oh dear. I was with you until then. You see, the problem is that multiple charter schools have proven (and/or are in the process of doing so) that it is entirely possible to create a high-performing school east of the park.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids that would feed to Hardy start leaving in 4th even if their parents aren't wealthy because it is easier to move schools before grade 6. They go to Latin, moco, and private.

As a parent at a Hardy feeder school I can say this is 100% accurate. Or 98%, some leave at 3rd grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids that would feed to Hardy start leaving in 4th even if their parents aren't wealthy because it is easier to move schools before grade 6. They go to Latin, moco, and private.

As a parent at a Hardy feeder school I can say this is 100% accurate. Or 98%, some leave at 3rd grade.

Some of the hardy feeder schools have 4 1st grade classes.. There soon will be more than enough kids in ward 3 to create another Deal. It would be infinitely easier to create another high performing MS near these kids rather than the other side of the park, where repeated attempts too do so have failed. DCPS would be stupid not to try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
One reason might be the further you travel from Deal the less white the population. If Deal’s catchment area needs to be shrunk, it seems logical that it becomes less white. It doesn’t have to be intentional exclusion of anyone, just the way it works out.

And:

Anonymous wrote:Restricting a school to an immediate neighborhood boundary to stabilize its enrollment numbers can have the effect of limiting the diversity at a school without rascist intentions.

There are parts of Ward 4 and Ward 1 within the current Deal boundaries that are closer to the school itself than parts of Ward 3 that are within the current boundaries. Palisades -- one area that potentially would like to be added to the Deal boundaries is further from the school than almost any part of the current in-boundary neighborhoods. So, if you were redrawing the school zone on the basis of geographic closeness, most of the current East-of-the-Park areas would remain.

When modifying school boundaries, there are lots of variables that can effect decisions. If the only variables that matter to you are ones that end up eliminating minority enrollment, then I would suggest that your choice of variables is racist.

Here is a map of the middle school districts in case you are not familiar with them:

http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/Files/downloads/SCHOOLS/Boundary%20Maps%20-%202009/DCPS-Attendance-Zones-Middle-Schools-September-2009.pdf

The problem with your line of thinking is that Deal is close to the western border of DC. Areas in Wards Four & One are not hemmed in.

Certainly there should be some catchment area balancing between Hardy and Deal, but unless one advocates for a third middle school west of the park, the catchment area for Deal must move westward, and that means fewer Wards Four & One students, and thus, a whiter school.

Also, I am missing any the advocating for an ethnically homogenous cohort at Deal? How’d that issue get factored in here?

BTW, I’m a Ward Six parent whose kid is screwed for DCPS middle school and I don’t have a dog in this fight.

No, this problem is easily solved by drawing Hardy's boundaries north x northwest to capture that far northwest corner. This frees up Deal to pick up more students from Wards 1 and 4. West of the park has all the MS it needs - at least until the formula is successfully replicated elsewhere.

And no, I don't have a dog in the fight. My child is going private for MS.

[Anonymous]

Hardy has plenty of room to accommodate the enrollment increases from its feeder schools. Fillmore should be moved elsewhere, or removed altogether and 150 students can be added.

[Anonymous]

Oh dear. I was with you until then. You see, the problem is that multiple charter schools have proven (and/or are in the process of doing so) that it is entirely possible to create a high-performing school east of the park.

There is not one, single charter school that has ever taken the first 250 children living closest to its front door and been successful at anything.

Charters receive the kids of at least nominally motivated families, and often hyper motivated -- both of which suggest enhanced learning environments and attention outside of 8 a.m. and 3:15 p.m.

You are comparing apples/oranges.

Now, I agree that it -would- be interesting to observe any charter that acts exactly as a DCPS with respect to enrolling the kids -- that is, it takes the surrounding 10 blocks so of kids, no more and no less.

[Anonymous]

The problem with your line of thinking is that Deal is close to the western border of DC. Areas in Wards Four & One are not hemmed in.

Certainly there should be some catchment area balancing between Hardy and Deal, but unless one advocates for a third middle school west of the park, the catchment area for Deal must move westward, and that means fewer Wards Four & One students, and thus, a whiter school.



No, this problem is easily solved by drawing Hardy's boundaries north x northwest to capture that far northwest corner. This frees up Deal to pick up more students from Wards 1 and 4. West of the park has all the MS it needs - at least until the formula is successfully replicated elsewhere.

Hardy already captures the farthest NW corner of DC at this time.

What makes infinitely more sense is to give Deal's current southern territory over to Hardy, roughly south of Porter. Eaton and Hearst and Oyster. It's closer to Hardy than Deal, as a simple aerial glance at a map will tell you.

This is the sensical move that would be made by a rational, detached scientist visiting from another planet. As has been discussed already, it's unlikely to actually happen because doing this runs the risk that, as a percentage of the pie chart, there would be fewer non-white, non-Hispanic children at Deal as a result.

Thus, we gerrymander.

[Anonymous]

All this social engineering. Trying to force unnatural boundaries into a place will have no long run effect. Kids from good homes will do better no matter if you force them into Mann or Janney or Hearst.

[Anonymous]

Thanks 10:25. Your post ought to be printed on t-shirts and embroidered on throw pillows.

Thanks for breathing a voice of reason into discussion that typically veers off into nonsensical statements about KIPP without mentioned longer days, motivated families and extra cash infusion and or Washington Latin and it's 6% FARMS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Oh dear. I was with you until then. You see, the problem is that multiple charter schools have proven (and/or are in the process of doing so) that it is entirely possible to create a high-performing school east of the park.

There is not one, single charter school that has ever taken the first 250 children living closest to its front door and been successful at anything.

Charters receive the kids of at least nominally motivated families, and often hyper motivated -- both of which suggest enhanced learning environments and attention outside of 8 a.m. and 3:15 p.m.

You are comparing apples/oranges.

Now, I agree that it -would- be interesting to observe any charter that acts exactly as a DCPS with respect to enrolling the kids -- that is, it takes the surrounding 10 blocks so of kids, no more and no less.

YES!!!! I am not anti-charter but this has to be acknowledged. Trying to straight up say that Charters have succeeded where DCPS has failed in disingenuous. But I do think DCPS should either adopt some of the charter methods ( magnet schools, longer school days, more freedom in funding/ staffing/programming, outside fundraising ) OR charters with those freedoms should be allowed to operate as neighborhood schools ( rather than pulling city-wide ).