Boundary question
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Anonymous
| ^^so do you advocate a city wide lottery instead? How is that better than neighborhood schools? |
Anonymous
 Janney has been a great school for years. I knew people who went there in the 70s. You, my dear, didn't build sh*t.
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Anonymous
Not PP, but I think that the benefit of neighborhood schools really decreases after elementary school. I can see why DME is considering it for high schools, and even potentially for middle schools. Kids can use public transportation on their own to get around, and there are many fewer middle schools, so they are not nearly as proximate as elementary schools. |
Anonymous
Not a jklmm parent, but wake up. Those schools are good bc of contributed and concerted parental involvement. They are not perfect, but the point is if you don't live in a boundary zone, why be so demanding you should get into a school? |
Anonymous
Well, sure, but then they need to do away with the pk-8 campuses. They need to make really big changes for this to work. |
Anonymous
As has been noted before, as long as only X percent of the schools are deemed adequate, we will all be clamoring for those resources. That isn't a "greedy WotP parent" thing or a "didn't think about where I bought my home EotP parent" thing, it is all DC parents wanting what is best for their children. Some of the earlier threads on this forum were at least trying to address the better question, how can we improve the (1-X) percent of schools? Some of those threads have focused on middle schools (like creating a new test-in middle school EotP) or other options for high school. It is too bad that those threads seem to have died out (perhaps because all that could be said was said) and the current threads about who is going to get what now dominate. I can't be all high and mighty since I've participated in those threads too, and we are all just so needing of information and to talk about it. But maybe we could start up another thread about how we could actually improve our schools. |
Anonymous
| ^^or meet off line to make suggestions to DCPS? chatting on this board does nothing sadly |
Anonymous
+2, you're talking about parents that would have an alternative as good/solid as Hardy, not parents being asked to go to Anacostia ("schelp across the city" as WOTP mom said). |
Anonymous
Then why the resistance to go to Hardy if it's the parents that make a good school? |
Anonymous
| ^^no resistance from over here for Hardy, but don't play a game that you are "entitled" because you live on the redline in NW. my goodness, maybe get out some more to find really entitled people. |
Anonymous
The resistance to Hardy, in-boundary, has everything to do with test scores and academic proficiency. Granted, it's a matter of perspective (generally, high-SES vs. low-to-moderate SES perspective), but take a look: http://www.myschooldc.org/schools/33/ Those test scores, frankly, look very bad if you're a parent coming from a high-academically achieving school. You're used to a school with at minimum scores in the low '80s. Therefore, based on your experience and expectations, you really don't want your kid to go to Hardy. Conversely, if you are (again, generally) coming from a mid-to-low-SES level area, EOTP, then scores in the low-to-mid 60's at Hardy look excellent based on most of the alternatives in DC (look again at schools' proficiency scores overall in DC -- they really suck, almost across the board, compared to Hardy). Again, it's a matter of perspective. Race has little to do with it -- just look at the race percentages at Deal, where there are only 42% white kids (look again at the data provided by the link, above). White parents are killing themselves to go to Deal, a school where the white population is the MINORITY. Respectfully, to those of you who think the conflict over boundaries is about race: re-think and look again for the root causes of the conflict. The issue is QUALITY education. That's what every caring parent wants for his/her child, regardless of where they come from. So, even though parents in-boundary for Hardy would likely transform the scores overnight if they all decided to send their kids there, those parent's don't want to take the risk of the other parents in their ship not following suit. They don't want to take the risk their kids going to, from their perspective, a low-performing school. In my opinion, it's silly for parents in-boundary NOT to send their kids to Hardy. It's already a decent school by DCPS standards -- they're just being scaredy-cats by not taking the plunge. Raise the high-SES percentages at Hardy and it would become almost like Deal, overnight. |
Anonymous
| ^^Hardy has a tracking system. You really think your advanced scoring kid is going to get less of an education at Hardy because there are a few underperforming kids? |
Anonymous
I mean this in a positive way: maybe some Hardy boosters should start a thread! Tell everyone what is great about the school. |
Anonymous
Hardy does not have an across-the-board tracking system. They have something like an enrichment program for the students. But, anyway, I think the main thrust of your point is that in-boundary parents should not be afraid to send their kids to Hardy -- and I'd agree. But not because there is some kind of "separate but equal" education system there -- but because they should all just send their kids there, and as a result the overall "performance" (if you're only looking at the test scores) would go up immediately. |
Anonymous
There's no need for that -- Hardy is among only a handful of schools anyone in D.C. is concerned about (because most all of them suck!). The good/decent ones are all mentioned at some point within each thread around here. |