Why are so many DC schools so bad?

[Anonymous]

OP: You are equating low academic achievement with "bad schools".

Actually, DCPS has many good schools, if you define a good school as one that provides high-quality educational opportunities.

Unfortunately, when DCPS focuses solely on raising test scores, it erodes the quality of educational opportunities in our schools. We do more testing and test prep than educating. There's a difference. And you can see that difference when you visit a high quality independent school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP: You are equating low academic achievement with "bad schools".

Actually, DCPS has many good schools, if you define a good school as one that provides high-quality educational opportunities.

Unfortunately, when DCPS focuses solely on raising test scores, it erodes the quality of educational opportunities in our schools. We do more testing and test prep than educating. There's a difference. And you can see that difference when you visit a high quality independent school.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes! Rich go to private schools and poor kids just get stuck with DC's finest. We're middle class and didn't buy in DC because of the schools.

Why? Because you thought your kids would get "cooties" from the poor kids? Don't people realize that most kids from supportive, financially secure, educated families do just fine in DC schools? If you look at the scores for higher SES groups across DCPS, they are all pretty high. They are just in the minority at many schools so they don't show up in the overall school scores.

It's the same as when the inbound families for Hardy make disparaging comments about the OOB families...what they really mean are the poor kids from across town--OOB could just be kids from Capitol Hill or Foggy Bottom--exactly the same demographic, just a few miles away. Ironically, many of those vilified OOB kids score higher on assessments than the IB kids. But feel free to use them as an excuse, IB folks.

I think that the IB families in the Hardy service area just expect more. They don't look at the shitty middle schools EOTP and see how much better Hardy is. They look at Deal or even Westbard just across the MD line and realize how Hardy seems lacking by comparison. I'm sure that such IB parents and prospective parents seem overly-demanding and whiny to OOB families. It may piss them off that what is good enough for them is seen by many IB prospects as not good enough for their kids. But IB families are acutely aware of how the Hardy community angrily opposed Chancellor Rhee's efforts to make Hardy more relevant and responsive to the needs and desires of IB families, and are put off by references like the need for new Hardy families to respect Hardy's "unique culture", outmoded school uniforms, etc. To them, this is code for "come here if you want, but don't mess with old DC too much."