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DC Public and Public Charter Schools
Why doesn't DC have a competitive public high school like Stuyvesant in NYC?
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Anonymous
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It's called Thomas Jefferson.
When you mention the NYC schools, you're talking about the entire region - all five boroughs. TJ is our equivalent. |
Anonymous
Um, no it isn't. TJ is a Virginia school. This thread is about DC. In fact, this entire category - DC Public Schools - is about DC. As you seem to be unaware, I'll break it down for you: Virginia is a completely different state. You can tell you've crossed into it because there's a river (known as the Potomac) separating the District from Virginia. Don't worry though, even if you don't understand the difference, that's what your GPS is for. It will get you there without incident. |
Anonymous
| TJ is the equivalent for NOVA. Is there really interest for this in D.C. and if so why don't people organize and try and found such a school? |
Anonymous
| Or they can attend Banneker. |
Anonymous
Because a school founded by organized, interested, and ambitious parents instead of La Rhee is a charter, and charters aren't allowed to have entrance requirements. Only DCPS is allowed to have entrance requirements. However, what charters CAN do is create programs that are academically rigorous, so that students who can handle that level of work will be interested and apply and students who can't handle that level of work won't choose to stay if they get in. Look at the newest charter schools like Excel Academy, Washington Latin, and Washington Yu Ying. |
Anonymous
| Virginia is a State. D.C.s not a State. TJ is indeed the Stu NY equivalent. |
Anonymous
As far as school administration is concerned, you don't know what you're talking about. DC is indeed a state. DCPS is a school district. OSSE governs the entirety of DC public schools. DC taxpayers don't support Virginia schools and don't attend them. Only NoVa cares about TJ. DC does not. Neither does Maryland. Get over yourself already - everyone else is. http://www.osse.dc.gov/seo/site/default.asp |
Anonymous
| pp, why are you so mean? this is a forum for respectful adults trying to share information. go find something important to get angry about and stop ruining this thread. |
Anonymous
| Not PP, but the original question was why does DC, that is District of Columbia, not VA not have a public school like Stuyvesant. A poster responded DC does, it's called TJ. TJ is not in DC, but VA. Therefore in that poster's mind TJ is equivalent to Sty. DC students can not attend TJ and thus the response from that poster was not relevant. If anything, it was braggadocio. PP was not being mean, she was simply stating a fact, but correcting a miststatement by another. |
Anonymous
"People" alone didn't organize to create TJ. The local high tech and engineering firms (Lockheed, SAIC, etc.) and the state education department played a huge role. And they can pull students from pretty much anywhere in NoVa - which is like 3 times the population of DC. That's not to say it's impossible, just that it's not easily replicable in public, charter or private format here. (Unless we use law firms and lobbyists and to create a pre-pre-law high school. kidding) I think it's fair to ask "why the heck not a high school as good as TJ?" But it also means we ask ourselves, "what have I done to help the schools in my area?" My kids are elementary now, but I plan to start getting involved with our in-boundary middle and high schools by volunteering, meeting teachers and families, etc. So even if my little geniuses don't get into Banneker or SWW or Cap City (good charter = lottery), I hope I'll be better prepared to understand options in DC since moving across the river isn't one of them. (PP. Let's try to be fair and not overstate the charter examples. Latin, sure. But Yu Ying and Excel can hardly be classified as "academically rigorous" since they don't go past the 2nd grade yet.) |
Anonymous
Yes, that sums it up perfectly. |
Anonymous
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Because everyone knows that, "Get over yourself already - everyone else is," falls into the category of "stating a fact."
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Anonymous
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NP here. I'm not sure why DC does not have a pure-merit magnet school like Stuy (or like TJ). It seems like there's no reason it could not create such a school. However, I suspect such an effort would face serious political hurdles. Both Stuy and TJ are heavily criticized for their non-diverse white/Asian student body. From what I've read, it appears that a pure-merit magnet like those tends to be filled by high-SES students who tend to skew white/Asian. If the same thing were to happen in DC, it would become a political hot potato. And the biggest beneficiaries might be high-SES upper-NW families who could suddenly avoid paying private school tuition.
I guess the question I'd ask back is "Why would DC want to create another Stuy/TJ?" Such schools might win some nice magazine stories for a city, but they really only benefit a very small fraction of the population. It seems to me that the city's education dollars are better spent on a system that supports the many kids at the middle of the bell curve rather than the few at the far edge of the curve. |
Anonymous
DC does have pure merit magnet schools: School without Walls and Banneker. |