Hardy

[Anonymous]

Looks like Rhee has some changes in mind for Hardy. There's going to be some political fallout.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/12/AR2009111210961.html?hpid=sec-education

[Anonymous]

What is the problem with trying to attract more IN BOUNDARY children, is that not the demographic the school should strive to serve?

[Anonymous]

My dd attended Hardy and got a decent education. Not everything was perfect by any means but it worked for us. Patrick Pope can be tough to deal with but he has done a lot for that school. If Rhee drives him out, I will be deeply disappointed.

To be frank, if white in-boundary families want to send their kids to Hardy, no one is stopping them. (My white middle-class kid did just fine!) And if they start doing that in greater numbers, the school will change in ways that will suit them. But they shouldn't expect it to be all "cleaned up" for them before they enroll. That implication is what is most disturbing about the WaPo piece.

[Anonymous]

I hate how Rhee puts principal's 'on notice' rather than telling them what her vision is and giving them time to work on it. She did the same at Oyster.
--former Oyster teacher

[Anonymous]

Sorry - principals.
And I have students who attended Hardy from Oyster. Lovely children. Hardy is an intriguing school. It should attract neighborhood children, but the way Rhee phrased is troubling...

[Anonymous]

From an outsider's perspective (we're still in elementary school) two things about Hardy jump out at me as negatives.

#1 I would prefer a more traditional academic curriculum for my DD. Deal and Washington Latin seem focused on educating scholars whereas Hardy's approach is to artists. (For the same reason, I am interested in School Without Walls and perhaps the Wilson Academies, but Ellington not so much.)

#2 I think principals should be responsive to parents and parental concerns. If Pope is off-putting to hyper-engaged neighborhood parents that's a real, big problem and it doesn't speak well for him.

[Anonymous]

thank you for posting, I missed that article.

for posterity, can I just say one more time that I hate Rhee's tactic?

[Anonymous]

Historically, Hardy had low enrollment from the neighborhood and would not have survived without out-of-boundary students.

The school choice movement, fostered by No Child Left Behind, and our very aggressive charter school legislation in DC, have pushed parents to choose "schools" and "programs" rather than neighborhood schools.

Under Janney, schools were encouraged to adopt special programs which give them more freedom to choose their students rather than just be "receiving schools".

Before Hardy became an "arts" school, I sent my son to Hardy out-of-boundary for sixth grade and pulled him out after just a few months, not because of issues related specifically to Hardy, but because I discovered how weak the DCPS middle school curriculum is, citywide.

If our chancellor wants to attract more affluent families to DCPS, and there's nothing wrong with that, I think she's going about it the wrong way. Simply adding some Chinese language here or there, or adopting IB, is not going to significantly improve the curriculum, especially at the elementary and middle school level. IB doesn't really get rigorous until the last two years of high school.

Continuing to offer a weak city-wide curriculum with some add-ons like instrumental music, IB, or Chinese, isn't going to bring in families that are looking at the very rich offerings of many of our local independent schools.

Hardy has enjoyed a lot of growth and stability under Patrick Pope. When you look at Rhee's track record of what has happened to schools where she decides to change the leadership, it hasn't been a stellar record. For the sake of students and families that are satisfied at Hardy, I hope she doesn't go in and screw everything up.

[Anonymous]

With it's strong arts curriculum, has Hardy become a feeder school for Ellington? Was that sort of the intention of the principal?

[Anonymous]

The thing that drives away many families from DCPS is UNCERTAINTY. Rhee has created more uncertainty than ever. I would love to return to DCPS but cannot with these firings and effective takeovers. She does not know how to lead, she does not know how to work with people, she fires people and brings in new ones who she either knows (like thenew principal of Oyster whose husband works for DCPS!) or, if they don't, will be beholden to her because she selected them. Key students have been going to Hardy for years. I bet every single applicant's been accepted. Also, Hardy is not an arts school. It's a school with an arts program is on par with many privates. It's got strong academics, too. We almost sent our child there, but we were nervous they would not be back in the building. I really do not get how Rhee makes decisions. I really find her abysmal.

[Anonymous]

P.S. Why does she expend all this energy on making changes at a school that's doing wonderfully? All she has to do is encourage Key families to go to Hardy. Why does she let these families use her to advance their narrow agenda? That's what she's doing. Again, she's a weak, very weak, leader. Also, she made a change at Oyster and Oyster is not what it should and could be. The new principal has not yet made the upper grades what they were supposed to be when the school expanded. Also the move drove away many families who'd been at the school for years. She is without a doubt the worst thing that's happen to DCPS in the past 12 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Historically, Hardy had low enrollment from the neighborhood and would not have survived without out-of-boundary students.

The school choice movement, fostered by No Child Left Behind, and our very aggressive charter school legislation in DC, have pushed parents to choose "schools" and "programs" rather than neighborhood schools.

Under Janney, schools were encouraged to adopt special programs which give them more freedom to choose their students rather than just be "receiving schools".

Before Hardy became an "arts" school, I sent my son to Hardy out-of-boundary for sixth grade and pulled him out after just a few months, not because of issues related specifically to Hardy, but because I discovered how weak the DCPS middle school curriculum is, citywide.

If our chancellor wants to attract more affluent families to DCPS, and there's nothing wrong with that, I think she's going about it the wrong way. Simply adding some Chinese language here or there, or adopting IB, is not going to significantly improve the curriculum, especially at the elementary and middle school level. IB doesn't really get rigorous until the last two years of high school.

Continuing to offer a weak city-wide curriculum with some add-ons like instrumental music, IB, or Chinese, isn't going to bring in families that are looking at the very rich offerings of many of our local independent schools.

Hardy has enjoyed a lot of growth and stability under Patrick Pope. When you look at Rhee's track record of what has happened to schools where she decides to change the leadership, it hasn't been a stellar record. For the sake of students and families that are satisfied at Hardy, I hope she doesn't go in and screw everything up.

This in and of itself doesn't particularly trouble me. In most neighborhoods (Hardy excepted), "neighborhood schools" have failed to provide a rich, challenging academic program unless the neighborhood itself is wealthy and extremely involved. This is true to most locales, it's hardly a DC phenomenon. I don't think it's fair to credit NCLB with the school choice movement. For one thing school choice has always been an option for the wealthy; for another, NCLB has so far succeeded in allowing very, very few students to escape a low-performing school into a high-performing one.

Charters in DC are a mixed bag: some appear to be either high-performing or very promising, but the oldest charter schools have only been around for the past 10 years (pre-dating NCLB) so the track record is short.

Hardy, OTOH has been around for how long? Some decades anyway and has failed to attract the majority of families which should historically have known and loved it best - the inbounds residents. It speaks well for the principal that he's been able to create an excellent school without the benefit of a neighborhood community to support him, but writing looks a little bit "on the wall." The movement - especially in DC - is for school choice and that's not a bad thing. Competition makes the best competitors even better. Hardy should be good enough to attract inbounds students. Furthermore, the principals should be serving the high expectations of the community as opposed to the communities either serving the interests of principals, or else being ignored by them when they fail to do so.

Sorry, it sounds like Pope needs to shape up and start serving the community that should be his natural constituency.

[Anonymous]

11:12 It's not Pope. The building was old. Now it's remodeled and it's a gorgeous facility. The same thing happened at Oyster. New building, ground up, and everybody and their mother wanted to attend. We cannot deny that neighborhood interest in neighborhood schools spikes when the facility becomes state of the art.

The history: It used to be popular with neighborhood families. Not sure when the tide changed. But neighborhoods like that are always going to see lots of students going to private.

And given the demographics, there is an ugly undercurrent of a white families used to seeing their children at a majority white school not wanting to send their children to a majority minority school. Sorry but that's what is coming across here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In most neighborhoods (Hardy excepted), "neighborhood schools" have failed to provide a rich, challenging academic program unless the neighborhood itself is wealthy and extremely involved.

Not actually true. Wealthy and extremely involved parents can provide support, funds to pay for supplemental materials and staff, volunteer time in classrooms, chaperones, etc. But there isn't a single school in DCPS that offers a richer, more challenging academic program due to the affluence or involvement of parents. Unfortunately, the academic program in DCPS, especially for elementary and middle school, is uniformly mediocre compared with what many private schools offer. Interesting enough, I have never heard Chancellor Rhee discuss curriculum. She is only concerned with assessment. And that is what drove this family out of DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In most neighborhoods (Hardy excepted), "neighborhood schools" have failed to provide a rich, challenging academic program unless the neighborhood itself is wealthy and extremely involved.

Not actually true. Wealthy and extremely involved parents can provide support, funds to pay for supplemental materials and staff, volunteer time in classrooms, chaperones, etc. But there isn't a single school in DCPS that offers a richer, more challenging academic program due to the affluence or involvement of parents. Unfortunately, the academic program in DCPS, especially for elementary and middle school, is uniformly mediocre compared with what many private schools offer. Interesting enough, I have never heard Chancellor Rhee discuss curriculum. She is only concerned with assessment. And that is what drove this family out of DCPS.

I have attended charter school board meetings (they're open to the public). I can assure you that I have in fact heard discussion of the curriculum: which ones the staff liked best, how to map them to the DC standards to prove to the satisfaction of the charter board that the standards were being met (and exceeded). It may be true that there is no more challenging academic program in DCPS than the DC standards, however this is emphatically NOT the case for some charter schools.