The Promise of Socio-Economically Integrated Schools in DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: All the more reason for DCPS to not go off half-cocked to implement this policy. If they really want to cling to the "rising tide will lift all boats" theory of helping low income kids succeed academically then they need to wait another decade until gentrification has created a city where 20 to 25% FARMS distribution across all schools is feasible. Because though I like economic diversity, there's no way my kids are going to a 50% FARMs school---for all the reasons outlined above. Until then, use the KIPP style model in the high FARMs school in an effort to intensively remediate the achievement gap.

We have proof that the theory works. The issue is in the percentages. 20% yes. 50% no. There's nothing wrong with the theory, the problem is that the implementation can't work in DC. There isn't a large enough population of the higher SES students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, it's not "an attitude" or "values" - it's an acknowledgement of reality. The studies and data confirm that if low-SES students comprise more than 20% of the student body, there are diminishing returns and increasing problems.

You can try and spin that however you like, but it doesn't change the reality of it.

I read every post and can safely say I'm not the one spinning.

I'm still trying to figure out where to send my kid who's not yet pre-K, and everything I've been reading from and about the vaunted "west of the park" makes the schools there sound grossly unappealing. I keep looking for evidence of inspiring teachers and/or principals and/or kids who go out and do fantastic things. All I keep finding are stories like the cupcake principal and an awful lot of whining and fearmongering about the certain destruction of DCPS if more brown faced kids are allowed to infiltrate public schools in Ward 3. Maybe there are just 5-10 people with time and motivation to hang out on these boards and +1 the shit out of all the "studies that show" you're absolutely right to believe that socioeconomic diversity is the first step in the fall of mankind.

I'm actually grateful to see true feelings revealed because I was about to drink the kook aid on JKLM schools (and the best little secret, Hearst!) but I couldn't put my finger on what made these schools "better" beyond test scores and families who have money for real estate but not for private schools. I can finally understand why so many go for charters, where the diversity seems appreciated or and even essential to the success of a school.

Spin that however you want.

You were on the right track noting that you maybe shouldn't form an opinion of an entire set of schools on the anonymous posts of one or possibly a handful of people (who may or may not actually be parents at these schools).

The last couple of responses totally miss the point. The point is that there is no special magic to the JKLMs other than the fact that there is a critical mass cohort of families that value education and hard work and puts those values on its kids. The critical mass is what it's all about, it has little to do with the school itself, nor skin color or anything else that keeps getting thrown around here. If you were to swap those students with a cohort from Anacostia, the performance would go with the students. The JKLM performance would drop like a rock with the Anacostia kids, and the Anacostia performance would rise with the JKLM kids. And, were you to mix the kids around, the only way it would work is with 20% or less low-SES kids. In that case, the low SES kids would benefit from that critical mass of middle class and higher SES kids and their performance would improve through modeling and mentoring, et cetera. But once that threshold of 20% is crossed, the performance of the low-SES kids stops improving and the performance of the higher-SES kids starts to decline, more and more as there are more and more low-SES kids in the school. This is not opinion, this is not ideology, this is not racism or classism, this is what objective data shows. It's reflected in many studies and is reflected in the DC-CAS data. Whether you agree is irrelevant, your disagreement will not change the data.

Well here's another question. You assume that all families in Annacostia don't care about education. Yet for a child in Ward 7 just to get to ward 3 they would have to get very lucky in the lottery and then they would do a one way 35 minute commute by car or hour commute by bus ONE WAY to get to a wealthier school? I have cousins that did just that. Their family really valued education. They didn't have the same resources as a family who lived in Ward 3 but they certainly had to a lot of effort just to show up and then work hard to well in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: All the more reason for DCPS to not go off half-cocked to implement this policy. If they really want to cling to the "rising tide will lift all boats" theory of helping low income kids succeed academically then they need to wait another decade until gentrification has created a city where 20 to 25% FARMS distribution across all schools is feasible. Because though I like economic diversity, there's no way my kids are going to a 50% FARMs school---for all the reasons outlined above. Until then, use the KIPP style model in the high FARMs school in an effort to intensively remediate the achievement gap.

The Kipp method results in lots of students burning out and going back to public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, it's not "an attitude" or "values" - it's an acknowledgement of reality. The studies and data confirm that if low-SES students comprise more than 20% of the student body, there are diminishing returns and increasing problems.

You can try and spin that however you like, but it doesn't change the reality of it.

I read every post and can safely say I'm not the one spinning.

I'm still trying to figure out where to send my kid who's not yet pre-K, and everything I've been reading from and about the vaunted "west of the park" makes the schools there sound grossly unappealing. I keep looking for evidence of inspiring teachers and/or principals and/or kids who go out and do fantastic things. All I keep finding are stories like the cupcake principal and an awful lot of whining and fearmongering about the certain destruction of DCPS if more brown faced kids are allowed to infiltrate public schools in Ward 3. Maybe there are just 5-10 people with time and motivation to hang out on these boards and +1 the shit out of all the "studies that show" you're absolutely right to believe that socioeconomic diversity is the first step in the fall of mankind.

I'm actually grateful to see true feelings revealed because I was about to drink the kook aid on JKLM schools (and the best little secret, Hearst!) but I couldn't put my finger on what made these schools "better" beyond test scores and families who have money for real estate but not for private schools. I can finally understand why so many go for charters, where the diversity seems appreciated or and even essential to the success of a school.

Spin that however you want.

You were on the right track noting that you maybe shouldn't form an opinion of an entire set of schools on the anonymous posts of one or possibly a handful of people (who may or may not actually be parents at these schools).

The last couple of responses totally miss the point. The point is that there is no special magic to the JKLMs other than the fact that there is a critical mass cohort of families that value education and hard work and puts those values on its kids. The critical mass is what it's all about, it has little to do with the school itself, nor skin color or anything else that keeps getting thrown around here. If you were to swap those students with a cohort from Anacostia, the performance would go with the students. The JKLM performance would drop like a rock with the Anacostia kids, and the Anacostia performance would rise with the JKLM kids. And, were you to mix the kids around, the only way it would work is with 20% or less low-SES kids. In that case, the low SES kids would benefit from that critical mass of middle class and higher SES kids and their performance would improve through modeling and mentoring, et cetera. But once that threshold of 20% is crossed, the performance of the low-SES kids stops improving and the performance of the higher-SES kids starts to decline, more and more as there are more and more low-SES kids in the school. This is not opinion, this is not ideology, this is not racism or classism, this is what objective data shows. It's reflected in many studies and is reflected in the DC-CAS data. Whether you agree is irrelevant, your disagreement will not change the data.

Well here's another question. You assume that all families in Annacostia don't care about education. Yet for a child in Ward 7 just to get to ward 3 they would have to get very lucky in the lottery and then they would do a one way 35 minute commute by car or hour commute by bus ONE WAY to get to a wealthier school? I have cousins that did just that. Their family really valued education. They didn't have the same resources as a family who lived in Ward 3 but they certainly had to a lot of effort just to show up and then work hard to well in school.

You are still stuck on the misguided notion that the Ward 3 school has some kind of magic to it. It doesn't. And in fact, DCPS puts LESS resources toward Ward 3 schools than it does to Ward 7 schools. Further, if you've been to schools like Ballou, you would know that half of those kids can't even be bothered to get to school regardless. Huge dropout rates. All that makes it all the more foolish to think about shuttling kids across town. If they can't be bothered to go to their neighborhood school, what makes anyone think it would work with a school across town?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: All the more reason for DCPS to not go off half-cocked to implement this policy. If they really want to cling to the "rising tide will lift all boats" theory of helping low income kids succeed academically then they need to wait another decade until gentrification has created a city where 20 to 25% FARMS distribution across all schools is feasible. Because though I like economic diversity, there's no way my kids are going to a 50% FARMs school---for all the reasons outlined above. Until then, use the KIPP style model in the high FARMs school in an effort to intensively remediate the achievement gap.

The Kipp method results in lots of students burning out and going back to public school.

Burning out? Oh, please. It's more like copping out. I guess some folks just are not interested in ever having to work hard for anything, some folks are not interested in ever improving their lives.

You can lead a horse to water but then it's up to the horse to drink.

[Anonymous]

Burning out? Oh, please. It's more like copping out. I guess some folks just are not interested in ever having to work hard for anything, some folks are not interested in ever improving their lives.

This is really getting rather grotesque. I so hope that you're the same poster spilling this ignorance over several threads this week.

You add absolutely nothing useful to any discussion about education, so please stop. Just stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Burning out? Oh, please. It's more like copping out. I guess some folks just are not interested in ever having to work hard for anything, some folks are not interested in ever improving their lives.

This is really getting rather grotesque. I so hope that you're the same poster spilling this ignorance over several threads this week.

You add absolutely nothing useful to any discussion about education, so please stop. Just stop.

What's grotesque is people who can't be bothered to help themselves. Education is meaningless to people who don't value learning. And don't say it's not true, given all of the kids who can't be bothered with homework, who drop out and so on. Fix that and most of the rest will follow. Ignore it, and it will be you who has nothing to offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, it's not "an attitude" or "values" - it's an acknowledgement of reality. The studies and data confirm that if low-SES students comprise more than 20% of the student body, there are diminishing returns and increasing problems.

You can try and spin that however you like, but it doesn't change the reality of it.

I read every post and can safely say I'm not the one spinning.

I'm still trying to figure out where to send my kid who's not yet pre-K, and everything I've been reading from and about the vaunted "west of the park" makes the schools there sound grossly unappealing. I keep looking for evidence of inspiring teachers and/or principals and/or kids who go out and do fantastic things. All I keep finding are stories like the cupcake principal and an awful lot of whining and fearmongering about the certain destruction of DCPS if more brown faced kids are allowed to infiltrate public schools in Ward 3. Maybe there are just 5-10 people with time and motivation to hang out on these boards and +1 the shit out of all the "studies that show" you're absolutely right to believe that socioeconomic diversity is the first step in the fall of mankind.

I'm actually grateful to see true feelings revealed because I was about to drink the kook aid on JKLM schools (and the best little secret, Hearst!) but I couldn't put my finger on what made these schools "better" beyond test scores and families who have money for real estate but not for private schools. I can finally understand why so many go for charters, where the diversity seems appreciated or and even essential to the success of a school.

Spin that however you want.

You were on the right track noting that you maybe shouldn't form an opinion of an entire set of schools on the anonymous posts of one or possibly a handful of people (who may or may not actually be parents at these schools).

The last couple of responses totally miss the point. The point is that there is no special magic to the JKLMs other than the fact that there is a critical mass cohort of families that value education and hard work and puts those values on its kids. The critical mass is what it's all about, it has little to do with the school itself, nor skin color or anything else that keeps getting thrown around here. If you were to swap those students with a cohort from Anacostia, the performance would go with the students. The JKLM performance would drop like a rock with the Anacostia kids, and the Anacostia performance would rise with the JKLM kids. And, were you to mix the kids around, the only way it would work is with 20% or less low-SES kids. In that case, the low SES kids would benefit from that critical mass of middle class and higher SES kids and their performance would improve through modeling and mentoring, et cetera. But once that threshold of 20% is crossed, the performance of the low-SES kids stops improving and the performance of the higher-SES kids starts to decline, more and more as there are more and more low-SES kids in the school. This is not opinion, this is not ideology, this is not racism or classism, this is what objective data shows. It's reflected in many studies and is reflected in the DC-CAS data. Whether you agree is irrelevant, your disagreement will not change the data.

Well here's another question. You assume that all families in Annacostia don't care about education. Yet for a child in Ward 7 just to get to ward 3 they would have to get very lucky in the lottery and then they would do a one way 35 minute commute by car or hour commute by bus ONE WAY to get to a wealthier school? I have cousins that did just that. Their family really valued education. They didn't have the same resources as a family who lived in Ward 3 but they certainly had to a lot of effort just to show up and then work hard to well in school.

You are still stuck on the misguided notion that the Ward 3 school has some kind of magic to it. It doesn't. And in fact, DCPS puts LESS resources toward Ward 3 schools than it does to Ward 7 schools. Further, if you've been to schools like Ballou, you would know that half of those kids can't even be bothered to get to school regardless. Huge dropout rates. All that makes it all the more foolish to think about shuttling kids across town. If they can't be bothered to go to their neighborhood school, what makes anyone think it would work with a school across town?

No it's you who are deliberately misunderstanding what I'm saying.

Your assumption is that the poor folks in annacoastia don't care about their children's education.

I'm arguing that there are some that do and they are already trying to lottery to go elsewhere. And the fact that they have an hour to hour and a half long commute just to get to it proves they are committed to getting a better education.


As for the special magic of JKLM a school with a PTA that raises tens of thousands of dollars and pays for extra jobs, and extra resources if pretty fucking magical. As is a school with educational autonomy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Burning out? Oh, please. It's more like copping out. I guess some folks just are not interested in ever having to work hard for anything, some folks are not interested in ever improving their lives.

This is really getting rather grotesque. I so hope that you're the same poster spilling this ignorance over several threads this week.

You add absolutely nothing useful to any discussion about education, so please stop. Just stop.

What's grotesque is people who can't be bothered to help themselves. Education is meaningless to people who don't value learning. And don't say it's not true, given all of the kids who can't be bothered with homework, who drop out and so on. Fix that and most of the rest will follow. Ignore it, and it will be you who has nothing to offer.

Hurray everyone! You just fixed everything that's wrong with DCPS. Slowclaps for this asshole!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Burning out? Oh, please. It's more like copping out. I guess some folks just are not interested in ever having to work hard for anything, some folks are not interested in ever improving their lives.

This is really getting rather grotesque. I so hope that you're the same poster spilling this ignorance over several threads this week.

You add absolutely nothing useful to any discussion about education, so please stop. Just stop.

What's grotesque is people who can't be bothered to help themselves. Education is meaningless to people who don't value learning. And don't say it's not true, given all of the kids who can't be bothered with homework, who drop out and so on. Fix that and most of the rest will follow. Ignore it, and it will be you who has nothing to offer.

Hurray everyone! You just fixed everything that's wrong with DCPS. Slowclaps for this asshole!

Ad-hominems and lame snark will not change the fact that where you find an achievement gap, you will also find anti-intellectualism, you will also find a lack of personal accountability, a lack of work ethic, a lack of parental support, and a lot of things just taken for granted. Call people names all you like but it only makes you look all the more like you are either ignorant, in denial, or outright dishonest when you do so. Look, I say what I say because I lived it and witnessed it because I was a FARMS kid in an inner city 99% FARMS school for many years. The bright nerdy kids, the hard-working kids got beaten up for it and ended up hiding in a corner of the classroom, discouraged and broken. Luckily we ended up moving across the country and I ended up in a different school which was mostly higher-SES, and it was a completely different culture there, where most of my peers were actually focused on college and careers, as opposed to just being focused on smoking weed and hanging out.

It's not a money or resources problem - in DC, the schools with the highest low-SES concentrations already get significantly more funding and resources per student than the ones with high-SES (for example $9,000 per student at Amidon-Bowen compared to $7,000 per student at Janney). And, it's not just a matter of shifting boundaries, restricting choice, or shuffling kids around to create "diversity". Diversity is fantastic, but there has to be a sufficent number of students sharing a culture of achievement, otherwise the culture of underachieving and anti-intellectualism will drag the other students down.

There's a lot that can and should be contributed to this discussion, but if all you want to do is call people names and refuse to hear some hard realities simply because you don't like hearing them, then it is you who has nothing to contribute. You are welcome to try and disprove anything I've said, but the data behind what I say does not lie.

[Anonymous]

http://edu.codefordc.org/#!/neighborhood/31

so go look at how many ward 7 and 8 kids are already traveling outside of their boundaries to go to better schools and tell me they are all just throwing away their education and don't care. Some of them are traveling hours on metro just to get to a different school. But no, you asusme if you're poor you don't care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Burning out? Oh, please. It's more like copping out. I guess some folks just are not interested in ever having to work hard for anything, some folks are not interested in ever improving their lives.

This is really getting rather grotesque. I so hope that you're the same poster spilling this ignorance over several threads this week.

You add absolutely nothing useful to any discussion about education, so please stop. Just stop.

What's grotesque is people who can't be bothered to help themselves. Education is meaningless to people who don't value learning. And don't say it's not true, given all of the kids who can't be bothered with homework, who drop out and so on. Fix that and most of the rest will follow. Ignore it, and it will be you who has nothing to offer.

Hurray everyone! You just fixed everything that's wrong with DCPS. Slowclaps for this asshole!

Ad-hominems and lame snark will not change the fact that where you find an achievement gap, you will also find anti-intellectualism, you will also find a lack of personal accountability, a lack of work ethic, a lack of parental support, and a lot of things just taken for granted. Call people names all you like but it only makes you look all the more like you are either ignorant, in denial, or outright dishonest when you do so. Look, I say what I say because I lived it and witnessed it because I was a FARMS kid in an inner city 99% FARMS school for many years. The bright nerdy kids, the hard-working kids got beaten up for it and ended up hiding in a corner of the classroom, discouraged and broken. Luckily we ended up moving across the country and I ended up in a different school which was mostly higher-SES, and it was a completely different culture there, where most of my peers were actually focused on college and careers, as opposed to just being focused on smoking weed and hanging out.

It's not a money or resources problem - in DC, the schools with the highest low-SES concentrations already get significantly more funding and resources per student than the ones with high-SES (for example $9,000 per student at Amidon-Bowen compared to $7,000 per student at Janney). And, it's not just a matter of shifting boundaries, restricting choice, or shuffling kids around to create "diversity". Diversity is fantastic, but there has to be a sufficent number of students sharing a culture of achievement, otherwise the culture of underachieving and anti-intellectualism will drag the other students down.

There's a lot that can and should be contributed to this discussion, but if all you want to do is call people names and refuse to hear some hard realities simply because you don't like hearing them, then it is you who has nothing to contribute. You are welcome to try and disprove anything I've said, but the data behind what I say does not lie.

+1

Thank you! I too was a product of this type of environment. However, when I speak out about it on DCUM people think I'm an elitists or a racists. I speak out against the anti-intellectual and dysfunctional mentalities because I lived it and worked in it. My saving grace was attending Catholic school and relocating to another part of DC. My elementary school years were brutal and torturous. I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.

[Anonymous]

Thank you! I too was a product of this type of environment. However, when I speak out about it on DCUM people think I'm an elitists or a racists. I speak out against the anti-intellectual and dysfunctional mentalities because I lived it and worked in it. My saving grace was attending Catholic school and relocating to another part of DC. My elementary school years were brutal and torturous. I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.

But you would wish them on the low-brow, low SES kids who would sully otherwise great ward 3 schools with their hopeless aims of a better education?

Becausae that's what we're talking about here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Thank you! I too was a product of this type of environment. However, when I speak out about it on DCUM people think I'm an elitists or a racists. I speak out against the anti-intellectual and dysfunctional mentalities because I lived it and worked in it. My saving grace was attending Catholic school and relocating to another part of DC. My elementary school years were brutal and torturous. I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.

But you would wish them on the low-brow, low SES kids who would sully otherwise great ward 3 schools with their hopeless aims of a better education?

Becausae that's what we're talking about here.

Not really. What we're talking about is that the ward 3 schools can only serve as an escape for those kids if the percentage of OOB kids is kept low enough that the culture of the school is preserved. Otherwise, all those OOB kids simply bring the very culture their are trying to escape with them to the ward 3 school. So far, the evidence suggests that 20% is the upper limit for ES, probably lower for MS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Thank you! I too was a product of this type of environment. However, when I speak out about it on DCUM people think I'm an elitists or a racists. I speak out against the anti-intellectual and dysfunctional mentalities because I lived it and worked in it. My saving grace was attending Catholic school and relocating to another part of DC. My elementary school years were brutal and torturous. I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.

But you would wish them on the low-brow, low SES kids who would sully otherwise great ward 3 schools with their hopeless aims of a better education?

Becausae that's what we're talking about here.

Not really. What we're talking about is that the ward 3 schools can only serve as an escape for those kids if the percentage of OOB kids is kept low enough that the culture of the school is preserved. Otherwise, all those OOB kids simply bring the very culture their are trying to escape with them to the ward 3 school. So far, the evidence suggests that 20% is the upper limit for ES, probably lower for MS.

Deal has 23% FARMS and 30% OOB and is doing just fine.