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That's news because Deal doesn't seem to be advertising that it teaches algebra to 7th graders. Why not? I've called and visited the school to ask about this option, and been told that there is no "regularized" program, only "special instruction" on occasion for a few "highly gifted students" (no criteria for assessing giftedness offered). Nobody could offer me any numbers, information about the application/screening process for 6th graders to qualify to be taught algebra in the 7th grade, who is teaching the class, what the racial breakdown has been for students taking 7th grade algebra in recent years, or anything else. Where is this information available? By contrast, when I visited Tacoma Park Middle School I was handed a 20-page brochure on its country-wide magnet math, computers and science program. The brochure includes detailed information on the admission process and much more.
We seem like the sort of DC family that would be a perfect fit for Yu Ying--my husband's family immigrated from Hong Kong and we're raising our daughter to speak fluent Chinese--but we're not planning to put our name in the hat for Pre-K because we're under the impression that the PTA and the board are brimming with enthusiasm for painfully PC approaches to teaching and learning Chinese. We think it's silly that the DC law on charter schools doesn't support two lotteries for language immerson schools - one for speakers of the language and one for children who don't speak the language, aiming for a 50-50 split such as at Oyster (DCPS school, Spanish-English). The demographics at Yu Ying ooze PC nonsense to us - boatloads of low-income kids, girls adopted from China and white kids, but only a handful of actual Chinese families with actual Chinese-speaking children to enrich the learning experience for all the pupils. Listen to the kids in the hallways and on the playground -they speak almost no Chinese out of the range of teachers. And why should they when the vast majority don't speak the language at home? Most of of our "ABC" (American Born Chinese) friends in DC think similarly. We have a saying about Yu Ying - if you're Chinese, you're too Chinese for the school. Stay away, we say, we'll band together and do much better teaching our kids to read and write Chinese on our own. It's a no brainer that most low-income kids are going to struggle with a Chinese immersion program, even if they could learn Chinese from a good many native-speaking peers. Dare to state the obvious at a Yu Ying PTA meeting and prepare to be called all sorts of names. It's an Emperor's New Clothes situation that shouldn't be perpetuated, but surely will. Neither the principal nor the vice principal even speak Chinese. The school has its good points in rough DCPS terrain but it's a pretentious place with a high drop-out rate for good reason.
I'm in-bounds for Brent and think that both of the schools are both fine, but since Haynes offers a viable middle school feed that many a middle-class family is comfortable with and Brent doesn't, it's a no brainer. I see no viable neighborhood middle school option emerging on the Hill in the forseeable future. In the absence of lottery luck at Latin, Brent in-bounds parents almost always leave DCPS for middle school. As you may know, Brent feeds into two middle schools that middle class families won't touch for now (Jefferson in SW and EH on the Hill), and probably won't touch in great numbers for a decade or longer. Talk to in-bounds Brent parents of 3rd-5th graders and you will be hard pressed to find a single one planning to enroll their kid(s) in either of these schools. Furthermore, no city-wide middle school academic magnets/exam schools are planned for the time being and the existing charter middle schools have no admission standards beyond lottery luck. So, if you enroll your kid at Brent for first grade, and your kid is ahead of the curve academically by 5th grade by DCPS standards, you run a high risk of being pushed to the burbs later, or left scrambling to find the funds for parochial or independent school tuition. It's a shame that Brent PTA parents have, to some extent, allowed this situation to develop by letting Rhee and Tommy Wells divide and conquer on the middle school feeder issue. As you may know, the Brent PTA tried to get DCPS to sanction a Brent-only middle school a couple years ago but the movement fell apart. Accusations of racism were hurled all too freely and many parents threw their hands in the air as a result. I'd go with Haynes if you want to continue to live in the District past 5th grade. Alternatively, get creative: if you live near a Red Line stop, stay where you are, save to buy a condo in Tacoma Park, pay taxes there and send your kid to wonderful Tacoma Park Middle School and Blair High School in Mo Co.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:This still does little for the "advanced" students.
The data uncludes proficient and advanced students. With a magnet like the one described above you would have a concentration of advanced students, and the economy of scale to offer robust programs that challenge students at an affordable cost.
Even so, what would be wrong with full-fledged MS programs with a city-wide draw for the students who test in the "advanced" bracket on the 5th grade DC-CAS? There are hundreds of them District-wide, are there not? Such programs could keep a great many movers and shakers of various races on PTAs, enabling kids at different places on the socioeconomic and academic spectrums to accrue the benefit, even if their own children couldn't attend "schools within schools" in every case.
Who wins when the affluent vote with their feet in droves after 5th grade - the poor kids? Few Capitol Hill parents of tiny tots seem to be looking far down the track - by and large, they seem to assume that demographic changes will drive reform. I'm far from convinced. At this rate, most will surely drift out of neighgborhood schools along the way, keeping mum on the issues to avoid drawing attention to their ambitions for their children. Many will hope in vain for lottery luck at Latin or wherever, angry that a brilliant, disciplined child cannot trump a low lottery number. There is an achievement gap between mostly white upper-middle-class kids and mostlhy minority low-income kids, it is sizeable by the 6th grade overall and the PTAs at Brent, Watkins, Ludlow-Taylor, Maury, Tyler etc. can't wish it away despite good intentions. The brightest poor kids in the District would obviously benefit from practical solutions geared at keeping well-educated and affluent parents in public schools circles in large numbers. It seems that well-heeled parents committed to DCPS are too small a slice of the pie for now, with too few volices joining the chorus advocating for "test in" academic magnets. DC MS charters are starting to look like bargain basement alternatives to suburban MS magnet programs serving the best students.
Anonymous wrote:Could one set up a magnet after school program? A neighborhood afterschool program for 5 to 10 schools. Elementary & MS. Math olympics, Olympics of the Mind . . .
One could, and I know that parents in my Ward 6 neighborhood have been forming afterschool tutoring groups, mainly to prepare 5th graders from better-off families for MS independent, suruban magnet and parochial school entrance exams. It seems to me that the problem is that this approach promotes exhaustion and burnout on the part of participants, who waste a good deal of time each school day in not being challenged, then forfeit precious afterschool time that could be devoted to extra curriculars like sports and music. In Asian countries like Korea, Singapore and Taiwain, MOST kids partcipate in "magnet afterschool programs" otherwise known as "cram" schools ("juku" schools in Japanese). It sounds like a grim way to spend one's childhood, stuck in a seat in a structured setting not just 8-3 but well into the evening and on weekends. Why not just develop full-fledged TAG programs that serve these kids needs during the school day? We routinely accelerate the athletically gifted here in DC, just not the academically gifted...
I live on Capitol Hill and my child is only a toddler, not even eligible to enter Pre-K 3 at our local elementary school (Brent) for two more years. Even so, I am concerned that DCPS seems to, A) have no policy on Talented and Gifted screening or establishing programs post Michelle Rhee/Fenty, and, B) is not moving in the direction of establishing the academic magnet middle school programs that have been so succesful in keeping upper-middle-class parents from voting with their feet from public schools in the DC suburbs since the 80s.
I raise the subject because, every fall, when interview applicants to my alma mater (Brown) from the DC area as an alumna volunteer, I meet area seniors in high school who would clearly have benefitted from the type of middle school magnet programs that are well-established in the burbs. Some are independent school students whose families have struggled to pay tuition through middle and high school, others are low-income, middle-income, or even upper-middle-class DCPS kids who, in general, aren't as well-prepared for college work as their suburban peers, and not through an effort or ability deficit. For example, algebra seems to have become a standard 7th grade offering in suburban TAG programs, while few DCPS kids can take it even in the 8th grade as yet. I've noticed that when a kid has taken algebra in the 7th grade, they tend to have made it to "linear algebra and numerology" post calculus in 12th grade, a subject not taught in DCPS yet. And when a kid starts studying a language formally in middle school in an academic magnet program, they tend to take two AP languages (rare indeed in DCPS). You might be surprised by how many the suburban applicants have taken such classes, the norm in US competitor countries like Japan and Singapore. I must have interviewed three dozen DCPS seniors in the last decade and have never seen one admitted, while nine students out of the 21 from suburban magnets (mainly TJ in Alexandria and Blair in Silver Spring) have been accepted to Brown. I keep track of how many Wilson, SWOW etc. students get admitted to Brown each year and, although it's not a total wipeout annually, it's close and not for lack of talent in the ranks.
In this vein, I'm concened by how the most "academic" DC middle school, Washington Latin, a charter, admits students only via an open lottery, thus, admitting not the most able or industrious applicants in many cases, but simply the luckiest. A student need not score "advanced" on the 5th grade DC-CAS test to apply to "Latin," or even in the "proficient" bracket for that matter. With no shortage of classmates requiring remedial work, is Latin not hampered in meeting the needs of the brightest and most disciplined students who attend? For several years now, friends on the Hill with highly gifted rising 5th and 6th graders have moved to the burbs because their children have not been among the lucky in the admissions game at Latin. Rightfully worried that their children would not be challenged at Stuart Hobson (which, I'm told, just began some mild math tracking this past academic year), they hit the road fast.
I'm going to throw out a few questions for those far more familiar with the DCPS ropes and city politics on education policy than I am. Is anybody out there interesting in advocating for the introduction of academic middle school magnet programs in DC, and/or a policy that mandates TAG coordinators in most elementary schools? Do relevant advocacy groups exist? Is there a modicum of political will for magnets? Does the city council so much as broach the subject? Has a mayoral or council candidate ever run on a pro-magnets platform?
Can somebody explain to me why the dialogue on such programs does not seem to have started on the city council when academic magnets have been standard in the burbs for more than two decades, and other cities (NYC, Boston, Chicago) for longer? Why is it that a math gifted 6th grader with a family willing to move to Mo. Co. can enter the Takoma Park Middle School Math, Science and Computers magnet, but has no comparable option in the District? Why can a fine humanities student enter the Eastern Middle School magnet in Silver Spring, but none in DC? Why is NYC so comfortable with magnets, e.g. Bronx Science, Hunter, Stuyvesant, but not DC?
Thinking in practical terms, how can gentrifying neighborhoods like ours on the Hill expect to keep most of their upper-middle-class middle school kids without format TAG programs in elementary school and academic magnet programs at the middle school level? Who benefits when most of the affluent and educated families vote with their feet somewhere along the way in DCPS, the poor kids? Off the record, most of the Brent families I know seem resigned to the fact that they will leave DCPS before 12th grade, party for the lack of academic magnets....Is there reason to expect that this will change?
I ask these questions in earnest, so no vitriol, please!
Esevdali
I raise the subject because, every fall, when interview applicants to my alma mater (Brown) from the DC area as an alumna volunteer, I meet area seniors in high school who would clearly have benefitted from the type of middle school magnet programs that are well-established in the burbs. Some are independent school students whose families have struggled to pay tuition through middle and high school, others are low-income, middle-income, or even upper-middle-class DCPS kids who, in general, aren't as well-prepared for college work as their suburban peers, and not through an effort or ability deficit. For example, algebra seems to have become a standard 7th grade offering in suburban TAG programs, while few DCPS kids can take it even in the 8th grade as yet. I've noticed that when a kid has taken algebra in the 7th grade, they tend to have made it to "linear algebra and numerology" post calculus in 12th grade, a subject not taught in DCPS yet. And when a kid starts studying a language formally in middle school in an academic magnet program, they tend to take two AP languages (rare indeed in DCPS). You might be surprised by how many the suburban applicants have taken such classes, the norm in US competitor countries like Japan and Singapore. I must have interviewed three dozen DCPS seniors in the last decade and have never seen one admitted, while nine students out of the 21 from suburban magnets (mainly TJ in Alexandria and Blair in Silver Spring) have been accepted to Brown. I keep track of how many Wilson, SWOW etc. students get admitted to Brown each year and, although it's not a total wipeout annually, it's close and not for lack of talent in the ranks.
In this vein, I'm concened by how the most "academic" DC middle school, Washington Latin, a charter, admits students only via an open lottery, thus, admitting not the most able or industrious applicants in many cases, but simply the luckiest. A student need not score "advanced" on the 5th grade DC-CAS test to apply to "Latin," or even in the "proficient" bracket for that matter. With no shortage of classmates requiring remedial work, is Latin not hampered in meeting the needs of the brightest and most disciplined students who attend? For several years now, friends on the Hill with highly gifted rising 5th and 6th graders have moved to the burbs because their children have not been among the lucky in the admissions game at Latin. Rightfully worried that their children would not be challenged at Stuart Hobson (which, I'm told, just began some mild math tracking this past academic year), they hit the road fast.
I'm going to throw out a few questions for those far more familiar with the DCPS ropes and city politics on education policy than I am. Is anybody out there interesting in advocating for the introduction of academic middle school magnet programs in DC, and/or a policy that mandates TAG coordinators in most elementary schools? Do relevant advocacy groups exist? Is there a modicum of political will for magnets? Does the city council so much as broach the subject? Has a mayoral or council candidate ever run on a pro-magnets platform?
Can somebody explain to me why the dialogue on such programs does not seem to have started on the city council when academic magnets have been standard in the burbs for more than two decades, and other cities (NYC, Boston, Chicago) for longer? Why is it that a math gifted 6th grader with a family willing to move to Mo. Co. can enter the Takoma Park Middle School Math, Science and Computers magnet, but has no comparable option in the District? Why can a fine humanities student enter the Eastern Middle School magnet in Silver Spring, but none in DC? Why is NYC so comfortable with magnets, e.g. Bronx Science, Hunter, Stuyvesant, but not DC?
Thinking in practical terms, how can gentrifying neighborhoods like ours on the Hill expect to keep most of their upper-middle-class middle school kids without format TAG programs in elementary school and academic magnet programs at the middle school level? Who benefits when most of the affluent and educated families vote with their feet somewhere along the way in DCPS, the poor kids? Off the record, most of the Brent families I know seem resigned to the fact that they will leave DCPS before 12th grade, party for the lack of academic magnets....Is there reason to expect that this will change?
I ask these questions in earnest, so no vitriol, please!
Esevdali