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Rhee feared Hardy principal was weeding out poor kids
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archerovi
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Many of us have watched with concern the developments with Hardy Middle School over the past year.
I have invested some time diving into the history of the situation, and written an article at GreaterGreaterWashington.com that reveals much of the rationale for the decisions of the previous and current chancellors with regard to Hardy. It's entitled "Rhee feared Hardy principal was weeding out poor kids". I hope readers find it helpful. Ken Archer |
jsteele
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Ken:
I read your article and was a little disappointed that it seemed to miss a couple of obvious points. For instance, you wrote: "Officials worried that Pope was making Hardy into a haven for out-of-boundary, well-off African-American students, disadvantaging others from poorer backgrounds." If DCPS, rather than Pope, ran the lottery (which is the case), then DCPS should have the list of lottery winners. They should be able to compare that list to a list of those who were given OOB spots at Hardy. If they noticed students on the lottery list who were not on the OOB list, a few simple phone calls should be able to determine whether they had been offered spots which they had turned down. I don't know why DCPS administrators would have "concerns" that were strong enough to remove a popular principal, but not take a relatively simple step to determine whether those steps were justified. Also, unless I missed it, your article had very little discussion of the role of the application. As I understood it, Pope used the application as a mechanism to ensure that families knew what they were getting into in terms of expectations and requirements. Isn't it possible that poorer families might be more likely to look at a list of commitments and decide that it was too much for them? In that case, Pope would not be selecting poor families out, they would be selecting themselves out. Or, an even more obvious answer. Hardy is in the northern part of Georgetown, far from a metro. Getting there from DC's poorest neighborhoods would be quite a challenge. Maybe something that a poor family doesn't have the means to accomplish. Finally, let's assume that Rhee's "concerns" were real and poor families were being kept out. Isn't the current plan to make Hardy more attractive to in-bound students which would result in fewer OOB spots and leave out even those (relatively) well-off African Americans who attend now? In which case, isn't the situation going from bad to worse in terms of serving the disadvantaged? If Rhee's concern was that the poor were being overlooked, I don't see how her solution would change that. It just seems to me that Rhee's concern was something that would have been easy to prove or disprove (but wasn't), that the phenomenon that you document could have alternative explanations that you didn't consider, and the stated solution doesn't result in resolving the issue (and, in fact, makes it worse). |
Anonymous
| well-analyzed. does not add up. thanks |
Anonymous
| I read the same article and was wondering how much was this true. An asian chancellor championing the causes of low-income AA students by removing a white principal. No wonder she thought she was "Superwoman." |
Anonymous
Jeff- I find this part of your argument quite problematic. Bureaucratic requirements have been used for years to make access to services difficult for the poor. That is how you can say you offer services without really making them available. The real problem in my mind is that too many of us need a school that is diverse economically, racially and is succeeding. Well off, middle class and poor. The question is that possible without some machinations? Maybe Pope was providing that maybe he was just getting one type of diversity at the expense of the other type. But we all should be honest, putting a lot of burdens on school entry weeds, especially poor parents. |
archerovi
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Jeff,
Good questions. Here are my answers. "If DCPS, rather than Pope, ran the lottery (which is the case), then DCPS should have the list of lottery winners." The central claim isn't that Pope was using admissions data to pick students from the lottery. As you say, DCPS runs the lottery. The central claim is that Pope made fewer OOB slots available in the lottery so that he would have more control over which OOB students were admitted. Students that don't get in through the lottery are put on a waitlist that the principal manages with complete autonomy. "As I understood it, Pope used the application as a mechanism to ensure that families knew what they were getting into in terms of expectations and requirements." That's what we all assumed. But why then does Deal have 71% as many poor kids as OOB kids, while Hardy has only 47% as many poor kids as OOB kids? It's not due to transportation challenges, as Deal is further northwest than Hardy is. "Isn't the current plan to make Hardy more attractive to in-bound students which would result in fewer OOB spots and leave out even those (relatively) well-off African Americans who attend now?" If the current plan is what you say, then why get rid of the admissions process for OOB students? If the ratio of poor kids to OOB kids shifts to that of Deal, there will be an increase of poor kids in Hardy from 41% to 62% (89 students) in only 3 years, far greater of an increase than anyone would expect from in-boundary students in even the best of circumstances. Sadly, that will likely lessen the attractiveness of Hardy to in-boundary families. |
jsteele
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I completely agree that bureaucratic hurdles can be problematic. Here is a copy of the application: http://www.hardyms.org/quicklinkfiles/ArtsProgramApplication_Grade6_11-09.pdf Let's assume that you are correct and the the goal of this application was to create hurdles which would effectively eliminate poor students. That is not the concern about Pope described in the article which says that Pope "used information from the application process to cherry-pick certain students off the out-of-boundary waitlist." There is a big difference between students failing to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops and students jumping through those hoops and still being skipped over. You can argue the both are wrong, but they are not the same thing. But, again, this highlights the apparent failure of Rhee and her staff to attempt to prove or disprove their concerns. As a result, we are left guessing about what was happening. |
Anonymous
Deal is walking distance from a metro stop, making transportation to Deal much much easier than to Hardy. Hardy a student on public transportation would need to metro to Dupont Circle, then bus across P St to Georgetown. Definitely more of a transportation challenge to get to Hardy. (signed a rich white mom who live east of the park and won't consider Hardy due to transportation challenges) |
jsteele
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I imprecisely used the term "lottery" to describe both the lottery winners and those on the waitlist. But, isn't my point the same? DCPS would have the waitlist. They would have the list of those chosen for OOB spots. How hard would it be to find those low on the waitlist who did not get OOB spots and contact them to find out why? If they repeatedly said things along the lines of "we don't know why we didn't get a spot, we thought we would and really wanted one, but never heard from the school" then I would share Rhee's concern. But, if the responses were more mundane, eg., the school was too far away, the student didn't really have an arts or music interest, etc., then the concern wouldn't seem to be justified. |
Anonymous
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Jeff and others have raised important questions about this assertion that have not been satisfactorily answered so I won't repeat what they said. I will add however, that the bar chart in the article compares Hardy and Deal to other schools that are in no way similar. Additionally, the article doesn't deal adequately with the dynamics of feeder schools. A great many of the OOB students came up through feeder schools so it would be important to carefully analyze the population of those schools and whether it influenced the demographics of Hardy and Deal.
As a former Hardy parent, I can tell you that I believed that the application process did control the makeup of the OOB population. My husband, who was on the PTA at the time, believed it too. However, I believe that if Pope was interested in controlling who matriculated at Hardy it was to ensure that disruptive students were kept out. Which is not so different from the policy towards OOB students post-lottery. No OOB student has an absolute right to go to an OOB school and can be removed from that school for something as simple as chronic tardiness. One can argue that every student should have an equal chance to attend a school like Hardy OOB. That's fair. However, it's also true that no one is owed a spot regardless of their behavior. Lastly, I would like to see a comparison with Wilson's Academies, which are also the vehicle by which OOB students attend Wilson. My daughter could not have gotten into Wilson OOB through the lottery but she was accepted to the Humanities Academy. How is that different from Hardy? Or has Wilson sacked the academies and now accepts any student who gets a spot through the lottery? |
Anonymous
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What a load of crap. Rhee got rid of Pope because he was keeping poor black students out of Hardy through an application? Maybe that's how Rhee is spinning this now, but it's complete BS. Nice try. Rhee removed Pope to placate in-boundary families (mostly Key parents) who wanted their newly renovated middle school back from the mostly black OOB families. The Hardy PTA and LSRT had been trying for months to get Rhee to attend a meeting, which she never did. Rhee did manage to meet with Key parents who expressed their dissatisfaction with Pope and the application process. One Key parent was quoted saying she wanted her kids to be able to go to a middle school with their "friends". WTF does that mean? NOTHING prevented IB families from attending Hardy. IB parents who expressed confusion over the application process were full of sh**. No IB families were ever turned away. It was really their only complaint about Pope and Rhee went along with it, hoping more IB families would go to Hardy. I wonder how many IB families are at Hardy now? Many have left this year.
I was at the December 2009 meeting when Rhee stood before a roomful of shocked and angry parents when she announcement Pope was being removed. Parents wanted to know why she met with Key parents, and not Hardy parents. Rhee had actually cancelled a scheduled meeting with Hardy parents, which she denied before everyone, even though the email exchange from Rhee that was printed out proved otherwise. Rhee lied. This article reads like it was written by Rhee. |
Anonymous
| A point about Deal and Hardy's accesibility: Deal is within walking distance of a metro, and there are several bus lines...Hardy is quite a distance from any metro... |
Anonymous
| Don't "poor kids" figure out how to get to Ellington? It is even further from Metro and only a few blocks from Hardy. I would think if transportation is your argument I would compare FARM % at Ellington as well. |
Anonymous
How is that news? This is how EVERY SCHOOL west of the park and with a waitlist over 100 a year runs. As 17:37 noted eloquently, the whole OOB process has nothing fair or impartial about it. Perish the thought the Fenty boys would have gone in boundary. 
Michelle inadvertently threw Dana under the bus. As Adrian did to her. IMHO it was not out of malice, but hubris. I'm hoping Kaya continues calling out the BS in the system. If it's a regular neighborhood school, better get that 300 or more. If it's a specialized school, throw it open to everybody like charters or make it a competitive magnet. Enough with they hybrid schools. PS-If Sekou's legislation on free transport goes through, hopefully the impoverished black children everyone claims to care so much about will be able to choose schools for some reason other than a bus route. Gotta confess. I didn't read the article. I usually rely on Jeff to filter school news for me. (No, really. I'm kinda lazy that way.) |
jsteele
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The article has a chart with Ellington's FARM percentage and it is lower than Hardy's. |