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[quote=Anonymous]Responding to PP's points in reverse order ...

[quote=Anonymous]Parents on DCUM will always spout worries, rumors, pet peeves, and generally amplify the best and worst of schools. Sometimes they do it to complain and sometimes to try to gain momentum to change something specific. But it is never a full picture of a school. And parents who are active in their child's school will often feel that they are doing more for a school than the parents who were there a decade ago (and they are usually wrong about that).[/quote]
I think your long-term viewpoint here is wise and useful.  It's easy to think the present-day issues are more significant, more difficult, more *everything*, so it's wise to keep perspective that there always were issues in the past (some similar, some different), and there will always be issues in the future (some similar, some different).

[quote=Anonymous]The kids I know who went to Wilson 10 years ago did very well, got into great universities, did well there and have successful careers - - as will the students of today and those of 10 years from now.[/quote]
I need to push back on your broad statement in two ways:

1. I certainly know kids who went to Wilson 10 years ago and did very well, but I also know kids who struggled and still struggle.  Not every student at a school like Wilson will do well.  The school presents many opportunities, but also many hurdles for students.  Some students seize on the opportunities, while others are tripped up by the hurdles.  I suspect you did not really mean to suggest that every kid at Wilson does fine, so we likely are in agreement here with this clarification.

2. For the subset of kids who "did well" after Wilson, did they do well [i]because[/i] of Wilson ... or did they do well [i]despite[/i] Wilson?  I honestly do not know the answer.  It probably depends on the specific kid situation.  Some kids did well because they were lucky enough to avoid the pitfalls of Wilson (or maybe they had enough parental guidance or were innately wise enough, or some other factor).

IMHO, we need to work together as parents, and with the wise heads at DCPS, to reduce the hurdles at Wilson and increase the opportunities, so that more kids do well and fewer struggle.  My fear and frustration, however, is that different people define the goals differently.  Many parents want to remove hurdles at Wilson (e.g., overcrowding, disruptive students).  Other parents and many at DCPS seem to see those same aspects at Wilson as opportunities rather than hurdles, because those aspects reflect the opportunities of Wilson being offered to a wide array of kids from other parts of the city.

I do not know the solutions to these hard problems. Maybe there are many different solutions, or maybe there is no true solution and the problem cannot be solved with the tools currently available to DCPS.  I do disagree, however, with the worldview that DCPS should just open all schools to as many students as possible to spread the opportunity wide.  That approach feels good in the short term, but it's a recipe for long term mediocrity.  First, it offers opportunity to only the small percentage of students lucky enough to end up at Wilson, and abandons the many others who are sent to other schools.  Second, it allows DCPS to ignore development of other schools because the appearance of "equity" is achieved. Third, because it's the high-performing students themselves who boost Wilson's test scores and make it an attractive destination, it's ultimately destructive to Wilson if DCPS pushes those high-performing students out to make room for more low-performing students who desperately need the opportunity Wilson offers.

I do feel that DCPS and interested parents would be more productive in developing solutions if they focus less on the "achievement gap," and more on just raw improvement of the underperforming students.  Worrying about the achievement gap, whether it's between rich-and-poor or between different racial groups or otherwise, just pits people against one another.  It also focuses people on trying to seize short term steps to shrink the gap (often by watering down the successful schools), rather than the more difficult long-term steps to make other underperforming schools and students do better.[/quote]

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