Reply to DCPS Policy on Talented & Gifted & Acaemic Magnet Middle School Programs...Questions for You

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[quote=esevdali]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

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