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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Our daughter is 1 year old. We currently live downtown, and we're thinking we'll need to move in the next year or two to get a little more space. As we think about the parts of the city we'd love to live in, though, we keep coming back to the school conversation. A desirable (and affordable!) neighborhood to live in does not necessary have schools known for being great.

Does that matter? What is the lifelong impact of sending your kid to an amazing school? An okay one? A kind of crappy one? And then how are we defining amazing/okay/crappy.. is it just test scores?

I'm curious how you chose the school you chose (or how you chose to wing it with the lottery). And I'm curious your philosophy on the importance--or lack thereof--of K-12 education.

And then to get into practical advice.. any feeder patterns you love or would avoid?[/quote]

Many desirable neighborhoods EOTP don’t have great schools.  Many families go charter, and it works for them.

Test scores are not the be all and end all but it gives you a sense of peer group.  How many kids are below grade level, on grade level, above grade level? 
 This starts to become important in the upper elementary as the academic gap widens between those below and those on or above grade level, especially since there is no G & T or AAP or tracking.

We wanted language immersion because felt it was important to be bilingual in today’s diverse society. Language immersion also tends to be a harder curriculum in general because the child is learning all topics in 2 languages.  We were very lucky in the lottery and are currently very happy with DC’s experience so far.  Private was our back up if the lottery did not work out.  Our IB school was not a viable option.

The language immersion charters has a feeder pattern to not only middle school but also high school with DCI.[/quote]

You're asking the right question.  I'm a grandparent. We raised our kids in a wealthy DC suburb and sent them to very highly regarded public schools.  Very few poor kids, if any.  Zero diversity.  But man, did it have high test scores.

Fast forward 25 years, we're living in DC and our grandkids are enrolled in a largely black, largely poor school.  When we show up, everyone in the school knows who we are because we don't look like anybody else.  And guess what?  The grandkids are reading well above grade level and are doing very well socially.  In the end, it all boils down to who they go home to.

Don't get caught up in the rat race like we did.[/quote]

I guarantee your kids are not going to send their kids to the zoned middle or HS. [/quote]

Why is this ALWAYS the response?  [/quote]

Because it's self-evident ... and everyone knows it.  There's no way PP's grandkids are going to Kramer MS and Anacostia High. [/quote]

+1.  Get back to us when your grandkids are in upper elementary.  All families say this and rave about diversity at their IB poor performing schools EOTP.  But things change quick in the upper grades and they bail.   Ask the countless families who have been there, done that.  Why don’t you think these schools can’t retain middle class families?

BTW your grandkids are not going to be so special and fawned upon because they are above grade level EOTP if they move WOTP.  They will just be average and on grade level at best, maybe below.  Happens to many families kids who make the move.

Subjective teacher standards for grade level in poor performing schools are much lower catering to the majority of poor performing cohort.  [/quote]

Wow.  Someone's bitter.  You seem to forget that we raised our own kids in suburban schools in NOVA that, by virtually every objective measure, are better than the best WOTP schools.  And guess what, they all [i]were[/i] well above grade level in their fancy publics and all ended up in top colleges.  On top of that, as I said in my earlier post, one of our adult children is a teacher in a highly rated suburban elementary school in NOVA, and has a pretty good idea -- I dare say, better than you and me -- of how our grandchildren are performing:  as well or better than the best students in suburban publics.

One final thing:  I never said our grandkids are "special and fawned upon."  They're just smart and happy kids who are doing well while mixing with lots of kids who don't look like them.  All the special and fawned upon kids are in the suburbs with all the rich white folks.

Just because you're afraid of diversity doesn't mean the rest of us are.  [/quote]

Check back in with us when your kids enroll the grandkids in a Ward 7 middle school. [/quote]

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