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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Changing the status of Ellington is under discussion simply because no one currently in-bounds for Wilson would consider narrowly re-drawing Wilson's boundaries closer to Wilson's neighborhood.  Wilson's overcrowding problems would be solved, for example, if its eastern boundary ended at Connecticut Avenue.  Then, everyone east of Connecticut avenue that had formerly been bound for Wilson, would go to Roosevelt.

The effect would be grand:  [b]A lot of high-SES kids from Cleveland Park [/b]and Adams-Morgan areas would go to Roosevelt and immediately increase the overall academic achievement there.  Ellington would be left alone.  Voila.[/quote]

You must be smoking some of the ex-Mayor-for-Life's private crack stash.  There are not "a lot" of high SES from Cleveland Park or from Woodley who would stay in DCPS for high school under this scenario.  [/quote]

This is everyone's initial reaction, of course. But, give it a bit more thought. Is it completely impossible in your estimation that programs at Roosevelt could not be enhanced to the point that they could attract, if not lots, at least significant numbers across the park? What if Roosevelt provided every AP course that Wilson has, but classes were guaranteed to be half the size? What if graduating from Roosevelt gave a student a better shot at acceptance at a selective university (I don't know why this would be the case, but speaking hypothetically)?

[/quote]

What bothers me is that DCPS and DME don't even to be thinking along these lines. There seem to be only three possible solutions to crowding at Wilson:
1. Force people who want to attend Wilson to attend a lower-performing high school.
2. Force people out of DCPS and into charters, privates and suburbs.
3. Build a new high school.

No consideration seems to be given to making existing schools more attractive. DME Smith was dismissive of "throwing money at the problem" on Kojo yesterday, but that's exactly what they need to do. It's far cheaper than building a new high school. If you gave Roosevelt the mandate: "Get 150 kids who are currently attending Wilson to choose Roosevelt instead," and asked how much it would cost, what would the number be? I think for a million a year you could create something awfully tempting. Compared to the cost of building a new high school -- maybe $150 million? -- that's nothing.

I think part of the puzzle has to be giving DCPS principals what charter schools have, the ability to expel students who aren't able to learn in the environment and prevent others from learning. That doesn't mean throwing them out on the streets or into reform school, it means having a place for them to go where their needs are met. That costs money too, but it's small money when you look at the other options and how much has already been spent on modernizing schools that aren't attractive to large numbers of families.[/quote]

The DME recognizes that "If you build it they will come." is absolutely not accurate.  If you build it, they might come, but they need to make sure that enough of the herd moves with them so that they can be assured that they will still have high-achieving cohort with them.  Eastern HS was rebuilt beautifully and staged one grade at a time with the hope that they would pull high achieving demographic to the school.  This follows the renovations at McKinley Tech, which used a big-bang approach to load the school in one year.  Neither approach worked.  High-SES families don't gamble with their HS age children's future.

Moving Ellington to some other school that might be acceptable to the Ellington parents and re-open "Western HS".  An Ellington move might be more acceptable if the new location has better transportation options.  WoTP families won't be seriously inconvenienced by a move to Western HS if it is a good program, and it will be a good program if they majority of the families are the same or similar to those feeding Wilson.  Some excess capacity might be created that could then be opened to Academies for OOB applications.  If the program can maintain high quality and a certain level of acceptance from Ward 3 families, it will be a good-enough school initially and likely to become a much better school in a short time.

Hardy MS is an example of how this works.  Hardy is perceived as less-than-DEAL, and doesn't get its proportion of IB students, but fills itself with OOB commuters.  This year, with lottery changes,it looks like more IB students are heading to Hardy.  Give it three years and Hardy becomes a close second behind Deal and gets very, very hard to lottery into.  It will still be a smaller program and have fewer curriculum strands, but it won't be so far behind that it is unacceptable.

A new Western will be smaller than Wilson.  But it could be a very good program and an new outlet with capacity to take high school students looking for a comprehensive public HS from across the city.  Other HS around the city such as McKinley Tech and Banneker could easily be changed to more demographically diverse schools...if whites from around the city decided to join up. The advantage that Western has is that it is a short distance from the clientele that DME wants to buy into DCPS. [/quote]

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