Reply to Anybody Here Ever Have a Kid Above Grade Level Go Through DCPS Middle Schools besides Deal or Hardy?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have friends whose kids went to Stuart-Hobson and then SWW. A friend went to Jefferson and then SWW. All of these DCPS grads are in their 20s and 30s now, done with college and doing fine. We've also interacted with Cato June, who moved to DC in high school and went to Anacostia before playing for Michigan.

They predate PARCC so I don't know if they were above grade level in that sense, but they were  above average in their schools. [/quote]

A bit of history:  Jefferson MS was a de facto math/science magnet school during the years your friend would have attended. The legendary principal there ran a parallel unofficial magnet program there that allowed talented and motivated students from all over the city. They had advanced classes separate from the regular student body. They were then funneled directly to Wilson HS.  They were nearly 100% African American students and received a great education. But it was all very quiet and under the table.

That program ended under political pressure and the student performance and population at Jefferson plummeted to less than 200 students. [/quote]
 
Academic tracking in DCPS middle schools, even the under-the-radar variant, effectively ended in the 1990s. A decade ago, tracking returned, but only for one or two "core subjects," those tested on the DC-CAS and now the PARCC, math and possibly English. What bothers me about this approach that DCPS is making a bid to support better test scores more than kids. Unless your by-right middle school is predominantly UMC and IB, non-core classes that aren't tracked can be a real problem. DCPS middle school admins, like the ebullient SH principal of 2 1/2 years, will deny this vociferously, but it's true.

This is half the reason so many Hardy and Hobson IB parents run off to BASIS.  BASIS is the only public middle school in DC that doesn't socially promote. If a student can't work at grade level across the board there from 6th grade, their only option to stay in the program is to repeat a grade. During BASIS' first several years--they've been in DC for 8--many parents were shocked to discover that 10-20% of middle school students were being held back a grade. There were lawsuits, but BASIS stuck to its guns. For the most parents, parents no longer enroll students who work behind grade level because word got out that the program often doesn't work for struggling students.[/quote]

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