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[quote=Anonymous]How objectively successful is Stuart Hobson?  Within the context of DC it looks pretty good, but is it really all that and a bag of chips?  For kids from Wards 7 & 8 it’s far superior to their neighborhood choices.  But will an emerging cohort of strong students in Ward 6 flock to it?  A school with test scores and facility like Stuart Hobson would be the bottom of the barrel in Montgomery/Arlington/Fairfax.

Stuart Hobson has a helpful dedicated feeder in Watkins/Peabody and an affluent enough catchment area to help make it the only successful elementary-middle school combo east of the park.  That may change with Ludlow Taylor and JO Wilson in the mix.

It seems like Deal is a tier one school, Hardy and Stuart Hobson are tier two, and all the rest are third tier and lower.  Stuart Hobson benefits from being the only game in town east of the park.  If Eliot Hine (or Jefferson) emerge as viable options for strong students then the whole situation changes for Stuart Hobson.

In its current configuration Stuart Hobson is limited.  It’s an aging building with a myriad of facility issues.  It has no real gym or athletic facilities – realistically it’s a retro-fitted elementary school.  Its feeder schools are struggling and its test scores are headed south.  And its capacity is 430.

To be sure, Stuart Hobson has done yeoman’s work – especially considering the dysfunction of DCPS.  The folks who pushed hard to make Stuart Hobson a success have a special place in heaven reserved for them.

It may be a stretch to say that Stuart Hobson has the ability to become another tier one school on par with Deal.  Eliot Hine, on the other hand, has a strong possibility of becoming a Deal-esque school given the right conditions.

If I was a future Stuart Hobson parent I would seriously consider focusing on Eliot Hine with its significant upside.  Eliot Hine’s enrollment capacity, its facility, its feeders, and its proximity to Eastern’s amenities and programs all combine to make it Capitol Hill’s best middle school bet for the future.

Eliot Hine’s upside is immense.  Stuart Hobson’s upside is questionable at best.

Is DCPS better off putting $15 million into Eliot Hine and building another Deal type school that benefits 800 students than it would be putting $15 million of modernization funds into Stuart Hobson and benefitting half that number of kids?

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