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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Definitely won't be at Eliot-Hine. Wish you lots of luck, but no how, no way.[/quote]
I've got a fourth grader and I would consider Eliot Hine.  A successful EH is, by far, the best option for most Ward Six students.

I need DCPS and city leaders to make a convincing case - and they have yet to do so.  Things seem adrift.  Test scores went down at EH and its feeders.  A principal was surreptitiously hired without including the Eliot Hine collaboration team.  The EH collaboration team, despite its heroic parent participants, is less than robust.  The wonderful DCPS Ward Six middle school point person went on leave and DCPS did not hand the baton off.  The Ward Six Middle School reform pages on the DCPS web site are static.  The once promising Ward 6 plan is cited as kowtowing to gentrifiers, and it is spoken of in grand terms as if Ward 6 got a ton of resources and its bubbly wine drinking set got all it wanted – when parents in Ward 6 have yet to realize significant results.  Chancellor Henderson has my support, but for whatever reasons she hasn't gotten out front and told us how she is committed to making EH work.  Mayor Gray has my gratitude for his funding and support of DCPS in the last budget cycle, and I approve of his choice in DCPS leadership, but he hasn't taken a clear and firm stance on the issues that will make Eliot Hine a strong school.  Chairman Brown, thankfully, is working the issue, but thus far he's talking from 30,000 feet.  Even at the middle school hearings that Chairman Brown conducted, the Chancellor, who gave a great presentation, had a chance to tip her hat about what direction she is headed, but gave no indication.  The amazing Abigail Smith is leaving and DCPS hasn't announced a vision for the Office of Transformation – her duties will be spread out across other offices.  The Hopes and Dreams campaign concluded parents want things to be equal – as if the primary goal of the DCPS constituency is to make sure we are all the same – even if that means we are all at crappy schools.  I would have preferred the campaign conclude the system should be “fair” instead of equal.  The mayor is studying the school system writ large with an apparent pro-charter perspective.  There’s a study looking at funding fairness waiting to be completed and keeping things in limbo.

Ostensibly these big picture studies and decisions will be delivered in the spring of 2012.  I eagerly await their arrival.  But until then there’s just nothing that gives direction.  There are huge tectonic plates moving here, and perhaps my family is just too early to benefit when things settle down.

The most confidence inspiring indicators are the demographic shifts.  This is powerful and perhaps it can incrementally overcome the obstacles and create a viable school at Eliot Hine over time.  But that isn’t leadership and it doesn’t work for those of us with kids in the testing grades.

Yes, we have willing parents and bright kids ready to jump in, but no one wants to leap without it being a rational decision.  Confidence is tricky to build, and there have not been enough concrete accomplishments - other than the success of a handful of elementary schools (Maury, Watkins, Brent) that operate in their own bubbles and feed into their own fiefdoms.  Creating confidence takes more than pioneering parents making statements about their commitment years before they drop off their child on the first day of sixth grade.  I don’t doubt the strength of neighborhood parents in the least; I just doubt that their scattershot efforts alone are enough to build the bridge.

Creating a great school at Eliot Hine is kind of like solving hunger.  We have enough food, but we don’t have the political will to make it happen.  Our country is filled with successful middle schools examples that DC can emulate if we just had the political will to make it happen.  Chairman Brown and Tommy Wells are spot on when they say we don’t need more resources, we just need to use existing resources better.  Eliot Hine and Eastern can be the kind of success story that warrants an above the fold story in the New York Times.  Capitol Hill schools could be a “shining city upon a hill,” and we need strong leadership real soon if my oldest child and her friends are going to be a part of it.[/quote]

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