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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If the Hill middle schools improved, they woudl suddenly become overcrowded. People would stop trucking to faraway charters and Deal/Hardy. They would have to stop admitting OOB students. The net effect would be a much whiter and higher-income student body and the OOB kids would probably end up at worse schools (or maybe at okayish charters).

If they consolidated high-performing kids in one middle school, it would be so overcrowded that they would have to de-consolidate it after a few years. It's not a workable plan politically or logistically.

What can be done? Work on your elementary school's upper grade offering so that the middle schools of the city are receiving kids as well-prepared as possible. If you're at a feeder or attend a middle school, push for higher quality but with an understanding of the complex and sensitive politics and the budget constraints. This isn't an easy problem.[/quote]

That's not necessarily true. If well designed, consolidating the Hill into one or two MS could raise standards while also avoiding over-enrollment.[/quote]

No, because the Hill elementaries would increase in size and feed more kids up. They would probably need to carve out a new elementary.[/quote]

Just like has happened in UNW?

I'm just baffled by the idea that we shouldn't improve schools because then people would use them. Like, seriously, what? Do you hear yourself? Even if you're just saying this is someone else's argument, treating it as a remotely rational argument is insane.[/quote]

I'm not saying we shouldn't improve schools FFS. I'm saying it's complicated if you plan more than 5 years in advance. Don't make changes that you'll have to un-do soon thereafter. Take into account not just a higher feeder elementary capture rate, but that IB kids who don't attend feeders will also want to come, and people who don't live on the Hill might move there or stay for middle school when they otherwise wouldn't. It has to be an improvement plan that works for the medium term, [b]that is realistically politically feasible[/b], and that takes into account budget limitations.[/quote]

Whenever someone says that, it always sounds like code for DCPS just doesn't really like Capitol Hill and we can't have nice things.[/quote]

That's really not it. But if "nice things" means "we get what we want for our kids even though it increases racial and income segregation", is that really a nice thing?[/quote]

Those are your ugly words, not mine. All else equal, why aren't better schools better for ALL kids? Just look at Deal, which benefits a wide range of students, and much more so than any of the MS on the Hill.[/quote]

Because it's never "all else equal". People here aren't proposing a massive investment in middle schools system-wide that benefits all students. They're proposing a policy that would create one high-performing school that's far less racially and economically integrated, And which would swiftly become overcrowded. The buildings are nowhere near as big as Deal, so they won't be able to stay as diverse. People need to try harder to understand how the interconnecting pieces of the school system and its budget work.

[/quote]

Well, right now the MS and HS on the Hill are pretty much failure factories for many students. So if we can only go up from here, why not try something new? Our leaders seem so crippled by the fear that academically advanced kids might start outperforming at-risk students that they'd rather keep the broken system we have right now. And BTW, I would totally be in favor of allocating A LOT more money at this if that's what it took to have good schools and be able to accommodate everyone. Bottom line, we should not be displacing anyone in the current system, but rather try to also retain all those advanced learners who currently flee for charters or private once they hit middle school.[/quote]

Oh please, get over yourself. They're middling. There are far worse middle schools in DCPS and plenty of other cities. Academically advanced kids are already out-performing at-risk kids, that's why we have the concept "at-risk". It's short for "at risk of academic failure". What they don't want is to create one school that's better than the others, probably making the others even worse, watch it crowd up, and then have to zone people out.

There's no way to do this without displacing anyone.[/quote]

Wow, so you would consider Eastern a success? See, these extremely low expectations are part of the problem ("always could be even worse somewhere else!"). Given the massive amount of per-student funding DCPS should be ashamed of itself.[/quote]

No, I would not consider it a success, but I would not be so rude as to call it a "failure factory" either. As to the costs, yes it is costly to educate a high-SPED, high trauma background population. But those children are entitled to an education nonetheless.[/quote]

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