Reply to DC's School Report Cards are up. Any surprises?

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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]I don’t have a solution to the problem with schools in this city.  But as an educated UMC family EOTP, charters are what kept us in the city to make it work.

We were at an immersion charter and now at DCI as a new family this year.  We were at an event this weekend and met a number of other DCI families and wow the backgrounds of these families were impressive - lawyers, CIO, educational executives, etc…. It was also a very diverse group with blacks, white, asians.

It is quite obvious to me now that educated UMC families of all backgrounds and ethnicities are congregating and coalescing among the few acceptable charters for middle school EOTP.  It is not by chance that there were so many accomplished families in one event.[/quote]

If I could send my kid to Stuart-Hobson I totally would. DC is at a supposedly desirable EOTP charter but meh.[/quote]

I think this is the same Stuart Hobson booster but if it’s a real post I invite you do so some research on the school. It’s objectively a poor performing school. [/quote]

It’s really not. It has a good OSSE report card with solid performance and growth scores. Its top kids do well on tests and in HS admissions, while having a very robust MS experience with great ECs and truly excellent performance arts. It’s not an accident that SH got over 20 kids into Duke last year. I’m not sure why anyone thinks there’s on SH booster. [/quote]

Duke Ellington is a performing arts school. It’s not an academic powerhouse. I mean I am thrilled if kids who are good at performance do well here, but the reality is that SH has very little to do with it. Furthermore, the “honors” classes are not even grade level. Kids do really poorly on standardized tests. “Truly excellent” performing arts is 100% in the eye of the booster. I’m glad you’re happy but I’m really glad my kids don’t attend Stuart Hobson. [/quote]

SH doesn't have "honors" classes; it does track kids, but not like that. So it's interesting that you have opinions on classes that literally don't exist. Why do people come on DCUM to post nonsense about schools they have no connection to? Look, obviously demographics (and, particularly, at risk %age) play into overall test scores and SH is 29% at risk, but if you look at just white kids (since they are virtually certainly to be close to 0% at risk at any DC school), SH actually outperforms BASIS and Hardy and DCI and Latin on ELA CAPE (looking at 4s + 5s); in Math, it's still ahead of all of those schools except for BASIS, which is only at 2% more. Tell me again about the non-grade level classes and kids doing "really poorly"...

I want to be clear that I am not trashing any of those schools. I would have sent me DD to Latin if she lotteried in, because I would love to have a HS plan. She has friends who are very happy at BASIS and if we lived IB for Hardy, I assume she'd go there happily. Also, there are other unnamed schools doing equally well or even better by the metric I just looked at, like Jefferson and Elliot Hine and ITS and Truth. The point is that there are actually a bunch of MS out there working for kids all of which have various pluses and minuses and this weird DCUM line that UMC Hill kids at a school like SH are looking for "easy classes" and or somehow not getting fundamentals is crazy. People hire tutors in MS because their kids aren't doing well... so it's not shocking to hear that the tutor works with kids who aren't doing well at Hill MSes. I'm sure there are plenty of those too! (And it's fair to say that I don't know any parents at SH who hire an individual tutor for "enrichment" given all of the free enrichment offered by the school, so that doesn't really surprise me either. Maybe there are MSes with less on offer where that's more attractive?)[/quote]

I am thrilled you are so optimistic about Stuart Hobson. However for those who have actual children and are thinking about it you should be aware that the offerings are poor, grade level at Stuart Hobson is considered doing really well, and kids are not being taught well there. Sorry not sorry. Same applies for Truth (actually Stuart would probably be better than truth).  Hine has an IB program which is a good curriculum. Finally the reason you don’t know any kids who get a tutor for further enrichment is my biggest issue with SH- kids are just not ambitious. I’m seeing kids who are struggling and not motivated.But if that’s okay with you, fantastic. But lie to less privileged kids who don’t know they’ll be okay. It’s not a good school. It won’t meet your kids needs. If you know your privileged kids will be totally fine whatever happens- go for it. Enjoy the easy commute. But for those less sure, do everything you can to get into another school including moving. [/quote]

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. I thought I made it clear that my "actual" kid is at SH now. I'm not "optimistic," I am literally experiencing it. An individual tutor is an extremely poor form of enrichment in my book -- sorry to trash your business model if that's who you're trying to sucker in by saying smart kids doing well who don't have tutors aren't "ambitious" (what??). My kid does tons of enrichment, both in the school and outside it. None of it involves a tutor. Less privileged kids don't hire a private tutor either, so I am not sure how you can speak for them at a school you don't have kids at. You seem to have a very weird axe to grind with DCPS.[/quote]

No axe to grind and I take several clients pro bono. What I do find irritating are parents like yourself who overstate the positives about how great their child’s school is to make themselves feel good about their choices. Less privileged families with less opportunities feel that this school is good if privileged families are there. I am genuinely profoundly glad you’re happy there and optimistic about the school in general but the grim reality is that if you want to send your child to a school that will properly prepare them for high school and college, Stuart Hobson is not it. [/quote]

Can you please explain what positives you think I've "overstated"? I quoted direct CAPE data, which shows that non-at risk children there perform on par or better than alternative middle schools. I said there was a lot of free enrichment available at the school. I do actually agree with the PP that the school has excellent performing arts, though I didn't say that. You, on the other hand, have repeatedly disparaged SH across the board ("the grim reality is that if you want to send your child to a school that will properly prepare them for high school and college, Stuart Hobson is not it") based on... anecdotal experience from a few kids you tutor? I genuinely think you should consider what your motives are here and why you think you know so much about multiple schools from a handful of struggling students (since in previous posts you also bashed EH, Jefferson and Truth).[/quote]

“I cherry picked data and I’m upset that you are using evidence collected from your literal employment to prove me wrong!”

Believe what you want. I would make a different choice in your shoes and definitely encourage anyone to ensure your kid is doing well in school by objective metrics. Encourage intellectual curiosity and lifelong learning. Please consider academic summer camps. [/quote]

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