Reply to So how many IB are going to really be at Hardy?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes.  I am one of the current Hardy parents who has posted here and I have spoken to many of my Ward 3 colleagues about why they will or will not send their students to Hardy.  Race - either directly stated or implied - is a huge issue.[/quote]

odd -- whites are in the minority at Wilson and it doesn't seem to be an issue there.[/quote]

It's really not all that complicated - there's a threshold - hard to define, but it exists - where if the population of white students falls below X, the school faces additional barriers to recruiting white students.

Wilson and Deal are above this threshold; the best example of a school below this threshold is Banneker, which has the best scores in the city yet can't attract a single white student most years.   And Hardy is also below this threshold.

Hope that helps you understand this phenomenon.  I assure you, it exists.

[/quote]

I wish more people would just be transparent about this issue, as PP has done. This threshold concept exists. For those who claim that it's not about race because Deal also has diversity, here are the numbers of white students at each public school under discussion, per DCPS:

Deal: 43%
Wilson: 25%
Hardy: 11%
Banneker: 0%

However, to say it is about race doesn't always mean that it is about racism. Schools cater to their populations, and different populations have different educational needs.

Consider the phenomenon of high-scoring charter schools in DC (and other cities) with mostly poor, mostly black student bodies that feature things like uniforms, a longer school day, aggressive follow up on absenteeism and discipline, teachers with social work qualifications, and other modifications driven by research on how best to reach at-risk urban kids.

These schools could be life-changing for a kid growing up in poverty, but they tend not to attract the affluent. There is no research that shows that an affluent kid benefits from a long school day at age 3. And the schools make no apologies and no attempt to recruit the affluent. They stay focused on their target demographic.

I think this may be what is going on with the uniform issue at Hardy. It is definitely part of what is going on at Banneker, with its high DC CAS scores (but below-average SATs) and 98% college acceptance rate (but which colleges?). There is probably also some simple racism, yes, but that's thankfully the minority of people. I think for most it is this conscious or unconscious questioning of who is the school trying to reach, and how, and why, and is this a good fit for my kids.

[/quote]

Thank you, above PPs - maybe we're getting somewhere.  If this is correct, it still seems that the solution is for more neighborhood families to send their kids there.  It will bring the scores up ( the most cited reason for not attending) and change the racial ratio at the same time.  It's happened at other schools in DC -- on the hill for sure, and maybe at Deal, a few years ago, I don't know.

I realize Hardy's recent past history regarding race has been difficult (lots of past threads on that - will not revisit here)  so perhaps that's what needs to diffuse for real change to happen --  with the passage of time or more directly.[/quote]

You're responding to my post. Yes, this is absolutely the solution -- for more IB families to attend. This will solve it. But it's a prisoner's dilemma right now. If I had to bet my own money, I would bet that within 5 years Hardy will be majority IB. Not soon enough for some people, I know.

It's not healthy for a neighborhood school to be majority OOB for the long term anyway. In DC right now, people see this almost like an equality issue, that WOTP schools should have lots of OOB available so anyone has a shot at the best schools. But long term it's desirable for all schools to be mostly IB. I think even DCPS and DME want this too. Rhee used the OOB feeder rights as a way to boost Deal and so on, but the desired result was high-IB at Deal, and it's been achieved. The same thing is desirable at Hardy and at any neighborhood school.

And thank you to the other PP who was honest in stating an approx 20% threshold.

[/quote]

I'm grateful to pp as well and, giving others the benefit of the doubt, it could be that they simply had not perceived the importance of a threshold.  And maybe now that they do (assuming that some do) they will see that they ARE the threshold.[/quote]

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