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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] Until something drastic happens, I think we'll each have to find our way through different public, charter, and private options. And maybe that's actually a good thing because middle school needs are quite possibly the most different for different kids. These are the most difficult years to teach (my MIL is a veteran middle school teacher in the Philly suburbs) and call for individual solutions. The more I think about it, the less I think total vertical alignment between ES, MS, and HS is a useful concept.[/quote]

A positive spin on a situation that's terribly unfair to those paying the bulk of the property tax collected on the Hill (go on, refute this in that hackneyed DCUM way by arguing that all taxpayers are created equal in the eyes of DCPS/the Lord).

I must not have been around long enough to grasp why upper-middle-class Hill voters appear to have been fairly passive in challenging the MS status quo - because there aren't enough high-SES parents with kids in Ward 6 public schools approaching MS age yet?  Because distant charters have proven somewhat effective in picking up the slack?   If our elected officials aren't serious about working with the parents of the strongest neighborhood students to develop high-performing middle school programs on a par with the best in VA and MD, where colleagues and friends send their children, shouldn't they be voted out?

Why should DCPS be in a position to burden the Brent, Maury and Tyler parents with dead-ended MS feeds indefinitely when there would  be room enough for almost all Hill MS kids at a much improved Stuart Hobson?  Something "drastic" happening means changing the feeder system so that all Hill kids may attend, and a full complement of honors/advanced courses is offered.  SH obviously shouldn't primarily serve Ward 7 and 8 kids; it probably shouldn't accomodate OOB kids at all.  If rapidly reinventing SH's student population means introducing test-in programs with Fairfax and MoCo level bars to clear, and most Hill parents say they want them, bring such programs on.

The crux of the problem is that none of us has any guarantee that our child(ren) can receive a quality public MS education in the city.  We lack assurances when lottery luck is the sole admissions criterion for the only appealing OOB option (Deal) and the best charters (Latin, Two Rivers, maybe Basis), which aren't up to suburban magnet standards, not even close.  The baby boom on the Hill will soon jeopardize broad access to the only public middle schools high-SES families have reason to touch.  Moreover, ample disposable income (available to few families in a government town) or povery coupled with exceptional ability and preparation will remain the brutal admissions critera for privates.

Our politicians sell us down the river, and we accept it to the point that we move to the burbs or practically bankrupt ourselves at Sidwell to stay in the city rather than fight back with gumption at the grassroots.  I'm not going to go so far as to say that we collectively deserve what we get, but an outsider might reasonably come to that conclusion.

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