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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The only way their "quick" solution works is if a bunch of 4th grade parents return for 5th, then send their children to a ms with proficiency pass rates in the low 20s.  It's a hard sell, and the boosters really want to recruit your family, so 4th grade parents get pestered to jump on board. Can't count how many times I've been asked if we're coming back for 5th if the last few weeks. We have zero interest in Jeff Ac, but aren't talking about what we're planning. Being left alone would rock.[/quote]

I didn't say it would be easy, but sounds like these parents are working hard on the most feasible option. good for them. I am zoned for EH (Maury) and would probably consider it if there were an organized group of parents planning to try it. [/quote]

I'm a social worker by training who's served families in SW housing projects over the years. Privately, I'm not seeing a "feasible option" at Jefferson Academy, given the awful conditions many of the students face in nearby housing projects.  I see well-intentioned Brent parents determined to stay in their neighborhood dramatically over-estimating how OK the demographics and academics of Jefferson Academy will be because they don't spend time in the projects...[/quote]

Could you please explain what you are foreseeing in terms of challenges with demographics and academics given your work as a social worker?  I've heard lots of people speculate but none of them seem to have real-world experience for their beliefs.  It sounds like you do.[/quote]

Jefferson's dismal 6th grade PARCC scores tell the story. Many of the SW project kids come from multi-generational families in which all the adults--great-grandparents, grandparents and parents- are functionally illiterate. The adults in the home didn't read to the kids as toddlers because they couldn't. Public preschool programs help fill the gap, but they can only do so much for families without books in the home (I've seen this many times).  Sexual, verbal and physical abuse of preteens is rife in the SW housing projects despite aggressive intervention by the city, though not to the same extent as in the projects in Wards 7 and 8.  At least two-thirds of middle school-age kids in the SW projects do not live with a father, and at least a third don't have a father in the picture.  It's common for grandmothers in their early to mid 30s to be raising middle school-age kids in local projects.  If the kids arriving at MS working two or three years below grade level (very common) were put into remedial classes, while the Brent graduates were put in different classes, I'd say OK, maybe Jefferson could work for Brent. But academic tracking at the MS level isn't DCPS policy. Even at Stuart Hobson, where there are "honors" (grade level) classes in several subjects, kids are not separated into higher and lower classes across the board.

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So these are kids that "our" kids could just never mix with? Kind of shocked at your openly segregationalist mentality, but glad that you're putting it out there for all to see.  Newsflash: white and high SES kids are ALREADY going to schools with kids who live in public housing at myriad charters, Tyler, Van Ness, Payne, etc etc.  [/quote]

When is the last time you visited a family living in multi-generational poverty in a SW project, which no family member has managed to exit since the 60s?  I did that on Monday.  Be shocked, because these are the realities our urban communities face in public education. They explain why many other American cities offer test-in MS programs/full-fledged honors programs, as the lesser of the evils (near total segregation in schools when high SES parents collectively vote with their feet).

Newsflash: there aren't in fact white and high SES kids in the Tyler Traditional program past 2nd grade, there are none at Payne past K, and Van Ness only goes up to 2nd grade this year. This is true even though the achievement gap is smaller and far more manageable at the ES level than the MS level.  The most motivated project families tend to head to charter middle schools, just like their high SES peers. The Hill hasn't had a miserable SW scale housing project since the Ellen Wilson project came down in '98.  I remember its demolition well.  Trust me, Potomac Gardens pales by comparison.

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I'm not saying it would be easy.  I am saying that it's offensive to claim that "project kids" can never be educated successfully alongside kids from Brent.  People on the Hill chose to live in a city.  They don't have the right to demand segregation from the city.  And anyway, you've pointed out yourself that some of these kids go to charters.  We all know how tough charter lotteries are, so that implies that there are plenty of kids in the projects who could have gone to the charter with little Emerson and Becket, and been just fine. [/quote]

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