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[quote=Anonymous]I'm the parent of a senior who previously made the point that the principal is acting rationally by not trying to attract parents to an overcrowded school.

While I think she's acting rationally, I agree with PP that this is part of a strategy to minimize the involvement of parents because parental involvement and parents advocating for their kids makes her job harder and interferes with what she perceives as her mission, which is primarily helping at risk kids, including homeless, poor and minority kids, especially those from neighborhoods much more difficult than NW DC.

With that said, Wilson is a public good that's funded with our tax dollars.  It's perfectly reasonable for ALL Wilson parents to advocate for their kids and for making the most of their public school, whether or not that's what the principal wants.

I hear a lot of complaints from other Wilson parents about honors for all.  Most of them seem to start by questioning principal Martin's reasons for implementing honor for all and complaining that she's trying to drive away white parents.  They don't address the rationale that's been very clearly stated for honors for all, nor do they, for the most part argue the research about de-tracking.  Lots of white UMC parents argue based on their personal experience that tracking is great without seeming to realize that tracking has in MANY implementations been a system rigged to unfairly benefit white UMC kids, so their arguments that it's been great for them are about as convincing as a white South African arguing that they don't personally see any issues with Apartheid.

There seems to be a lot of recent, high quality research suggesting that tracking can benefit everybody including poor and minority students.  It seems to me that going to principal's coffees, attending any DCPS public meetings and or contacting members of council and asking questions specifically based on this research and framed in terms of the best ways to address the achievement gap is probably more useful that scornfully questioning the principal's motives on DCUM.  Also, somebody needs to answer the question of what happens with low income, low achieving kids who are in the lowest tracks.  What's done to help those kids?  The parents on DCUM who talk about "thugs" and "poorly behaved OOB kids" seem pretty quick to dismiss those kids, but they are children, human beings, our neighbors and members of our community.  We are all better off when those kids maximize their potential.  That needs to be part of any discussion of tracking.[/quote]

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