Reply to MacArthur school profile stats

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "MacArthur school profile stats "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Things will change. The reality is that the majority of those coming from Hardy preferred to go with a known entity, Jackson Reed, rather than take chances on a new school that will be under construction until 2027. This left many seats open for kids from schools across the District, including underperforming schools and students. It is now a Title 1 school due to this phenomenon around the demographics. Next year is the first year Hardy kids won’t have a choice of their in boundary high school. By the time the class of 2029 graduates, Macarthur will be a very different place. [/quote]

Current Hardy family here. We are excited for MacArthur, but this is true because our DC will be attending in a couple of years. We know lots of families who were nervous about the first year or two given that it was only a partial school and not yet renovated. The mood is rapidly shifting however and most people we know are planning to send our kids - however we are still not satisfied with transportation options and hope for improvements there.[/quote]

Sorry but you all are naïve.
 
Most people you know are sending kids to a poorly performing school will not be the reality when the time comes.

Behind doors they will be exploring other options and won’t tell you.  Then you find out last minute or when school starts that your kids friends are not going.

Above happens all the time EOTP.

[/quote]

EOTP and MacArthur are completely different. If you don’t realize this, I suggest you go back to school [/quote]

No they are not currently.  Both title 1 poorly performing schools.

Majority of families with options are not sending their kids to their IB poorly performing high schools.[/quote]

Note that EOTP there are a ton of charter options whereas there’s not one charter HS located WOTP.  Very different. I dare say EOTP DCPS high schools would be completely different if parents weren’t inundated with all these charter options. I’m quite sure a sizable cohort of Hardy parents would rather go to their in bound high school instead of traipsing to some barely better charter on the other side of town. The school has great admin and teachers  and will have a great physical space—and in a few years the less desirable students (yeah I said it) will be up and out. And not everyone wants to pay $50K for private.   Macarthur will be fine. [/quote]

Well there is a contingent of WOTP families sending their kids DCI.  I know a few of these families.

DCI is much better then MacArthur in every aspect - academic performing cohort, facilities, sports and extracurricular.  It’s also very convenient on the red line.  Tons of kids all over the city take metro and then short walk to campus.

Then there is Latin and Basis (right off metro), also much better academic performing cohort.

Then there is Walls, Banneker, etc, also right off the metro.

So all of the above high schools might actually be a lot easier and quicker to get to then way out of the way MacArthur where it’s taking kids 2 plus buses and easily over an hour each way.

Yes, some families will go private and not all privates are 50k and some will move.

Lastly, just like JR, these less desirable OOB students won’t be up and out because of sibling preference and feeder rights.

[/quote]

Look, don’t know why you are so anti-MacArthur. It is honestly playing very creepy. Who roots for a school to fail?

However I do know that you are misguided and shortsighted on your takes. Two things are absolutely true: MacArthur will be fine (probably better than fine) and no one is forcing you to send your child there. [/quote]

NP. No one is rooting for MacArthur to fail, but the current stats are so bad that it will DEFINITELY scare off IB families with decently performing kids. Parents might plan to send their kids to MacArthur, but when they get to 7th/8th grade, realize that MacArthur is a T1 school with 90% of kids behind grade level in math? I guarantee you plans will change. I think DCPS was short sighted to give Hardy families the option for the first couple of years. Parents could and would overlook meh test scores, but this bad?? Could kill the school before it gets any buy-in at all. Certainly DCPS has made the ramp up much harder.[/quote]

Yes, this is exactly the danger.  But practically, there was no way to force the current students from JR to Macarthur without some grandfathering.

It'll take longer for the school to become a neighborhood school than it otherwise would have.[/quote]

dp:  Absolutely they could have required attendance at MacArthur without J-R grandfathering.  School systems do it all the time.

What DCPS should have done is gotten the construction and renovations done and opened it with no J-R option a year or two later.  Then the lead time would have been long enough not to need grandfathering and the start would have been more solid.

The problem now is that instead of Hardy families being excited to attend with their Hardy cohort--which is going well--Hardy families are scared to attend a school with behavior issues and too many kids below grade level. Meanwhile, MacArthur is trying to tout their "rigorous academics" while embarrasingly trying to pitch their AP test averages that barely break 3 as a success.

DCPS could have done it well.  But DCPS loves to screw things up, so now, yes, it will take years longer for MacArthur to be successful than if they had started it differently.[/quote]

What you don’t get is that the primary goal wasn’t to open up another school for IB families.  It was to open up more spots for OOB kids.  They succeeded in doing this and then 2 years later, will force IB families to send their kids there.  Those who don’t have other options will do so.  Those that do have other options won’t but the city will happily continue to collect their taxes.

Forcing Hardy families into MacArthur will also open up OOB spots at JR too.

So, no they did not screw up.  They knew what they wanted to do and succeeded.   Alleviating overcrowding at JR was really secondary to get buy in from families WOTP.

[/quote]

I do get that, o supercilious one, but what DCPS doesn't get is that opening a school WOTP for OOB kids with few IB kids is pointless.  Why ship a bunch of kids across town to a school with a majority of kids below grade level?  You can find that closer to home.[/quote]

I'm sure that MacArthur is a better option that most IB schools in our city.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics