Reply to SWS - as an IB School? L-T prospects?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think part of what people overlook is that SWS, when it was an early-childhood-program ONLY, did have neighborhood preference.  I understand it was ONLY for PK4 and K, but to have it taken from a neighborhood school to a city-wide school FEELS to people on the Hill like something was taken for them.  To boot, the Hill hosts the only other city-wide DCPS at Logan Montessori.  It also seems unfair that the only two city-wide DCPS elementary schools are on the Hill.  So it feels like the Hill has the inconveniences of hosting these schools, but not the benefits.  I think to compare to charters is a bad analogy - they are not charter schools and never have been.  They have traditionally part of the neighborhood.[/quote]

SWS didn't offer any kind of proximity preference to those in the neighborhood of LT though, right?  It was just the cluster.  The issue is that with the exceptions of Brent and Maury, the schools on the Hill are all under-enrolled anyway, so much so that they're mostly filled up with OOB students.  That makes it a little more difficult to justify proximity preference.[/quote]

Correct.  But there are people outside of those within immediate proximity who think that SWS should have some sort of neighborhood preference.

Only the upper grades at quality programs are under-enrolled or filled iwth OOB kids, and that's because we have no viable middle school option.  There's a chicken-and-egg issue but I don't think it's fair to intimate that SWS should be city-wide because there aren't enough Hill kids to fill it.  [/quote]

If I recall correctly, the DCPS logic for making SWS city-wide is that any new specialty programs should be available to the whole city.  When they're concentrated in just one neighborhood, it denies the rest of the city access to such opportunities.  If a new specialty program were plopped down on Connecticut Ave at Porter St., it too would need to be city-wide instead of serving only Cleveland Park.

If that raises the question of "well then why are the SI programs all in neighborhood schools which offer neighborhood preference?" it's a good one.  I suppose (and when you suppose you make an ass out of u and me) it may be partly due to the fact that most DCPS SI programs are SI more by default than by design.  They're generally concentrated in the part of the city with a high ELL population, and it has proven to be a popular tool for drawing higher SES families in to the mix.

At the end of the day, it's about strategies that expand the pie (the pie being desirable seats).  If an SI program moving into Bruce Monroe or Powell or Marie Reed serves to help the considerable ELL Spanish-speaking population (which tends to be low SES) mingle with the higher SES newcomers, and thus improve the diversity, test scores, parental involvement, etc., then it is perceived as a winning strategy.  If designating Logan Montessori and SWS as city-wide thus allows more lower SES families access to higher quality programs, it too is perceived as a winning strategy.  However, anything that concentrates higher SES families together and walls them off from the rest of the population, is in opposition to the prevailing trend.

That, for example, is why making Hardy a test-in school, or re-opening Western are political lead balloons.  It allows the higher SES families WotP to dig a moat around their neighborhoods by creating small, exclusive schools which will quickly fill up with high SES families.  It would do nothing about the larger problem of improving the quality of education across the board.  Yes, there are higher SES families all over the city, however there aren't any lower SES children WotP.  I suspect DCPS is desperate for creative ideas (thus the proposals A, B, and C) and if you have some, you might be taken seriously.  However if it's taking a desirable, specialty, high-quality program in an expensive neighborhood, thus allowing families to "buy" their way in via real estate then you are fighting a losing battle.

I completely understand your frustration.  [/quote]

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