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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]i have this observation re the newer brent/maury families:  extremely risk adverse.  people really just need to send their kids to the in-bound middle schools in large numbers and work for improvement from the inside.  but thats a total non-starter for a lot of people on CH.  who often dont even realize that the other feeder schools despite maybe being title 1 etc. are pretty good with smart kids.[/quote]

I don't this is quite right.

First, I don't think CH families are more risk averse, but I do think they are more susceptible to group think. The fear that people have about MS and HS has to do with a fear of their kids being left behind by peers. Academically, yes, but also literally. People start stressing out in 3rd grade or so as a few families from their own elementary school peel off for private, suburbs, a charter, or NW schools. Then in 5th people disappear for Latin and BASIS. There are families who stick around for SH, more every year -- they don't want to move, they didn't get into Latin or BASIS (or didn't want the commute), and they make a go of it. But then, even in MS, people leave. There is another group of families who leave after the first year of MS. And still others who move or head to private before HS. Plus you have the kids who get into application HSs.

The effect of this is this feeling of people constantly leaving. It's tough. This is why people wind up falling into three camps. People REALLY committed to sticking with SH/E-H/Jefferson and then Eastern (and incredibly small group), those who want nothing to do with any of those schools (a larger group, but not that much larger), and the vast middle -- the people who would absolutely commit to these schools... if they knew that most of the other people in this group would do the same.

It's a prisoners dilemma. All it takes is for 2-3 families you know to leave the triangle, and the incentive to stay lessens (if your kid's best friend is headed to the feeder middle, that's a strong incentive to stay, if they aren't, well...) and the pressure to bail for academic or social reasons increase. It's not surprising that so many of these families bail. You have to be a true believer not to, and very, very few people are true believers in any school pyramid.[/quote]

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