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[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]It is starting to be more than a handful at EH recently.  EH also offers math and ELA acceleration.  Similar story at SH.  People with bright kids do sometimes turn down Basis to instead just try these schools.  It is somewhat hard to believe unless you have a child there or you have otherwise recently taken a hard look at these schools.[/quote]

As has been discussed on here on many threads, the nuance that is missed in many of these broad sweeping conversations about good/bad schools is the huge achievement gaps that are important to understand when looking at the city to understand the big picture. But when the schools scores are lumped together and an average score is presented, IMO it at the very least makes it harder to understand what is really happening at a school. Many people on these threads talk about the importance of having a cohort of peers achieving at higher levels, which many of these middle schools do. Ideally everybody at a school would be achieving at higher levels, but we have a long ways to go to reaching that and is worth of a whole separate discussion about how we can get there as a city.

If you look at sub groups at some of these schools being discussed (SH or EH for example) you will see they match or outperform their peers in the same subgroups across the city. As a parent who has a now 7th grader at one of those schools, I can say that there are assignments and teachers that push them, and options for more advanced courses. I also know there are kids who cannot or choose not to complete the assignments at the same level, but I know that in each of my child's classes there are a large number of kids who are doing the work, getting pushed to think one step further, doing well on class and standardized tests, etc. And for those who are thinking about the high school long game, kids from these schools get into SWW, Banneker, McKinley, privates, and increasingly the EPIC program at Eastern (TBD how much traction that picks up)

All that to say, there are options for academically advanced kids at more than just a handful of schools in this city, and there are many families at these schools by choice (in addition to the ones there b/c they didn't win a lottery a few years ago). [/quote]

I totally believe you about the middle schools. But the selective admissions high schools are so random in terms of who they let in, it's not something to count on. So the middle school decision is at least partly about, if you don't get in, are you comfortable with Eastern or are you able to pay for private school?[/quote]

The selective high schools are NOT that random. Only Walls is. If your kid (on grade level) could be happy at Banneker or McKinley or Walls, you will get a spot at one of the 3.[/quote]

Less than 1/5th of SH students go to Eastern every year, so going there as a high performing student does not actually require you to be comfortable with Eastern. Banneker? Duke? McKinley? Yes. Eastern? No. Most years more kids opt for private or moving out of DC than Eastern. [/quote]

So the kids who go to SH are either ok with Eastern or prepared to go to private school or move. [/quote]

My kid is a straight 4s on DCPS ES report cards, 95-99% iReady, 1 4 & 3 5s on CAPE. I am not worried she isn’t getting into one of the selective schools and going to SH seems to be an advantage there since there are more kids getting into selective HSes (including Duke) than kids getting straight 4s on PARCC. Walls or bust is unrealistic, but I am not actually worried about she is headed to Eastern.[/quote]

They don't look at the PARCC/CAPE score anymore or any other test scores. They haven't in years. The number of kids getting into selective high schools vs. the number of kids at grade level on the exam isn't relevant because the second one isn't a subset of the first. They do not even have access to that information when they are making the decision. That's the issue here.

If it were really the case that every kid with a 3.0 was getting into a selective-admissions high school, that would be one thing. I do not think that's the case. But if you're thinking "my kid is a really good student" because of their test scores or anything else, I just don't see where you think that information is being used in the admissions process. If it doesn't matter because you'll move or do private school, I totally get that, though. [/quote]

I am completely aware they don’t look at ES anything when selecting for W/B/D/McK. I was just giving a sense of the kind of student my daughter is. I am not worried that she will end up with way over a 3.0 from SH nor that she will get into *one* of those schools. [/quote]

What worries me these days is that for parents without a good default high school, the increasingly popular strategy seems to be to find a school that is most likely to yield As in middle school so they have a good shot at one of the application schools. But what you should be doing with a kid like this is putting them in a middle school that challenging and stretches them. [/quote]

THIS.  Sacrificing a middle school experience and cruising by without being challenged will not get you the results you want in middle or high school for your kid.

And no, I’m not interested in supplementing every single subject in middle school.  Who has time for that??

[/quote]

It’s a huge mistake to do this. Your kid will pay for it when it comes time to apply to college. [/quote]

Nobody is doing this anyways. Parents have their kids in less-than-great middle schools because seats at the better middle schools are limited.[/quote]

This is us also. Struck out in the lottery for all MS so went to our IB Title 1. Had a great experience (kid is very happy) but definitly not challenging. But he got into 2 private HS and an applciation DCPS HS so it worked out well in the end.[/quote]

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