Reply to Why are HRCS so popular? Test scores stink.

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Why are HRCS so popular? Test scores stink."

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]Wow - CMI must be a heck of a place if it can turn TWO general threads into CMI specific only. [/quote]

It's the new YY. Or maybe BASIS in that regard. [/quote]

No, that means it has some very vocal boosters.  Boosters boost, it's what they do.  The school needs to deliver on some academic promises and produce some real results before it's the new...  whatever.

It's popular for younger grades, very white, very child friendly and that's good.  The MS focus seems to be all over the map.  What's going on with the commitment to SN students?  Frankly I think those kids need another decent school option than the rest of us need one more high-end elementary HRC.  The size of the school is never going to allow it the economies of scale to produce Basis/DCI/Latin opportunities, the parents pushing for this are extremely unrealistic.[/quote]
This. We are at ITS and feel like the K-8 model is set up to fail in DC. So many people will continue to lotto for a high school path and/or a larger middle that can provide more.[/quote]

I have seen private and parochial schools successfully implement K-8, but in DC's public model it just doesn't look feasible.  Privates and parochials can sort their students at entry, counsel them out, and charge admission.  That doesn't work for public schools.[/quote]

Private is not a good comparison privates have budgets to pay teachers and afford labs. It doesn't work at our school not because the inability to counsel out but the fact that every single 4th grader will be playing the lottery to try to get into a middle school that has a feeder path for high school. The ones that get lucky will leave and hide empty spots will be given to students that are coming from worse performing schools.[/quote]

There are ways to avoid this pitfall -- the overarching point being to stress the positives

1) Make the MS from 5-8, so it is completely separate from the ES (right now 5th is a transition year but it can be affirmatively part of the MS so that students will be applying separate for the MS and attracting new students in that key year, too, instead of losing students in that year)

2) Start SN priority for the MS like at Bridges to create a stronger WL and add to the value of small classes with individual attention and small environments.  If it was a SN priority school with the SN focus, more families with SN students would be "playing the lottery" in 4th grade to get into MS.

3) Create a MS PTA so it creates a stronger and separate cohesive group with its own funding, own priorities, and own control with a focus on the needs of their SN students

4) Allow for as much flexibility as possible in terms of allowing students to do work on with other schools or other organizations (thus allowing to meet the needs of different SN students without wasting money on "labs" or whatever most of the students don't want/need).

The key both for the SN students in DC who deserve a wonderful school and for the school who needs to attract more students is to create a SN priority, which is exactly what was implied on the amendment app in the first place.[/quote]

Nope. Sorry but as long as you have charters that do middle and high you will still have issues of attrition for families that try to solidify their spot for high school. Separate school or not, I'm applying out after 4th and so are half my peers.[/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