Reply to When will Hardy Middle School be as attractive as Deal Middle School?

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Reply to "When will Hardy Middle School be as attractive as Deal Middle School?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][/quote]

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Agreed. Deal is a good school, not a great school and at some point (which I think happened about 200 students ago) the law of diminishing returns kicks in. [b]Having a middle school with 1500+ kids is not ideal.[/b] At first, the big student body works because it yields lots of per-pupil $ which means you can have all sorts of clubs and electives and sports and activities. Great. But then you also have the problems that really big schools have. The team model that Deal uses to try and make a big school feel small it admirable and creative but it's still a gargantuan school where the staff can't possibly know ever kid. In middle school, I think that is precisely the time when children need to know that they are known.[/quote]

I just looked up the enrollment forecasts for MoCo middle schools for 17-18 and Westland and Pyle are both over 1500. Hardy is our MS and friends and DH keep saying we should rent a house in Bethesda for the MS years. I agree that DCPS is sliding backwards and[b] the days of a Fenty-like mayor trying to make DC a viable alternative to MoCo are over and likely will never return[/b]. But i can't see that such a huge school size anywhere will help with the problems we have seen with Hardy and a teach-to-the-middle mentality. And my ES-age kids have been commenting on the endless drilling by their teachers for PARCC / the school is anxious to keeps its high scores. (I would not be be surprised to see some of the local real estate agents underwriting the math club aimed at coaching kids who scored 4s who could reach a 5 with extra tutoring. Houses in our 'hood have multiple offers after one day - but then their kids have to face Hardy.)[/quote]

It wasn't Fenty who cared about the schools, it was the Chair of the Education Committee - David Catania.  DC is still racist and voted Bowwow Mayor (well, she did have the D next to her name and many people only vote reflexively).  Catania was an Independent.  He was much better on schools (Bowwow is already raping the schools with her new budget), but he's gay and white and couldn't win against the DC machine.  As a result, the schools are going downhill.  We got what we deserved.[/quote]

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