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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]NP. You're right PP, but a new mayor could indeed change this calculus. If either Racine or Gray displaces Bowser, either might be persuaded to demand that DCPS offers honors classes at middle schools like Jefferson that are 2/3 empty where in-boundary percentages are low but feeder elementary schools are thriving (Jefferson Academy's building can accommodate three times as many students as it serves). This fix is obvious and gentrifiers vote. In that case, the sky would be the limit at JA.  I don't expect a new mayor to be elected, or to demand this, but I wouldn't rule it out either.  The Old Guard of the Dem machine in this city remembers the Jefferson honors program.  A mayor of that ilk might be more amenable to moving to recreate it as a school within a school program than we think. Antwan Wilson is already making changes up the DCPS chain. The ground is being laid for greater change.  In the meantime, I'm with the PPs who see more Brent families heading to Hardy than to JA.  [/quote]

There are simply not enough gentrifiers to make a significant difference to someone running city-wide (city-wide council is different because you can vote for more than one candidate). And not all gentrifiers prioritize schools when voting.  [/quote]

Yes, the city council is the right place to start if voters are concerned about DCPS lack of interest in offering honors courses for capable students.  Get rid of Grosso, for example, who doesn't care about re-directing some of DCPS policy towards high performance.  In all of the gentrifying Wards, replacing insufferable representatives could be done.  The Mayor's office would come next.  But, weirdly, why in the world can't the Mayor and DCPS get behind encouraging BOTH lower performing AND proficient students?  Isn't the purpose of government to serve everybody?  Watching the history of DCPS for decades, it really looks like they want grade-level performing kids to attend somewhere else, while they deal solely on the intractable problem of getting low-income kids to perform at grade level (which still seems unsolvable).[/quote]

OK, sure, parents have been saying this sort of thing for years. But where are the ed reform minded voters organizing to oust Grosso and other bleeding heart representatives who can't seem to connect the dots between high SES families staying in DCPS in Ward 6 in large numbers and poor kids accruing the benefit. All Cap Hill parents seem to do about by-right middle schools is bicker over feeders, pretend that the Cluster model hasn't outlived its usefulness, and try to persuade DCPS to sink tens of millions into buildings that are mostly empty (and seem very likely to remain so indefinitely).

Grosso's seat seems safe to me in the face of broad-based inaction at the grassroots. I understand why parents don't bother to fight back electorally--it's tough to stay in DC with kids past ES if you can't afford privates and aren't OK with BASIS' brand of math-focused learning and weak physical plant--but I don't quite get why Ward 6 parents have been so darn passive in the face of clearly defined political threats. Look on some of the Arlington, MoCo and Frfx threads in the fall - parents there seem to organize like mad to vote out pols who don't care about directing policy towards high performance. We need to learn from our near neighbors on that score.  [/quote]

Which Ward 6 buildings are empty?  That's inane.  Eliot Hine and Jefferson are under-enrolled and and the city hasn't spent on dime on the two combined[/quote]

Both are slated to be done in the next 3 to 4 years.[/quote]

Nobody said that Ward 6 school buildings are empty.  The point was made that some of the Ward 6 DCPS middle schools are mostly empty. [b]Some of us don't want megabucks spent on mostly empty schools, not unless DCPS agrees to provide the sort of programming that would almost certainly fill them first.  [/b]If they were to hire teachers to teach advanced classes ahead of advanced students turning up, parents would come and things would work out.  It's a no brainer.  [/quote]

This.  Yet we still have to flush $200 million down Coolidge HS for 50 high school seniors who can't read at grade level?[/quote]

Well over half of those seniors are immigrants, some refugees, who only began to learn English in the last 24 months. I would personally prefer that Coolidge is merged with Roosevelt rather than renovated, but learn something about the children you are trashing.

And half of thate renovation will be to create North Middle school - which is needed because Whittier, Brightwood and Takoma are full and growing. [/quote]

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