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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Everybody doesn't care for the way you IB parents are lending a hand.  Boycotts have their uses.[/quote]

So we should boycott the school we think has a good chance of working for our kid, because you don’t think it works for your kid? makes a lot of sense. 
[/quote]

DP but no, no one is saying don't send your kid to your IB if that's what you want. People are specifically reacting to the attitude that choosing not to attend the IB is some kind of betrayal. It's not. It's a practical choice to give your kid the education and environment they need.

And I think a lot of people are also pointing out the inherent privilege of certain parents insisting that the IB school is good enough because they have resources that will ensure their kid is never really in danger of missing out on opportunities by attending a struggling IB school. That privilege might take the form of being wealthy enough to afford to supplement and support your kid outside of school so they don't fall behind academically, having kids without SNs that might require a different school environment, being white, or being firmly ensconced in the UMC versus maybe being the first generation of your family to attend college or have a professional career and feeling more a more tenuous hold on future opportunities for your child. Criticizing people for going to charters, moving, or attending private schools as being part of the problem often ignores these privileges and assumes that every family IB for SH, EH, or JA is similarly sitauted. We aren't. Some of us rightfully worry more about how going to a MS where many kids test below grade level and behavioral issues are common might impact our child's chances of going to college or getting the education they need to do well as an adult. The refusal to even acknowledge that is really insulting.[/quote]

+1.  You only get to educate your kids once.  That is the crying shame of the decades of DCPS dysfunction—generations of lost opportunity.  Quality education matters. Deeply. Look where we are as a nation[/quote]

or you could look at DCPS and see uneven progress with persistent inequity, [b]failure with neediest kids[/b], and atrophy of engaged families who want more but don't feel the system is at all responsive to their needs. DCPS has been in a state of regression throughout the pandemic and is not adequately retaining effective teachers across the board. The Chancellor has been a colossal failure[/quote]

I was struck by this phrase when I read your post. I know that is a commonly held belief, but I wonder whether it is really true? Failure as compared to what? Against what measure or baseline? Why do we assume the baseline for every kid is a 4 on PARCC or graduating from HS? What if our efforts with the neediest haven't been a failure? What if the lack of wraparound city services needed to truly service those kids makes getting them beyond where they are virtually impossible? At what point are we focusing resources too intently on those kids and not enough on the PARCC 3 kids who we could get to a 4 or 5, but for our outsized focus on the "neediest"? [/quote]

It's a lot to unpack, but the DCPS schools in Wards 7 and 8 are not comparable to the successful schools in Wards 3, 4, 6. PARCC is the least of the problems.  The neediest deserve a public education too.  No one should be written off.  It's only one of the many failures of this school system[/quote]

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