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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Of course she's right.  There is no room, no thought, no plan in the system whereby poor or OOB children are to be kept out of a school.  None.  Zero.  Zip.  Nada.  And when maybe half of them overall can read on grade level?  Nor should there be.

You need to get it into your heads that if you want to build a moat around your snowflake, then send him to private school.  [b]DCPS absolutely will not keep those bad OOB kids away from him.  DCPSs job is educate everybody, and considering how badly they do that job, don't think for a second that DCPS is going to keep kids out of Hardy just for you.[/b]

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I fully appreciate that DCPS will not for a second alter its plans to meet the educational needs of my DCs, PP.  That's why I've given up on DCPS for MS and switched to a HRCS.[/quote]

It seems like you are defining your DCs needs solely as "don't be near poor people."   There is no reason DCPS can't educate the children of poor people and your snowflake together  - in fact, if you see previous post, re: the experience of IB families at Hardy, they do that just fine.  But no, DCPS won't and shouldn't isolate your child from whatever you think the ill-effects are of being around students that are not as wealthy or as white as your child.

Also, not to be tedious, but Hardy is in fact altering plans to meet the needs of IB families - they are adding extra differentiation, honors classes, and the SEM program.   So again, the fact that you are ignoring these effforts makes it appear as if the only issue you care about is the "problem" of your snowflake rubbing elbows with poor brown kids.[/quote]

As I posted earlier, my "snowflake" is at an HRCS for MS and thus rubs elbows with almost as many "poor brown kids" as the IB kids at Hardy.  Is there an HRCS MS in DC without a large number of "poor brown kids," PP?

We did not choose HRCS because of demographics.  We chose it for a number of other reasons, including our assessment that HRCS does not suffer from curriculum dilution or diminished expectations:

[quote]A combination of peer, parent and teacher influences works a fourth kind of pedagogical
deprivation at high-poverty schools, namely a dilution of the curriculum. Because it is the
curriculum that drives learning and should promote academic achievement, this is
potentially the most damaging aspect of the causal link between high-poverty schools and
inadequate outcomes. An inadequate curriculum undercuts even the bright, motivated
student who happens to attend a high-poverty school. All Together Now at 75 n.120
(citing Rebecca Barr and Robert Dreeben, How Schools Work (University of Chicago
Press 1983) and Christopher Jencks, A Reappraisal of the Most Controversial Education
Document of Our Time in New York Times Magazine (November, 1972)).

Over and above eroding teacher quality, diminished teacher expectations has its own
deleterious effect on the curriculum of high-poverty schools. Concentrated Poverty and
Educational Achievement at 6. From the outset, the bar is set lower for these students.
Educator Deborah Meier has found that "whether schools are public or private, the social
class of the students has been and continues to be the single most significant factor in
determining how a school works and the intellectual values it promotes." All Together
Now at 72. Schoolwork graded as a "C" in a low-poverty school would earn an "A" in a
high-poverty school. Students in low-poverty schools are more likely to be rewarded for
academic excellence; students in high-poverty schools for attendance. Id. at 72-73, 75
n.115. See generally Prospects at 84-91; Michael S. Knapp and Patrick M. Shields,
Reconceiving Academic Instruction for the Children of Poverty (Eisenhower Nat'l
Clearinghouse 1990) ("Reconceiving Academic Instruction").
[/quote]

Does Hardy suffer from these problems?  I suspect that is does ("Hardy Middle School shines its brightest, however, with a music and art program that is unparalleled at the middle school level throughout the Washington, DC metro region."), but appreciate that other parents feel differently.
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