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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Build on it easily = pie in the sky.

CHPSPO's harebrained approach to MS reform in Ward 6 brings US policy toward Cuba to mind.  The Cluster hasn't come close to achieving its stated goals for 30 years. US Cuba policy failed to achieve its own goals for twice that long, but remained in force because a small, highly vocal, well-resourced, politically connected minority in a swing state pushed the right political levers in DC.  How much longer do we have to tolerate the hackneyed, failing Cluster arrangement?  30 more years?

What I hate about the loud sucking sound the splashy Hobson renovation has brought to the Hill is the fantastic waste of local human resources it represents.  Year after year, DCPS is tossing serious PTA capacity incubated at Brent, SWS and Maury out the window to advance a narrow political agenda advanced by a small group of misguided and myopic bleeding hearts.  Harness the savvy at a single Ward 6 middle school where appropriate (but flexible) academic streaming is embraced and everybody would win, mainly because the kick-ass PTA graduates of several largely parent-built elementary feeder schools would ensure that the next school up the chain works.  Lower capacity Hill PTAs that are gaining ground, including those at Tyler, JO Wilson, Ludlow and and even Payne would also accrue the benefit, gaining momentum in building capacity knowing that the road ahead was opened-ended.

The Hobson families I know who crack Walls pay through the nose for tutors.  We can do better.  
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how do parents build a school?  What is "capacity"? Maybe they should take all their capacity and open charter schools. 
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also if they have all that capacity to build schools they would have figured out a middle school solution. sounds like smoke and mirrors and a lot of yard sales. they can't simultaneously be so amazing and so helpless. [/quote]

Parents prevented the Maury site from being auctioned off to a developer ten years ago.  Brent parents got an awful principal canned, found one they could work with, got the building renovated and took the school population from 0% in-boundary (yes, 0%) to nearly 60% in a little over a decade.

There are already enough charter schools Hill parents can't necessarily use - lottery luck only gets you so far.  Yes they can be amazing and relatively helpless, because elementary and middle school are different kettles of fish on the Hill.  This is due to a combination of boneheaded feeder arrangements DCPS won't modify to permit a critical mass of strong students to form at any one by-right middle school, and longstanding DCPS resistance to academic tracking.  Think peasants in the Middle Ages using ropes to try to dislodge a big boulder from a field.  Instead of pulling together, they pull in different directions and the boulder stays.   [/quote]

they don't sound all that amazing if they can't get it together to form a basic advocacy organization for their common interests. I know that Hill parents like to think of themselves as very effective but when push comes to shove they are crappy organizers and crappy strategists. 
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