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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Our daughter is 1 year old. We currently live downtown, and we're thinking we'll need to move in the next year or two to get a little more space. As we think about the parts of the city we'd love to live in, though, we keep coming back to the school conversation. A desirable (and affordable!) neighborhood to live in does not necessary have schools known for being great.

Does that matter? What is the lifelong impact of sending your kid to an amazing school? An okay one? A kind of crappy one? And then how are we defining amazing/okay/crappy.. is it just test scores?

I'm curious how you chose the school you chose (or how you chose to wing it with the lottery). And I'm curious your philosophy on the importance--or lack thereof--of K-12 education.

And then to get into practical advice.. any feeder patterns you love or would avoid?[/quote]

Many desirable neighborhoods EOTP don’t have great schools.  Many families go charter, and it works for them.

Test scores are not the be all and end all but it gives you a sense of peer group.  How many kids are below grade level, on grade level, above grade level? 
 This starts to become important in the upper elementary as the academic gap widens between those below and those on or above grade level, especially since there is no G & T or AAP or tracking.

We wanted language immersion because felt it was important to be bilingual in today’s diverse society. Language immersion also tends to be a harder curriculum in general because the child is learning all topics in 2 languages.  We were very lucky in the lottery and are currently very happy with DC’s experience so far.  Private was our back up if the lottery did not work out.  Our IB school was not a viable option.

The language immersion charters has a feeder pattern to not only middle school but also high school with DCI.[/quote]

You're asking the right question.  I'm a grandparent. We raised our kids in a wealthy DC suburb and sent them to very highly regarded public schools.  Very few poor kids, if any.  Zero diversity.  But man, did it have high test scores.

Fast forward 25 years, we're living in DC and our grandkids are enrolled in a largely black, largely poor school.  When we show up, everyone in the school knows who we are because we don't look like anybody else.  And guess what?  The grandkids are reading well above grade level and are doing very well socially.  In the end, it all boils down to who they go home to.

Don't get caught up in the rat race like we did.[/quote]

If you are well off and well educated it doesn’t make as much of a difference as it does if you are not.  Well off and we’ll educated parents generally have children who start school with better than basic beginning literacy, numeracy and social skills. The experiences they can afford for their children support continued development. On the other hand, families at-risk absolutely need excellent instruction and support in school. [/quote]

Generally true and the most important but you also need a smart cohort to boost the learning opportunities for your kid and again outside of 3-5 middle schools in DC it just isn't there

And again all the people championing your local schools great but most of you have kids that aren't even in school yet or in the early elementary grades.  It changes fast almost all of you will bail if you don't get lucky with a charter.  [/quote]

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