Reply to Stuart Hobson

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Reply to "Stuart Hobson"

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[quote=Anonymous]NP. I also graduated from Boston Latin. My family was working class and biracial.  I prepped for BL exam at a free city prep center in 6th grade. There's a place for what Massachusetts calls "exam schools" in our society.  If you disagree, fine, but no need to be so disagreeable about it.

IMHO, what DCPS and DCPCS offer is worse than what Boston and other US cities with test-in MS programs offer. DC offers mediocrity, driving many middle-class cities from the city after elementary school. Alternatively, many DC parents who stay in DCPS or DCPC supplement a lot to top up middle school academics, often pretending that they don't.

I can't count the number of rising Capitol Hill 5th grade families we know whose children didn't crack BASIS or Washington Latin, or even DCI, Stuart Hobson or Hardy, this year.  These kids attended SWS, Ludlow, Tyler Spanish Immersion Watkins, Maury or Brent.  Their parents aren't convinced that their children will be sufficiently challenged, or happy, at SH, Eliot Hine, Jefferson Academy or McFarland immersion, so they're staying where they are for 5th grade. Next year, most of the kids won't go on to their by-right middle schools. These families will mostly leave the City, or go private.  It's a bad system.  Many kids who aren't cut out for BASIS go and drop out eventually, while many kids who are perfect for BASIS can't go, motivating parents to move to better school districts or independent schools.

Give me Boston, where bright 6th graders study like mad to pass the entrance test to the city's several middle school "exam schools" any day.  At least there's real rigor in the mix in middle school for kids who can handle it, and middle-class families happily stay in the city if the kids pass the test, without having to supplement.  At BASIS, most MS kids leave before HS. At BL, hardly any do.[/quote]

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