Reply to Kaya Henderson has Undermined her own Leadership

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous]
Not the PP, but my take on Jefferson...

Jefferson was a good school in the recent past largely due to a strong Principal who attracted/recruited strong students.  The principal retired and the school's quality fell.  Rhee asked Capitol Hill parents what they would like in a middle school.  There was not a consensus opinion, but one request was for a stronger academic program at Jefferson.  Rhee created Jefferson academy at the school in response to the ask, but it was less than the parents wanted, and it wasn't fully funded to make it successful.  Jefferson has a new strong principal who has had some success with discipline and test scores, but still no/few middle class Capitol Hill kids attend Jefferson.

Much of what would be good for Unicorn Middle School would be good for Jefferson.  The biggest necessary improvement would be more academic rigor.  The school serves students with a wide range in academic preparedness, and offering a more demanding academic track for those who are able would help to attract more CH families.  The physical campus for Jefferson is great, but the school is need of modernization.

Things related to Jefferson that may or may not be important factors for Unicorn Middle School, Stuart Hobson is nearby and attracts many of the potential students (to an inferior campus).  An even bigger factor luring students away is Basis and to some degree Latin.[/quote]

Thanks. Have the Jefferson folks had any discussion with Hardy parents or closely reviewed developments there? What you are facing is the classic "chicken and egg" dilemma that exists all over the city. It seems that Hardy has come closer than anyone to cracking the code on this. At a very high-level, as I understand things, this was basically an agreement among families to attend combined with an agreement with the principal to provide programming they desired. [/quote]

Actually, Jefferson has little in common with Hardy and it isn't a chicken and egg problem.  Hardy has high performing feeder schools and sits in the middle of a quite wealthy inboundary area.

Jefferson has two large feeder schools ( Amidon Bowen and now Tyler ) that have an abysmal record of adequately educating their students. Lots of focus and initiative but they are years away from graduating a nice number of students who have a solid foundation and are working at grade level in math, reading and writing. Tyler recently had proficiency rates in the teens and Amidon maybe in the 30s? Meanwhile Jefferson Academy seems to be doing a nice job of taking its 6th graders who come in quite behind and getting them to do well on the DC cas. That's super and it's progress.

Unlike Hardy, Jefferson has multiple large housing projects in its feeder zone and pockets of serious poverty cheek and jowl with extreme wealth.

But what does it mean for the handful of students who would come through Brent and by and large are ready for advanced work and have no need for an excellent remedial program.  A small-sized middle school can't do it all for budget and staffing reasons and even as far as setting a school culture.  No one from DCPS has admitted to this clash of levels of academic preparedness that would occur at Jefferson let alone articulated clearly how they would handle it or even shown other successful programs with similar huge gaps in its incoming 6th grade ( with the large majority starting way behind. Like years behind ).

I appreciate Jeff trying to understand the situation and first things first. It is NOThInG like Hardy.  Stuart Hobson would be a better analogy to Hardy[/quote]

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