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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am a teacher in DC and a renter in Alexandria (no kids yet, but I'm obviously interested in APS given my profession and it's where I live).

I think the point folks saying "JH was going to change x years ago and it didn't" are missing is that there are two factors that now will cause JH to change no matter what: 1) The SB got rid of administrative transfers and 2) The bottom tier of the housing stock in that part of Old Town is completely changing.

I know from personal experience that schools can change fast (for the better and for the worst).  If you look at Maury Elementary School on Capitol Hill in DC, in a matter of 5 years the school demographics, test scores, everything completely changed (and I'm talking the whole school, up through 5th grade) to the point where once it had literally 0 white kids and now it's extremely coveted by everyone in Capitol Hill.  Interestingly enough, they didn't even have the two external factors that JH has - they just had all of the middle class and up folks in the neighborhood say, "you know what? we want our neighborhood school to be a great school. We're going to send our kids, we're going to get involved, we're going to hold the entire staff to a high bar" - and they did it.

It happens all the time with charter and independent schools, and there, parents are founding a school from scratch.  At JH, there's a beautiful school building with an attendance zone pulling from two awesome neighborhoods.  I went to a few workshops with teachers and the assistant principals last year and they seem incredibly dedicated and doing smart instruction (things like Number Talks).  Research has shown that test scores are simply a reflection of parent socio-economic status - often, the best teaching is happening at schools with diverse student bodies. At those schools where parents simply send their kids to private tutoring outside of school, the teaching is often much lazier, because it can be.

In my opinion, JH just needs a critical mass of neighborhood families attending.[/quote]

I would love to see this happen but am pretty skeptical. For your first point, I don’t see the decision to stop granting transfers having the major impact you describe. Most of the people applying for transfers are in a position to pursue other options to include moving or going the private route and the vast majority I’ve talked to plan to pursue one of those routes. For your second point what data/criteria are you using to suggest that the bottom tier of housing stock in the JH district is completely changing?[/quote]

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