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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]08:41 again

I didn't get the impression she was saying that a handful of Hill parents in and of themselves would do something that a generation of Ward 3 parents did not.

I think she might have been suggesting that the pressures inside of DCPS may have changed.

Not too long ago the only decent MSs were Deal and Hardy, and there was a realistic chance to get in to Deal OOB.  Now, Deal is full and Rhee destroyed Hardy.

Meanwhile, Latin came in and stole some of the spotlight, Basis just opened, and DCI is on the horizon.  This may be DCPS's last chance to produce an MS (aside from Deal) that attracts a critical mass of middle/upper-middle class parents.

If a test-in or magnet type MS is the only way to do it, there might be some support across the city (not just in Ward 3) for the concept.  But, if it doesn't happen soon, it may be too late.  Once enough parents are invested in alternatives (Latin, Basis, DCI), it will probably be too late to bring them back into the DCPS fold.
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I'm the Brent parent who opened this line of discussion.  Yes, I am suggesting that broad-based change is afoot on the ability grouping front, but only in the nascent sense.  The fact that DCPS has allowed Brent to hire a part-time math teacher with PTA funds to provide challenge for advanced learners is significant because it probably bodes well for tracking further up the line, at Stuart Hobson and elsewhere.  It certainly doesn't hurt that Latin and Basis, particularly the latter, are tracking more assertively than DCPS middle schools have done since the 70s.

What I'd like to see public school parents of advanced learners do is to move beyond the "we're going to turn this or that school around" approach to reform in favor of thinking in terms of organizing, like the MoCo parents do, to vote candidates supporting a pro-academic tracking policy and curriculae in and out.  The DCPS-DC charter divide need not pose an obstacle to systemic change.

If Ward 6 parents were, for example, to put the heat on Wells to offer the sort of pulllout groups that Brent is running at Watkins and Tyler, as well as honors classes beyond 8th grade algebra, at Stuart Hobson, other DC Council Members might take notice. And if a potent city-wide coaltion for MS ability grouping were to emerge, the Council couldn't ignore it.  As demand for public school challenge increases steadily with ever greater middle-class participation, supply must follow suit or politicians will go down over the matter eventually.

A test-in DCPS MS would be welcome anytime, as would amending the DC charter law to permit selective admissions.  I don't think that it would be too late to start a DCPS test-in MS, even five years from now, if standards were high enough (e.g. the MoCo schools taking less than 20% of applicants), partly because the charters can only do so much to provide challenge via lottery admissions.  If lottery admissions were optimal in providing challenge to advanced learners, cities with higher-performing school systems than ours--NYC, Boston, Chicago etc.--would surely have embraced them system-wide long ago.  Thoughts?

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