Reply to Yu Ying - Transferring to Yu Ying from another state

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I often think there are two DCs.  The dynamic, innovative, progressive and cosmopolitan DC which has the best and brightest coming from all over the country and all over the world to try and make a change - versus a stagnant, old-school, retrograde core that's resistant to change.

That's why thread after thread boils over here.  Movers and shakers bringing something better or pushing for something better and then those who did nothing either feeling threatened and lashing out at everyone or asking where their piece of the pie is.[/quote]

You obviously forgot the 3rd DC: the one full of people who think that the only way to be "dynamic, innovative, progressive and cosmopolitan" is to have policies, plans and structures that serve your middle and upper classes and push lower classes out.  Because that is pretty much what you're saying about the fact that the public charter school board does not allow charters to test in at any grade because it doesn't want to cut out access to families who can't afford a private Mandarin tutor, or Spanish summer camp, or private Montessori schools until they can nab a spot at a public one.

You do a disservice to visionary people everywhere who who are dynamic, innovative and progressive who actually want a present and a future where EVERYONE is served well, not just a DC where only those who can afford to live here and go to school here (even in public school).  When you trash the policy of not testing in for charter schools, you trash one of the fundamental values that DC charter schools were developed for: offering other quality options to DC residents who had the worst of options.  Guess who those DC residents were when charters were first established here?  Not you, not me, not OP, because we weren't sending our kids ot public school then (unless we lived IB for the only decent middle or high school).  To turn around and say you can test in absolutely undermines the commitment to providing access to ALL DC residents (just like neighborhood preference would as well).  No, that is NOT "stagnant, old-school and retrograde being resistent to change.

Deal with it entitled people: the very people preventing a test in option are the "stagnant, old-school, retrograde" people who were part of creating the charter schools that you so desperately want entry to now.  Trying to keep the door even faintly open for lower SES families and families who don't have geographic advantages of being IB for great DCPS schools is NOT stagnant, and while I do hope there will some day be a way to figure out increasing applications and interest from families who already speak Mandarin or French or whatever, so that the pool of applicants includes more native speakers, I defend to the end the randomness of admission and the fact that kids who herwise wouldn't have a shot in a million years at speaking Mandarin and all the doors that may open to that child, that that child has a shot - a loooooong shot (like everyone else's long shot), but a shot nonetheless, at going to a school like Yu Ying.[/quote]

WTF?  How is DC going out of their way to serve high SES families or high achieving v kids?  Those are always after though.  DCPSjses high SES families to raises hundreds of thousands of dollars that inevitably be used for shit to help the third graders who can't read.  Ou don't like it? fuck you.  THe ONLY reason the scores are going up is due to high SES families.  [/quote]

Reading comprehension is not your strength.  Neither is writing.  But that's cool.  When you have the ability to get mad at something I actually said, please do write again.  Cheers![/quote]

Hold on - the "retrograde, stagnant, old school" IMHO is NOT the charter school community - you are confused on that point - it continues to be the same DCPS political culture that resisted charters in the first place - and which now resists innovation and change, things like magnets, test-in or G&T because they are deathly afraid that it will end up with white kids, these are the same people who rail against gentrifiers, the same folks who cling to the old school "Chocolate City" image from the 1970s even as that image continues to melt.  It's the age old story of "we fear change".[/quote]

I think I'm the poster you're responding to, and I fully understood the first time what you were saying.  You are still not understanding my point: you are equating being anti-test in for charters as being anti-change.  That is simply not true, not true at all.  I supported charter schools coming to DC in many ways, because it was clear nothing was going to change in a dramatic way with DCPS.  I am all for change, and continue to support various changes in both DCPS and charter schools in the ways I can.

What I am against, and what I took issue with in your post, is testing in for charters.  That is NOT about being against change.  I am so excited at some of the innovations and creative curricula I'm seeing at charters (and a few DCPS schools), that thrills me.

But I am all about ACCESS, equal chances at access.  That is where you and I differ, and where your post was obnoxious because you are assuming that everyone who is against test-in somehow also wants to maintain the status quo overall.  You couldn't be more wrong.  Much about the status quo needs to change (and is), but access to charters needs to remain truly open to every DC resident as a possibility, and you lose that when you test in.  Charters as an option for the most underserved families who are lucky enough to get in gets all but eliminated for the most popular schools because those with more resources and more options will be setting their kids up from birth to be in the pool that will test in the best.

And there is nothing wrong with that, every parent should do the most they can do to give their kid the best options, however each family defines "best".  But the money used to found, open, and run charter schools is TARGETED FUNDS that these schools got for a specific reason in DC, and test-in options eliminates that option for the low SES families that don't somehow already speak Mandarin or that are not naturally already brilliant test-takers on their own (since they wouldn't have the same access to Mandarin childcare/tutoring options before they even apply that many well-resourced families are already using).

You don't have to agree with me, but do you at least understand me now?  I am not part of the "Keep DC schools the way they are/charters are bad/charters are draining resources/you shouldn't be able to fire teachers" crew, which is what *I* would call the stagnant crew.  But you were very very specific in what you consider stagnant, anti-innovation crew, and it included anyone who is against test in, which is against my view.  And that's fine, just want you to understand that you are grossly mistaken to think there aren't totally pro-innovation and change people who can also be against test-in for charters for the reasons I said above.  There are many of us, because access for the most underserved students has to remain a possibility.  It won't if you get your way, and that sucks for everyone who used to have no chance because they weren't IB for a great school.  At least now they have a chance, just like everyone else has a chance... but not if you get your way.[/quote]

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