Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No, they do NOT need to "spread around". That idea is so offensive you deserve to be kicked in the teeth. They are not condiments to smeared on the DCPS shit sandwich merely to improve its flavor. They are actual, single, individual children with a right to enhance their own futures, without the threat of being thrown into the swamp in order to be lifesavers for someone else. You apparently do not understand this, but generations of parents (middle class - not wealthy, the wealthy will simply go private - middle class) have fled urban centers for decades now in every major city East of the Rockies and proven this point over and over and over again. They'd rather live in Gaithersburg, or Herndon, Timbuktu than have their children forced into schools they don't like. And they'll take a bath on their house to do it (red-lining, anyone?). You can screw your own child all you want (though I hope you get arrested for it) but when you try to screw theirs? They'll leave. DC, and DCPS needs more middle-class families, not fewer. Your proposal is designed and destined to be at odds with that reality.

Sorry that you wasted a lot of anger on this. The "spread around" comment was meant to express the DCPS attitude about kids who score proficient. Having them concentrated in a few schools helps the kids, but doesn't help proficiency across the schools, thus doesn't bring individual school scores up, which seems to be all DCPS cares about - witness its desire to cover-up the cheating scandal.

You can't "spread around" strong students as if they were pawns in a chess game. If DCPS went that route (or continues to go that route) then you'll stick with about 12,000 of the 42,000 students being on grade level – and they will tend to congregate west of the park – leaving the rest of the city fallow. If you created selective admission schools and concentrated strong students in neighborhoods where they live then you'd increase the overall strength of the system and struggling students would benefit.

Keep in mind the higher a school’s proficiency, the less money it takes to operate.

I challenge you to find one parent that would select a 25% proficient school over a 75% proficient school. Even parents of struggling students want their children surrounded by lots of smart kids - it stretches them up.

As a parent I don’t view my child’s primary role as a vehicle to fix a struggling school system – I have one chance to get it right and come hell or high water I will make it happen. If I can help improve the system and simultaneously provide my children with solid education, then sign me up and let’s get cracking ‘cause we got work to do.

"Again, after we have an acceptable school system, I think we should look into recreating magnets like Walls and Banneker."

For years DCPS was hostile to magnets (and in some respects still is). The view was that any programs that were at all selective academically were unfair and wrong. That approach worked out really well -- it was called Barry Time.

More money is not going to save DCPS schools. Having more middle class kids stay in the schools will help. And there's no way middle class parents will stay in DCPS is you eliminate Banneker, SWW, and the academies. The schools in upper NW are better because the kids come from well educated families. If well educated families send their kids to their local schools in NE and SE, those schools will improve too. Problem is, with charters and privates, there just aren't enough of those families to go around. And if you get rid of the few functioning high school options, you'll drive away even more families. That's just the hard reality.

I'm not the PP, but the idea that placing a small number of proficient children across a large number of schools is good either for those children or for the children that they are in class with is completely unfounded from reality. Without a critical mass of higher-achieving students at a school, there is essentially no differentiated instruction for the small number of proficieint kids and they stop being proficient. Plus, I'm not aware of any support in the literature showing that a small minority of proficient kids serves to increase the performance of lower-achieving children. I believe that it's the opposite - that going to school with a sufficient number of proficient kids brings up the poorer performing kids, likely because the culture and expectations at the school are then different. This strikes me as a set-up for having a small number of miserable kids who are bored in school and quickly check out or find another school. I would think there are a whole lot of parents out there who would be angry at the idea that their children's education ought to be sacrificed at the alter of neighborhood schools, just so the huge number of poorly performing kids in the class have something to aspire to. And I say this not as a NW parents, but as someone who lives probably pretty close to you and has one kid in a charter and another in an OOB middle school.

Anonymous wrote:
No, they do NOT need to "spread around". That idea is so offensive you deserve to be kicked in the teeth. They are not condiments to smeared on the DCPS shit sandwich merely to improve its flavor.

They are actual, single, individual children with a right to enhance their own futures, without the threat of being thrown into the swamp in order to be lifesavers for someone else.

You apparently do not understand this, but generations of parents (middle class - not wealthy, the wealthy will simply go private - middle class) have fled urban centers for decades now in every major city East of the Rockies and proven this point over and over and over again. They'd rather live in Gaithersburg, or Herndon, Timbuktu than have their children forced into schools they don't like. And they'll take a bath on their house to do it (red-lining, anyone?).

You can screw your own child all you want (though I hope you get arrested for it) but when you try to screw theirs? They'll leave.

DC, and DCPS needs more middle-class families, not fewer. Your proposal is designed and destined to be at odds with that reality.

Sorry that you wasted a lot of anger on this. The "spread around" comment was meant to express the DCPS attitude about kids who score proficient. Having them concentrated in a few schools helps the kids, but doesn't help proficiency across the schools, thus doesn't bring individual school scores up, which seems to be all DCPS cares about - witness its desire to cover-up the cheating scandal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Then maybe we don't want you in DCPS.

Believe it or not, most DCPS families don't have the money to move out of the city or switch to some fancy private school when they feel their little munchkin can't go to some private school wannabe. If you don't want to improve DCPS AS A WHOLE, maybe you shouldn't be involved in it at all.

1. who is 'we'? is that the royal 'we'?
2. maybe you're the one who is a misfit with other dcps parents
3. what's wrong with trying to emulate a private school? careful, your 're looking a little green here
4. those dcps parents who hate the choices offered by dcps can look to the charters....dcps is not the only game in town, for cash-limited families

Thanks for the highlights. This is sounding more like a central office ploy to make parents of kids at Walls and Banneker feel guilty.

Schools that are 90% proficient don't help DCPS numbers overall. Those kind of kids need to be spread around to bring other schools numbers up a bit. There's no concern for the kids at all.

Here's an idea -- instead of tearing down what's already working, invest in the remedial services that a lot of kids need,

No, they do NOT need to "spread around". That idea is so offensive you deserve to be kicked in the teeth. They are not condiments to smeared on the DCPS shit sandwich merely to improve its flavor.

They are actual, single, individual children with a right to enhance their own futures, without the threat of being thrown into the swamp in order to be lifesavers for someone else.

You apparently do not understand this, but generations of parents (middle class - not wealthy, the wealthy will simply go private - middle class) have fled urban centers for decades now in every major city East of the Rockies and proven this point over and over and over again. They'd rather live in Gaithersburg, or Herndon, Timbuktu than have their children forced into schools they don't like. And they'll take a bath on their house to do it (red-lining, anyone?).

You can screw your own child all you want (though I hope you get arrested for it) but when you try to screw theirs? They'll leave.

DC, and DCPS needs more middle-class families, not fewer. Your proposal is designed and destined to be at odds with that reality.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Then maybe we don't want you in DCPS.

Believe it or not, most DCPS families don't have the money to move out of the city or switch to some fancy private school when they feel their little munchkin can't go to some private school wannabe. If you don't want to improve DCPS AS A WHOLE, maybe you shouldn't be involved in it at all.

1. who is 'we'? is that the royal 'we'?
2. maybe you're the one who is a misfit with other dcps parents
3. what's wrong with trying to emulate a private school? careful, your 're looking a little green here
4. those dcps parents who hate the choices offered by dcps can look to the charters....dcps is not the only game in town, for cash-limited families

I'm the poster you are referring to.

We is parents who actually want to see success across the board in DCPS. Just because I live in NE DC shouldn't mean that my 6th grader gets a worse schooling then your 6th grader who live in upper northwest, or a highschooler who some school decided was "smart" based on some arbitrary measure of standing. Am I a misfit? Maybe. Maybe I'm just a nutjob who you don't have to give a shit about because I am not rich or famous.

Private schools are fine, public schools that act like they are private are just stupid, they need to grow up and admit that they are not private, they dont deserve more money or attention then all other schools.

Good luck getting into a good charter school... With their waitlists and randomized lotteries. Tell me once youre kid who has been on the waiting list for 2 years gets skipped over again for the kid in upper northwest who could be going to Lafeyette, Deal, or Wilson. Thank you very much. Simple richer the kid, the more money you can take from then in voluntary donation drives.

ok, op, if you're in that situation mentioned above, I understand your frustration
however, every time a lafayette-entitled child chooses yu-ying or washington latin, a space opens up potentially for an oob child
I truly believe that DCPS is failing to serve many many kids, but I don't agree with ripping down successful programs as a remedy to dysfunction
DCPS needs more magnets, not fewer, possibly even starting in middle school

You're sounding more like a misguided parent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Then maybe we don't want you in DCPS.

Believe it or not, most DCPS families don't have the money to move out of the city or switch to some fancy private school when they feel their little munchkin can't go to some private school wannabe. If you don't want to improve DCPS AS A WHOLE, maybe you shouldn't be involved in it at all.

1. who is 'we'? is that the royal 'we'?
2. maybe you're the one who is a misfit with other dcps parents
3. what's wrong with trying to emulate a private school? careful, your 're looking a little green here
4. those dcps parents who hate the choices offered by dcps can look to the charters....dcps is not the only game in town, for cash-limited families

I'm the poster you are referring to.

We is parents who actually want to see success across the board in DCPS. Just because I live in NE DC shouldn't mean that my 6th grader gets a worse schooling then your 6th grader who live in upper northwest, or a highschooler who some school decided was "smart" based on some arbitrary measure of standing. Am I a misfit? Maybe. Maybe I'm just a nutjob who you don't have to give a shit about because I am not rich or famous.

Private schools are fine, public schools that act like they are private are just stupid, they need to grow up and admit that they are not private, they dont deserve more money or attention then all other schools.

Good luck getting into a good charter school... With their waitlists and randomized lotteries. Tell me once youre kid who has been on the waiting list for 2 years gets skipped over again for the kid in upper northwest who could be going to Lafeyette, Deal, or Wilson. Thank you very much. Simple richer the kid, the more money you can take from then in voluntary donation drives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Then maybe we don't want you in DCPS.

Believe it or not, most DCPS families don't have the money to move out of the city or switch to some fancy private school when they feel their little munchkin can't go to some private school wannabe. If you don't want to improve DCPS AS A WHOLE, maybe you shouldn't be involved in it at all.

1. who is 'we'? is that the royal 'we'?
2. maybe you're the one who is a misfit with other dcps parents
3. what's wrong with trying to emulate a private school? careful, your 're looking a little green here
4. those dcps parents who hate the choices offered by dcps can look to the charters....dcps is not the only game in town, for cash-limited families

Thanks for the highlights. This is sounding more like a central office ploy to make parents of kids at Walls and Banneker feel guilty.

Schools that are 90% proficient don't help DCPS numbers overall. Those kind of kids need to be spread around to bring other schools numbers up a bit. There's no concern for the kids at all.

Here's an idea -- instead of tearing down what's already working, invest in the remedial services that a lot of kids need,

I do want to improve DCPS AS A WHOLE and I don't see destroying successful magnets as a way to do it.

I figure the person who started this thread is either a misguided parent or a DCPS exec floating a "kill the magnets" idea on DCUM.

If the latter - forget it -- it's not going over. It's a stupid idea.

Keep in mind that some of the DCPS families who can't afford to leave or go private are sending their kids to SWS and Banneker right now and those kids would be really deprived if their schools were closed to carry out this crazy, baseless plan.

Anonymous wrote:Then maybe we don't want you in DCPS.

Believe it or not, most DCPS families don't have the money to move out of the city or switch to some fancy private school when they feel their little munchkin can't go to some private school wannabe. If you don't want to improve DCPS AS A WHOLE, maybe you shouldn't be involved in it at all.

1. who is 'we'? is that the royal 'we'?
2. maybe you're the one who is a misfit with other dcps parents
3. what's wrong with trying to emulate a private school? careful, your 're looking a little green here
4. those dcps parents who hate the choices offered by dcps can look to the charters....dcps is not the only game in town, for cash-limited families

Anonymous wrote:Then maybe we don't want you in DCPS.

Believe it or not, most DCPS families don't have the money to move out of the city or switch to some fancy private school when they feel their little munchkin can't go to some private school wannabe. If you don't want to improve DCPS AS A WHOLE, maybe you shouldn't be involved in it at all.

DCPS has ~42,000 students and its ~40% proficient. Imagine how much better off struggling students would be if DCPS had 60,000 students at 60% proficiency in a few short years.

A rising boat lifts all boats.

Let's not be crabs in a barrel that pull others back in when they've almost gotten out.

And there we have it! The real reason dcps will always stink. The attitude displayed by this OP. " There is not enough good stuff to go around. If I can't have any, neither can you. You better give me some of that good stuff or get the **ll out of here! " rather than, " huh. They have some good stuff. I am going to make some more of that good stuff so I can have some, too."