Anonymous wrote:Anyone been in DC long enough to remember when Jefferson was considered one of the better middle schools? What happened to that school?

Better = damning with faint praise

Get over yourself 18:08. Turning around a failing school is more than a function of SES numbers. It was about building a community that would be invested in improving the school. That includes rolling up your sleeves and making the school more attractive, ensuring students have the resources they need, and holding teachers accountable (cleaning house as it were). Playgrounds and green spaces, classroom aides and specials teachers like those for the library, art, PE and foreign language complete the picture. Plenty of high SES students attend schools like Ludlow for a couple of years and then bail for greener pastures.

Anyone been in DC long enough to remember when Jefferson was considered one of the better middle schools? What happened to that school?

Yes and no, 18:08. I imagine it was that rolling up of the sleeves and pitching in that gave the early Brent high SES families enough of a community to stay instead of all jumping ship like at Ludlow-Taylor. Well, that and the lack of other publicly-funded options.

Anonymous wrote:I don't see anything wrong with "demanding"--we are the parents, these are our children. We only get one change to see them through school and we need to do right by them. Historically DCPS has completely shut out the parents. Only since more parents, and more high SES families have gotten "demanding" have the schools seen real gains. Quite frankly, I think DCPS should rate principals on the percentage of IB kids who actually attend the school. If only 30% of your student body is IB then maybe that says something about the principals leadership. They should be out in the communities to listen to parents to understand what is needed to keep them committed to neighborhood schools.

. Oh horseshit.

Only since the demographics of dc have been changing have these measurable changes arrived. And said demographic changes occurred for all kinds of reasons (recession, worsening traffic, post 9-11 govt job bloat).

It's an SES numbers issue, not because 100 parents inboundary for Brent "rolled up their sleeves" and planted an organic garden and funded an art teacher with PTA money.

Anonymous wrote:DEMANDED! Who are you to demand? I hate that sense of entitlement.

Yes, take whatever the corrupt and incompetent bureaucrats toss your way. Nothing entitled about that.

This is the only way that Ward 6 Middle Schools will be a viable option. The majority of the kids in any of the schools (Stuart-Hobson, Jefferson, Eliot-Hine) will need to come from middle to upper middle class backgrounds. End Of Discussion.

I don't see anything wrong with "demanding"--we are the parents, these are our children. We only get one change to see them through school and we need to do right by them. Historically DCPS has completely shut out the parents. Only since more parents, and more high SES families have gotten "demanding" have the schools seen real gains. Quite frankly, I think DCPS should rate principals on the percentage of IB kids who actually attend the school. If only 30% of your student body is IB then maybe that says something about the principals leadership. They should be out in the communities to listen to parents to understand what is needed to keep them committed to neighborhood schools.

How could some view Eastern as a bridge too far, when everyone had to a chance to rebuild the bridge. More importantly be the first one to cross it. I still don't understand how the inaugural freshmen class at Eastern was over 97% AA but there was a 13% white 8th grade population. Then of that 13% only 1 white child was part of the inaugural class but has since left because his parents wanted him to be around more white students. Whites were part of every planning phase that involved Eastern but still view the school as a double-negative.

This is somewhat like Dr. Frankenstein creating its own monster. Why become so intricately involved in all aspects and become cynical of the current status.

Forgot the link in case anyone's interested: http://dc.gov/DCPS/Parents+and+Community/Community+Initiatives/Building+on+Momentum:+Ward+6+Middle+Schools

It really seems like a primer on a number of issues facing the boundary/feeder folks.

The DCPS "Building on Momentum" materials are incredibly interesting. It just seems like the Hill really is a couple years ahead of other areas of the City in a number of ways, so it is like seeing the future in some respects.

After all that work - did DCPS offer what the school community/communities wanted? Did parents get more interested in any of the middle schools? Did any programs start but then end up faltering? How has the experience been since 2010?

No. Differentiation at the middle school level is not going to address the huge gap between the lowest and the highest performers. There would need to be something else in place. Ask any teacher if they think differentiation in a 6th grade classroom with 15 students who read several grade levels behind and 10 who are advanced would meet the needs of all the students adequately.

Differentiation is great in elementary. Not in secondary

Would differentiation in instruction do enough to make a school less obsessively focused with remediation?

I think for Brent it was that Jefferson does a great job remediating the outrageously dismal test scores of Amidon. If Amidon students went to JEfferson with the a higher level of proficiency, Brent parents would be more likely to give Jefferson a shot. But is is galling that Stuart-Hobson is actually closer to Brent and more part of Captiol hill neighborhood, yet S-H is not an option.

So, a simplier option is to make S-H a middle school option for those that live in the S-H area. They could do this by stopping the automatic feed to S-H for those that attend certain elementary schools that feed into S-H out of boundary.

Stopping the automatic feed into a middle school based upon what elementary school you attended for 5th grade would actually reduce many DCPS problems.

So one aspect was that parents wanted a middle school 50% of whose student body doesn't need remediation.

Was there consideration of creating a school program where students would be at least 50% not in need of remediation? Didnt' some of the Hill elementary schools started as basically incubators in already existing schools?

Also - what basis did people use to say that the student body they were seeing needed remediation? Was it that the testing in the Hill middle schools didn't show proficiency in math/reading above 50%? Was it the scores in the feeder schools at/near grades when they would enter middle school weren't at 50% proficiency.

Let me be clear I'm not judging anyone at all, I'm interested in how people think on this.