Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fwiw, our child is at Adams now and has a choice of JR or Macarthur. Not applying to magnets, thought she has good grades. She’s excited about JR. We don’t live in the neighborhood, so the commute should be interesting…

Oyster-Adams students get lottery preference, not guarantee.

I don’t think that’s true. It is in the feeder pattern for JR.

OA is in the feeder pattern for JR. OA students who want to go to Macarthur get a lottery preference, not a guarantee.

OA students do not "have a choice of JR or Macarthur," like a PP wrote; they gave a right to one and a preferential chance at the other.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fwiw, our child is at Adams now and has a choice of JR or Macarthur. Not applying to magnets, thought she has good grades. She’s excited about JR. We don’t live in the neighborhood, so the commute should be interesting…

Oyster-Adams students get lottery preference, not guarantee.

I don’t think that’s true. It is in the feeder pattern for JR.

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the bigger question is still more about selection vs value-add in education. That is, do the students at JR/Wilson that come from families that could both afford and get into Private schools better or worse off?

There isn't much data on this type of stuff at the high school level, but there is plenty of stuff at the college level comparing elite college (Ivies) to public college.

The evidence that the elite college are better is very weak to non-existent for THIS subset of students. (Another story for poorer students)

I’m the 1:08 poster above. I agree with PP about selection, and I was actually going to point this out my post. My partner and I have 4 graduate degrees between us and are NW DC UMC. There is a pretty large cohort of parents like this at JR and Walls, and it’s not surprising that their kids do well, irrespective of where they attend high school.

I did, however, want to challenge the notion that JR kids never write and aren’t taught writing. My kid had essays frequently in DCPS starting in middle school, and by his junior year he could churn out a pretty good 5 page (handwritten) essay in an hour.

Honestly, the bigger question is still more about selection vs value-add in education. That is, do the students at JR/Wilson that come from families that could both afford and get into Private schools better or worse off?

There isn't much data on this type of stuff at the high school level, but there is plenty of stuff at the college level comparing elite college (Ivies) to public college.

The evidence that the elite college are better is very weak to non-existent for THIS subset of students. (Another story for poorer students)

Thank you, PPs, for your posts. It's reassuring to hear these writing success stories.

My DD is a Wilson Grad and a writing major (yes these exist) at a SLAC. She has taken Spanish writing and literature classes in college as well. She has worked as a teachers assistant in college level writing classes and published her own short stories. Her english teachers at Wilson gave specific feedback on every assignment on grammar and writing style which inspired her to focus on writing in college. As a junior she maintains a 3.9 average.

My other child is at a University where all freshman take a seminar on writing, no matter their major. This is not unusual in top colleges and tends to help students learn to write at a college level. Also a Wilson grad, also maintains an A average and has been asked to tutor other students in writing.

Just saying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIIW, DS graduated from Walls a few years ago, went to a selective SLAC and was completely unprepared his first semester. DCPS across the board does not prepare (most) kids for college very well. DS learned his lessons and did much better in subsequent semesters, now has a great (and meaningful) job he loves. So maybe it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

That problem is unique to your son. I know well over a dozen Walls graduates. Zero have reported being unprepared for the highly selective colleges they attend/ed.

Please. Kids coming from the DC publics, no matter if Walls or Wilson (now JR), don’t know how to write at all. They are completely unprepared to write at the college level. It’s truly pathetic. They may not admit they are struggling as compared to peers who went to hs that actually taught their students how to write a paper, but they are.

Once again, speak only for yourself/your son. That is not the experience of the Walls graduates that I know personally.

Stop trying to make your son’s struggle universal.

Can you share some about writing instruction at Walls? Do they write research papers? How long are their biggest assignments? How many papers do they typically write in a year? Having some more facts would be useful to this conversation.

I can't speak to Walls, but my Wilson grad did a fair amount of writing. He had weekly 3-5 page essays in Spanish for AP Spanish and AP Spanish Lit, plus one longer paper in Spanish for Spanish Lit. He had multiple 3-5 page essays per week in English for other classes (APUSH, APES, AP World, AP English Lit, etc.) and IIRC at least one longer paper each semester. He seemed to be doing at least one 3-5 page essay daily during junior year.

He's now a (non-legacy, unhooked, white, non-athlete) sophomore at a LAC with a sub-15% acceptance rate and classmates mostly from private schools. His GPA is about 3.9, and his writing has been recognized as outstanding by at least two professors. One hired him as a research assistant based on a paper. Another tried to talk him into turning an essay into a literary journal article. My kid is a good writer, but many of his friends at Wilson were better writers in high school (particularly kids who wrote for the Beacon), and many were better students. His friends are attending schools like Barnard, Oberlin, Miami, Stanford, NYU, UCSB, Bates, UW Madison, Occidental, and Emory.

I'm not sure where PPs are getting the idea that Wilson/JR kids aren't doing well at selective colleges. This is definitely not the case for DS or his friends.

Anonymous wrote:I am a Wilson grad. I did MUCH better than the kids from Big 3 I knew at Ivy where I went to college. I know because I was Phi Beta Kappa and Summa. And they had no honors or distinction. And won writing awards. And now professional writer. Others I know from HS are doing just fine. They mostly now make more money than me. Connections, chosen professions, etc. So depends on what your criteria for life is.

Those parents who want to bemoan how public schools - esp JR - ruin children seem to have so much cognitive dissonance that they need to constantly argue and justify a world view where paying big bucks for Big 3s or 5s or whatever is worth it? Tinged with racism???

Basically look at the kids’ advantages and parents’ backgrounds (not income or at least not just income) for kids at any of the schools. Sociology 101. Admittedly a gut class.

If this is satire it is beyond brilliant!

Anonymous wrote:I am a Wilson grad. I did MUCH better than the kids from Big 3 I knew at Ivy where I went to college. I know because I was Phi Beta Kappa and Summa. And they had no honors or distinction. And won writing awards. And now professional writer. Others I know from HS are doing just fine. They mostly now make more money than me. Connections, chosen professions, etc. So depends on what your criteria for life is.

Those parents who want to bemoan how public schools - esp JR - ruin children seem to have so much cognitive dissonance that they need to constantly argue and justify a world view where paying big bucks for Big 3s or 5s or whatever is worth it? Tinged with racism???

Basically look at the kids’ advantages and parents’ backgrounds (not income or at least not just income) for kids at any of the schools. Sociology 101. Admittedly a gut class.

You certainly don't sound like a professional writer who graduated PBK and summa from an Ivy and won writing awards.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a Wilson grad. I did MUCH better than the kids from Big 3 I knew at Ivy where I went to college. I know because I was Phi Beta Kappa and Summa. And they had no honors or distinction. And won writing awards. And now professional writer. Others I know from HS are doing just fine. They mostly now make more money than me. Connections, chosen professions, etc. So depends on what your criteria for life is.

Those parents who want to bemoan how public schools - esp JR - ruin children seem to have so much cognitive dissonance that they need to constantly argue and justify a world view where paying big bucks for Big 3s or 5s or whatever is worth it? Tinged with racism???

Basically look at the kids’ advantages and parents’ backgrounds (not income or at least not just income) for kids at any of the schools. Sociology 101. Admittedly a gut class.

Dude. Your writing in this post is borderline illiterate.

+1. Hard to believe you won any writing awards at all.

Anonymous wrote:I am a Wilson grad. I did MUCH better than the kids from Big 3 I knew at Ivy where I went to college. I know because I was Phi Beta Kappa and Summa. And they had no honors or distinction. And won writing awards. And now professional writer. Others I know from HS are doing just fine. They mostly now make more money than me. Connections, chosen professions, etc. So depends on what your criteria for life is.

Those parents who want to bemoan how public schools - esp JR - ruin children seem to have so much cognitive dissonance that they need to constantly argue and justify a world view where paying big bucks for Big 3s or 5s or whatever is worth it? Tinged with racism???

Basically look at the kids’ advantages and parents’ backgrounds (not income or at least not just income) for kids at any of the schools. Sociology 101. Admittedly a gut class.

Dude. Your writing in this post is borderline illiterate.