Anonymous wrote:NP. I don't get why neighborhoods that already have the demographics to support full honors classes, e.g. Brentwood, have to wait for years for the classes to be created. Apparently, the demographics came long before the classes at Stuart Hobson, and advanced math at Hardy (namely 7th grade algebra).

It's very difficult to get high SES parents to enroll without the honors classes. Why not just set them up once neighborhood demographics have shifted?

Because DCPS doesn't budget along those lines?? Serious Q.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. I don't get why neighborhoods that already have the demographics to support full honors classes, e.g. Brentwood, have to wait for years for the classes to be created. Apparently, the demographics came long before the classes at Stuart Hobson, and advanced math at Hardy (namely 7th grade algebra).

It's very difficult to get high SES parents to enroll without the honors classes. Why not just set them up once neighborhood demographics have shifted?

Because DCPS doesn't budget along those lines?? Serious Q.

That would make too much sense. Instead of luring with an obvious carrot, DCPS insists that MC/UMC folks enroll in their IB school that doesn't meet their needs and fight to turn it around. Unless of course you're a semi-important DC government employee. Then you just get plopped into a desirable WOTP school of your choice.

I feel like not just DCPS insists, half of this board also insists.

Sorry to post again but bears repeating. What is the #1 goal of DCPS closing the achievement gap. Getting more high SES people in the system expands the achievement gap which is counter to the goal of DCPS.

MS parents don't really care the achievement gap. MS is where academics become extremely important and non-negotiable for parents that really care. DCPS is more of a social program than school system. No one can answer why DC may be the only school system in the country without magnet program or component? The fall back is racial dynamics. Meanwhile, most MC\UMC African-American families chose private schools versus chancing a subpar education for their kids. If DCPS had any type of leadership, I'd be trying to lure customers back not ignore them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. I don't get why neighborhoods that already have the demographics to support full honors classes, e.g. Brentwood, have to wait for years for the classes to be created. Apparently, the demographics came long before the classes at Stuart Hobson, and advanced math at Hardy (namely 7th grade algebra).

It's very difficult to get high SES parents to enroll without the honors classes. Why not just set them up once neighborhood demographics have shifted?

Because DCPS doesn't budget along those lines?? Serious Q.

That would make too much sense. Instead of luring with an obvious carrot, DCPS insists that MC/UMC folks enroll in their IB school that doesn't meet their needs and fight to turn it around. Unless of course you're a semi-important DC government employee. Then you just get plopped into a desirable WOTP school of your choice.

I feel like not just DCPS insists, half of this board also insists.

Sorry to post again but bears repeating. What is the #1 goal of DCPS closing the achievement gap. Getting more high SES people in the system expands the achievement gap which is counter to the goal of DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. I don't get why neighborhoods that already have the demographics to support full honors classes, e.g. Brentwood, have to wait for years for the classes to be created. Apparently, the demographics came long before the classes at Stuart Hobson, and advanced math at Hardy (namely 7th grade algebra).

It's very difficult to get high SES parents to enroll without the honors classes. Why not just set them up once neighborhood demographics have shifted?

Because DCPS doesn't budget along those lines?? Serious Q.

That would make too much sense. Instead of luring with an obvious carrot, DCPS insists that MC/UMC folks enroll in their IB school that doesn't meet their needs and fight to turn it around. Unless of course you're a semi-important DC government employee. Then you just get plopped into a desirable WOTP school of your choice.

I feel like not just DCPS insists, half of this board also insists.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. I don't get why neighborhoods that already have the demographics to support full honors classes, e.g. Brentwood, have to wait for years for the classes to be created. Apparently, the demographics came long before the classes at Stuart Hobson, and advanced math at Hardy (namely 7th grade algebra).

It's very difficult to get high SES parents to enroll without the honors classes. Why not just set them up once neighborhood demographics have shifted?

Because DCPS doesn't budget along those lines?? Serious Q.

That would make too much sense. Instead of luring with an obvious carrot, DCPS insists that MC/UMC folks enroll in their IB school that doesn't meet their needs and fight to turn it around. Unless of course you're a semi-important DC government employee. Then you just get plopped into a desirable WOTP school of your choice.

Anonymous wrote:NP. I don't get why neighborhoods that already have the demographics to support full honors classes, e.g. Brentwood, have to wait for years for the classes to be created. Apparently, the demographics came long before the classes at Stuart Hobson, and advanced math at Hardy (namely 7th grade algebra).

It's very difficult to get high SES parents to enroll without the honors classes. Why not just set them up once neighborhood demographics have shifted?

Because DCPS doesn't budget along those lines?? Serious Q.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC can't serve kids of all backgrounds and SES better by offering more differentiated instruction vs. academic tracking at the MS level because there isn't a high SES-low SES achievement gap in this particular city, there's an achievement chasm.

When you've got 6 or 8 kids reading at a 3rd or 4th grade level in a 6th grade ELA class of 25 or 30 students, along with another 6 or 8 kids reading at an 8th or 9th grade level, the class doesn't work well. This is true no matter how hard a skilled teacher might attempt to differentiate. The class tends to become disruptive, because instruction can't be pitched at a level that will engage most of the students.

In our family's experience, a public MS is much better off moving away from pretending that differentiation within the classroom is the answer in the face of a vast achievement gap it didn't create and can't close. What I've seen at SH in the last five years are the tangible benefits of ending the pretense that one school can erase the brutal effects of multi-generational poverty in the District.

As SH turns into a real neighborhood school 40 years after the Cluster was set up, most of the kids' academic needs are now being met. The school is stronger, happier, more orderly and more functional as a result.

How is this tracking playing out in practice at SH? Are all the "honors" classes filled with all the white kids? Are there any white kids in the "regular" classes? Assuming the answer is no to my second question (and assumption is based on fact that all of the white kids are from the high SES neighborhood surrounding the school, and we all know high SES correlates with better/at a minimum on grade level performance) how do the other parents in the school feel about this? DCPS?

You're really asking, or you're race baiting as a good liberal?

The honors classes are very diverse, and there are white kids in "regular" classes, particularly for math.

Other parents seem to like the more orderly classroom environments the new "leveled" classes have fostered. They also like the fact that high SES families are no longer commonly having kids tutored a lot, and enrolled in advanced middle school classes on-line, to provide appropriate challenge to their high-achieving students, while high-achieving low SES kids generally miss out on real rigor. Parents also like the fact that fewer in-boundary families are running to BASIS, the burbs and privates for MS. Parents still run to Latin when they get in.

Parents also appreciate that the SH principal has established a fair and transparent system for entry to honors classes. Several clear and transparent paths to entry have been established (e.g. 5th grade grades, 6th and 7th grade grades, PARCC scores, outside assessments, portfolio of academic work in a subject). A kid can't just waltz into an honors classes because he or she is white or Asian, or has affluent parents. No, the kid clearly has to be working at or above grade level in a particular subject to gain access.

It's hardly a perfect system, but it's a damn sight better than what we had before at Hobson, rowdy classrooms, stressed-out and burned-out teachers, lots of bored and lost kids sitting in chairs, UMC families commonly paying to add challenge outside of school.

Anonymous wrote:Is there evidence that students below grade level are also better served by this model at S-H? Not that the achievement gap is necessarily closing, but are there fewer kids scoring 1 or 2 on PARCC? It seems to me like that is a key part of making the case for some "tracked" classes in middle school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC can't serve kids of all backgrounds and SES better by offering more differentiated instruction vs. academic tracking at the MS level because there isn't a high SES-low SES achievement gap in this particular city, there's an achievement chasm.

When you've got 6 or 8 kids reading at a 3rd or 4th grade level in a 6th grade ELA class of 25 or 30 students, along with another 6 or 8 kids reading at an 8th or 9th grade level, the class doesn't work well. This is true no matter how hard a skilled teacher might attempt to differentiate. The class tends to become disruptive, because instruction can't be pitched at a level that will engage most of the students.

In our family's experience, a public MS is much better off moving away from pretending that differentiation within the classroom is the answer in the face of a vast achievement gap it didn't create and can't close. What I've seen at SH in the last five years are the tangible benefits of ending the pretense that one school can erase the brutal effects of multi-generational poverty in the District.

As SH turns into a real neighborhood school 40 years after the Cluster was set up, most of the kids' academic needs are now being met. The school is stronger, happier, more orderly and more functional as a result.

How is this tracking playing out in practice at SH? Are all the "honors" classes filled with all the white kids? Are there any white kids in the "regular" classes? Assuming the answer is no to my second question (and assumption is based on fact that all of the white kids are from the high SES neighborhood surrounding the school, and we all know high SES correlates with better/at a minimum on grade level performance) how do the other parents in the school feel about this? DCPS?