Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Charles Allen has stated his opposition! Best thing he’s done. Must be a Hail Mary for his recall.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

If he's willing to reverse on everything he believes in like this in a desperate bid to hang on, it shows that we can get through to almost all the Councilmembers on the crime issue if they fear for their jobs.

He represents Ward 6 and while this is somewhat cross-cutting (a handful on Miner IB families live in W6; quite a few Maury IB families live in W7), there is no question where Ward 6 residents’ loyalties lie overall. Also, anyone can see that even if this school cluster succeeded eventually, the immediate fallout will be a cluster, for lack of a better term; no reason he wants that to come back on him.

It won't come back on him. This isn't Council business so he has nothing to do with any of it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love how regular black folk never demand any of this diversity sh*t, but bear the brunt of resentment that this crap drums up. We all just need to die I’m so sick of it.

This was my number one observation of the Miner community meeting w/the DME and the ensuing support for the cluster. Almost all white families, a lot of prek-k or not even in prek yet families and then alos a chunk of white families who opted out of Miner but live inbounds. Would love to know what the actual school community at Miner wants.

Why aren't black families showing up to these events? There are more of them than white families at Miner. Why are white families the only ones showing up?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love how regular black folk never demand any of this diversity sh*t, but bear the brunt of resentment that this crap drums up. We all just need to die I’m so sick of it.

This was my number one observation of the Miner community meeting w/the DME and the ensuing support for the cluster. Almost all white families, a lot of prek-k or not even in prek yet families and then alos a chunk of white families who opted out of Miner but live inbounds. Would love to know what the actual school community at Miner wants.

Why aren't black families showing up to these events? There are more of them than white families at Miner. Why are white families the only ones showing up?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

"that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened....."

Big IF!

Does the DME have any data to support this proposed pipe dream? Because we have another Cluster school ON THE HILL (not in North Carolina) where the Cluster model drastically decreased IB participation in the upper grades. It needs to be more than DME Vibes.

There are a huge amount of in-bound Maury UMC families who lottery their kids into charters in the upper grades RIGHT NOW, when Maury is supposedly a great school.

For real. Does DC never need to grapple with its completely substandard offerings in upper elementary and above? I can't understand it. FCPS is right there! Just offer what they offer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

"that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened....."

Big IF!

Does the DME have any data to support this proposed pipe dream? Because we have another Cluster school ON THE HILL (not in North Carolina) where the Cluster model drastically decreased IB participation in the upper grades. It needs to be more than DME Vibes.

There are a huge amount of in-bound Maury UMC families who lottery their kids into charters in the upper grades RIGHT NOW, when Maury is supposedly a great school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

"that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened....."

Big IF!

Does the DME have any data to support this proposed pipe dream? Because we have another Cluster school ON THE HILL (not in North Carolina) where the Cluster model drastically decreased IB participation in the upper grades. It needs to be more than DME Vibes.

Agree. This is an overall misguided proposal based on wishful-thinking.

More likely than not, more Maury parents will (a) move their kids to better schools, (b) move out of the neighborhood, which will cause two bad schools - not “two good schools” as DME’s Jennifer Comey seem to believe. The IB/OOB Peabody-Watkins cluster shows this well as you say - most parents will choose what’s best for their child over some broader societal goal. Good schools in DC seem to be created by groups of resourceful parents that decide to invest in a school (primarily by having their kids attend the local school) and who knows when this will be the time again when the current group that made Maury what it is feels betrayed. (Also, the area around Miner is not safe – DC should deal with that first before putting more kids in harms way).

Two questions:

- Why does it matter that a failing school is in proximity (0.5m) to a good one? Should not each failing school be equally addressed, and if they want to shuffle things around, shouldn’t the impact of at risk students be equally distributed through DCPS?

- How binding will DME's recommendations be, and how can political pressure be put on the Mayor to reject this potential proposal beyond the petition? I don’t believe Maury is being punished as some suggest (why?) but clearly some schools are being protected because of political pressure/cost.

Agree on your first point. When I saw just how bad the Miner data was, I thought a better solution would be closing the school and splitting the zone between Maury, LT, SWS, and Payne.

Agree that would be a better solution. SWS parents, in particular, must be cackling in glee that they aren’t under the microscope on this. DME picked its target and they escaped.

What exactly did SWS parents escape? It's an all-city school with at risk set asides. What could the DME recommend that would impact them? There's no boundary to shift or combine. SWS has been criticized extensively in the past for being heavily white and not being welcoming enough to non-white or at risk students, and they've been considerable efforts in recent years to address that (with a signficant shift in their demographics resulting).

I just don't even understand these comments.

I do think there's a fair argument to be made for closing Miner and splitting it's zone between the other boundaries around it, though I can also see the argument against (not really clear that there is capacity at these schools to absorb the Miner zone, plus giving up the capacity that now exists at Miner seems like a poor financial decision by DCPS). So I can see how they landed on the cluster.

The idea that a merger with SWS, which makes no sense on any level, was ever on the table reflects a real misunderstanding of DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love how regular black folk never demand any of this diversity sh*t, but bear the brunt of resentment that this crap drums up. We all just need to die I’m so sick of it.

This was my number one observation of the Miner community meeting w/the DME and the ensuing support for the cluster. Almost all white families, a lot of prek-k or not even in prek yet families and then alos a chunk of white families who opted out of Miner but live inbounds. Would love to know what the actual school community at Miner wants.

Maybe they are fine with whatever is decided and so don't feel the need to show up?

So.... apathy? That's concerning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

"that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened....."

Big IF!

Does the DME have any data to support this proposed pipe dream? Because we have another Cluster school ON THE HILL (not in North Carolina) where the Cluster model drastically decreased IB participation in the upper grades. It needs to be more than DME Vibes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love how regular black folk never demand any of this diversity sh*t, but bear the brunt of resentment that this crap drums up. We all just need to die I’m so sick of it.

This was my number one observation of the Miner community meeting w/the DME and the ensuing support for the cluster. Almost all white families, a lot of prek-k or not even in prek yet families and then alos a chunk of white families who opted out of Miner but live inbounds. Would love to know what the actual school community at Miner wants.

Maybe they are fine with whatever is decided and so don't feel the need to show up?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

"that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened....."

Big IF!

Does the DME have any data to support this proposed pipe dream? Because we have another Cluster school ON THE HILL (not in North Carolina) where the Cluster model drastically decreased IB participation in the upper grades. It needs to be more than DME Vibes.

Agree. This is an overall misguided proposal based on wishful-thinking.

More likely than not, more Maury parents will (a) move their kids to better schools, (b) move out of the neighborhood, which will cause two bad schools - not “two good schools” as DME’s Jennifer Comey seem to believe. The IB/OOB Peabody-Watkins cluster shows this well as you say - most parents will choose what’s best for their child over some broader societal goal. Good schools in DC seem to be created by groups of resourceful parents that decide to invest in a school (primarily by having their kids attend the local school) and who knows when this will be the time again when the current group that made Maury what it is feels betrayed. (Also, the area around Miner is not safe – DC should deal with that first before putting more kids in harms way).

Two questions:

- Why does it matter that a failing school is in proximity (0.5m) to a good one? Should not each failing school be equally addressed, and if they want to shuffle things around, shouldn’t the impact of at risk students be equally distributed through DCPS?

- How binding will DME's recommendations be, and how can political pressure be put on the Mayor to reject this potential proposal beyond the petition? I don’t believe Maury is being punished as some suggest (why?) but clearly some schools are being protected because of political pressure/cost.

Agree on your first point. When I saw just how bad the Miner data was, I thought a better solution would be closing the school and splitting the zone between Maury, LT, SWS, and Payne.

Agree that would be a better solution. SWS parents, in particular, must be cackling in glee that they aren’t under the microscope on this. DME picked its target and they escaped.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Charles Allen has stated his opposition! Best thing he’s done. Must be a Hail Mary for his recall.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

If he's willing to reverse on everything he believes in like this in a desperate bid to hang on, it shows that we can get through to almost all the Councilmembers on the crime issue if they fear for their jobs.

He represents Ward 6 and while this is somewhat cross-cutting (a handful on Miner IB families live in W6; quite a few Maury IB families live in W7), there is no question where Ward 6 residents’ loyalties lie overall. Also, anyone can see that even if this school cluster succeeded eventually, the immediate fallout will be a cluster, for lack of a better term; no reason he wants that to come back on him.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love how regular black folk never demand any of this diversity sh*t, but bear the brunt of resentment that this crap drums up. We all just need to die I’m so sick of it.

This was my number one observation of the Miner community meeting w/the DME and the ensuing support for the cluster. Almost all white families, a lot of prek-k or not even in prek yet families and then alos a chunk of white families who opted out of Miner but live inbounds. Would love to know what the actual school community at Miner wants.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love how regular black folk never demand any of this diversity sh*t, but bear the brunt of resentment that this crap drums up. We all just need to die I’m so sick of it.

This was my number one observation of the Miner community meeting w/the DME and the ensuing support for the cluster. Almost all white families, a lot of prek-k or not even in prek yet families and then alos a chunk of white families who opted out of Miner but live inbounds. Would love to know what the actual school community at Miner wants.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in-bound for Miner and wholeheartedly support the proposal to pair the schools. I get why Maury parents would oppose it - you paid a premium for your rowhomes with a specific understanding that you could send your children to a majority-white and high-SES elementary school and here comes DME wanting to essentially reverse the gentrifying effects that made Maury the school it is today and throw open the gates to the grandkids of the starburst crowd. I'd be gnashing my teeth too, but that doesn't mean this doesn't make sense for the neighborhood as a whole, or for the children in our little pocket of Northeast as a whole, which is where DME's greatest duty lies.

I've never been one for the "In this house we believe..." signs like many of the folks blowing a gasket over this proposal, but hoo boy y'all's opposition to this (especially in that 140+ page thread, which was locked by the time I finished reading it) has led to a lot of hysterics and bizarre takes.

Imagine my surprise in that first thread to hear that my neighborhood is "controlled by gangs" and "might as well be Baltimore." Yes, the concentrated poverty and crime in Azeeze-Bates and the Pentacle Apartments is unfortunate, but the bottom line is that this proposal is the best option for the neighborhood as a whole. The neighborhood is not scary and the starburst doesn't really intersect with the comings and goings at Miner. It's on the other side of a four lane road and a world away. The schools are not far apart - hearing all this woe-is-me stuff about terrible commutes is comical, as well as these preposterous proposals to do a public housing gerrymander or foist Miner's kids on faraway Ludlow-Taylor instead. Then in desperation y'all say "just throw money at it, just hire a superstar principal, anything but putting my kids in the same building with them.

I believe the ugly truth is that a lot of these low-SES at-risk children are beyond saving. No amount of money spent on smart boards or tutoring or enrichment is going to cure what ails them, because it's bone deep. It's a cyclical tragedy and a Gordian knot I don't pretend to be qualified to dissect. There is, of course, some variation in performance between schools with lots of at-risk kids, but on the whole I'd argue that schools like Maury or LT didn't improve just because the parents just cared so very much more than Miner parents or what have you...it's because the students of yesteryear got body-snatched and replaced with high-SES, Type-A-mommy, white kids.

The biggest benefit of this proposal to me is - unfortunately somewhat dependent on to what degree y'all pack up your yard signs and catch the next D6 to the Palisades - that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened, you get a truly diverse student body that still has a solid percentage of UMC parents and theoretically less OOB students coming in from EOTR. That isn't going to "fix" education for most of the in-bound at-risk kids growing up in Ward 7 without fathers and/or who never get spoken to unless it's a yell or a slap, but it can be a rising tide that lifts all ships and perhaps set a few of those unfortunates on a better path and leads to a student body that isn't just concentrated poverty. Every other idea I've seen proposed here really just boils down to Maury protectionism and keeping Miner's plight out of sight out of mind.

"that it has the potential to massively increase buy-in from in-bound Miner UMC parents who otherwise generally lottery their kids into a charter or nearby DCPS elementary school in the upper grades. If that happened....."

Big IF!

Does the DME have any data to support this proposed pipe dream? Because we have another Cluster school ON THE HILL (not in North Carolina) where the Cluster model drastically decreased IB participation in the upper grades. It needs to be more than DME Vibes.

Agree. This is an overall misguided proposal based on wishful-thinking.

More likely than not, more Maury parents will (a) move their kids to better schools, (b) move out of the neighborhood, which will cause two bad schools - not “two good schools” as DME’s Jennifer Comey seem to believe. The IB/OOB Peabody-Watkins cluster shows this well as you say - most parents will choose what’s best for their child over some broader societal goal. Good schools in DC seem to be created by groups of resourceful parents that decide to invest in a school (primarily by having their kids attend the local school) and who knows when this will be the time again when the current group that made Maury what it is feels betrayed. (Also, the area around Miner is not safe – DC should deal with that first before putting more kids in harms way).

Two questions:

- Why does it matter that a failing school is in proximity (0.5m) to a good one? Should not each failing school be equally addressed, and if they want to shuffle things around, shouldn’t the impact of at risk students be equally distributed through DCPS?

- How binding will DME's recommendations be, and how can political pressure be put on the Mayor to reject this potential proposal beyond the petition? I don’t believe Maury is being punished as some suggest (why?) but clearly some schools are being protected because of political pressure/cost.

Agree on your first point. When I saw just how bad the Miner data was, I thought a better solution would be closing the school and splitting the zone between Maury, LT, SWS, and Payne.

Agree that would be a better solution. SWS parents, in particular, must be cackling in glee that they aren’t under the microscope on this. DME picked its target and they escaped.

SWS isn’t zoned and already has an at-risk set aside.