Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am sure Eastern and SH/EH work great for some parents.

The same cannot be said for black and Hispanic kids, especially those in sped.

I’m happy for all of us when local schools work out, but I find it disgusting when loudmouthed parents try to shame others for making different choices.

This happened to me with my kids, and I was so disgusted by the blatant clout seeking behavior of my neighbor. Make your school choices on behalf of your kids, not yourself.

I haven’t seen any posts in this thread shaming anyone for their school choices, so I’m not sure why you brought this up here in particular.

In fact, most of the shaming I see on DCUM in general tends to be in the opposite direction, with parents who didn’t choose their in-bound school shaming those of us who did. For example, some say (or strongly imply) that we don’t care as much about our education, that our kids must not be as high achieving as theirs, etc.

That’s the kind of crap I am “disgusted” by.

You've identified a fundamental truth on DCUM: Posters who lecture others about the "wrongness" of their choices who play the martyr card whenever anyone dares express they like a school the DCUM Martyr Police sh*t upon. In their worlds, saying "I chose my IB MS and I like it" is somehow interpreted as "pressuring them" or 'being high and mighty". I haven't seen anyone on this thread judge anyone else for choosing a charter or private school. I have seen multiple instances of people like the poster to whom you responded excoriating people for daring to suggest they like their IB school and/or that people might want to give them a chance.

-Signed
Someone who sent their kids to charters but doesn't begrudge or judge parents who made a different choice

Anonymous wrote:I am sure Eastern and SH/EH work great for some parents.

The same cannot be said for black and Hispanic kids, especially those in sped.

I’m happy for all of us when local schools work out, but I find it disgusting when loudmouthed parents try to shame others for making different choices.

This happened to me with my kids, and I was so disgusted by the blatant clout seeking behavior of my neighbor. Make your school choices on behalf of your kids, not yourself.

I haven’t seen any posts in this thread shaming anyone for their school choices, so I’m not sure why you brought this up here in particular.

In fact, most of the shaming I see on DCUM in general tends to be in the opposite direction, with parents who didn’t choose their in-bound school shaming those of us who did. For example, some say (or strongly imply) that we don’t care as much about our education, that our kids must not be as high achieving as theirs, etc.

That’s the kind of crap I am “disgusted” by.

I haven't heard anybody here shaming anybody else for making different choices. If anything, the main take away I'd take from all of this is don't rule out schools or make assumptions, and make whatever choice works for your family, not based on word of mouth or hearsay. One of the prior posters mentioned special education students - the achievement gap between different sub groups is real, and data shows these disparities across the region not just in DC schools. That is a longer discussion for another thread, but in the end of the day, hopefully people can all just be more civil to each other and respect people's decisions, without assumptions or judgements about why they stayed/left/switched/moved.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am sure Eastern and SH/EH work great for some parents.

The same cannot be said for black and Hispanic kids, especially those in sped.

I’m happy for all of us when local schools work out, but I find it disgusting when loudmouthed parents try to shame others for making different choices.

This happened to me with my kids, and I was so disgusted by the blatant clout seeking behavior of my neighbor. Make your school choices on behalf of your kids, not yourself.

agree ….

Also, there is a lot of self-righteousness associated with sending kids to any public MS or HS on the Hill. It is great when you learn that the ones who are so smug about sending their kids to Hill MS have plans to go private for HS all along. For our family, private was not an option financially so it made sense to leave DCPS starting in MS. If we knew we'd be going private starting in 9th anyhow, I'd feel much much more comfortable with a Hill DCPS MS (and supplementing if necessary).

I've found it most useful to balance DCUM commentary with real-life commentary. Here, you have to be aware that posters might have an incentive to be dishonest to sway general opinion one way or another. In-person, parents have a hard time being objective about their own choices to friends (or might have a motivation to encourage a friend to join a "movement" without being transparent about the downsides). I usually find that a combination of DCUM comments and IRL comments get the closest to the truth. -Parent going on 10 years in DC schools, having experienced schools in 2 wards, and both DCPS and charter.

Anonymous wrote:I am sure Eastern and SH/EH work great for some parents.

The same cannot be said for black and Hispanic kids, especially those in sped.

I’m happy for all of us when local schools work out, but I find it disgusting when loudmouthed parents try to shame others for making different choices.

This happened to me with my kids, and I was so disgusted by the blatant clout seeking behavior of my neighbor. Make your school choices on behalf of your kids, not yourself.

agree ….

I am sure Eastern and SH/EH work great for some parents.

The same cannot be said for black and Hispanic kids, especially those in sped.

I’m happy for all of us when local schools work out, but I find it disgusting when loudmouthed parents try to shame others for making different choices.

This happened to me with my kids, and I was so disgusted by the blatant clout seeking behavior of my neighbor. Make your school choices on behalf of your kids, not yourself.

Let's also be honest about the fact that fewer and fewer families will get into Basis and Latin I and II since more students are applying. And with families also leaving TR for MS IB schools are getting more attractive. We never got into any of these MS via the lottery and are at our IB and my kid loves it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What specific “major changes”?

Not PP, but I would not send my kids to our neighborhood high school, which has similar numbers, without transparent, test-in differentiation for all academic subjects. That could be an IB program or something else, but calling something IB or honors when most of the kids are below grade level is not what I'm looking for, and it's very clear that DCPS does that.

This. Calling something honors or IB doesn’t mean a damn thing. This is especially true when the kids are performing below grade level. You can name a course anything you want but it does not equate it to rigor.

Just look at SH. Their honors course is really just grade level and now some of those courses are no longer present even. I don’t trust DCPS at all with their race to the bottom. Feel free if other do.

Anonymous wrote:What specific “major changes”?

Not PP, but I would not send my kids to our neighborhood high school, which has similar numbers, without transparent, test-in differentiation for all academic subjects. That could be an IB program or something else, but calling something IB or honors when most of the kids are below grade level is not what I'm looking for, and it's very clear that DCPS does that.

Goes back to my earlier point of, if you don't know anybody who is at a certain school, go find somebody and ask them about it. Sure, people will choose what to share and may be over positive, but I also find people who leave are sometimes over negative about the place they left, to justify their decision. As somebody else said, just be logical and get a variety of perspectives, follow the schools online, go to events when they have them - get a sense of the school. I happen to like the fact that there is school choice in DC, our family isn't stressed by the decision we will have to make in a few years about high school, I think it is great to have so many options.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:people unintentionally tend to suppress negative information no matter what their choice was. its human nature to more positively frame the choice you made vs the one you didnt.

That's one way to look at it. Another is to say that it is easy to sit in the corner and poke holes in everything instead of engaging. Another way to say it is that DC (and DCUM) is filled with adults who grew up entitled, but not nearly as entitled as they thought. They confuse upper middle class upbringings in nice suburban towns with little poverty and think that they were actually trust fund kids. Those people spend all of their time worrying about what they don't have and jealous of what other people have, instead of appreciating what they do have. They think that someone stressing over things they don't have makes them "deep" or "thoughtful". They don't understand that perfection is a mirage.

I went to public school in a big city with much higher crime than DC currently has and a public school system with a lot of challenges. I'm extremely familiar with parents using their children to express political choices and being totally in denial about what the kids are experiencing. But even then, I didn't know anyone with a college degree who sent their kids to the equivalent of Eastern because no one was that nuts.

This. I don’t know anyone willing to take a gamble on Eastern unless the school institutes some major changes

What specific “major changes”?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:people unintentionally tend to suppress negative information no matter what their choice was. its human nature to more positively frame the choice you made vs the one you didnt.

That's one way to look at it. Another is to say that it is easy to sit in the corner and poke holes in everything instead of engaging. Another way to say it is that DC (and DCUM) is filled with adults who grew up entitled, but not nearly as entitled as they thought. They confuse upper middle class upbringings in nice suburban towns with little poverty and think that they were actually trust fund kids. Those people spend all of their time worrying about what they don't have and jealous of what other people have, instead of appreciating what they do have. They think that someone stressing over things they don't have makes them "deep" or "thoughtful". They don't understand that perfection is a mirage.

I went to public school in a big city with much higher crime than DC currently has and a public school system with a lot of challenges. I'm extremely familiar with parents using their children to express political choices and being totally in denial about what the kids are experiencing. But even then, I didn't know anyone with a college degree who sent their kids to the equivalent of Eastern because no one was that nuts.

This. I don’t know anyone willing to take a gamble on Eastern unless the school institutes some major changes

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:people unintentionally tend to suppress negative information no matter what their choice was. its human nature to more positively frame the choice you made vs the one you didnt.

That's one way to look at it. Another is to say that it is easy to sit in the corner and poke holes in everything instead of engaging. Another way to say it is that DC (and DCUM) is filled with adults who grew up entitled, but not nearly as entitled as they thought. They confuse upper middle class upbringings in nice suburban towns with little poverty and think that they were actually trust fund kids. Those people spend all of their time worrying about what they don't have and jealous of what other people have, instead of appreciating what they do have. They think that someone stressing over things they don't have makes them "deep" or "thoughtful". They don't understand that perfection is a mirage.

I went to public school in a big city with much higher crime than DC currently has and a public school system with a lot of challenges. I'm extremely familiar with parents using their children to express political choices and being totally in denial about what the kids are experiencing. But even then, I didn't know anyone with a college degree who sent their kids to the equivalent of Eastern because no one was that nuts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:people unintentionally tend to suppress negative information no matter what their choice was. its human nature to more positively frame the choice you made vs the one you didnt.

That's one way to look at it. Another is to say that it is easy to sit in the corner and poke holes in everything instead of engaging. Another way to say it is that DC (and DCUM) is filled with adults who grew up entitled, but not nearly as entitled as they thought. They confuse upper middle class upbringings in nice suburban towns with little poverty and think that they were actually trust fund kids. Those people spend all of their time worrying about what they don't have and jealous of what other people have, instead of appreciating what they do have. They think that someone stressing over things they don't have makes them "deep" or "thoughtful". They don't understand that perfection is a mirage.

Get off it. Your kid going to a school where 97% of the kids can’t pass PARCC math is a big deal. It’s not “poking holes” to be concerned about it.