Anonymous
Post 02/21/2026 18:56     Subject: How things change in a decade!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I really don't want this to happen, but this is a possibility. DC loses its Home Rule, and an executive order is signed to remove all progressive teachings from DC public school curricula. It's a worry that keeps me up at night.


Really? This keeps you up at night? Like the removal of what curriculum exactly?


The removal of the specialized pre-professional arts curriculum at DESA, to name one example.


Any mention of the apparently bad words "climate" and "inclusion."
Anonymous
Post 02/21/2026 13:37     Subject: How things change in a decade!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I really don't want this to happen, but this is a possibility. DC loses its Home Rule, and an executive order is signed to remove all progressive teachings from DC public school curricula. It's a worry that keeps me up at night.


Really? This keeps you up at night? Like the removal of what curriculum exactly?


The removal of the specialized pre-professional arts curriculum at DESA, to name one example.
Anonymous
Post 02/20/2026 21:30     Subject: How things change in a decade!
the economically at-risk dc school population is predominantly black students. there is a mostly white and wealthy population far wotp. but there is also a increasingly large population of middle to umc but not super wealthy families of nearly every race now using public schools in dc.
Anonymous
Post 02/20/2026 07:15     Subject: How things change in a decade!
Anonymous wrote:I really don't want this to happen, but this is a possibility. DC loses its Home Rule, and an executive order is signed to remove all progressive teachings from DC public school curricula. It's a worry that keeps me up at night.


Really? This keeps you up at night? Like the removal of what curriculum exactly?
Anonymous
Post 02/20/2026 00:01     Subject: How things change in a decade!
I really don't want this to happen, but this is a possibility. DC loses its Home Rule, and an executive order is signed to remove all progressive teachings from DC public school curricula. It's a worry that keeps me up at night.
Anonymous
Post 12/14/2025 08:29     Subject: How things change in a decade!
Anonymous wrote:DCPS isn’t preparing anyone for college. Some parents are supplementing to do so, but the system is we all are prepared or none are prepared. And some won’t be.


This is not true. If you look at SAT scores, several schools have, indeed appropriately prepared students for college. Why paint them all with the same brush?
Anonymous
Post 12/14/2025 06:51     Subject: Re:How things change in a decade!
In ten years parents will continue to overthink all of this.
Anonymous
Post 12/13/2025 22:36     Subject: How things change in a decade!
DCPS isn’t preparing anyone for college. Some parents are supplementing to do so, but the system is we all are prepared or none are prepared. And some won’t be.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2025 13:33     Subject: How things change in a decade!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:As true as that is, in a triage situation, really any situation with scarce resources, it's hard to see how we don't prioritize the high schoolers who could become carjackers and then the kindergarteners who are on their way to becoming the next generation of carjackers.

Knowing that most of the top-grade students that we've got in DC could just go to private schools or move just tells us that DC's not going to and shouldn't focus on our kids. It's gonna focus on the children of the poor.

The problem is that educators don't know how to turn the children of the poor into high performers. Even medium performers. At least for anything beyond adopting the kids away from their actual parents. Which causes its own harm.


The only way to help those kids is make their moms older when they have the kids, or not have the kids at all. That’s so far from what schools should be doing- even if yes public health authorities should be providing birth controls for free in schools. Spending more on those kids is just throwing good money after bad, except for the few who can make it out- who in turn are ill served by not being separated from the rest in gifted and talented programs they test into.


Spend on your kids, not the majority of DC. Got it.


Reallocating resources so that only a few thousand kids are on the college track and the majority are in vocational would, in the long run, be better for everyone in DC. It would certainly be cheaper than what we do now, which is pretend like every single kid is a diamond in the rough when that’s demonstrably untrue.


You deeply misunderstand the DC school population. Black is not equal to poor. And poor is not equal to hopeless and not worth of education.

51% of kids from DC go to college, 18% of kids graduate in 6 years (let alone 4). DCPS isn’t helping the 82% the way they are structured.

They aren’t giving the 49% of kids what they need to succeed without going to college. And what they do provide isn’t preparing the vast majority of kids if they do go to college (“some college” is a predictor of a lot of terrible life outcomes).


This may be true.

What's also true is that DC's school outcomes are changing rapidly as are the demographics of the city writ large and the school population.
https://edscape.dc.gov/page/pop-and-students-public-school-enrollment-by-race-and-ethnicity

The number of white students in the public school system has doubled since 2013 and the number of hispanic kids has increased by 60%.

Let's deal with both the system we have now and also the system it looks like we'll have ten years in the future.


The policy rec is to understand that the distribution of student quality is bimodal, and adjust DCPS to that reality by creating tracks that hit both populations (now, how you put kids on those tracks is hard). The current assumption is that college prep is for everyone, and ends up serving almost no one.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2025 13:24     Subject: How things change in a decade!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What DC college graduation problems boil down to is kids just aren’t prepared despite graduating: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/05/05/dc-college-graduation-rate-80-percent-goal/

And honestly many of the kids that do go really, really should not


This is true nationwide, though, is it not?

Nationwide the rate is 60ish percent (reading the article). That’s also the rate of kids who go to college, and I’m not sure if it’s 60% of 60%, or like 99% of the 60 odd percent of kids who go to college graduate in 6 years (I doubt that)
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2025 12:31     Subject: How things change in a decade!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:As true as that is, in a triage situation, really any situation with scarce resources, it's hard to see how we don't prioritize the high schoolers who could become carjackers and then the kindergarteners who are on their way to becoming the next generation of carjackers.

Knowing that most of the top-grade students that we've got in DC could just go to private schools or move just tells us that DC's not going to and shouldn't focus on our kids. It's gonna focus on the children of the poor.

The problem is that educators don't know how to turn the children of the poor into high performers. Even medium performers. At least for anything beyond adopting the kids away from their actual parents. Which causes its own harm.


The only way to help those kids is make their moms older when they have the kids, or not have the kids at all. That’s so far from what schools should be doing- even if yes public health authorities should be providing birth controls for free in schools. Spending more on those kids is just throwing good money after bad, except for the few who can make it out- who in turn are ill served by not being separated from the rest in gifted and talented programs they test into.


Spend on your kids, not the majority of DC. Got it.


Reallocating resources so that only a few thousand kids are on the college track and the majority are in vocational would, in the long run, be better for everyone in DC. It would certainly be cheaper than what we do now, which is pretend like every single kid is a diamond in the rough when that’s demonstrably untrue.


You deeply misunderstand the DC school population. Black is not equal to poor. And poor is not equal to hopeless and not worth of education.

51% of kids from DC go to college, 18% of kids graduate in 6 years (let alone 4). DCPS isn’t helping the 82% the way they are structured.

They aren’t giving the 49% of kids what they need to succeed without going to college. And what they do provide isn’t preparing the vast majority of kids if they do go to college (“some college” is a predictor of a lot of terrible life outcomes).


This may be true.

What's also true is that DC's school outcomes are changing rapidly as are the demographics of the city writ large and the school population.
https://edscape.dc.gov/page/pop-and-students-public-school-enrollment-by-race-and-ethnicity

The number of white students in the public school system has doubled since 2013 and the number of hispanic kids has increased by 60%.

Let's deal with both the system we have now and also the system it looks like we'll have ten years in the future.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2025 12:25     Subject: How things change in a decade!
Anonymous wrote:What DC college graduation problems boil down to is kids just aren’t prepared despite graduating: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/05/05/dc-college-graduation-rate-80-percent-goal/

And honestly many of the kids that do go really, really should not


This is true nationwide, though, is it not?
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2025 12:18     Subject: How things change in a decade!
What DC college graduation problems boil down to is kids just aren’t prepared despite graduating: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/05/05/dc-college-graduation-rate-80-percent-goal/

And honestly many of the kids that do go really, really should not
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2025 12:15     Subject: How things change in a decade!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:As true as that is, in a triage situation, really any situation with scarce resources, it's hard to see how we don't prioritize the high schoolers who could become carjackers and then the kindergarteners who are on their way to becoming the next generation of carjackers.

Knowing that most of the top-grade students that we've got in DC could just go to private schools or move just tells us that DC's not going to and shouldn't focus on our kids. It's gonna focus on the children of the poor.

The problem is that educators don't know how to turn the children of the poor into high performers. Even medium performers. At least for anything beyond adopting the kids away from their actual parents. Which causes its own harm.


The only way to help those kids is make their moms older when they have the kids, or not have the kids at all. That’s so far from what schools should be doing- even if yes public health authorities should be providing birth controls for free in schools. Spending more on those kids is just throwing good money after bad, except for the few who can make it out- who in turn are ill served by not being separated from the rest in gifted and talented programs they test into.


Spend on your kids, not the majority of DC. Got it.


Reallocating resources so that only a few thousand kids are on the college track and the majority are in vocational would, in the long run, be better for everyone in DC. It would certainly be cheaper than what we do now, which is pretend like every single kid is a diamond in the rough when that’s demonstrably untrue.


You deeply misunderstand the DC school population. Black is not equal to poor. And poor is not equal to hopeless and not worth of education.

51% of kids from DC go to college, 18% of kids graduate in 6 years (let alone 4). DCPS isn’t helping the 82% the way they are structured.

They aren’t giving the 49% of kids what they need to succeed without going to college. And what they do provide isn’t preparing the vast majority of kids if they do go to college (“some college” is a predictor of a lot of terrible life outcomes).
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2025 12:09     Subject: How things change in a decade!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:As true as that is, in a triage situation, really any situation with scarce resources, it's hard to see how we don't prioritize the high schoolers who could become carjackers and then the kindergarteners who are on their way to becoming the next generation of carjackers.

Knowing that most of the top-grade students that we've got in DC could just go to private schools or move just tells us that DC's not going to and shouldn't focus on our kids. It's gonna focus on the children of the poor.

The problem is that educators don't know how to turn the children of the poor into high performers. Even medium performers. At least for anything beyond adopting the kids away from their actual parents. Which causes its own harm.


The only way to help those kids is make their moms older when they have the kids, or not have the kids at all. That’s so far from what schools should be doing- even if yes public health authorities should be providing birth controls for free in schools. Spending more on those kids is just throwing good money after bad, except for the few who can make it out- who in turn are ill served by not being separated from the rest in gifted and talented programs they test into.


Spend on your kids, not the majority of DC. Got it.


Reallocating resources so that only a few thousand kids are on the college track and the majority are in vocational would, in the long run, be better for everyone in DC. It would certainly be cheaper than what we do now, which is pretend like every single kid is a diamond in the rough when that’s demonstrably untrue.


You deeply misunderstand the DC school population. Black is not equal to poor. And poor is not equal to hopeless and not worth of education.


Same poster adding stats.
https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/household-income-by-race/

Many black families are middle class or wealthy in DC. And almost no poor residents are white. Both of those facts are different than the nation writ large.

Also worth asking is why the narrative in DC is so focused on Black families and ignores hispanic families so fervently. Historical reasons, sure, but DC has had a substantial hispanic population for decades now, and it's only growing.


The answer here is that, for pretty complex reasons, Hispanic families aren’t organized and plugged in as a group like they are in much of the rest of the country. We’re anomalous in that way.