Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ yes, but at Wilson, my DC won't be the only non-AA student, nor the only one scoring advanced.

With the boundary chances your DC won't be the only non-AA advanced student at Eastern -- there could be many, especially since Eastern population is small compared to Wilson. Wilson is only 20% White, remember.

This is a very real issue. Until there is a critical mass of white kids, the IB white parents are NOT sending their kids there. It just wont happen. How many white kids have attened Eastern in the last 20 years? none? maybe 5? It doesn't matter if they have the top scores in the City. it won't happen. Same reason white parents don't choose banneker even though its probably more rigorous than Wilson. Less than 5 white kids. This is what parents mean when they talk to each other about "we all just need to stick together through each grade"- they mean a cohort of high SES white kids.

I actually don't agree that it's a case of how many white kids there are. Certainly, that's not a factor for us. It's that there aren't enough high scoring kids at Eastern to create enough of the advanced AP/IB classes that you really need for rigorous college prep and competitive college applications these days. If you only have a handful of kids able to do honors and AP work per grade you're not going to have too many of those classes, let alone much diversity of options. And I think you see that in the structure of the Eastern IB program - they do IB "American studies" where the RM IB students do AP US History as sophmores in order to do the two year IB European History course and sit the AP and IB exams in that subject. Eastern has IB Spanish. RM has IB Spanish, French and German. Etc.

Eastern may be (and looks like it is) doing a laudable job of teaching kids that come from uneven educational backgrounds and getting a lot of them very proficient in the basics but it does not appear to have as much to offer in rigorous college prep. Nor, a lot of signs that it will in the near to medium term.

But if the Eastern population did have the high test scores... then you would move to consider what is now a second-order problem..."My kid will be the only white kid in most of his/her classes". Either way, he/she won't be attending... Much like they won't be attending Banneker.

And splitting the white student population on Capitol Hill among three different DCPS middle schools and 2-3 DCPCS schools, makes it nearly impossible to get a critical mass of parents who will 'stick it out together' and build a big enough demographic of high-SES white/asian to be self-sustaining.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Less than 80% advanced/proficient isn't "doing extremely well".

What school has less than 80% doing extremely well, surely you're not talking about Eastern. May one assume your stats are reflecting Wilson because of the bragging that 20% of the population is white; which leaves 80% and I can assume that you would feel that they are NOT doing well. Let's not dwell on such rhetorical matter, you like one over the other. Pick your number and move on. Next.

Salad, I don't want my student in a school where more than 20% of the other students aren't advanced or proficient. I did pick my number and moved on. So have many of my "gentrifying" pals and that's why the charters are going to eat your lunch. Prepare yourself for the day when your beautiful Eastern is sharing space with a charter.

[/b]I don't have a dog in this fight,[b] but google maps has me taking 34 min, via metro, to get from Jefferson to WIlson and 28 min to Eastern. And it'd be a reverse commute up to NW whereas the 395 underpasses or M street east to the Hill are pretty congested at rushhour. So, I don't think the original point that neither is very close is unreasonable.

Me neither, but Wilson really is three times further from Jefferson than is Eastern. No one need drive a high school student to school (I hope), but Eastern is six metro stops from Waterfront, Wilson eleven, each with one transfer. So the proximity statement really should stand.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ yes, but at Wilson, my DC won't be the only non-AA student, nor the only one scoring advanced.

With the boundary chances your DC won't be the only non-AA advanced student at Eastern -- there could be many, especially since Eastern population is small compared to Wilson. Wilson is only 20% White, remember.

per DCPS website. 25% white, 17% hispanic, 8% asian, 4 mult, and 46% AA

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Wilson+High+School

Eastern -- 97% AA, 2% Hispanic

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/eastern+high+school

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ yes, but at Wilson, my DC won't be the only non-AA student, nor the only one scoring advanced.

With the boundary chances your DC won't be the only non-AA advanced student at Eastern -- there could be many, especially since Eastern population is small compared to Wilson. Wilson is only 20% White, remember.

per DCPS website. 25% white, 17% hispanic, 8% asian, 4 mult, and 46% AA

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Wilson+High+School

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ yes, but at Wilson, my DC won't be the only non-AA student, nor the only one scoring advanced.

With the boundary chances your DC won't be the only non-AA advanced student at Eastern -- there could be many, especially since Eastern population is small compared to Wilson. Wilson is only 20% White, remember.

This is a very real issue. Until there is a critical mass of white kids, the IB white parents are NOT sending their kids there. It just wont happen. How many white kids have attened Eastern in the last 20 years? none? maybe 5? It doesn't matter if they have the top scores in the City. it won't happen. Same reason white parents don't choose banneker even though its probably more rigorous than Wilson. Less than 5 white kids. This is what parents mean when they talk to each other about "we all just need to stick together through each grade"- they mean a cohort of high SES white kids.

I actually don't agree that it's a case of how many white kids there are. Certainly, that's not a factor for us. It's that there aren't enough high scoring kids at Eastern to create enough of the advanced AP/IB classes that you really need for rigorous college prep and competitive college applications these days. If you only have a handful of kids able to do honors and AP work per grade you're not going to have too many of those classes, let alone much diversity of options. And I think you see that in the structure of the Eastern IB program - they do IB "American studies" where the RM IB students do AP US History as sophmores in order to do the two year IB European History course and sit the AP and IB exams in that subject. Eastern has IB Spanish. RM has IB Spanish, French and German. Etc.

Eastern may be (and looks like it is) doing a laudable job of teaching kids that come from uneven educational backgrounds and getting a lot of them very proficient in the basics but it does not appear to have as much to offer in rigorous college prep. Nor, a lot of signs that it will in the near to medium term.

Anonymous wrote:How travel handicapped are you? To say that the commute from Jefferson is much faster Wilson than it is to Eastern is utterly foolish... Really, what streets are traveling are you going by the way of the stage-coach? You can get to Eastern in about 5-10 minutes in any given time frame from the Jefferson neighborhood community. As for trying to get Wilson in the same amount of time it just impossible. No way, no how?

I just would like to ask the other poster "you're saying that your non AA child based on test scores would be the only child at Eastern doing what?"

The 20% of white students at Wilson are all advanced, is that what I am understanding?

I don't have a dog in this fight, but google maps has me taking 34 min, via metro, to get from Jefferson to WIlson and 28 min to Eastern. And it'd be a reverse commute up to NW whereas the 395 underpasses or M street east to the Hill are pretty congested at rushhour. So, I don't think the original point that neither is very close is unreasonable.

C'mon Word Salad, for someone who works for DCPS and claims to be as much of an insider as you do, you are remarkably poorly informed. For 2013-2014, Wilson was 25% white and 8% Asian with 1696 students. That makes 560 students, of which the overwhelming majority are at or above grade level - and 300-400 of them are advanced. http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/scorecard/Wilson+High+School
Not surprising, because there are over 200 white and Asian kids coming out of eighth grade from Deal each year, the overwhelming majority of whom are advanced or proficient, plus some more kids coming back from private school, plus kids feeding from Hardy, and some who are still there OOB from other wards.

There are not 300-400 advanced kids at Eastern. If the statistics on DCPS's web site are right, there are probably 50, spread out among several grades. We want a larger cohort of academic peers for our kids. And your inability to do basic math or acknowledge factual information does not inspire confidence in Eastern, no matter how vehement your boosterism.

And, frankly, I don't care whether you have confidence in my kid, who reads at a graduate school level and is heading into Algebra II as a 9th grader. When we talked to the folks at Eastern - and we did - they acknowledged that they had neither a language track nor a math track that would meet her needs.

20% of the 1500 in Wilson would be around 300 non AA's and that equates to about 159 to 200 non-AA that are doing well with test scores in a large diverse school with a large AA population. Breaking it down even further that would also say it is about roughly 75 whites per grade level...which is extremely odd because on average overall there's not even 75 eligible non-AA 9th graders per year coming out of DCPS Middle schools. I must say the Montgomery County white residents who are attending are surely making Wilson look appealing. Well, stranger things can happen and again the school that you don't have confidence in just might not have the confidence in you too. Enjoy the summer!!!

Anonymous wrote:How travel handicapped are you? To say that the commute from Jefferson is much faster Wilson than it is to Eastern is utterly foolish... Really, what streets are traveling are you going by the way of the stage-coach? You can get to Eastern in about 5-10 minutes in any given time frame from the Jefferson neighborhood community. As for trying to get Wilson in the same amount of time it just impossible. No way, no how?

I just would like to ask the other poster "you're saying that your non AA child based on test scores would be the only child at Eastern doing what?"

The 20% of white students at Wilson are all advanced, is that what I am understanding?

Here's the thing, the majority of white students at Wilson ARE advanced - 53% in math and 67% in reading. And the overwhelming majority are proficient or advanced - 93% and 96% in math and reading, respectively. Whether our kids are white, brown, green, or blue, we want high-achieving and advanced kids to have a sizeable cohort, in part to ensure that the class work in the higher level AP classes is actually challenging them. When only 6% of the tested grades at Eastern score advanced in math and only 8% score advanced in reading, it is difficult to have that confidence. I think Eastern is doing really well and applaud its efforts, but the numbers don't give me a reason to be confident that the school is equipped to provide a robust and challenging educational experience for advanced kids coming in years above grade level.

Anonymous wrote:Less than 80% advanced/proficient isn't "doing extremely well".

What school has less than 80% doing extremely well, surely you're not talking about Eastern. May one assume your stats are reflecting Wilson because of the bragging that 20% of the population is white; which leaves 80% and I can assume that you would feel that they are NOT doing well. Let's not dwell on such rhetorical matter, you like one over the other. Pick your number and move on. Next.

Less than 80% advanced/proficient isn't "doing extremely well".

Also the notion about many non AAs becoming students at Eastern is highly unlikely because there's not many at the middle-school level. When the school was relaunched and it was brand spanking new and everyone was literally hand-picked. Only the cream-of-the-crop was chosen to be the inaugural class and all the whites were catered and reassured that they would be have all the amenities in a top-notch high school. What did the whites do but turn up their noses because after the first choice of the white principal decided not to come to Eastern and Rhee selected an AA - all bets were off and subsequently Eastern is moving right along successfully I must add.

Gee, you mean to tell me to make Eastern appealing all we need is 20% of non AAs to make Eastern similar to
Wilson? It can't be that easy...I thought all the education specs on discussion was to duplicate Banneker. Just add cream to black coffee... learn something new everyday. #sip.

By the way the Asians and AAs are doing extremely well at Easternand and I wonder why...maybe it is because of what?

How travel handicapped are you? To say that the commute from Jefferson is much faster Wilson than it is to Eastern is utterly foolish... Really, what streets are traveling are you going by the way of the stage-coach? You can get to Eastern in about 5-10 minutes in any given time frame from the Jefferson neighborhood community. As for trying to get Wilson in the same amount of time it just impossible. No way, no how?

I just would like to ask the other poster "you're saying that your non AA child based on test scores would be the only child at Eastern doing what?"

The 20% of white students at Wilson are all advanced, is that what I am understanding?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ yes, but at Wilson, my DC won't be the only non-AA student, nor the only one scoring advanced.

With the boundary chances your DC won't be the only non-AA advanced student at Eastern -- there could be many, especially since Eastern population is small compared to Wilson. Wilson is only 20% White, remember.

This is a very real issue. Until there is a critical mass of white kids, the IB white parents are NOT sending their kids there. It just wont happen. How many white kids have attened Eastern in the last 20 years? none? maybe 5? It doesn't matter if they have the top scores in the City. it won't happen. Same reason white parents don't choose banneker even though its probably more rigorous than Wilson. Less than 5 white kids. This is what parents mean when they talk to each other about "we all just need to stick together through each grade"- they mean a cohort of high SES white kids.