Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is the entire city paying for Duke Ellington if we can't use it. Don't tell me Fillmore has better resources than Ellington does. Not for that outrageous $150 - $200 Million dollar facility.

Clearly you should google the Duke Ellington issue/project. That thing is the Taj Mahal of arts instruction in public grade school, nothing in the entire WORLD will match it. Little old Fillmore, in comparison, is nothing special at all, considering the baseline experience that DCPS says it expects its students to have.

Maybe they should bus all schools with poor art alternatives to Ellington.

Maybe that's a good idea, however it seems like the Fillmore schools would make a good pilot project.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is the entire city paying for Duke Ellington if we can't use it. Don't tell me Fillmore has better resources than Ellington does. Not for that outrageous $150 - $200 Million dollar facility.

Clearly you should google the Duke Ellington issue/project. That thing is the Taj Mahal of arts instruction in public grade school, nothing in the entire WORLD will match it. Little old Fillmore, in comparison, is nothing special at all, considering the baseline experience that DCPS says it expects its students to have.

Maybe they should bus all schools with poor art alternatives to Ellington.

Design a program for HS students at Ellington to demonstrate at local schools (except for Marie Reed, all the Fillmore schools are very local to Ellington). Let it be overseen by Ellington faculty - then students can get legitimate community service.

If we are going to live with this Taj Mahal of Art Schools in DC, then let's use it for the community.

Anonymous wrote:Why is the entire city paying for Duke Ellington if we can't use it. Don't tell me Fillmore has better resources than Ellington does. Not for that outrageous $150 - $200 Million dollar facility.

Clearly you should google the Duke Ellington issue/project. That thing is the Taj Mahal of arts instruction in public grade school, nothing in the entire WORLD will match it. Little old Fillmore, in comparison, is nothing special at all, considering the baseline experience that DCPS says it expects its students to have.

Why is the entire city paying for Duke Ellington if we can't use it. Don't tell me Fillmore has better resources than Ellington does. Not for that outrageous $150 - $200 Million dollar facility.

Anonymous wrote:PP, you sound crazy.

For PK-5 you don't need specialized classrooms or equipment. Just like you don't need science labs and graphing calculators. The beauty of this age is their creativity in ALL subject and the ability to have art in a science project or math in an art project.

???

Clearly the goal under this level of analysis is NOT to compete with first-world economies. Aim low, I get it.

I don't believe it's cheaper to maintain a whole building for art and bus kids to it than it is to have art in schools.

I mean, it's expensive to serve food all over the district but we don't have centralized school cafeterias.

PP, you sound crazy.

For PK-5 you don't need specialized classrooms or equipment. Just like you don't need science labs and graphing calculators. The beauty of this age is their creativity in ALL subject and the ability to have art in a science project or math in an art project.

You could also look at Fillmore as an example of how DCPS really SHOULD consider running arts education, by combining resources to create higher quality learning, rather than duplicating arts and music at each individual school. For arts and music especially, you need specially designed classrooms and expensive tools to provide the real experience. It's simply cheaper and more practical to do that with resources in a central place (or places, if Fillmore were to be duplicated across the city) than in every single school. DCPS seems to be bull-headed in not recognizing something that should be obvious.

You could make a similar argument for STEM courses also, and of course you see that with Mckinley Tech and other specialized high schools. But because it doesn't make sense to have a specialized arts school for elementary school kids, the "Fillmore Model" arguably is a perfect fit for grades PK-5.

Anonymous wrote:PP high and mighty stuff. As if doing away with something excellent short term (Fillmore) will bring about great quality and equity for all immediately and long term (not). Does the money come from your pocket? Are you a parent? Quality teaching any subject is a crap shoot. Fillmore is a sure thing in terms of arts education and should remain until proven formulas exceed that experience. DCPS has NONE- only empty words about art and PEnfornall (though not really).

Considering the vast amounts of money being spent at Duke Ellington, isn't there a way to allow other schools to benefit from the bounty of the DC taxpayers and expertise and specialized facilities at Ellington?

PP high and mighty stuff. As if doing away with something excellent short term (Fillmore) will bring about great quality and equity for all immediately and long term (not). Does the money come from your pocket? Are you a parent? Quality teaching any subject is a crap shoot. Fillmore is a sure thing in terms of arts education and should remain until proven formulas exceed that experience. DCPS has NONE- only empty words about art and PEnfornall (though not really).

Whether the current Fillmore feeder schools are overcrowded or not has nothing to do with the issue of continuing Fillmore.

History aside, we have to look at today's and tomorrow's student needs. Allowing Fillmore to operate as it is with DCPS funding means subsidizing supposedly superior arts education for particular schools based on history.

Fillmore is co-located at Hardy whose feeder schools are Eaton, Hyde-Addison, Key, Mann, and Stoddert. The principals of Hardy feeder schools need to figure out if Fillmore is viable within their per-pupil budgets. If not, the PTAs of the feeders need to supplement. Just like every other public and charter school in DC.

(Personally, as a tax payer and DCPS parent who is not at a Hardy feeder, I'm more than happy to fund school budgets that ensure all kids get equal access to great education near where they live.)

However, Ross and Reed should not need Fillmore at Hardy anymore. Reed will have plenty of arts space and Ross can easily access arts spaces and programs that would not need cross-town busing at Reed, Garrison, or SWWFS. Ross and Reed students deserve excellent arts-integration education like all kids. Their per-pupil funding for disruptive transportation shouldn't have to subsidize the kids at schools less than a mile away.

Whatever parents think of Fillmore is irrelevant. All students should get excellent education opportunities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How long will these schools continue to accept OOB students, take the money, and cry about "lack of space"?

NP: Would you listen?! These schools are overcrowded because "Downtown" told them they have to take more kids. DCPS wants OOB kids to be anle to go to the good NW schools even though there is no space. As mentioned already, these schools have done things like make offices out of partial stairwell landings. It's absurd and uncomfortable. But the schools have been coerced.

We don't believe this.

This definitely has happened at Murch

This happens at Key. there is no capacity in the footprint of the school location to add ANOTHER trailer - there are already two. The school has special ed in a broom closet. The school enrollment has doubled in the past 15 years - no exaggeration. And they still were told by DCPS to open up OOB spaces in K-2 b/c they want to have the % available at any WOTP schools that they can - and also the school gets attrition in the upper grades but are overloaded in the lower grades. It is not about the budget (if you've ever been to the auction or seen the PTA dues -- it's already heavily supplemented...) So, these kids should not have an arts program? Or have a substandard arts program? And continue to keep the 5ths in the trailers...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How long will these schools continue to accept OOB students, take the money, and cry about "lack of space"?

NP: Would you listen?! These schools are overcrowded because "Downtown" told them they have to take more kids. DCPS wants OOB kids to be anle to go to the good NW schools even though there is no space. As mentioned already, these schools have done things like make offices out of partial stairwell landings. It's absurd and uncomfortable. But the schools have been coerced.

We don't believe this.

This definitely has happened at Murch

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How long will these schools continue to accept OOB students, take the money, and cry about "lack of space"?

NP: Would you listen?! These schools are overcrowded because "Downtown" told them they have to take more kids. DCPS wants OOB kids to be anle to go to the good NW schools even though there is no space. As mentioned already, these schools have done things like make offices out of partial stairwell landings. It's absurd and uncomfortable. But the schools have been coerced.

We don't believe this.