I would put it differently. Should schools seek to provide academic options to serve and challenge each and every one of their students? Yes but as a policy goal that might be unrealistic for the kids on the most extreme ends of the spectrum. In the other hand, does it make sense for a school district to limit its students to doing only grade level work? Absolutely not. “Grade level” is a minimal standard that, at least theoretically, experts in the field have decided should be attained by all students regardless of their academic or professional aspirations or potential. It is a floor and should not be a ceiling. Grade level work might be ok for some kids but is not going to be ok for the future scientists, engineers, doctors, professors, architects, and dare I say lawyers of this world. If public schools cannot also serve these kids it is going to drive more and more of these families to private school, while simultaneously ensuring the ones that remain don’t graduate with the academic preparation to pursue these professions, further dividing the professional class from everyone else and providing fewer opportunities for at risk kids to cross class lines through education. All of this dumbing down and refusal to accelerate UMC kids is done in the name of equity but is a very shortsighted approach, favored by politicians like Bowser of course.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:why is it that if DCPS doesn't offer tracking DCPS is trash?

it’s not “tracking.” it’s offering classes that are at the appropriate level for each student. a school district that forbids schools from teaching students appropriately is not great. not gonna say trash.

+1. If you have an on-grade-level kid (not even advanced, just performing at grade level according to the curriculum standards set by DCPS itself) many of these schools do not offer a course that focuses on grade level instruction. That's a huge issue. In earlier grades, teachers can differentiate to some extent (though this also means kids at or above grade level will need to be somewhat self-directed, so I hope your grade level child doesn't need extra help with staying on task or figuring things out on their own) but by MS, this becomes impractical.

But parents who want to send their kids to a school where their child will receive actual instruction to advance their knowledge past it's current level are selfish and "inequitable". It's that attitude that is being criticized.

Anonymous wrote:why is it that if DCPS doesn't offer tracking DCPS is trash?

it’s not “tracking.” it’s offering classes that are at the appropriate level for each student. a school district that forbids schools from teaching students appropriately is not great. not gonna say trash.

why is it that if DCPS doesn't offer tracking DCPS is trash?

Anonymous wrote:No, you don't want to hear specifics. You want to slam/mock any poster on this thread who wants to push for meaningful change, or believes it could happen.

Back in 2013, the SH principal, Cluster parent leaders and several of the most ed minded city council members put their heads together to ask Mayor Gray's Office to advocate for them with DCPS to create permanent advanced English and math classes at the school.

At the time, there was concern that the new BASIS 5th-12th grade program had started creaming off many in-boundary Hill 4th graders from DCPS.

To everybody's surprise, the initiative worked. The same could happen again to add definite advanced middle school classes in the DCPS Ward 6 programs.

Yet again, you illustrate that you do not understand how DC government works. The idea that you asked Gray's office to advocate for you is funny. You apparently do not know that we have Mayoral control of schools in DC> THEY WORK FOR HIM. The idea that he convinced you he was doing you a favo or on even footing with the Council (who has no control) is illustrative of how little you comprehend.

It is also funny to me that you seem to believe that you know what advanced/honors classes are offered. One of the things that amuses and frustrates me and many others is that it isn't remotely clear what SH actually does and does not offer. There's no public statement or policy position about it. If in fact SH offers honors level (and not "honors for all" - which is garbage) then step one in marketing to Hill families would be to advertise that. DCPS and SH do not, largely because it is not (contrary to what your good buddy Gray did for you) an official policy.

Wtf is right, but that's still the name of the game in the District. The dynamic young pre Covid SH principal tried to introduce advanced (read taught-at-grade level) math and science, but got nowhere and left. The Cluster parent leadership is just fine with how SH works.

Most of the in-boundary SH families we know who didn't crack BASIS, or don't like BASIS, have run off to the practically windowless Latin Cooper building. You won't see them at SH next year for 6th grade.

Anonymous wrote:No, you don't want to hear specifics. You want to slam/mock any poster on this thread who wants to push for meaningful change, or believes it could happen.

Back in 2013, the SH principal, Cluster parent leaders and several of the most ed minded city council members put their heads together to ask Mayor Gray's Office to advocate for them with DCPS to create permanent advanced English and math classes at the school.

At the time, there was concern that the new BASIS 5th-12th grade program had started creaming off many in-boundary Hill 4th graders from DCPS.

To everybody's surprise, the initiative worked. The same could happen again to add definite advanced middle school classes in the DCPS Ward 6 programs.

the fact that you have to lobby the freakin’ mayor to get appropriate level classes in MS is the whole problem. schools should be expected to offer this! seriously wtf.

Anonymous wrote:You aren't wrong. SH has only offered actual honors 7th and 8th grade English post Covid. Admins will tell you that DCPS won't let the school offer honors social studies or science in any grade.

My understanding is that 6th grade "honors for all" English is a direct response to the lack of PARCC testing/the uneven quality of school inputs during the pandemic. (At least one feeder gave very detailed feedback/placement info and one feeder gave absolutely nothing; an ELA placement test is much more intensive to administer than a math test.) I think the plan is to return to normal honors in both English and math starting next year. The lack of honors for social studies and science is 100% DCPS Central; the old SH principal who was fantastic really tried to take them on on that and made no progress.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whatever. As far as I can tell, Allen isn't a realist about the middle school problem on the Hill, or a mover and shaker. He pretends that all's well.

+100. Allen has his good points, but does nothing to solve the MS/HS problem.

He may see the problem as his kids enter into middle school.

Honestly, I think this is the hope and why it does matter if local politicians use the public schools. I don't think Allen is a "mover and a shaker" on these big picture things (although he's great on lower level constituent service issue, including school-related issues), but I also don't think he's a zealot in the mold of Weedon nor do I think he doesn't care. I think if he sends his daughter to SH and it's a complete disaster, that could open his eyes. And he has longer term skin in the game because his younger kid is only in 1st.

No, you don't want to hear specifics. You want to slam/mock any poster on this thread who wants to push for meaningful change, or believes it could happen.

Back in 2013, the SH principal, Cluster parent leaders and several of the most ed minded city council members put their heads together to ask Mayor Gray's Office to advocate for them with DCPS to create permanent advanced English and math classes at the school.

At the time, there was concern that the new BASIS 5th-12th grade program had started creaming off many in-boundary Hill 4th graders from DCPS.

To everybody's surprise, the initiative worked. The same could happen again to add definite advanced middle school classes in the DCPS Ward 6 programs.

Anonymous wrote:If DCPS middle school honors classes were out of the question in Ward 6, why has Stuart Hobson been able to offer them for English and math from 6th-8th grade for more than a decade now? Because the government hasn't noticed?

With a little more political will, particularly a push from Allen, Stuart Hobson, Eliot-Hine and Jefferson Academy could all offer not only advanced English and math, but advanced science and social studies.

Hill parents can contact their ANC reps and Ward 6 to ask for honors classes. Getting up petitions in your elementary school communities wouldn't hurt. Some of us have already taken these simple steps to press for change.

Say more. Don't use platitudes and clichés. Would love to her specifics.

Mnt Pleasant or Shepard Park. Both will feed to Deal and Wilson. Middle school and HS get here faster than you think so if you can set yourself up now, do that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree. There’s a f-Ing guess ton of “I didn’t send my kid there and I want to continue to justify that choice 10 years later.”

I suspect - have fun with this one ladies - 1/3 of users of this site are parents who live WOTP “for the schools,” 1/3 who send their kids WOTP “for the schools” but live EOTP, and 1/4 charter parents who chose “based on their child’s need to be with an academically-minded cohort.”

I think you are underestimating the Russian trolls on DCUM

It blows my mind how Americans have come to attribute every single domestic political problem to the designated foreign bogeyman. Yes, Putin has a special branch of the FSB working on undermining faith in DC public schools and getting EOTP parents to move to the suburbs. Top priority! Russiagate was like the most successful psyop ever.

Deal offers acceleration only in math. The difference is that the “middle” Deal student is going to be stronger than the middle SH, EH, or Jeff student. And just looking at parcc scores from last year you can see there are a lot of kids performing above grade level, which is important for the peer group. So depending on the teacher, more might be offered in Deal’s classes, and at the very least there might be fewer classroom distractions with the at-risk kids being a smaller percentage of the overall student body. Deal also claims to be “IB,” although I’m not sure how or whether that impacts the curriculum. In some ways SH offers more opps for cohorting- math, ELA, and foreign languages (they are required at deal but I believe optional at Hill schools). It would be nice if there were more opps for this at Deal too because there are a lot of amazing teachers who spend too much class time dealing with behavior disruptions instead of teaching (not their fault)

Anonymous wrote:No tracking at Deal other than for math. That's been the policy for more than a decade. It comes from DCPS HQ, not Deal admins.

Which is Ok for Deal because the cohort is strong so every class will be majority on or above grade level. But a deat knell for every other MS and the reason they will never increase their IB percentages.