Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 19:27     Subject: Re:ludlow-taylor
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:+1.

Give me a break. Having lived in the Brent District for more than a decade, I know how relieved parents tend to be that hard-to-educate OOB kids are mostly gone from our neighborhood school, or going. Why would high-SES parents want dozens of kids from tough neighborhoods at Brent? Those who want this are free to buy homes in Wards 5, 7 and 8, or in nearby Trinidad. Brent parents don't speak in these terms because it's not PC to do so in an urban setting, not because none privately long for the day when most of the low-performing kids are out of the picture.

What parents in increasingly upscale neighborhoods would welcome with open arms are test-in gifted and talented programs in which particularly capable and high-performing low-income kids sit in class alongside run of the mill high-SES kids, as in NYC and other US cities. DCPS won't even consider such programs so here we are, competing to out noble one another on DCUM.


I think you must be representing more of the newer parents at Brent, not the parents who started Brent Neighbors nearly a decade ago. Or maybe your own feelings. My peers and I with older in boundary kids DO NOT share this attitude. No one wants a majority of academically or socially struggling kids to make the class all about remediation--that isn't good for anyone. But the early Brent Neighbor people valued/value a well-rounded and diverse school that represents the city we live in as a whole. That is simply the truth.


Don't make this a race thing when it isn't. Its a socioeconimic thing. Its not about being elite or not or being diverse or not. Its about having your child learn and not be distracted by non-performing kids.
Oh puh-lease! (different poster here) A kid who has trouble reading and is working on it is not a non-performing kid - but you wouldn't want that kid if she comes from a working class or poor family. I really feel sorry for you if that's what you believe.

BTW - My kid was better off at her DCPS when she went to school with a mix of kids. Like the earlier pp said, no, you don't want your kid to be the only higher SES kid but you do want a good mix of kids. Helps children learn to avoid growing up into a snob.


I'll correct myself on what I meant by non-performing. Working on a reading problem is NOT a non-performing child in my mind. A non-performing child is one that is more focused on skipping school, running with gangs, becoming a statistic as a single teen mother, etc, etc etc. See also the original quote of "What parents in increasingly upscale neighborhoods would welcome with open arms are test-in gifted and talented programs in which particularly capable and high-performing low-income kids sit in class alongside run of the mill high-SES kids, as in NYC and other US cities. DCPS won't even consider such programs so here we are, competing to out noble one another on DCUM."
Pp here. Your original quote indicates that you would welcome a "particularly capable and high-performing" low-income kid who would be allowed to study alongside mediocre high SES kids. (Gee, that's so kind of you!)

That's not the kid I'm talking about - and I'm talking about a specific child I know who doesn't skip school, run with gangs, and is not going to become a teen mother (because she's a lesbian). She would not be welcome in your little school no matter how hard she works because she's not high-performing and she's poor. No room for even one of her in your ideal school apparently.

I have contempt for that kind of attitude.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 19:20     Subject: ludlow-taylor
"We put in work. Lots, which only made us feel like we were wasting our time. There were no civil conversations to be had with Cobbs. Try one-way conversations - her talking, or you, never both. Then we left, for Maury, where we have been as happy as clams."

I don't think this is a "sweeping generalization." Clearly the woman (Cobbs) sucks at making people feel heard - and whatever the problems the school may have, this is the FIRST, the very first, and most important thing a principal needs to be good at. Whether she does jack with said info is moot, whether she's already got a program that could work just fine for any child, especially a high-SES one, none of that matters. The subject here is people's children, their OWN children - not the "generalized DCPS child." IF you can't make your IB families feel acknowledged, AND your test scores suck A--, you suck at your job. This doesn't mean she doesn't care abou the kids, or even that she doesn't try - it means it's time to go elsewhere because she's not good at what she should be good at.

If she were educating the kids, it would be easy to say f--- off, but she isn't. She isn't.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 19:05     Subject: ludlow-taylor
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:For everyone complaining about all the things other people are doing wrong or aren't doing, what could you do to make the school a better place? And I don't mean hypothetically if you were the head of DCPS. What could you do right now in your capacity to contribute instead of tearing it down at every turn?


Here goes. LT down above PreK for one school year. Reassign the mainstream IB kids to Payne and JO Wilson, the OOB kids to their IB schools, and the SN kids bused in to the best programs for SN.

...



What about IB SN kids? You're so concerned about IB kids as long as they are high achieving. But, the SN kids? Just bus them elsewhere - out of sight, out of mind. Horrible.


And never mind that Ludlow has a special autism classroom, not something every school has. And that some kids need to be in this classroom even if this means being out of bounds.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 18:11     Subject: ludlow-taylor
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:



What about IB SN kids? You're so concerned about IB kids as long as they are high achieving. But, the SN kids? Just bus them elsewhere - out of sight, out of mind. Horrible.


Oh please. Spare us your bleeding heart. The SN kids hardly benefit from the reign of Cobbs. What's horrible is that a school that could easily be good isn't. There are far better SN programs in DC than Ludlow's. One of my neighbors is passing on preschool at LT because she's sure that her SN kid will be much better off at JO Wilson.



And yet, your whole point is to turn the school around, part of the plan including sending away the SN kids from their supposed-to-be-upward-trajectory IB school. So, um, shove it.

+1
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 18:05     Subject: ludlow-taylor
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:



What about IB SN kids? You're so concerned about IB kids as long as they are high achieving. But, the SN kids? Just bus them elsewhere - out of sight, out of mind. Horrible.


Oh please. Spare us your bleeding heart. The SN kids hardly benefit from the reign of Cobbs. What's horrible is that a school that could easily be good isn't. There are far better SN programs in DC than Ludlow's. One of my neighbors is passing on preschool at LT because she's sure that her SN kid will be much better off at JO Wilson.





And yet, your whole point is to turn the school around, part of the plan including sending away the SN kids from their supposed-to-be-upward-trajectory IB school. So, um, shove it.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 18:03     Subject: ludlow-taylor
Could we stop talking in generalities? If you've done things to improve the school and were met with resistance, could you provide examples? I think that would be a lot more valuable to potential parents and interested parties than broad, sweeping statements.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 17:58     Subject: ludlow-taylor
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:



What about IB SN kids? You're so concerned about IB kids as long as they are high achieving. But, the SN kids? Just bus them elsewhere - out of sight, out of mind. Horrible.


Oh please. Spare us your bleeding heart. The SN kids hardly benefit from the reign of Cobbs. What's horrible is that a school that could easily be good isn't. There are far better SN programs in DC than Ludlow's. One of my neighbors is passing on preschool at LT because she's sure that her SN kid will be much better off at JO Wilson.




Ludlow has some amazing SN teachers. I'm not a Cobbs fan, but I wouldn't be so quick to discredit the whole SN program.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 15:23     Subject: ludlow-taylor
Anonymous wrote:



What about IB SN kids? You're so concerned about IB kids as long as they are high achieving. But, the SN kids? Just bus them elsewhere - out of sight, out of mind. Horrible.


Oh please. Spare us your bleeding heart. The SN kids hardly benefit from the reign of Cobbs. What's horrible is that a school that could easily be good isn't. There are far better SN programs in DC than Ludlow's. One of my neighbors is passing on preschool at LT because she's sure that her SN kid will be much better off at JO Wilson.


Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 15:18     Subject: ludlow-taylor
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
I know some of these families, and you're right. I'm definitely not denying that there have been and are some great families working to make it a better place. And improvement has been more incremental than it should be. But at least all of the families I know work to channel their frustrations into action instead of spitting vitriol on a message board. We can have a civil conversation about how to make the school a better place, but that conversation needs to happen out in the open among people who are willing to put in the work.


We put in work. Lots, which only made us feel like we were wasting our time. There were no civil conversations to be had with Cobbs. Try one-way conversations - her talking, or you, never both. Then we left, for Maury, where we have been as happy as clams.

Some of you are under-estimating what strong leadership and new blood can do to improve a crappy school, at least when the neighborhood demographics have already changed. With a tough, inclusive, sophisticated, neighborhood-minded leader, LT could indeed take off. But turning a school around is no business for wimps and tough decisions would have to made. E.g. Maury's principal going after MD address cheaters with ferocity, trying to get them fined for back tuition, so that the message got through to others. After our first year, at least a dozen hit the road before the fall, when they had reason to believe they'd be found out and penalized.










Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 14:13     Subject: ludlow-taylor
Anonymous wrote:PP, you know some families absolutely tried and tried and tried, and kept their kids in till 1st or 2nd, right? And spent hours with the principal planning, and ran the open houses. And got grants for the school. These are nice, down-to-earth, non-racist, non-arrogant, non-elitist people. I don't know the full scoop. Just that they were there giving it their all, and then they were at other Hill schools.

I'm not saying the school won't turn, but it's tough.


I know some of these families, and you're right. I'm definitely not denying that there have been and are some great families working to make it a better place. And improvement has been more incremental than it should be. But at least all of the families I know work to channel their frustrations into action instead of spitting vitriol on a message board. We can have a civil conversation about how to make the school a better place, but that conversation needs to happen out in the open among people who are willing to put in the work.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 14:10     Subject: ludlow-taylor
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:For everyone complaining about all the things other people are doing wrong or aren't doing, what could you do to make the school a better place? And I don't mean hypothetically if you were the head of DCPS. What could you do right now in your capacity to contribute instead of tearing it down at every turn?


Here goes. LT down above PreK for one school year. Reassign the mainstream IB kids to Payne and JO Wilson, the OOB kids to their IB schools, and the SN kids bused in to the best programs for SN.

...



What about IB SN kids? You're so concerned about IB kids as long as they are high achieving. But, the SN kids? Just bus them elsewhere - out of sight, out of mind. Horrible.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 14:08     Subject: ludlow-taylor
PP, you know some families absolutely tried and tried and tried, and kept their kids in till 1st or 2nd, right? And spent hours with the principal planning, and ran the open houses. And got grants for the school. These are nice, down-to-earth, non-racist, non-arrogant, non-elitist people. I don't know the full scoop. Just that they were there giving it their all, and then they were at other Hill schools.

I'm not saying the school won't turn, but it's tough.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 14:05     Subject: ludlow-taylor
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:For everyone complaining about all the things other people are doing wrong or aren't doing, what could you do to make the school a better place? And I don't mean hypothetically if you were the head of DCPS. What could you do right now in your capacity to contribute instead of tearing it down at every turn?


Here goes. LT down above PreK for one school year. Reassign the mainstream IB kids to Payne and JO Wilson, the OOB kids to their IB schools, and the SN kids bused in to the best programs for SN.

Re-open with a new head (a graduate of an elite college and graduate school), mostly new teachers (mix of races, white, Asian, Latino), new PTA with bona fide IB leadership. Have IB parent volunteers do home visits/investigations for all IB kids enrolling, shutting down the PG County address cheaters.

I'd go with pullout groups for advanced learners from grade 2, advertising this to the IB community in advance. I'd also put in place a system for looping up for math and reading in the upper grades, like Brent now has, from the get go.

I'd introduce a serious (non-immersion, non-elective) foreign language program from PreS3, probably for Spanish, as well as Singapore Math (which Maury uses) or Saxon Math (which BASIS uses). Above all, I would end social promotion. Kids who can't score proficient on the DC-CAS from 2nd grade attend summer school and try again. If they fail a second time, they do not advance. They repeat the grade or enter a separate SN program.

Do it and watch LT take off.



You missed the point of the question. "And I don't mean hypothetically if you were the head of DCPS. What could you do right now in your capacity to contribute instead of tearing it down at every turn?" Anyone can backseat drive DCPS. What can you actually do? How can you help? What time or resources could you contribute in your current capacity? Try getting out and actually doing something good instead of telling everyone else what should be done.

And yes, I know sometimes attempts to help don't work out the way you want. But you have to ask yourself if you want to be the kind of person that cuts and runs at that point or if you want to keep trying.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 13:02     Subject: ludlow-taylor
I agree. Use your intelligence and riches to get some CLASS.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2013 13:00     Subject: ludlow-taylor
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
The problem is bad mouthing? I assure you that we aren't leaving because of bad mouthing. We're going because we don't want our kid, who travels to Europe a couple times a year to visit relatives, speaks a European language, lives in a 800K house, plays Suzuki violin like a champ and has her own Mac, to stick out like a sore thumb after K.

Principal Cobbs may have a respectable degree, but she's no fan of well-educated IB parents. Let's modify the job ad, shall we?

Gentrification-friendly principal sought for Ludlow-Taylor school. Needs degree from an elite college or graduate school program. Must be willing to crack down on cheating on standardized tests and local addresses, and eager to work with a diverse group of in-boundary parents to build a true neighborhood school in record time.





Good luck with that.


Did you really just say that? I feel bad for your child for having a parent who is an elitist ass. What an obnoxious thing to say. You are gross.


+1 on the ick. who are you impressing?