Anonymous wrote:

OK, PP. What do you think would happen if 200 IB kids left Deal at the end of the year? Would the principal make those spots available in the OOB lottery?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Incidentally, the fact that Deal is only 21% FARMs is probably no accident:

The U.S. Department of Education has assessed the effect of poverty concentration on
both poor and non-poor students alike. See, e.g., Poverty, Achievement and Distribution.
In schools with less than 7% poverty, 27.6% of poor students and 11% of non-poor
students achieved below the national average. But when school poverty levels increase to
greater than 24%, then 56% of poor students and 36.9% of non-poor students fell below
the national average. Although the primary conclusion is that both groups suffered
dramatically, it is noteworthy that concentrated poverty had a greater relative impact on
non-poor students. Id. at 21.7

http://www.prrac.org/pdf/annotated_bibliography_on_school_poverty_concentration.pdf

No, not an accident but not by design, either. More IB families send their kids to Deal. It's that simple.

I think it might be by design, PP. The principal gets to decide how many OOB spots are available in the lottery. If, say, 80% of OOB kids who lottery in are FARMs, then a wise principal would make no more than 30% of the seats available in the OOB lottery.

If 200 IB kids left Deal at the end of the year, I highly doubt that those spots would become available in the OOB lottery. The school would simply contract.

Deal hasn't accepted kids from the lottery in at least five years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Incidentally, the fact that Deal is only 21% FARMs is probably no accident:

The U.S. Department of Education has assessed the effect of poverty concentration on
both poor and non-poor students alike. See, e.g., Poverty, Achievement and Distribution.
In schools with less than 7% poverty, 27.6% of poor students and 11% of non-poor
students achieved below the national average. But when school poverty levels increase to
greater than 24%, then 56% of poor students and 36.9% of non-poor students fell below
the national average. Although the primary conclusion is that both groups suffered
dramatically, it is noteworthy that concentrated poverty had a greater relative impact on
non-poor students. Id. at 21.7

http://www.prrac.org/pdf/annotated_bibliography_on_school_poverty_concentration.pdf

No, not an accident but not by design, either. More IB families send their kids to Deal. It's that simple.

I think it might be by design, PP. The principal gets to decide how many OOB spots are available in the lottery. If, say, 80% of OOB kids who lottery in are FARMs, then a wise principal would make no more than 30% of the seats available in the OOB lottery.

If 200 IB kids left Deal at the end of the year, I highly doubt that those spots would become available in the OOB lottery. The school would simply contract.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, it's always about class and socio-economics. White folks are fine sending their kids to schools with majority Black and Hispanic students as long as those students come from middle class homes. No one want to have too many "poors" at their school. This is not rocket science.

Absolutely correct. Diagnosing the problem is not hard. Fixing it is - unless you think the solution is to ban poor kids from attending Hardy.

Fixing it is easy: the parent cohorts at each feeder school need to agree among themselves to send their kids to Hardy. Voila. Test scores go up immediately. Advanced course participation rises immediately. Problem solved.

Good luck. I've experienced this. What will happen is that this group of parents will all look each other right in the eye, promise they are going to Hardy, then run off and secretly apply to privates and charters and buy houses in the suburbs or in the Deal district. A couple of parents who are saps will be left holding the bag.

Exactly. That fix won't work.

The fix that will work is to cut enrollment until about 70 to 80% of the seats are filled by IB families who want to to enroll in the 6th grade TODAY. Then, for every 7 or 8 more IB kids who enroll, admit another 2 or 3 OOB kids.

It's foolish to set enrollment at 300 kids and expect a grassroots campaign among IB families to bring IB enrollment to 70 to 80%.

Good plan. But it would mean pretty significant budget cuts for Hardy - cutting the 6th grade class size by 50 kids - from 150 to 100 - would mean DCPS budget cuts of about $500,000 - forcing cuts in teachers and curriculum, which of course, would only scare IB parents away. Do you think that some private funder or group of Ward 3 parents could raise that $500,000 privately and apply it to the school?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Incidentally, the fact that Deal is only 21% FARMs is probably no accident:

The U.S. Department of Education has assessed the effect of poverty concentration on
both poor and non-poor students alike. See, e.g., Poverty, Achievement and Distribution.
In schools with less than 7% poverty, 27.6% of poor students and 11% of non-poor
students achieved below the national average. But when school poverty levels increase to
greater than 24%, then 56% of poor students and 36.9% of non-poor students fell below
the national average. Although the primary conclusion is that both groups suffered
dramatically, it is noteworthy that concentrated poverty had a greater relative impact on
non-poor students. Id. at 21.7

http://www.prrac.org/pdf/annotated_bibliography_on_school_poverty_concentration.pdf

No, not an accident but not by design, either. More IB families send their kids to Deal. It's that simple.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, it's always about class and socio-economics. White folks are fine sending their kids to schools with majority Black and Hispanic students as long as those students come from middle class homes. No one want to have too many "poors" at their school. This is not rocket science.

Absolutely correct. Diagnosing the problem is not hard. Fixing it is - unless you think the solution is to ban poor kids from attending Hardy.

Fixing it is easy: the parent cohorts at each feeder school need to agree among themselves to send their kids to Hardy. Voila. Test scores go up immediately. Advanced course participation rises immediately. Problem solved.

Good luck. I've experienced this. What will happen is that this group of parents will all look each other right in the eye, promise they are going to Hardy, then run off and secretly apply to privates and charters and buy houses in the suburbs or in the Deal district. A couple of parents who are saps will be left holding the bag.

Exactly. That fix won't work.

The fix that will work is to cut enrollment until about 70 to 80% of the seats are filled by IB families who want to to enroll in the 6th grade TODAY. Then, for every 7 or 8 more IB kids who enroll, admit another 2 or 3 OOB kids.

It's foolish to set enrollment at 300 kids and expect a grassroots campaign among IB families to bring IB enrollment to 70 to 80%.

Anonymous wrote:Incidentally, the fact that Deal is only 21% FARMs is probably no accident:

The U.S. Department of Education has assessed the effect of poverty concentration on
both poor and non-poor students alike. See, e.g., Poverty, Achievement and Distribution.
In schools with less than 7% poverty, 27.6% of poor students and 11% of non-poor
students achieved below the national average. But when school poverty levels increase to
greater than 24%, then 56% of poor students and 36.9% of non-poor students fell below
the national average. Although the primary conclusion is that both groups suffered
dramatically, it is noteworthy that concentrated poverty had a greater relative impact on
non-poor students. Id. at 21.7

http://www.prrac.org/pdf/annotated_bibliography_on_school_poverty_concentration.pdf

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, it's always about class and socio-economics. White folks are fine sending their kids to schools with majority Black and Hispanic students as long as those students come from middle class homes. No one want to have too many "poors" at their school. This is not rocket science.

Absolutely correct. Diagnosing the problem is not hard. Fixing it is - unless you think the solution is to ban poor kids from attending Hardy.

Fixing it is easy: the parent cohorts at each feeder school need to agree among themselves to send their kids to Hardy. Voila. Test scores go up immediately. Advanced course participation rises immediately. Problem solved.

Good luck. I've experienced this. What will happen is that this group of parents will all look each other right in the eye, promise they are going to Hardy, then run off and secretly apply to privates and charters and buy houses in the suburbs or in the Deal district. A couple of parents who are saps will be left holding the bag.

Exactly. That fix won't work.

The fix that will work is to cut enrollment until about 70 to 80% of the seats are filled by IB families who want to to enroll in the 6th grade TODAY. Then, for every 7 or 8 more IB kids who enroll, admit another 2 or 3 OOB kids.

It's foolish to set enrollment at 300 kids and expect a grassroots campaign among IB families to bring IB enrollment to 70 to 80%.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, it's always about class and socio-economics. White folks are fine sending their kids to schools with majority Black and Hispanic students as long as those students come from middle class homes. No one want to have too many "poors" at their school. This is not rocket science.

Absolutely correct. Diagnosing the problem is not hard. Fixing it is - unless you think the solution is to ban poor kids from attending Hardy.

Fixing it is easy: the parent cohorts at each feeder school need to agree among themselves to send their kids to Hardy. Voila. Test scores go up immediately. Advanced course participation rises immediately. Problem solved.

Good luck. I've experienced this. What will happen is that this group of parents will all look each other right in the eye, promise they are going to Hardy, then run off and secretly apply to privates and charters and buy houses in the suburbs or in the Deal district. A couple of parents who are saps will be left holding the bag.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, it's always about class and socio-economics. White folks are fine sending their kids to schools with majority Black and Hispanic students as long as those students come from middle class homes. No one want to have too many "poors" at their school. This is not rocket science.

Absolutely correct. Diagnosing the problem is not hard. Fixing it is - unless you think the solution is to ban poor kids from attending Hardy.

Fixing it is easy: the parent cohorts at each feeder school need to agree among themselves to send their kids to Hardy. Voila. Test scores go up immediately. Advanced course participation rises immediately. Problem solved.

Good luck. I've experienced this. What will happen is that this group of parents will all look each other right in the eye, promise they are going to Hardy, then run off and secretly apply to privates and charters and buy houses in the suburbs or in the Deal district. A couple of parents who are saps will be left holding the bag.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, it's always about class and socio-economics. White folks are fine sending their kids to schools with majority Black and Hispanic students as long as those students come from middle class homes. No one want to have too many "poors" at their school. This is not rocket science.

Absolutely correct. Diagnosing the problem is not hard. Fixing it is - unless you think the solution is to ban poor kids from attending Hardy.

Fixing it is easy: the parent cohorts at each feeder school need to agree among themselves to send their kids to Hardy. Voila. Test scores go up immediately. Advanced course participation rises immediately. Problem solved.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, it's always about class and socio-economics. White folks are fine sending their kids to schools with majority Black and Hispanic students as long as those students come from middle class homes. No one want to have too many "poors" at their school. This is not rocket science.

Absolutely correct. Diagnosing the problem is not hard. Fixing it is - unless you think the solution is to ban poor kids from attending Hardy.

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, it's always about class and socio-economics. White folks are fine sending their kids to schools with majority Black and Hispanic students as long as those students come from middle class homes. No one want to have too many "poors" at their school. This is not rocket science.

Anonymous wrote:
NP, with no kids at Hardy, pointing out that the primary reason Deal has so much is that their enrollment is so high - almost 3x that of Hardy. More students means funds for all the extras you're seeking. Right now, Hardy enrollment is around 400, but capacity is 650. If all the IB families decided next year that they were going to Hardy, there still wouldn't be enough to bring all that Deal has.

Those families are more likely to get what they want by attending than standing off to the side griping. Parents who want more challenging coursework won't get it from the outside. BUT, because of Hardy's capacity and the low demand for public schooling in that part of town, OOB numbers are not likely to change much. It seems the real issue is that IB families don't like the racial make-up of the school.

Which is a really weird dilemma considering diversity in middle school grades at charters. Nobody seems to have a problem with the number of non-white students at Basis.