I agree. The only way to bridge the divide is to provide GT opportunities. That way, there is less of a fear that teaching will be directed solely to those struggling with the curriculum. If families were assured that their high-achieving kids would attention in a school where there was more diversity, they might have better attitudes about diversity.

That said, Brent is a neighborhood school. If it is filled with IB kids, then there really isn't much more to say about it.

+1. Situation could be different with the type of G/T programs NYC has in every borough. My college roommate sends her DC to a highly diverse Brooklyn school with a gifted program. The lower grades aren't more white than the upper grades and high-SES parents don't flee the school, or, as a general rule, for public middle or high school. Not ideal but surely better than what you see at the DCPS schools with the highest test scores, all majority white. The shame belongs to DCPS alone.

Anonymous wrote:Sad, sad, sad. I am a Brent parent very happy that I don't have kids in the lower grades where there is a lack of racial diversity and appears to be assinine parents who think that is the only way to ensure their brilliant kids learn something. Turns my stomach. Shameful.

Sad and shameful is what Brent was when I moved to the Hill a decade ago. Rundown, neglected, a pit of poor leadership and teaching, not serving those paying DC income and property taxes on nearby blocks at all, and not serving its low-income, OOB population well.

I'm a high-SES AA parent with kids in the lower grades. Perhaps I am assinine in doing my best to take good care of my children. What some white parents don't seem to understand is that high-SES AA parents are generally more concerned about the black-white achievement gap than other parents. We can't risk having our kids fall far behind peers in great schools because they sit in class with many poor AA kids who come from homes where little goes right. The gap is simply too big in an increasingly unforgiving US economy.

Brent is the only Hill school I considered for these reasons! If that turns your stomach, you're missing something.

Welcome to the real world.

Sad, sad, sad. I am a Brent parent very happy that I don't have kids in the lower grades where there is a lack of racial diversity and appears to be assinine parents who think that is the only way to ensure their brilliant kids learn something. Turns my stomach. Shameful.

Anonymous wrote:

didn't Brent have 2 section of 4th and only 1 of 5th?

that's how Watkins deals with the 5th grade departures -- goes from 5 sections of 4th grade (~110 students in 2011-12) to 4 sections of 5th grade (96 students in 2012-13, some are new from OOB lottery).

Absolutely right. If there were IB Brent students that were staying through 5th, then of COURSE there would be room for them. It's ridiculous to say that OOB kids are squeezing out IB students. No IB Brent students stay for 5th grade-- because they need to jump to Latin, BASIS, etc. immediately after 4th-- so all of those spaces are just wasted if Brent didn't permit OOB into those spaces.

Anonymous wrote:The leadership at Brent seems pretty comfortable with shutting out of boundary kids out of Brent right now.

If 1/2 the 5th grade class left, why didn't the school open up those 20 slots to students from all over the city?

didn't Brent have 2 section of 4th and only 1 of 5th?

that's how Watkins deals with the 5th grade departures -- goes from 5 sections of 4th grade (~110 students in 2011-12) to 4 sections of 5th grade (96 students in 2012-13, some are new from OOB lottery).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The change in class make up from third to fifth grade is shocking. I haven't seen a break down for 2012, but for 2011, in grade three there were 25 blacks and 13 whites; in grade four 20 blacks and three whites; and in grade five 17 blacks and 0 whites. http://nclb.osse.dc.gov/reportcardbygrade.asp#grade_3

You can try and finesse this however you like, but it is pretty obvious the in-bounds folks are fleeing Brent en masse in the highest grades. I would think that this is not a good thing . .. but I suppose folks on DCUM will disagree.

I'm new to all this. Can anybody offer a coherent explanation for the exodus? Mostly lack of challenge in the upper grades? Preference/wherewithal for private schools? Weak teachers? Prisoners Dilemna (white parents thinking others will bail, so they do, too) or what?

Roughly many white kids dropped out between 2nd and 3rd then? Were these kids in the first group or two of whites starting in preS 3, around 2005 or 2006?

It is mainly about Middle Schooll. Brent feeds into two MS that aren't doing well. People puLl kids at upper grades to get into an ES that feeds into a good MS. Or they pull to go to Charter Schools that start at 5th and are nearly impossible to get in at 6th

Anonymous wrote:Since you aren't interested in being "PC", let's talk in the kind of pragmatic language you appreciate.

If you want Brent to have the money for specials such as art, music, science and those advanced course "G&T-ish" classes, etc., you'd best encourage OOB kids to fill up Brent's underpopulated grades and welcome them, rather than cut them out. Furthermore, every OOB kid that attends Brent for 5th grade is one less kid taking a spot at a school with a better middle school feed.

I'm IB for Ludlow-Taylor with very young children, considering relocating to the Brent District. This argument sounds v. much like the dead-ended "the more the merrier" one used by some LT parents, teachers, and the administrators to avoid cracking down on wide-scale PG County address cheating. And it's the argument often used to keep Stuart-Hobson close to capacity by importing Ward 7 and 8 kids.

What happens is that OOB (and out-of-DC)) poor kids end up crowding out high-SES IB kids. Parents of the latter group are generally unwilling to keep their kids in predominantly low-SES grades. Yes, DCPS forks over money per capita, but low-SES kids are challenging to serve en masse in various ways. They pull down DC-CAS scores, scaring away new high-SES families, their parents tend not to get involved at a school and can't contribute to PTA coffers for funds for "specials." Most problematically, they draw educator attention away from high-performing kids, particularly in the spring, before the DC-CAS is given.

Fine to have some around to provide a dose of real life for affluent kids, and to help as many as you can, but they're a headache when they pack a grade.


i

Anonymous wrote:The change in class make up from third to fifth grade is shocking. I haven't seen a break down for 2012, but for 2011, in grade three there were 25 blacks and 13 whites; in grade four 20 blacks and three whites; and in grade five 17 blacks and 0 whites. http://nclb.osse.dc.gov/reportcardbygrade.asp#grade_3

You can try and finesse this however you like, but it is pretty obvious the in-bounds folks are fleeing Brent en masse in the highest grades. I would think that this is not a good thing . .. but I suppose folks on DCUM will disagree.

I'm new to all this. Can anybody offer a coherent explanation for the exodus? Mostly lack of challenge in the upper grades? Preference/wherewithal for private schools? Weak teachers? Prisoners Dilemna (white parents thinking others will bail, so they do, too) or what?

Roughly many white kids dropped out between 2nd and 3rd then? Were these kids in the first group or two of whites starting in preS 3, around 2005 or 2006?

[quote=Anonymous0
If you want Brent to have the money for specials such as art, music, science and those advanced course "G&T-ish" classes, etc., you'd best encourage OOB kids to fill up Brent's underpopulated grades and welcome them, rather than cut them out. Furthermore, every OOB kid that attends Brent for 5th grade is one less kid taking a spot at a school with a better middle school feed.