Anonymous wrote:Watch our for McKinley Tech. Simply pout, the school works off an affirmative action-based admissions model, where 3s are acceptable scores on AP exams when applying to elite colleges. This may be true for low SES minorities, but it's not the case for UMC white and Asian students and probably not the case for high SES minorities either.

Do you mean this literally? (Crazy me, I would be thrilled if my white UMC kid got a 3 on some AP exams! It means qualified for college credit, according to the College Board.)

Or are you just using an inelegant metaphor to say that admission standards are low and suggesting that they have been set to make the school accessible to low SES children of color who have had uneven or worse educational experience prior to high school? And that therefore the curriculum won’t prepare more advantaged students for success at a competitive college?

If it’s the latter, I’m not going to argue your point, which may well be valid, I don’t know the school. But I do wonder about your communications skills. What was your AP English score? Mine was a 3 and I think I’m a pretty competent writer.

Anonymous wrote:I apologize. A fellow parent told me that one of her kids got into BASIS, and now that you mention it, I realize that I don't know which kid of hers it was, nor this kid's age. I mistakenly lumped it with the parent/student reports about high school admissions.

Start Hobson is risky. McKinley Tech is nuts.

Watch our for McKinley Tech. Simply pout, the school works off an affirmative action-based admissions model, where 3s are acceptable scores on AP exams when applying to elite colleges. This may be true for low SES minorities, but it's not the case for UMC white and Asian students and probably not the case for high SES minorities either.

I apologize. A fellow parent told me that one of her kids got into BASIS, and now that you mention it, I realize that I don't know which kid of hers it was, nor this kid's age. I mistakenly lumped it with the parent/student reports about high school admissions.

Nobody got into BASIS DC after 6th grade. Nobody is admitted after 6th for any reason.

Our son is a STEM guy with dyslexia, and so is going to McKinley Tech.

His weak writing skills would have kept him out of SWS & Banneker no matter where he went to middle school. (Although he probably would had a good chance of getting into SWS back when they used to admit based on the math test alone!)

But many of the other top students got into SWW or Banneker, or in a few cases, private or BASIS. Which is particularly impressive this year, given the unusually high spike in applications/competition this year.

We were initially wary of applying to McKinley Tech as we had heard not-so-great things about the students there. But the math education expert who recommended it for our son explained that it is the middle school that earns it that reputation. He raved about their science and engineering courses/teachers, whom he claimed were among the best in the city across both private and public. (Our son is interested in engineering.) It has an honors math track, an entire engineering dept, and an internship program with extensive connections with local STEM firms.

In other words, it's the same situation as with SH:

1. SURE there are plenty of kids with weaker test scores & skills who don't get into more competitive schools. But those school averages are not a reliable indicator of the quality of education my son will receive. I look for excellent curriculum (Yes, I checked out SH's Algebra curriculum before enrolling him!). I look for excellent teachers, who know how to differentiate: my son needs instruction that meets his needs on BOTH ends, in science/math vs. English/writing. One indicator of this is their students' GROWTH rates on standardized assessments from BOY to EOY.
...In the end, it will be my individual son's skills, knowledge, and test scores that will determine his fate in college admissions, not the school-wide average test scores.

2. This is the main reason why controlled data/studies show that students from White and/or high-income families essentially have the same test scores, regardless of whether they go to a school that is majority Black/White/high/low-income.

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/19/446085513/the-evidence-that-white-children-benefit-from-integrated-schools?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR3u_UEUXa558rG1PjaMj38US_GsHDuOsPTH5zOMkntPzyow_VdcY820I2A

3. Any negligible difference in the quality of academic education is more than compensated by the huge increase in the quality of the socioemotional education and "cultural capital" that the experience will informally provide. These will greatly benefit my son both personally and professionally. (But I'll also try to figure out a way to leverage them in the college admissions process LOL)

Anonymous wrote:I know I'm many years late to this party, but I am so pleased with my son's one year (8th grade) experience at Stuart-Hobson, that I just had to share.

We are out of bounds and switched from a charter school when he was offered a seat off of the MySchools waitlist at the beginning of the year.

The 8th grade Algebra and science teachers are PHENOMENAL. My son's MAP scores in math jumped from 81st percentile end of 7th grade to 91st percentile (Algebra) end of 8th. His MAP scores in science jumped from 89th percentile to 98th percentile over the same year. And my son wasn't the only one to experience this much growth in MAP scores: MANY of these two teacher's students did.

He is dyslexic so he is not a high achiever in English & History, but I was super impressed with the gains he made in writing and historical analysis.

With respect to fights/bullying: I can't personally vouch for it as my son wasn't there last year, but what I heard is that at the end of 2021-22 they got rid of about 10 kids who were responsible for most of the fighting/bullying--either directly or by encouraging it. According to several teachers, this made a HUGE difference this year.

This year (2022-23) there were a few fights... but according to my son, they all involved the same girl, who is a 8th grader (and thus won't be there next year).

I went into the year cautious and optimistic. But SH ended up exceeding my expectations. I am SO pleased. ...so much so that I just had to come back here and encourage others to consider it!

We'll be there next year as well. I guess, as most parents sending their kids to SH, we are a bit worried about what happens afterwards. How did your son fair?

Anonymous wrote:I know I'm many years late to this party, but I am so pleased with my son's one year (8th grade) experience at Stuart-Hobson, that I just had to share.

We are out of bounds and switched from a charter school when he was offered a seat off of the MySchools waitlist at the beginning of the year.

The 8th grade Algebra and science teachers are PHENOMENAL. My son's MAP scores in math jumped from 81st percentile end of 7th grade to 91st percentile (Algebra) end of 8th. His MAP scores in science jumped from 89th percentile to 98th percentile over the same year. And my son wasn't the only one to experience this much growth in MAP scores: MANY of these two teacher's students did.

He is dyslexic so he is not a high achiever in English & History, but I was super impressed with the gains he made in writing and historical analysis.

With respect to fights/bullying: I can't personally vouch for it as my son wasn't there last year, but what I heard is that at the end of 2021-22 they got rid of about 10 kids who were responsible for most of the fighting/bullying--either directly or by encouraging it. According to several teachers, this made a HUGE difference this year.

This year (2022-23) there were a few fights... but according to my son, they all involved the same girl, who is a 8th grader (and thus won't be there next year).

I went into the year cautious and optimistic. But SH ended up exceeding my expectations. I am SO pleased. ...so much so that I just had to come back here and encourage others to consider it!

This is great to hear! We are at an elementary school that we really like but in-bounds for Cardozo, and are hoping there might be room at SH. typical UMC Shaw gentrifier family, and SH seems great to me.

Baseball team was competitive this year.

I know I'm many years late to this party, but I am so pleased with my son's one year (8th grade) experience at Stuart-Hobson, that I just had to share.

We are out of bounds and switched from a charter school when he was offered a seat off of the MySchools waitlist at the beginning of the year.

The 8th grade Algebra and science teachers are PHENOMENAL. My son's MAP scores in math jumped from 81st percentile end of 7th grade to 91st percentile (Algebra) end of 8th. His MAP scores in science jumped from 89th percentile to 98th percentile over the same year. And my son wasn't the only one to experience this much growth in MAP scores: MANY of these two teacher's students did.

He is dyslexic so he is not a high achiever in English & History, but I was super impressed with the gains he made in writing and historical analysis.

With respect to fights/bullying: I can't personally vouch for it as my son wasn't there last year, but what I heard is that at the end of 2021-22 they got rid of about 10 kids who were responsible for most of the fighting/bullying--either directly or by encouraging it. According to several teachers, this made a HUGE difference this year.

This year (2022-23) there were a few fights... but according to my son, they all involved the same girl, who is a 8th grader (and thus won't be there next year).

I went into the year cautious and optimistic. But SH ended up exceeding my expectations. I am SO pleased. ...so much so that I just had to come back here and encourage others to consider it!

I didn't get to attend a test in middle school so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

But I can tell you that too many of our in-boundary Hobson friends tried the school and bailed after one or two yrs.

They complained that their kids weren't really challenged and discipline wasn't very good. IT doesn't seem to matter who the principal is over there. Same old.

NP. I also graduated from Boston Latin. My family was working class and biracial. I prepped for BL exam at a free city prep center in 6th grade. There's a place for what Massachusetts calls "exam schools" in our society. If you disagree, fine, but no need to be so disagreeable about it.

IMHO, what DCPS and DCPCS offer is worse than what Boston and other US cities with test-in MS programs offer. DC offers mediocrity, driving many middle-class cities from the city after elementary school. Alternatively, many DC parents who stay in DCPS or DCPC supplement a lot to top up middle school academics, often pretending that they don't.

I can't count the number of rising Capitol Hill 5th grade families we know whose children didn't crack BASIS or Washington Latin, or even DCI, Stuart Hobson or Hardy, this year. These kids attended SWS, Ludlow, Tyler Spanish Immersion Watkins, Maury or Brent. Their parents aren't convinced that their children will be sufficiently challenged, or happy, at SH, Eliot Hine, Jefferson Academy or McFarland immersion, so they're staying where they are for 5th grade. Next year, most of the kids won't go on to their by-right middle schools. These families will mostly leave the City, or go private. It's a bad system. Many kids who aren't cut out for BASIS go and drop out eventually, while many kids who are perfect for BASIS can't go, motivating parents to move to better school districts or independent schools.

Give me Boston, where bright 6th graders study like mad to pass the entrance test to the city's several middle school "exam schools" any day. At least there's real rigor in the mix in middle school for kids who can handle it, and middle-class families happily stay in the city if the kids pass the test, without having to supplement. At BASIS, most MS kids leave before HS. At BL, hardly any do.

Anonymous wrote:Don't take the bait. Your critics lack the backstory to comprehend the role of Boston Latin, Hunter College HS etc. in changing lives.

And you lack the situational awareness to know or see that the Boston Latin model has been under pressure for years because of the system it perpetuates.

Don't take the bait. Your critics lack the backstory to comprehend the role of Boston Latin, Hunter College HS etc. in changing lives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Until parents organize to vote out city council members and DC mayors who could care less if by-right middle and high schools mostly serve neighborhood families, nothing will change much.

Covid will only make the process harder.

Your words make no sense (except to vent on DCUM). The idea of by-right schools (read: inbound preference) is to give parents the opportunity to choose that school. All of those OOB kids are there precisely because IB kids aren't; it is necessarily a zero sum game. There's also an equity problem of tracking kids too early and deploying resources disproportionately to high performers. Should advanced classes have a 14:1 ratio while regular classes are at 35:1? How early is too early to decide a kid is "advanced" vs had a two parent household of graduate and post-graduate educated parents, books, food stable, etc.? If a kid had no advantages should we warehouse them in 7th grade? 6th? 10th?

These are really hard questions and issues. The answers aren't easy and every action has an impact elsewhere. I'm white and rich. I grew up white and rich wanting for nothing. My kids have had every possible advantage. Part of me wanted them in honors classes and doing advanced work in 2nd grade. Part of me doesn't' want them in a classroom with disruptive kids or anyone not at their grade level. But then I remember that I live in DC and send my kids to school here in order for them to have a diverse education and experiences and to interact with people not like them. So I struggle with all of this.

"We should vote them all out" doesn't actually make any sense in this context.

I struggle with nothing and I'm not white. Good schools first, diversity second.

Shocker! Absolute certainty is clearly a sign of a genius at work.

Also, we had for decades in this country and is got us huge education, wage and achievement gap. Some people were OK with that. Some not so much. I guess I know where you come out on that. You're ok if 99% of advanced classes and test-in schools are UMC and white. I'm not.

If you didn't grow up poor and minority, pipe down hon.

Well argued! We can see the Ivy degree coming through.