Cool numbers (seriously, thanks for the data) but ultimately signifying nothing. The funding appears to be almost linearly tied to the proportion of students at risk. So, Hardy receives more per pupil than Deal because it has a student population needing extra remediation, but less than every other MS because it has a student population less in need of extra remediation.

If you plotted these per pupil expenditures amounts on a map, I suspect you'd see a decreasing trend from SE to NW. The further north and west the school is located, the less per pupil funding it receives.

Anonymous wrote:
Sigh....just giving this quote from the previous thread a bump.

To pp: you are an idiot. DCPS is putting tons of resources into Hardy - the problem is that everybody seems more interested in complaining and whining about how many IB students are attending than in observing the actual facts of what is happening at Hardy.


"DCPS has put tons of new resources into Hardy. They added the gifted and talented program plus more honors courses and extra differentiation.

But nobody seems to care about this actual fact; instead we get 50+ pages boiling down to "Yeah, but how many white kids go there?"

It's an urban myth that DCPS has been pouring resources into Hardy. Hardy's per-pupil is $9253 for FY14, which is the third lowest of any middle school in the system. The DCPS average for middle school is $10,733 and it ranges as high as $14,108.

Hardy has been adding programs, but they are unfunded mandates -- DCPS isn't giving any additional funding for them. Hardy has been forced to find the money for these programs by economizing elsewhere.

Numbers are here:
http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/Files/downloads/ABOUT%20DCPS/Budget%20-%20Finance/FY14%20documents/FY14%20School%20Allocation%20Information%20for%20Website.xlsx

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on postings of witnesses on DCUM, some of the schools on the Hill are viewed also as an escape hatch for parents who live in PG County!

True, though for Hardy that's less likely on account of the commute.

Maybe, but it wouldn't be surprising. There are PG kids who make the commute to Ellington.

According to DCPS figures, Ellington has more kids from MD than any ward except for Ward 5. And those are the ones who use their true address.

You wonder sometimes where DCPS' head is. They're too cheap or ineffectual to put Hardy on par with Deal yet they see it as their mission to educate PG county kids. sheesh.

Sigh....just giving this quote from the previous thread a bump.

To pp: you are an idiot. DCPS is putting tons of resources into Hardy - the problem is that everybody seems more interested in complaining and whining about how many IB students are attending than in observing the actual facts of what is happening at Hardy.


"DCPS has put tons of new resources into Hardy. They added the gifted and talented program plus more honors courses and extra differentiation.

But nobody seems to care about this actual fact; instead we get 50+ pages boiling down to "Yeah, but how many white kids go there?"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on postings of witnesses on DCUM, some of the schools on the Hill are viewed also as an escape hatch for parents who live in PG County!

True, though for Hardy that's less likely on account of the commute.

Maybe, but it wouldn't be surprising. There are PG kids who make the commute to Ellington.

According to DCPS figures, Ellington has more kids from MD than any ward except for Ward 5. And those are the ones who use their true address.

You wonder sometimes where DCPS' head is. They're too cheap or ineffectual to put Hardy on par with Deal yet they see it as their mission to educate PG county kids. sheesh.

No, their mission is to educate DC kids but if they have space for MD kids and the MD kids will pay tuition then it works out nicely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let them be. People should feel free to spend their money however they please.

Yes, but they should not misrepresent the facts about Hardy.

Is it a misrepresentation to acknowledge that Hardy is not up to Deal's level? Really? Honestly, who among us, given the choice, would not choose Deal over Hardy?

The questions still stand.

Anybody who has this question should talk to DC (who is an IB Hardy graduate) and DC's peers - many who tested into Walls or Ellington or prestigious privates or who (like DC) went on to Wilson and are thriving academically and socially there - and crediting that in large part to the growing and learning experience they had at Hardy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on postings of witnesses on DCUM, some of the schools on the Hill are viewed also as an escape hatch for parents who live in PG County!

True, though for Hardy that's less likely on account of the commute.

Maybe, but it wouldn't be surprising. There are PG kids who make the commute to Ellington.

According to DCPS figures, Ellington has more kids from MD than any ward except for Ward 5. And those are the ones who use their true address.

You wonder sometimes where DCPS' head is. They're too cheap or ineffectual to put Hardy on par with Deal yet they see it as their mission to educate PG county kids. sheesh.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on postings of witnesses on DCUM, some of the schools on the Hill are viewed also as an escape hatch for parents who live in PG County!

True, though for Hardy that's less likely on account of the commute.

Maybe, but it wouldn't be surprising. There are PG kids who make the commute to Ellington.

According to DCPS figures, Ellington has more kids from MD than any ward except for Ward 5. And those are the ones who use their true address.

Yes, and they pay tuition to attend. Nothing shady about that.

Not this thread but it's interesting that PG kids attend Duke Ellington (whether in fact they pay tuition or not) but there are DC kids who are turned down for admission. that's curious in a DC public school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:pp, he/she is talking about the fact that people in any neighborhood are more invested in their community because it is, well, their community-I am IB for hardy and have one DC there have 3 kids, one of whom goes to a catholic school that is not in my neighborhood, and I am not catholic-as a result, I do less than I do at Hardy, and less than I do at my JKLM.

If this were exclusively or automatically true, then you wouldn't have schools like Yu Ying where the parents are highly invested and nobody thinks of it as their neighborhood school.

This idea - that OOB families are not appropriately invested in the school - also conflicts with another oft-stated reason that IB families give for not attending Hardy - the idea that there is some well-organized group of OOB families that are working hard to keep IB famiies out of Hardy.

The old Hardy double standard - in this case, the compplaints are simultaneously that r OOB families are too involved in creating an environment that is unfriendly to IB families, and that OOB families are not involved at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on postings of witnesses on DCUM, some of the schools on the Hill are viewed also as an escape hatch for parents who live in PG County!

True, though for Hardy that's less likely on account of the commute.

Maybe, but it wouldn't be surprising. There are PG kids who make the commute to Ellington.

According to DCPS figures, Ellington has more kids from MD than any ward except for Ward 5. And those are the ones who use their true address.

Yes, and they pay tuition to attend. Nothing shady about that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Until the Latin, KIPP, DC Prep, Two Rivers, and DCI feeders don't have WLs a mile long, we'll continue to need charter middle schools.

I wouldn't suggest shutting them down - they provide special offerings, are available to children from areas not IB to the new and improved middle schools, and probably help to keep DCPS on their toes. But NEW charter middle schools may not be needed - use up the capacity in the DCPS middle schools (including the four new ones) first.

You're not on the charter board. One of the new ones approved to open next year is Washington Global MS. + a new campus at Two Rivers.

And that may well be a mistake given DC's planned investments in middle schools. It will be up to the next mayor to address the issue of coordinating charter and DCPS plans.

Are you kidding me? We need to "protect" DC's investments in its middle school by limiting access to charter schools? What about the actual education of actual children, which, despite financial investment, DCPS seems completely unable to pull off at any middle school with a significant number of non-wealthy students. Lets see some successes and some innovative programming ( not necessarily big financial investments, simply smart and savvy planning anfd management of resources ) before trying to limit access to other public middle school programs that seem to be having success. Having desirable DCPS middle schools is a matter of skill and political will in many cases, not just money

Now's hardly the time to limit access to charters, because demand will only increase. In fact, once the limited "grandfather" pipeline to Deal is sealed off, Oyster and Eaton families will be applying in greater numbers to middle school charters.

I agree. The numbers of students in Ward 6 who are looking for those new charter middle schools is HUGE. And without a massive effort to attract them to Jefferson and/or Eliot-Hine and/or Stuart Hobson; they will leave the public system if those middle/high school charter slots don't materialize.

That won't happen. Schools on the Hill are viewed as an escape hatch for motivated parents in Wards 7 & 8, and the less wealthy parts of Ward 6. No-one in DCPS is remotely interested in recreating the segregated enclaves of upper NW.

No one in ward 6 is interested in segregated schools. They would like integrated schools with excellent programming and a majority of students ready for on grade level academics.

Parent in-bounds for Mann here: Jeebus, give it a rest already.

We can agree on many points:
Hardy is not yet comparable with Deal.
Hardy may become comparable with Deal in the near future.
This process has already begun and it is making significant strides.
There are benefits to neighborhood schools.
If the concern is academic preparation, OOB feeder school kids meet the qualification.
If we care about playdates or commutes, OOB feeder school kids do not meet the qualification.

The naysayers need to pipe down. They're adding almost nothing substantive to this thread and, instead, are muddying it up so much that learning about the progress being made at Hardy requires reading 750 posts for the two dozen relevant ones. If you want a discussion about the benefit of feeder vs. non-feeder, or OOB vs. IB, or whatever, take it elsewhere.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on postings of witnesses on DCUM, some of the schools on the Hill are viewed also as an escape hatch for parents who live in PG County!

True, though for Hardy that's less likely on account of the commute.

Maybe, but it wouldn't be surprising. There are PG kids who make the commute to Ellington.

According to DCPS figures, Ellington has more kids from MD than any ward except for Ward 5. And those are the ones who use their true address.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on postings of witnesses on DCUM, some of the schools on the Hill are viewed also as an escape hatch for parents who live in PG County!

True, though for Hardy that's less likely on account of the commute.

Maybe, but it wouldn't be surprising. There are PG kids who make the commute to Ellington.

Anonymous wrote:Based on postings of witnesses on DCUM, some of the schools on the Hill are viewed also as an escape hatch for parents who live in PG County!

True, though for Hardy that's less likely on account of the commute.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Until the Latin, KIPP, DC Prep, Two Rivers, and DCI feeders don't have WLs a mile long, we'll continue to need charter middle schools.

I wouldn't suggest shutting them down - they provide special offerings, are available to children from areas not IB to the new and improved middle schools, and probably help to keep DCPS on their toes. But NEW charter middle schools may not be needed - use up the capacity in the DCPS middle schools (including the four new ones) first.

You're not on the charter board. One of the new ones approved to open next year is Washington Global MS. + a new campus at Two Rivers.

And that may well be a mistake given DC's planned investments in middle schools. It will be up to the next mayor to address the issue of coordinating charter and DCPS plans.

Are you kidding me? We need to "protect" DC's investments in its middle school by limiting access to charter schools? What about the actual education of actual children, which, despite financial investment, DCPS seems completely unable to pull off at any middle school with a significant number of non-wealthy students. Lets see some successes and some innovative programming ( not necessarily big financial investments, simply smart and savvy planning anfd management of resources ) before trying to limit access to other public middle school programs that seem to be having success. Having desirable DCPS middle schools is a matter of skill and political will in many cases, not just money

Now's hardly the time to limit access to charters, because demand will only increase. In fact, once the limited "grandfather" pipeline to Deal is sealed off, Oyster and Eaton families will be applying in greater numbers to middle school charters.

I agree. The numbers of students in Ward 6 who are looking for those new charter middle schools is HUGE. And without a massive effort to attract them to Jefferson and/or Eliot-Hine and/or Stuart Hobson; they will leave the public system if those middle/high school charter slots don't materialize.

That won't happen. Schools on the Hill are viewed as an escape hatch for motivated parents in Wards 7 & 8, and the less wealthy parts of Ward 6. No-one in DCPS is remotely interested in recreating the segregated enclaves of upper NW.

Meaning what? Maintain the schools at a "good enough" but not "great" level?

Basically, yes.

If the schools become really good, higher SES families flock in and it crowds out OOB and further fuels gentrification.