There seem to be several posters posting on all sides in this conversation. Do not assume the last poster is the same as 21:31.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[quote=

Deal with it entitled people: the very people preventing a test in option are the "stagnant, old-school, retrograde" people who were part of creating the charter schools that you so desperately want entry to now. Trying to keep the door even faintly open for lower SES families and families who don't have geographic advantages of being IB for great DCPS schools is NOT stagnant, and while I do hope there will some day be a way to figure out increasing applications and interest from families who already speak Mandarin or French or whatever, so that the pool of applicants includes more native speakers, I defend to the end the randomness of admission and the fact that kids who herwise wouldn't have a shot in a million years at speaking Mandarin and all the doors that may open to that child, that that child has a shot - a loooooong shot (like everyone else's long shot), but a shot nonetheless, at going to a school like Yu Ying.

WTF? How is DC going out of their way to serve high SES families or high achieving v kids? Those are always after though. DCPSjses high SES families to raises hundreds of thousands of dollars that inevitably be used for shit to help the third graders who can't read. Ou don't like it? fuck you. THe ONLY reason the scores are going up is due to high SES families.

Reading comprehension is not your sQtrength. Neither is writing. But that's cool. When you have the ability to get mad at something I actually said, please do write again. Cheers!

Hold on - the "retrograde, stagnant, old school" IMHO is NOT the charter school community - you are confused on that point - it continues to be the same DCPS political culture that resisted charters in the first place - and which now resists innovation and change, things like magnets, test-in or G&T because they are deathly afraid that it will end up with white kids, these are the same people who rail against gentrifiers, the same folks who cling to the old school "Chocolate City" image from the 1970s even as that image continues to melt. It's the age old story of "we fear change".

You really are a shit stirrer spewing your prejudices. I bet you are a relative newcomer in the city as well and think you know all about the comings and goings of the politics. If your position is that the DC citizens of old are holding onto change in the schools, who exactly do you think pushed for the charter movement and private school vouchers. Who do you think fled DCPS and into the new innovative charters that popped up everywhere except ward 3 in the city. Who do you think keep these charters, good and bad, afloat. And who do you think started the originally test-in DC schools, such as SWW and Banneker. You are a carpetbagger who thinks she is better and smarter than the people who have endured and been around fighting for change.

Thank you to the poster who coined this statement, but bitch, bye and take your ass back to Kansas.

Your knowledge of history is totally messed up there - SWW and Banneker are totally separate from the charters, they came about all the way back in the '70s and '80s, as opposed to the charter reform that happened in the mid '90 and there were totally different factions of players involved. You are totally full of crap if you are trying to take credit for being involved in all of it. Sorry, but you're busted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[quote=

Deal with it entitled people: the very people preventing a test in option are the "stagnant, old-school, retrograde" people who were part of creating the charter schools that you so desperately want entry to now. Trying to keep the door even faintly open for lower SES families and families who don't have geographic advantages of being IB for great DCPS schools is NOT stagnant, and while I do hope there will some day be a way to figure out increasing applications and interest from families who already speak Mandarin or French or whatever, so that the pool of applicants includes more native speakers, I defend to the end the randomness of admission and the fact that kids who herwise wouldn't have a shot in a million years at speaking Mandarin and all the doors that may open to that child, that that child has a shot - a loooooong shot (like everyone else's long shot), but a shot nonetheless, at going to a school like Yu Ying.

WTF? How is DC going out of their way to serve high SES families or high achieving v kids? Those are always after though. DCPSjses high SES families to raises hundreds of thousands of dollars that inevitably be used for shit to help the third graders who can't read. Ou don't like it? fuck you. THe ONLY reason the scores are going up is due to high SES families.

Reading comprehension is not your sQtrength. Neither is writing. But that's cool. When you have the ability to get mad at something I actually said, please do write again. Cheers!

Hold on - the "retrograde, stagnant, old school" IMHO is NOT the charter school community - you are confused on that point - it continues to be the same DCPS political culture that resisted charters in the first place - and which now resists innovation and change, things like magnets, test-in or G&T because they are deathly afraid that it will end up with white kids, these are the same people who rail against gentrifiers, the same folks who cling to the old school "Chocolate City" image from the 1970s even as that image continues to melt. It's the age old story of "we fear change".

You really are a shit stirrer spewing your prejudices. I bet you are a relative newcomer in the city as well and think you know all about the comings and goings of the politics. If your position is that the DC citizens of old are holding onto change in the schools, who exactly do you think pushed for the charter movement and private school vouchers. Who do you think fled DCPS and into the new innovative charters that popped up everywhere except ward 3 in the city. Who do you think keep these charters, good and bad, afloat. And who do you think started the originally test-in DC schools, such as SWW and Banneker. You are a carpetbagger who thinks she is better and smarter than the people who have endured and been around fighting for change.

Thank you to the poster who coined this statement, but bitch, bye and take your ass back to Kansas.

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the opposition to selective admission for charters. What difference does it make if it's a charter?

Banneker, Oyster and several other DCPS schools have been noted here for their selective admissions. They are public schools. If it's fine for DCPS then what is the argument against the same for charters?

It makes zero sense.

Also, on that "access" argument - not every kid succeeds at tryouts for the football team. Where's the equal access there?

Or another analogy to throw into the mix - DCPS provides special bussing and covers expenses for out-of-state schooling for special needs students. But is the same available for any kid? No. Is it appropriate for every kid? No.

Face it, not all kids are the same. They don't all have the same capabilities, the same level of preparation, the same level of skills, et cetera. Not every kid is fantastic at math. Not ever kid is fantastic at football. Not every kid is a fantastic writer. Not every kid is fantastic at music.

So why act like they are and constrain everyone to an equal-access but one-size-fits-none model? That's what you seem to want to do here.

Anonymous wrote:OP,

I think the easiest way to understand the charter school system in DC is to recognize that each charter school is it's own educational authority, equal to DCPS, and reporting to the state. Every other state in the country, except Hawaii, has multiple education authorities, usually, but not always connected to geographic regions. You might have very big districts like NYC or DC, and tiny ones in rural areas or small towns that serve less than 1,000 students. Yu Ying, and most charter schools in DC, are like the latter.

Imagine a district in rural Montana that serves a few hundred kids, scattered over a large geographic area. That district doesn't get to pick and choose. If a Deaf child is born in their district, maybe the first in a long time, they need to scramble and figure out a solution. Pay an exorbitant salary to lure interpreters to the district? Find a distance education program so one of their current teachers can be certified in teaching Deaf children? Fund boarding school for the child? Similarly, if a family with 6 kids, none of whom spoke a word of English, moved into their district tomorrow, then they'd have a responsibility to figure out how to serve them. In neither circumstance would saying "we can't serve you" be an option.

Yu Ying has already gotten a huge concession in terms of being able to cut off their admissions at a certain point. Most educational authorities in this country can't do that. If they decide that, instead, they want to accept 3rd graders, then there are options for them. They could look at the model used by Washington International School, where kids who enter after first grade without speaking a target language get intensive small group language classes until they catch up. They could look at the model used by DCPS and most DC charter schools when they accept kids who can't read or speak their language of instruction (English), which is to include kids in the regular classes with push in or pull out support by specialists. They could look at other options too. But they can't use a test to pick and choose, any more than that district in Montana can decide that they aren't serving someone.

DCPS can pick and choose who goes to a certain school, like Oyster's language proficiency requirements or Ellington's auditions, because they aren't excluding kids from a district, they're just excluding them from a school. Similarly E. L. Haynes (and probably others, Haynes just happens to be where I have kids so I know) can exclude kids from it's Arabic 2 class if they didn't have Arabic 1, because that's a class not a district.

Did you follow all that?

I don't understand the opposition to selective admission for charters. What difference does it make if it's a charter?

Banneker, Oyster and several other DCPS schools have been noted here for their selective admissions. They are public schools. If it's fine for DCPS then what is the argument against the same for charters?

It makes zero sense.

Also, on that "access" argument - not every kid succeeds at tryouts for the football team. Where's the equal access there?

Or another analogy to throw into the mix - DCPS provides special bussing and covers expenses for out-of-state schooling for special needs students. But is the same available for any kid? No. Is it appropriate for every kid? No.

Face it, not all kids are the same. They don't all have the same capabilities, the same level of preparation, the same level of skills, et cetera. Not every kid is fantastic at math. Not ever kid is fantastic at football. Not every kid is a fantastic writer. Not every kid is fantastic at music.

So why act like they are and constrain everyone to an equal-access but one-size-fits-none model? That's what you seem to want to do here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I often think there are two DCs. The dynamic, innovative, progressive and cosmopolitan DC which has the best and brightest coming from all over the country and all over the world to try and make a change - versus a stagnant, old-school, retrograde core that's resistant to change.

That's why thread after thread boils over here. Movers and shakers bringing something better or pushing for something better and then those who did nothing either feeling threatened and lashing out at everyone or asking where their piece of the pie is.

You obviously forgot the 3rd DC: the one full of people who think that the only way to be "dynamic, innovative, progressive and cosmopolitan" is to have policies, plans and structures that serve your middle and upper classes and push lower classes out. Because that is pretty much what you're saying about the fact that the public charter school board does not allow charters to test in at any grade because it doesn't want to cut out access to families who can't afford a private Mandarin tutor, or Spanish summer camp, or private Montessori schools until they can nab a spot at a public one.

You do a disservice to visionary people everywhere who who are dynamic, innovative and progressive who actually want a present and a future where EVERYONE is served well, not just a DC where only those who can afford to live here and go to school here (even in public school). When you trash the policy of not testing in for charter schools, you trash one of the fundamental values that DC charter schools were developed for: offering other quality options to DC residents who had the worst of options. Guess who those DC residents were when charters were first established here? Not you, not me, not OP, because we weren't sending our kids ot public school then (unless we lived IB for the only decent middle or high school). To turn around and say you can test in absolutely undermines the commitment to providing access to ALL DC residents (just like neighborhood preference would as well). No, that is NOT "stagnant, old-school and retrograde being resistent to change.

Deal with it entitled people: the very people preventing a test in option are the "stagnant, old-school, retrograde" people who were part of creating the charter schools that you so desperately want entry to now. Trying to keep the door even faintly open for lower SES families and families who don't have geographic advantages of being IB for great DCPS schools is NOT stagnant, and while I do hope there will some day be a way to figure out increasing applications and interest from families who already speak Mandarin or French or whatever, so that the pool of applicants includes more native speakers, I defend to the end the randomness of admission and the fact that kids who herwise wouldn't have a shot in a million years at speaking Mandarin and all the doors that may open to that child, that that child has a shot - a loooooong shot (like everyone else's long shot), but a shot nonetheless, at going to a school like Yu Ying.

You really have that messed up. The policies that what innovators want is what is considered "normal" in the rest of America. That being, good schools, with good teachers, that teach a robust curriculum and prepare kids for the challenges of the future, which model and enforce good behavior, rather than just coddling kids, looking the other way when kids beat each other up "oh, that's just boys being boys" and serving as nothing more than a glorified daycare. Nobody is trying to "push people out" but by the same token, more and more people are getting fed up with the Marion Barry old school style politics of KEEPING underskilled, undereducated, undisciplined, unmotivated people in that state even though there's no jobs or affordable living for them.

Now THAT is doing people a disservice - keeping them trapped in ghettoes, dependent on handouts.

People like me CREATE the environment that we want. Sorry, but that's not "entitlement".

We don't sit around whining about the environment that we've been handed like YOU do, we work our asses off and change it. YOU are the "entitled" one who just sits back, thinking the sweet, juicy apples just fall from the heavens and land in everyone's laps and how unfair it is that some people end up with more than others, totally not understanding that most of us ended up where we are only through A HELL OF A LOT OF HARD WORK. You want something better, START DOING YOUR PART, same as the rest of us do.

Wow, not sure if you're the same PP I just replied to above, but just wow. I don't know exactly what your "working your ass off to improve DC schools" has looked like in DC (and I don't really expect you to detail it), but depending on what you've done, where you've worked, I may very well have been right there with you. All I can say is you are totally misunderstanding my main point, but to assume at all that you have even the faintest clue of what I have or haven't done to improve DC schools... you're a piece of work. I'm a professional who gave up a lucrative career to invest in working officially in public schools to better them (and no, I don't have a rich spouse fiancing my household needs, so it was a serious hit to my family in many ways financially, but important for bigger reasons and so still the right thing), so take your assumptions about laziness and me being someone who "thinks sweet juicy apples just fall from the heavens" and stuff it. You have no idea... you couldn't be more wrong. But that doesn't really matter here - believe what you will, assume what you will, misread what you will. I don't expect you to be less presumptive and read more effectively because of what I say. Do your thing hard worker... but I feel for all the other hard workers who are just as commited as you, if not more, who see the best strategies differently than you. Ooh, beware, we're all lazy and waiting for juicy apples... Wow.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I often think there are two DCs. The dynamic, innovative, progressive and cosmopolitan DC which has the best and brightest coming from all over the country and all over the world to try and make a change - versus a stagnant, old-school, retrograde core that's resistant to change.

That's why thread after thread boils over here. Movers and shakers bringing something better or pushing for something better and then those who did nothing either feeling threatened and lashing out at everyone or asking where their piece of the pie is.

You obviously forgot the 3rd DC: the one full of people who think that the only way to be "dynamic, innovative, progressive and cosmopolitan" is to have policies, plans and structures that serve your middle and upper classes and push lower classes out. Because that is pretty much what you're saying about the fact that the public charter school board does not allow charters to test in at any grade because it doesn't want to cut out access to families who can't afford a private Mandarin tutor, or Spanish summer camp, or private Montessori schools until they can nab a spot at a public one.

You do a disservice to visionary people everywhere who who are dynamic, innovative and progressive who actually want a present and a future where EVERYONE is served well, not just a DC where only those who can afford to live here and go to school here (even in public school). When you trash the policy of not testing in for charter schools, you trash one of the fundamental values that DC charter schools were developed for: offering other quality options to DC residents who had the worst of options. Guess who those DC residents were when charters were first established here? Not you, not me, not OP, because we weren't sending our kids ot public school then (unless we lived IB for the only decent middle or high school). To turn around and say you can test in absolutely undermines the commitment to providing access to ALL DC residents (just like neighborhood preference would as well). No, that is NOT "stagnant, old-school and retrograde being resistent to change.

Deal with it entitled people: the very people preventing a test in option are the "stagnant, old-school, retrograde" people who were part of creating the charter schools that you so desperately want entry to now. Trying to keep the door even faintly open for lower SES families and families who don't have geographic advantages of being IB for great DCPS schools is NOT stagnant, and while I do hope there will some day be a way to figure out increasing applications and interest from families who already speak Mandarin or French or whatever, so that the pool of applicants includes more native speakers, I defend to the end the randomness of admission and the fact that kids who herwise wouldn't have a shot in a million years at speaking Mandarin and all the doors that may open to that child, that that child has a shot - a loooooong shot (like everyone else's long shot), but a shot nonetheless, at going to a school like Yu Ying.

WTF? How is DC going out of their way to serve high SES families or high achieving v kids? Those are always after though. DCPSjses high SES families to raises hundreds of thousands of dollars that inevitably be used for shit to help the third graders who can't read. Ou don't like it? fuck you. THe ONLY reason the scores are going up is due to high SES families.

Reading comprehension is not your strength. Neither is writing. But that's cool. When you have the ability to get mad at something I actually said, please do write again. Cheers!

Hold on - the "retrograde, stagnant, old school" IMHO is NOT the charter school community - you are confused on that point - it continues to be the same DCPS political culture that resisted charters in the first place - and which now resists innovation and change, things like magnets, test-in or G&T because they are deathly afraid that it will end up with white kids, these are the same people who rail against gentrifiers, the same folks who cling to the old school "Chocolate City" image from the 1970s even as that image continues to melt. It's the age old story of "we fear change".

I think I'm the poster you're responding to, and I fully understood the first time what you were saying. You are still not understanding my point: you are equating being anti-test in for charters as being anti-change. That is simply not true, not true at all. I supported charter schools coming to DC in many ways, because it was clear nothing was going to change in a dramatic way with DCPS. I am all for change, and continue to support various changes in both DCPS and charter schools in the ways I can.

What I am against, and what I took issue with in your post, is testing in for charters. That is NOT about being against change. I am so excited at some of the innovations and creative curricula I'm seeing at charters (and a few DCPS schools), that thrills me.

But I am all about ACCESS, equal chances at access. That is where you and I differ, and where your post was obnoxious because you are assuming that everyone who is against test-in somehow also wants to maintain the status quo overall. You couldn't be more wrong. Much about the status quo needs to change (and is), but access to charters needs to remain truly open to every DC resident as a possibility, and you lose that when you test in. Charters as an option for the most underserved families who are lucky enough to get in gets all but eliminated for the most popular schools because those with more resources and more options will be setting their kids up from birth to be in the pool that will test in the best.

And there is nothing wrong with that, every parent should do the most they can do to give their kid the best options, however each family defines "best". But the money used to found, open, and run charter schools is TARGETED FUNDS that these schools got for a specific reason in DC, and test-in options eliminates that option for the low SES families that don't somehow already speak Mandarin or that are not naturally already brilliant test-takers on their own (since they wouldn't have the same access to Mandarin childcare/tutoring options before they even apply that many well-resourced families are already using).

You don't have to agree with me, but do you at least understand me now? I am not part of the "Keep DC schools the way they are/charters are bad/charters are draining resources/you shouldn't be able to fire teachers" crew, which is what *I* would call the stagnant crew. But you were very very specific in what you consider stagnant, anti-innovation crew, and it included anyone who is against test in, which is against my view. And that's fine, just want you to understand that you are grossly mistaken to think there aren't totally pro-innovation and change people who can also be against test-in for charters for the reasons I said above. There are many of us, because access for the most underserved students has to remain a possibility. It won't if you get your way, and that sucks for everyone who used to have no chance because they weren't IB for a great school. At least now they have a chance, just like everyone else has a chance... but not if you get your way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DCI "innovation" is mostly to get around the charter board's insistence that there be no testing in options. The majority of students will be from their feeders whose main entry yr will be as 3/4 yr olds. It'll be interesting how many students DCI actually takes for 6, 7, 8, and 9th grades through their open lottery. Probably very few if any. They don't want to have a lot of students who need remediation in English nevermind know another language.

That's not a true statement. The desire was to provide a middle and high school through 12th grade without the worry of enduring another lottery. LAMB, DC Bilingual and Stokes did not have middle school options prior to DCI.

That, and the desire to continue the languages. But any/all of the feeder schools could have asked to expand their charters, but attrition is exactly the reason each school can't do it on their own. Hence DCI.

But the children from the feeder schools are not required to continue with their respective languages. It will be a choice on the students' parts.

It said in the proposal for DCI that was presented to the charter board that the kids are required to continue with the language from their feeder.

The last poster is correct. Students have to stay in their language that they were studying at their feeder school. But they do have a choice as to their 2nd language to learn, which is another reason DCI would already have beginner level language instructors for the 3 languages. Not only may new students admitted in middle or high school come with zero proficiency in the 3 languages, but the feeder school students would likely be starting from scratch in the other language they choose. So there is choice, just not in the main/basic language studied.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I often think there are two DCs. The dynamic, innovative, progressive and cosmopolitan DC which has the best and brightest coming from all over the country and all over the world to try and make a change - versus a stagnant, old-school, retrograde core that's resistant to change.

That's why thread after thread boils over here. Movers and shakers bringing something better or pushing for something better and then those who did nothing either feeling threatened and lashing out at everyone or asking where their piece of the pie is.

You obviously forgot the 3rd DC: the one full of people who think that the only way to be "dynamic, innovative, progressive and cosmopolitan" is to have policies, plans and structures that serve your middle and upper classes and push lower classes out. Because that is pretty much what you're saying about the fact that the public charter school board does not allow charters to test in at any grade because it doesn't want to cut out access to families who can't afford a private Mandarin tutor, or Spanish summer camp, or private Montessori schools until they can nab a spot at a public one.

You do a disservice to visionary people everywhere who who are dynamic, innovative and progressive who actually want a present and a future where EVERYONE is served well, not just a DC where only those who can afford to live here and go to school here (even in public school). When you trash the policy of not testing in for charter schools, you trash one of the fundamental values that DC charter schools were developed for: offering other quality options to DC residents who had the worst of options. Guess who those DC residents were when charters were first established here? Not you, not me, not OP, because we weren't sending our kids ot public school then (unless we lived IB for the only decent middle or high school). To turn around and say you can test in absolutely undermines the commitment to providing access to ALL DC residents (just like neighborhood preference would as well). No, that is NOT "stagnant, old-school and retrograde being resistent to change.

Deal with it entitled people: the very people preventing a test in option are the "stagnant, old-school, retrograde" people who were part of creating the charter schools that you so desperately want entry to now. Trying to keep the door even faintly open for lower SES families and families who don't have geographic advantages of being IB for great DCPS schools is NOT stagnant, and while I do hope there will some day be a way to figure out increasing applications and interest from families who already speak Mandarin or French or whatever, so that the pool of applicants includes more native speakers, I defend to the end the randomness of admission and the fact that kids who herwise wouldn't have a shot in a million years at speaking Mandarin and all the doors that may open to that child, that that child has a shot - a loooooong shot (like everyone else's long shot), but a shot nonetheless, at going to a school like Yu Ying.

WTF? How is DC going out of their way to serve high SES families or high achieving v kids? Those are always after though. DCPSjses high SES families to raises hundreds of thousands of dollars that inevitably be used for shit to help the third graders who can't read. Ou don't like it? fuck you. THe ONLY reason the scores are going up is due to high SES families.

Reading comprehension is not your strength. Neither is writing. But that's cool. When you have the ability to get mad at something I actually said, please do write again. Cheers!

Hold on - the "retrograde, stagnant, old school" IMHO is NOT the charter school community - you are confused on that point - it continues to be the same DCPS political culture that resisted charters in the first place - and which now resists innovation and change, things like magnets, test-in or G&T because they are deathly afraid that it will end up with white kids, these are the same people who rail against gentrifiers, the same folks who cling to the old school "Chocolate City" image from the 1970s even as that image continues to melt. It's the age old story of "we fear change".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DCI "innovation" is mostly to get around the charter board's insistence that there be no testing in options. The majority of students will be from their feeders whose main entry yr will be as 3/4 yr olds. It'll be interesting how many students DCI actually takes for 6, 7, 8, and 9th grades through their open lottery. Probably very few if any. They don't want to have a lot of students who need remediation in English nevermind know another language.

Word is they plan to fill all open seats, and will have beginner language options in all 3 languages for new non-bilingual students. They have different expectations for new middle and 9th grade students. It warps my brain trying to imagine the teacher staffing and curriculum planning nightmare that must create, but glad they're giving it a go.

Last yr, I read on this board that there would be ~18 seats a yr for new students prior to DC bilingual joining DCI. After DC Bilingual joining, it was said that there would be much fewer to none. Either way, it doesn't sound like DCI being a solution for those who are not at a feeder.

I think there will be plenty of seats in the first three to four years. I personally know a dozen families between stokes and YY who have mentioned that their child(ren) will not go beyond seventh grade.

I agree about the first 3-4 yrs unless they keep the class sizes small. DCI is suppose to open in Fall'14 in an incubator space which has not been announced yet. It's hard to imagine large class sizes when they don't even know where they will be this fall.

We are at one of the feeders but too young to be at DCI in the first 3-4 yrs. We will definitely be at DCI for middle school and probably hs unless we move or decide to go private. There really aren't any alternatives to continue language immersion except DCI.

Kids at DCI are definitely required to continue with their elementary language if they're coming from a feeder school. Sibs who get in are also mandated to do their sibs' target language. Students from outside are able to choose a language path (they have to choose in ranked order when they apply in case one gets too full), but once started, must stick with it. they'll start at a beginning level and not have to take their other content in it until they're more proficient. At the last session I attended they said they will take between 20-40 outside lottery students the first year. Most of the feeder school kids have filled out enrollment forms saying they are coming to DCI.