Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is interesting the article above mentions WashMet. That is a specialized school for youth providing an alternate educational path. I thought maybe a charter was running it. Anyways, it's not a good measure of empty seats

There are many alternative/specialized programs that draw citywide and aren’t really part of the “neighborhood” system at the high school level.

Washington Metropolitan
Luke C Moore
Cardozo’s international academy
The STAY programs at Roosevelt & Ballou (others?)
Banneker
McKinley
Ellington
SWW
Probably others I’m forgetting

And that’s just within DCPS.

Phelps, which I think is great and totally believe in.

Ron Brown

All the Spanish schools. Tyler Creative Arts. SEL focus schools like Langley and Van Ness.

Bard.

Coolidge too, the Early College and the health and journalism programs Also some IB programming at Eastern.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is interesting the article above mentions WashMet. That is a specialized school for youth providing an alternate educational path. I thought maybe a charter was running it. Anyways, it's not a good measure of empty seats

There are many alternative/specialized programs that draw citywide and aren’t really part of the “neighborhood” system at the high school level.

Washington Metropolitan
Luke C Moore
Cardozo’s international academy
The STAY programs at Roosevelt & Ballou (others?)
Banneker
McKinley
Ellington
SWW
Probably others I’m forgetting

And that’s just within DCPS.

Phelps, which I think is great and totally believe in.

Ron Brown

All the Spanish schools. Tyler Creative Arts. SEL focus schools like Langley and Van Ness.

Bard.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is interesting the article above mentions WashMet. That is a specialized school for youth providing an alternate educational path. I thought maybe a charter was running it. Anyways, it's not a good measure of empty seats

There are many alternative/specialized programs that draw citywide and aren’t really part of the “neighborhood” system at the high school level.

Washington Metropolitan
Luke C Moore
Cardozo’s international academy
The STAY programs at Roosevelt & Ballou (others?)
Banneker
McKinley
Ellington
SWW
Probably others I’m forgetting

And that’s just within DCPS.

Phelps, which I think is great and totally believe in.

Ron Brown

All the Spanish schools. Tyler Creative Arts. SEL focus schools like Langley and Van Ness.

Anonymous wrote:It is interesting the article above mentions WashMet. That is a specialized school for youth providing an alternate educational path. I thought maybe a charter was running it. Anyways, it's not a good measure of empty seats

There are many alternative/specialized programs that draw citywide and aren’t really part of the “neighborhood” system at the high school level.

Washington Metropolitan
Luke C Moore
Cardozo’s international academy
The STAY programs at Roosevelt & Ballou (others?)
Banneker
McKinley
Ellington
SWW
Probably others I’m forgetting

And that’s just within DCPS.

It is interesting the article above mentions WashMet. That is a specialized school for youth providing an alternate educational path. I thought maybe a charter was running it. Anyways, it's not a good measure of empty seats

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that DCPS' problem with middle school isn't the number of seats, it's that with a few exceptions their schools just aren't very attractive. If they figured out a way to make them attractive those seats would fill.

They know. But it is hard. The answer is to grow middle and upper class buy in. Most of the time DCPS is just pissing those people off.

It's getting better people on Capitol Hill have finally realized Stuart Hobson and Jefferson actually work with honors/tracking although many folks still prefer Latin and Basis

The biggest problem now is EOTP. There are still no good option for folks. The city needs to replicate the honors/tracking models in at least two of the middle schools in the area to keep higher income folks of all races in DCPS.

So tired of reading the casual racism of pro-tracking comments. Tracking is ineffective at making higher students do better and explicitly hurts lower students. It’s junk science perspectives like this so commonly held by the general public that drive educators nuts.

No, what drives educators nuts is the central office that micromanages their work and all the kids who don't even show up for class.

Check your privilege.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that DCPS' problem with middle school isn't the number of seats, it's that with a few exceptions their schools just aren't very attractive. If they figured out a way to make them attractive those seats would fill.

They know. But it is hard. The answer is to grow middle and upper class buy in. Most of the time DCPS is just pissing those people off.

It's getting better people on Capitol Hill have finally realized Stuart Hobson and Jefferson actually work with honors/tracking although many folks still prefer Latin and Basis

The biggest problem now is EOTP. There are still no good option for folks. The city needs to replicate the honors/tracking models in at least two of the middle schools in the area to keep higher income folks of all races in DCPS.

So tired of reading the casual racism of pro-tracking comments. Tracking is ineffective at making higher students do better and explicitly hurts lower students. It’s junk science perspectives like this so commonly held by the general public that drive educators nuts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that DCPS' problem with middle school isn't the number of seats, it's that with a few exceptions their schools just aren't very attractive. If they figured out a way to make them attractive those seats would fill.

They know. But it is hard. The answer is to grow middle and upper class buy in. Most of the time DCPS is just pissing those people off.

It's getting better people on Capitol Hill have finally realized Stuart Hobson and Jefferson actually work with honors/tracking although many folks still prefer Latin and Basis

The biggest problem now is EOTP. There are still no good option for folks. The city needs to replicate the honors/tracking models in at least two of the middle schools in the area to keep higher income folks of all races in DCPS.

Tracking at Francis Stevens middle school is just letting your kid skip a math grade. It is fine if you don't mind your kid going to class with older kids. Really needs good class room control so the younger kids don't freak out.

The core problem of DCPS is that staffing is so strictly tied to enrollment. They don't lead with staffing for classes when students haven't already shown up. This doesn't adequately take school choice into account.

So while there's a chicken and egg question here, we've got DCPS saying on record through its budgets, "no way we're supplying the chickens before the eggs get here." And then some charters and selective schools have these offerings baked in.

And DCPS wonders why they struggle to draw people to neighborhood MS. Deliver staffing on your promised expanded options (don't give these principals enrollment based budgets that keep requiring chopping Algebra teachers, minor world languages, humanities classes, etc. that only help a minority of students) that help you compete with charters and selective schools and you'll get better capture at schools like Brookland, MacFarland, Eliot-Hine, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that DCPS' problem with middle school isn't the number of seats, it's that with a few exceptions their schools just aren't very attractive. If they figured out a way to make them attractive those seats would fill.

They know. But it is hard. The answer is to grow middle and upper class buy in. Most of the time DCPS is just pissing those people off.

Encouraging families with young kids to stay away from Shaw won't help. All of the stakeholders' interests could have been met in this situation, with proper care and attention, but the lack of political skill to walk and chew gum at the same time is crystal. Whatevs, Shaw people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that DCPS' problem with middle school isn't the number of seats, it's that with a few exceptions their schools just aren't very attractive. If they figured out a way to make them attractive those seats would fill.

They know. But it is hard. The answer is to grow middle and upper class buy in. Most of the time DCPS is just pissing those people off.

It's getting better people on Capitol Hill have finally realized Stuart Hobson and Jefferson actually work with honors/tracking although many folks still prefer Latin and Basis

The biggest problem now is EOTP. There are still no good option for folks. The city needs to replicate the honors/tracking models in at least two of the middle schools in the area to keep higher income folks of all races in DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that DCPS' problem with middle school isn't the number of seats, it's that with a few exceptions their schools just aren't very attractive. If they figured out a way to make them attractive those seats would fill.

They know. But it is hard. The answer is to grow middle and upper class buy in. Most of the time DCPS is just pissing those people off.

I would argue that DCPS' problem with middle school isn't the number of seats, it's that with a few exceptions their schools just aren't very attractive. If they figured out a way to make them attractive those seats would fill.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An all city middle school MAGNET at the old Banneker site is great idea and long overdue. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t support that. The mayor should announce that for good press honestly.

+100!! Centrally located and a shoe-in “feeder” to Banneker. That would be my dream and I’m IB for Deal.

Wait, so DCPS is super against tracking within an MS but happy to create an application magnet? WTF is that about?

1. DCPS tracks in MS. SH, Hardy, Jefferson and probably others. But not at Deal.
2. At a very meeting with Shaw parents, DCPS said the application MS idea is no longer on the table (that was an idea of the last Chancellor). Since Kihn came in he has been laser-focused on capacity and number of vacant seats. Creating new DCPS MSs especially is unneeded according to the DME analysis released a couple of weeks ago (In fact, he is urging co-location between charters and DCPS in underutilized buildings).

Doesn’t Kohn realize that an application magnet MS would INCREASE the numbers of students who stay in DCPS 4th grade? That’s how to fill capacity.

It may help a bit, and that is partly why they were considering it, they think parents like the charter model and thought to replicate it somehow. But from a systems perspective, they know they have more than enough middle school and seats, they need to not undermine MS that are slowing building up, like Brookland, and middle schools do tracking already.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An all city middle school MAGNET at the old Banneker site is great idea and long overdue. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t support that. The mayor should announce that for good press honestly.

+100!! Centrally located and a shoe-in “feeder” to Banneker. That would be my dream and I’m IB for Deal.

This was floated as one possible solution to Deal/Wilson over-crowding. Creating schools to draw people out of that pattern

As I heard it discussed the idea/dream of a city-wide DCPS application MS and hopefully many students continue on to Banneker. They believe this would also pull some kids out fo charters.

However that was before Paul Kihn came to town. And he is strongly pushing his analysis that there is too much capacity, especially in DCPS at the MS level. So it may not get off the ground.

I've met Paul Kihn face to face a couple of times and he doesn't strike me as a stupid guy. But I guess he is a good soldier who doesn't speak up when his boss proposes to do something stupid.

His own office just released the latest Master Facilities Plan in February, with population projections from the Office of Planning and enrollment projections for every school.

This article -- https://ggwash.org/view/71802/can-dcps-survive-the-coming-enrollment-surge -- looked at the numbers in the report.

Some excerpts:

Eight high schools – McKinley, Ron Brown, Washington Metropolitan, Phelps, Dunbar, Eastern, Woodson and Anacostia—will have a combined 3,005 empty seats. The westernmost of those eight is Washington Metropolitan, at Fourth and Bryant streets NW. Meanwhile, the five DCPS high schools west of Fourth Street NW will have enrollment a combined 1,149 students over capacity.

Deal Middle School will have 538 more students than seats, while all five middle schools east of the Anacostia River will have at least 315 more seats than students. Hart Middle School, at the very southern tip of Ward 8, will have 1,105 seats for just 366 students.

To the extent there's a capacity problem, it's too many seats in high school, particularly in the eastern part of the city. Building a new 800-seat high school at 7th and Rhode Island doesn't seem like a very thoughtful thing to do. To the extent there is excess capacity in middle school, it's in Wards 7 and 8. The rest of the city is going to be quite short of middle school seats in a few years.

One explanation for his position is that he doesn't believe in the work of his own office, or has no faith in the school system he oversees to attract students. An alternative explanation is that he's willing to put politics ahead of the well-being of the students he is supposed to represent. Neither explanation is very flattering to him.