Ron Brown Middle School, Deanwood. Photo from DCPS.

DC Public Schools must serve both “kids who are ready to learn” and “under-performing kids,” according to David Catania, chair of the DC Council’s Education Committee. To accomplish this, he has asked DCPS to think about application-only secondary schools east of the river.

Will this strategy improve options for District families, especially those east of the Anacostia? Or will it further drain neighborhood schools? And what does this bifurcation of “ready” and “under-performing” mean for DC students?

Catania proposed this idea to DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson at the March 1 oversight hearing for DCPS. Rachel Baye reported in the Examiner:

As I look at our communities in [Wards] 7 and 8, there is a morning diaspora where many families get up and take their children to schools west of the [Anacostia] River. I want to put on the table the idea of an application middle school for 7 and 8 and an application high school in 7 and 8 for those kids who don’t have the ability to transport themselves to Hardy or to Deal or to any of the excellent middle schools that exist west of the river.

Henderson wasn’t given time respond at the hearing, but Baye later asked DCPS “whether the school system has looked into Catania’s suggestion” and received no response.

Must special programming equal “application-only”?

Catania specifically mentioned language immersion and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs as “things that open doors” for students, continuing:

These are the things that I think are going to attract parents. But I really want to think — without demanding or mandating, I want you to think about how the communities could create an application middle and an application high in [Wards] 7 and 8 that could compete with the charter schools and meet the needs of those children who are not in a position for whatever reason to be transported west every morning. This [presumably, the “morning diaspora” mentioned above] has to stop. All right?” (see Council archives)

This appears to conflate attractive programming with application-only schools. Which of these concepts DC pursues depends on the goal. Is it to provide more challenging and interesting programming in east of the river schools? Or is it about dividing “under-performing” children from “ready” students?

The DCPS lottery system already allows students from all over town to take advantage, space permitting, of special programming at the neighborhood schools. Language programming is available, for instance, at Oyster in NW and at Tyler in SE; these are not application-only schools. Anne Beers Elementary (Ward 7) has a STEM program, including a partnership with NASA; it is available to anyone in the city by lottery, without special application.

These special programs are, as Catania notes, rare east of the river. And there is a long history of failed promises in this regard. A recent example: H.D. Woodson SHS (Ward 7), when newly built and reconstituted in 2011, was to be a STEM school with a focus on green technology. The special programming was to serve in-boundary students and, it was hoped, attract out-of-boundary students as well. But DCPS failed to develop the promised offerings.

Specialty programming, like any schooling, may work more easily for “kids who are ready to learn.” And research on peer effects would seem worth considering in this context. But is there any reason “under-performing kids” cannot be served by language, arts, or technology programming? And is it true, as Catania contends, that teaching the “ready” and the “under-performing” together “serves neither”? Are application-only schools the only, or best, way to attract talented students or invested families?

Would selective schools serve wards 7 and 8?

In addition to the 5 entirely application-only high schools (Banneker, Ellington, School Without Walls, McKinley Tech, and Phelps), DCPS has a variety of selective programs within schools at Woodson, Dunbar, Wilson, and Hardy.

As Catania pointed out, there is no application-only DCPS secondary school east of the river. And there is no entirely application-based middle school.

An application-only school in ward 7 or 8 could serve as a magnet for talented students, attracting students to DCPS that are currently enrolled in charters, preventing further attrition to charters, or even encouraging more residents to move to those neighborhoods on the basis of stronger educational offerings.

On the other hand, such a school could take the remaining high-performing students out of neighborhood schools in the two wards, reducing enrollments, lowering average test scores, and removing positive peer effects of those high performers on the students that remain in neighborhood schools.

There is a great deal of research on peer effects and other aspects of magnet programming on student achievement. Less prevalent are studies exploring the effects of magnet programming, whether application- or lottery-based, on neighborhood schools.

One 2004 study found :

The data from this district indicated that the composition of most of the lowest achieving neighborhood high schools is affected little by magnet schools because few students from these neighborhoods have the academic credentials to qualify for admission to magnet schools. In contrast, magnet schools have a greater effect on achievement at neighborhood high schools in high-achieving residence areas.

A 2008 study mapped magnet students’ home addresses, correlating them with failing neighborhood schools.

Before actively pursuing application-only magnet schools as the solution for Wards 7 and 8, DCPS and Councilmember Catania should evaluate the potential positive and negative effects of such a school on the quality of education for students attending existing schools in those wards, in addition to how it would serve the students it attracts.

Creating a new school might be more cost-effective and better serve Ward 7 and 8 students than improving existing neighborhood schools, and an application-only school might be the best approach. But policymakers should not simply assume this without more thoroughly evaluating the options and the available research.

Update: David Catania’s staff followed up to say that the councilmember was only asking DCPS to consider the idea, not necessarily to move forward with it. We have updated the post to clarify this.

Virginia Spatz has lived with her husband in Hill East for 25 years. Their children were homeschooled prior to attending DCPS high schools (Wilson ‘09 and School Without Walls ‘11). Spatz is a freelance writer and activist whose work appears in Capital Community News’ East of the River, The Education Town Hall, and other local and national media.

Originally from Rhode Island, Jacques Arsenault holds a masters in public policy from Georgetown and has lived in the DC area for the past 15 years.  He works as a policy analyst for the federal government by day and grows mustaches for kids by night. He also blogs at Jacques of All Trades.  The views expressed here are his own, and do not reflect those of his employer.