Another outsider who thinks Controlled-choice zones are what DC needs

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:Just to clear up a couple of misconceptions posted above. First, Ken Archer is not really an "outsider" as the thread topic would have it. He lives in DC and has been active on education issues for some time. I don't always agree with him, but I respect his knowledge of the topic. While he doesn't currently have a child enrolled in DCPS, that is only because his child is too young. I believe that will change next year.

Also, contrary to the post that says controlled choice plans are not being proposed for Wards 3 and 8, Archer's proposal does exactly that. It's notable that given where he lives, strict neighborhood school boundaries would be personally advantageous to him. So, the fact that he proposes controlled-choice even for his own neighborhood shows a certain willingness to make his own sacrifice.

That's quite a leap. Moving or going private are on the menu for lots of residents of Georgetown with kids. Sacrifice, heh. I thought it was supposed to be a gift to wealthy parents to be able to "choose" a socio-economically diverse school.

[Anonymous]

He lives in georgetown?? Get back to me when someone IB for Brent or Maury wants controlled choice. Georgetown-- geez, even the "worst scenario" elementary school is better than the average DCPS school.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Just to clear up a couple of misconceptions posted above. First, Ken Archer is not really an "outsider" as the thread topic would have it. He lives in DC and has been active on education issues for some time. I don't always agree with him, but I respect his knowledge of the topic. While he doesn't currently have a child enrolled in DCPS, that is only because his child is too young. I believe that will change next year.

Also, contrary to the post that says controlled choice plans are not being proposed for Wards 3 and 8, Archer's proposal does exactly that. It's notable that given where he lives, strict neighborhood school boundaries would be personally advantageous to him. So, the fact that he proposes controlled-choice even for his own neighborhood shows a certain willingness to make his own sacrifice.

what area are you speaking of? Or perhaps you could just say generally what DC neighborhood school families are most at risk with this proposal? As I read his proposal, you are limited by the controlled-choice to certain neighborhoods, rather than guaranteed a specific school. But since so many DC neighborhoods lack diversity, I don't see how much diversity in the schools you are really adding in exchange for giving up the right to attend your closest school.

Archer proposes that the "zone" be a 2 mile radius around your house. If you live near a border, the radius would be extended in the opposite directions. Based on some back of the envelop calculations that stand a good chance of being wrong, only the area near the intersection of MacArthur Blvd and Loughboro Ave. would include only "desirable" (for lack of a better word) schools. Other areas would generally include at least one low or lower-performing school.

Regardless, I do think the socio-economic segregation in DC is too extreme for this sort of plan. By the time you engineer things to have the desired socio-economic mix, you've created a transportation nightmare. You also have a real risk that those who have choices such as moving or going private will simply do that rather than be social engineered into an unwelcome situation.

My own preference is to use carrots rather than sticks. Create attractive programs that attract higher performing kids to currently underperforming schools. Maybe invite Patrick Pope to recreate Hardy in a renovated MacFarland and have a true arts magnet middle school? If there is room, co-locate that with a bilingual middle school. Kind of apples and oranges, I know, but I'm just thinking out loud.

[sondreal]

I think Archer has done a good job of a laying out just how incredibly unattractive "controlled choice" is. If he were really trying to sell this idea, would he be throwing around phrases like 'algorithmic placement'?

I think he means to set this up as a binary choice:

*Either "controlled choice" for the entire city,
*Or a new HS at Ellington to relieve pressure from Wilson and to make Hardy more attractive.

I tend to agree with the people saying that DC doesn't have a boundary problem, it has a school quality problem and that the problem needs to approached that way.

[Anonymous]

And I know that ideally the idea is we're thinking long-term, but the Chancellor has repeated several times that any new plan will included "significant grandfathering"...is that to be believed? Considering my kids are in PK and 2nd I'm taking her at her word and assuming we'll get to stay in our OOB school where we are very happy and are children are thriving.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Just to clear up a couple of misconceptions posted above. First, Ken Archer is not really an "outsider" as the thread topic would have it. He lives in DC and has been active on education issues for some time. I don't always agree with him, but I respect his knowledge of the topic. While he doesn't currently have a child enrolled in DCPS, that is only because his child is too young. I believe that will change next year.

Also, contrary to the post that says controlled choice plans are not being proposed for Wards 3 and 8, Archer's proposal does exactly that. It's notable that given where he lives, strict neighborhood school boundaries would be personally advantageous to him. So, the fact that he proposes controlled-choice even for his own neighborhood shows a certain willingness to make his own sacrifice.

He is no education expert and has no kids in public school in DC, nor has he ever. When someone with actual knowledge and experience speaks up yay or nay on this issue it will be valuable. In the meantime, more people weighing in on things they don't really understand is not helpful. Lets just be clear when bloggers are simply, bloggers.

"Bloggers" are people who write blogs. The term says nothing about the quality of their writing, but simply describes the medium through which they communicate. I did not describe him as an "education expert", but as someone who has been active on education issues and whose knowledge of the topic I respect. I certainly would not describe him as an "outsider" and, as I said, he lacks a child in DCPS (I didn't really realize that was a qualification, per se) only because his child is too young. I have seen him state his intention to send his child to DCPS.

I don't believe anyone disagrees that DCPS needs to rethink student assignment policies (to borrow the phrase that is currently in vogue). It is worthwhile to examine a range of ideas, particularly those that have been used elsewhere. It's perfectly reasonable to analyze such proposals and discard those that are found lacking. But, that should be done on the basis of the substance of the ideas rather than the vocation of the proposer.

[Anonymous]

I get why the certain Ward councilmembers are cynically endorsing allowing charters to have neighborhood preference. (I find some humor in the fact that Latin is more of a liability for Muriel than a selling point to her constituents.)

I can't understand why someone who claims to think about these issues doesn't automatically see every reason why neighborhood preference for charters goes against one of the main purposes of charter schools in DC and just how badly this would hurt many of the students who benefit the most from them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Just to clear up a couple of misconceptions posted above. First, Ken Archer is not really an "outsider" as the thread topic would have it. He lives in DC and has been active on education issues for some time. I don't always agree with him, but I respect his knowledge of the topic. While he doesn't currently have a child enrolled in DCPS, that is only because his child is too young. I believe that will change next year.

Also, contrary to the post that says controlled choice plans are not being proposed for Wards 3 and 8, Archer's proposal does exactly that. It's notable that given where he lives, strict neighborhood school boundaries would be personally advantageous to him. So, the fact that he proposes controlled-choice even for his own neighborhood shows a certain willingness to make his own sacrifice.

That's quite a leap. Moving or going private are on the menu for lots of residents of Georgetown with kids. Sacrifice, heh. I thought it was supposed to be a gift to wealthy parents to be able to "choose" a socio-economically diverse school.

I'm sorry, so it would apply to Ward 3 as well? So whether you fed into Deal or Hardy would then be the product of a lottery?

And more importantly, in every zone they would be trying to create, many families buy houses walking distance from the school they are supposed to send their kids to eventually. And for some people with multiple small children, only one car, a kid with life threatening asthma you NEVER want someone to be too far away from to beat an ambulance that will take him to a bad hospital, you pick the problem, they would no longer have that certainty? You would in Montgomery County, and we would not have bought our house (when we got here, we had 1 child who was not yet two, now we have several who have all been or are in the ES we CHOSE for numerous reasons, proximity being a gigantic one) We chose the ES and then bought the house. That was the order in which the decisions were made when we moved to DC.

I don't know how large these other proposed zones are, but I assume everyone would have the same problems that I have just listed. I don't know for how many these problems would be more significant than the stupid social engineering and school quality issues, because there are schools that are improving and schools that are getting worse, but not all schools in Ward 3 are the same, either. No school is the same as any other. Janney is better academically, but it is large even if they could just fill it to capacity instead of having the overcrowding. Mann is small. That alone could make a big difference in a family's decision about where to live.

It seems that is what they are trying to do - to make all the schools within any zone the same, but there are SO many reasons that have crap to do with academics why parents choose a particular school. And for many parents who KNOW from the outset that they plan to have more kids than they can afford to send to private school, I bet they made their decision on where to buy their house the same way we did.

This would be pure destruction and insanity in my opinion, in ANY zone - even one that just had a toss up between Mann and Janney. I'm sorry to use them because I know how many people think once you are in Ward 3 nothing else matters but those are the only 2 ES I am really familiar with because a friend of a child went all the way through the other. They are not the same. We chose one over the other before we bought our house, with one child who had 3 years to go before entering, without knowing how many other children we would have. We have grown out of our house, but are waiting until all our kids have aged out of the school to move.

I really don't think we would have moved into DC if that was the system. We would have lived in Montgomery County.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:Just to clear up a couple of misconceptions posted above. First, Ken Archer is not really an "outsider" as the thread topic would have it. He lives in DC and has been active on education issues for some time. I don't always agree with him, but I respect his knowledge of the topic. While he doesn't currently have a child enrolled in DCPS, that is only because his child is too young. I believe that will change next year.

Also, contrary to the post that says controlled choice plans are not being proposed for Wards 3 and 8, Archer's proposal does exactly that. It's notable that given where he lives, strict neighborhood school boundaries would be personally advantageous to him. So, the fact that he proposes controlled-choice even for his own neighborhood shows a certain willingness to make his own sacrifice.

Doesn't Archer live in Georgetown? If so, strict boundaries would mean his kids go to Hardy. More lax boundaries might mean his kids go to Deal.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Just to clear up a couple of misconceptions posted above. First, Ken Archer is not really an "outsider" as the thread topic would have it. He lives in DC and has been active on education issues for some time. I don't always agree with him, but I respect his knowledge of the topic. While he doesn't currently have a child enrolled in DCPS, that is only because his child is too young. I believe that will change next year.

Also, contrary to the post that says controlled choice plans are not being proposed for Wards 3 and 8, Archer's proposal does exactly that. It's notable that given where he lives, strict neighborhood school boundaries would be personally advantageous to him. So, the fact that he proposes controlled-choice even for his own neighborhood shows a certain willingness to make his own sacrifice.

Doesn't Archer live in Georgetown? If so, strict boundaries would mean his kids go to Hardy. More lax boundaries might mean his kids go to Deal.

For the foreseeable future, his personal concern would be elementary schools.

[Anonymous]

A 2 mile zone sounds huge. Esepcially given the number of elem schools in neighborhoods. Im asusming the zones would be tighter for elem school. this really would destroy neighborhood schools in an urban setting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He lives in georgetown?? Get back to me when someone IB for Brent or Maury wants controlled choice. Georgetown-- geez, even the "worst scenario" elementary school is better than the average DCPS school.

THIS. Seriously, are the people in charge really considering a system in which the pretty good/getting better schools are going to be forcibly lumped with the generally pretty bad schools in some half-brained social engineering experiment, while the established good schools are totally left alone?

That pretty much destroys any gains this city has made in the last 10 or so years at keeping middle class families in the city. And I would vote against/actively campaign against any elected official who supported this plan. And move to the burbs.

Forcible regression to the mean is not OK. Especially if the high performing schools are taken out of the mix.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Greater Greater Washington house style of advocating a policy by assuming only the rosy projections regarding potential benefits and ignoring the best arguments of any opponent can be pretty grating.

I read Greater Greater Washington. From many of the posts, its strikes me that its writers know more about wine bars than schools.

[Anonymous]

A very good reason to vote against Vincent Gray. One city, my arse.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:A very good reason to vote against Vincent Gray. One city, my arse.

Ken Archer, the author of the article under discussion, is a Tommy Wells supporter. He would love for you to vote against Gray.