Ward 3 - Wilson feeders meeting last night: did anyone attend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truthfully, I'm shocked that anyone, never mind the last few posters, would think that paying families to not attend their in-boundary school is a good idea. You want to pay among the wealthiest families in DC an extra $1000, because even though the kids lucked out with wealthy families, we should give them extra resources to attend the crappy schools that are left over for everyone else.

What we need is a mayor/chancellor with some spine to re-draw boundaries in a reasonable way. Or if it really is impossible, build a new school.

Well, paying families could work, but only for those who would like the extra money. And it could not be based on race (even though "diversity" is a laudable goal), because clearly it would be a discriminatory, racist program if it did that. Instead, base the program on the kid's PARCC score and you might be on to something. It would be like an athletic scholarship or any other type of scholarship, based on academic ability. DCPS could use the program to "seed" grade-level students at certain underperforming schools. Of course, almost every DCPS school is underperforming, but a program like this could be used to prop up schools in particular neighborhoods.

Exactly. There are a hundred ways to sugarcoat the payment program to make it attractive to everyone. The basic idea though is to give families what will really motivate them - money - instead of dangling expensive programming that doesn't really fool anyone. Once a reasonable number have taken the money, the "seed" school will be a functioning place with a racially diverse set of students and acceptable PARCC scores. At that point, more neighborhood families will choose to attend the school rather than play the lottery. The goal (aside from reducing overcrowding) is to form a beachhead of solid students at an underutilized school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the pairing issue, one idea is to cluster schools, so in the example of Lafayette/Shepherd make one PK3-1 and the other grades 2-5 or something. Lafayette gets PK3. the main issue is transportation and managing the schedule when kids in the same family go to both schools. The capitol hill cluster has addressed these issues with some but not complete success.

I would also like to see pairings of DCPS WOTP schools and the EoTP bilingual schools. Some WoTP parents should be willing to send their kids to Marie Reed, Powell, etc. if there is a core of high-performing students. Peeling off Bancroft and Oyster and sending them along with other bilingual schools to MacFarland would be painful but the best thing for Deal and Wilson and MacFarland and Roosevelt. That would also enable Adams to be repurposed, potentially for more early childhood seats

The math doesn't work though. Right now at Lafayette alone, the PK-1st population is around 350, which already exceeds the number of kids at Shepherd currently. Even if you did PK3-K it would be tight. So then you're looking at expansion...

What if Shepherd became the ECE center and Lafayette K-5 -- That actually has tons of appeal in my mind (Lafayette mom here). It would also address what is sure to be overcrowding at Lafayette which will be at capacity next year (12 months after the building renovation...)

[Anonymous]

One big problem is that DCPS's working group has already decided that boundary changes and feeder assignments are completely off the table, without any clear explanation of why or how or who decided that. So lots of the good ideas here about reorganizing the feeder routes are DOA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One big problem is that DCPS's working group has already decided that boundary changes and feeder assignments are completely off the table, without any clear explanation of why or how or who decided that. So lots of the good ideas here about reorganizing the feeder routes are DOA.

Well I think it could be on the table if people were getting something in return. Like the Shepherd/Lafayette idea is cool - and then CCDC gets PK3. I think you'd find support for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truthfully, I'm shocked that anyone, never mind the last few posters, would think that paying families to not attend their in-boundary school is a good idea. You want to pay among the wealthiest families in DC an extra $1000, because even though the kids lucked out with wealthy families, we should give them extra resources to attend the crappy schools that are left over for everyone else.

What we need is a mayor/chancellor with some spine to re-draw boundaries in a reasonable way. Or if it really is impossible, build a new school.

Well, paying families could work, but only for those who would like the extra money. And it could not be based on race (even though "diversity" is a laudable goal), because clearly it would be a discriminatory, racist program if it did that. Instead, base the program on the kid's PARCC score and you might be on to something. It would be like an athletic scholarship or any other type of scholarship, based on academic ability. DCPS could use the program to "seed" grade-level students at certain underperforming schools. Of course, almost every DCPS school is underperforming, but a program like this could be used to prop up schools in particular neighborhoods.

Exactly. There are a hundred ways to sugarcoat the payment program to make it attractive to everyone. The basic idea though is to give families what will really motivate them - money - instead of dangling expensive programming that doesn't really fool anyone. Once a reasonable number have taken the money, the "seed" school will be a functioning place with a racially diverse set of students and acceptable PARCC scores. At that point, more neighborhood families will choose to attend the school rather than play the lottery. The goal (aside from reducing overcrowding) is to form a beachhead of solid students at an underutilized school.

As an idea for a pilot program, I think it would actually work. It would actually work! But what it does is remove all pretense that our public school system regards our children as commodities. Their abilities are what drive the frenzy over any particular school, and what consequently prevents the Mayor's office from breaking up the impractical, gerrymandered school districts. However, while the program does not solve the problem of DCPS's reluctance to "track" students by ability, but it would be a positive force for change.

[Anonymous]

I think the biggest objection to the pay-cash program will be what someone else articulated earlier: some people will get pissed if they see someone else is getting money, and so they'll say it's unfair.

Personally, I think it's perfectly fair. Students at Deal, whether they got there IB or OOB, have something valuable to offer. Asking them to give up their Deal spot and instead attend another up-and-coming school is asking them to take a chance on a new school. They should be compensated for taking that risk.

DCPS might also complain that it's unseemly or dirty to pay students like that. But this isn't even the first time DCPS has paid students to attend school - http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/dc-students-being-paid-for-summer-school/article/2503405

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the biggest objection to the pay-cash program will be what someone else articulated earlier: some people will get pissed if they see someone else is getting money, and so they'll say it's unfair.

Personally, I think it's perfectly fair. Students at Deal, whether they got there IB or OOB, have something valuable to offer. Asking them to give up their Deal spot and instead attend another up-and-coming school is asking them to take a chance on a new school. They should be compensated for taking that risk.

DCPS might also complain that it's unseemly or dirty to pay students like that. But this isn't even the first time DCPS has paid students to attend school - http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/dc-students-being-paid-for-summer-school/article/2503405

I think it would just be ridiculous. For one, IB students could just turn around the next day (or month or year) and re-enroll. Then DCPS has to collect the money back which would be impossible for them. Second, how to decide who is eligible? Current students? IB students who currently attend private-- but who could just fill out paperwork and "enroll" and then "unenroll" and collect $1000? What about people who get in through the lottery (there are a few). Is a tax credit worth anything to a lower SES person who is OOB? Doesn't this just benefit the Middle and Upper middle classes? The mechanics and optics of it would be impossible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the biggest objection to the pay-cash program will be what someone else articulated earlier: some people will get pissed if they see someone else is getting money, and so they'll say it's unfair.

Personally, I think it's perfectly fair. Students at Deal, whether they got there IB or OOB, have something valuable to offer. Asking them to give up their Deal spot and instead attend another up-and-coming school is asking them to take a chance on a new school. They should be compensated for taking that risk.

DCPS might also complain that it's unseemly or dirty to pay students like that. But this isn't even the first time DCPS has paid students to attend school - http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/dc-students-being-paid-for-summer-school/article/2503405

I think it would just be ridiculous. For one, IB students could just turn around the next day (or month or year) and re-enroll. Then DCPS has to collect the money back which would be impossible for them. Second, how to decide who is eligible? Current students? IB students who currently attend private-- but who could just fill out paperwork and "enroll" and then "unenroll" and collect $1000? What about people who get in through the lottery (there are a few). Is a tax credit worth anything to a lower SES person who is OOB? Doesn't this just benefit the Middle and Upper middle classes? The mechanics and optics of it would be impossible.

These details are easy to solve. The most obvious is preventing people from gaming the system by simply saying that students don't get money just for temporarily unenrolling, they have to enroll at and attend some other school. The ones eligible are students who received spots at Deal. If you want to worry about a tax credit, then just give cash. If DCPS really wants to give a tax credit, then it's easy to set an income cut-off so that those with HHI > $100,000 get a tax credit while those with HHI < $100,000 get cash.

The hard part will be all the newspaper stories that say "DCPS is paying students to leave school!!!". That will be complete bullshit of course, but the political types will have to show they're willing to actually do something to make the schools better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the pairing issue, one idea is to cluster schools, so in the example of Lafayette/Shepherd make one PK3-1 and the other grades 2-5 or something. Lafayette gets PK3. the main issue is transportation and managing the schedule when kids in the same family go to both schools. The capitol hill cluster has addressed these issues with some but not complete success.

I would also like to see pairings of DCPS WOTP schools and the EoTP bilingual schools. Some WoTP parents should be willing to send their kids to Marie Reed, Powell, etc. if there is a core of high-performing students. Peeling off Bancroft and Oyster and sending them along with other bilingual schools to MacFarland would be painful but the best thing for Deal and Wilson and MacFarland and Roosevelt. That would also enable Adams to be repurposed, potentially for more early childhood seats

I actually LOVE this idea! It would organically reduce the OOB at Deal/Wilson by reducing # at Shepherd. Lafayette would have a PK3 option. The distance isn't horrible (less than 10 minutes, even less when Wise, Beach cut throughs open back up). I do think you can entice some WOTP kids to go to Marie Reed, Bancroft for Spanish.

How does this solve Deal/wilson??

Because the OOB kids now get in through Shepherd, Eaton, Hearst, and Hardy feeders. If you pair the schools with students that are already IB for Deal/Hardy/Wilson you organically reduce the OOB feeding without the bad optics that's DCPS eliminated feeder rights.

Another way you can pare the OOB feeder element (and create positive incentives) is to require a certain academic achievement standard and good disciplinary record in order to continue in the feeder pattern on to middle school and then high school. That rewards the kids who are taking advantage of a better opportunity than exists in their "home" school, culls the ones who aren't, and perhaps creates some additional slots for new OOB kids.

[Anonymous]

You all are ridiculous.

Paying families cash?
"Culling" students??

WTF??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all are ridiculous.

Paying families cash?
"Culling" students??

WTF??

Happy to hear your better ideas. DCPS already rejected the easy answers - shrinking boundaries and restricting OOB feeder rights - so people are trying to get creative to solve the problem. When there are only limited solutions on the table, crapping on them doesn't help.

The only solution DCPS seems to be offering is spending millions to build more schools or rent space in NWDC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are ridiculous.

Paying families cash?
"Culling" students??

WTF??

Happy to hear your better ideas. DCPS already rejected the easy answers - shrinking boundaries and restricting OOB feeder rights - so people are trying to get creative to solve the problem. When there are only limited solutions on the table, crapping on them doesn't help.

The only solution DCPS seems to be offering is spending millions to build more schools or rent space in NWDC.

Spend more on DCPS EOTP/EOTR to make them more attractive. There have been many ways suggested. When in doubt, spend money on actually making things better instead of coming up with weird perverse incentive payments. It just sounds like a bad sociology experiment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are ridiculous.

Paying families cash?
"Culling" students??

WTF??

Happy to hear your better ideas. DCPS already rejected the easy answers - shrinking boundaries and restricting OOB feeder rights - so people are trying to get creative to solve the problem. When there are only limited solutions on the table, crapping on them doesn't help.

The only solution DCPS seems to be offering is spending millions to build more schools or rent space in NWDC.

Well, as long as we're throwing out ideas:
-Close Deal. Overcrowding gone. Students can be given "Displaced-Deal" preference in the lottery
-Cap enrollment. IB, OOB feeder students can all be given an equal opportunity to lottery in to Deal. Leftovers can lottery elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are ridiculous.

Paying families cash?
"Culling" students??

WTF??

Happy to hear your better ideas. DCPS already rejected the easy answers - shrinking boundaries and restricting OOB feeder rights - so people are trying to get creative to solve the problem. When there are only limited solutions on the table, crapping on them doesn't help.

The only solution DCPS seems to be offering is spending millions to build more schools or rent space in NWDC.

Spend more on DCPS EOTP/EOTR to make them more attractive. There have been many ways suggested. When in doubt, spend money on actually making things better instead of coming up with weird perverse incentive payments. It just sounds like a bad sociology experiment.

They keep trying this. It doesn't work. You can get people to come for ECE but they peel off by 1st or 2nd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are ridiculous.

Paying families cash?
"Culling" students??

WTF??

Happy to hear your better ideas. DCPS already rejected the easy answers - shrinking boundaries and restricting OOB feeder rights - so people are trying to get creative to solve the problem. When there are only limited solutions on the table, crapping on them doesn't help.

The only solution DCPS seems to be offering is spending millions to build more schools or rent space in NWDC.

Spend more on DCPS EOTP/EOTR to make them more attractive. There have been many ways suggested. When in doubt, spend money on actually making things better instead of coming up with weird perverse incentive payments. It just sounds like a bad sociology experiment.

It's simply a scholarship program. There are literally dozens or even hundreds of incentive programs to accomplish certain outcomes, throughout the public sector. Affirmative action programs are but one example.