WaPo Editorial today on DCPS/charter collaboration

[Anonymous]

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lso whoever said charters are not looking to rehab vacant/crumbling buildings - that's not true. Otherwise charters have to build a new site from scratch at $10-20 million at LEAST, or have to lease from a private facility which is generally not optimal (in terms of adequate space/design etc for student learning). If they can renovate a building, they are spending dramatically less - and a lot less than DCPS is spending on facilities rehab.

Duke Ellington's renovation costs have ballooned to $178 million for a projected enrollment of 600 students, or $300,000 per student. Even if you assume a useful life of 40 years in the renovation, that's an absurd per-pupil cost of over $7,000 per student. A public charter school receives $3,000 per student for facilities costs, which is intended to cover lease + occupancy expenses.

So, there is an equity argument to be had (whether Public Charters produce similar or better outcomes with similar populations of students). But the efficiency argument -- whether the government, or non-profit entities, do a better job of spending public dollars -- seems to be a non-starter. Our public policy should be geared toward removing as many barriers to charter expansion as possible.

There's also an equity problem with Duke Ellington vs. the DCPS buildings that have not been renovated yet. It reeks of a huge political pull that pushed aside renovations of schools that haven't been touched since the '70s.

Furthermore, the admissions process allows non-residents to be admitted while residents are rejected.

Has the Post done an exposé on Duke Ellington?

Why should a performing arts school admit a kid with little or no talent simply because s/he is a DC resident. It defeats the purpose and mission of the school.

Is a performing arts school for those with the chops. Your kid has no talent. No admission.
Because it's a DC PUBLIC SCHOOL, not a private performing arts school.

It's a performing arts school for those with the chops. Your kid is without talent No admission. It's a magnet school for performing arts. Magnet schools do not allow students who are not up for the task to gain admission.

Nonsense. The first kid on the wait list is undoubtedly just as talented as the last kid admitted. Restricting Ellington to DC kids would not not destroy it.

I know one very talented 9th grade DC resident who languished on the Ellington wait list for months and is now at Wilson. That kid should have gotten into Ellington rather that VA and MD residents.

[Anonymous]

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lso whoever said charters are not looking to rehab vacant/crumbling buildings - that's not true. Otherwise charters have to build a new site from scratch at $10-20 million at LEAST, or have to lease from a private facility which is generally not optimal (in terms of adequate space/design etc for student learning). If they can renovate a building, they are spending dramatically less - and a lot less than DCPS is spending on facilities rehab.

Duke Ellington's renovation costs have ballooned to $178 million for a projected enrollment of 600 students, or $300,000 per student. Even if you assume a useful life of 40 years in the renovation, that's an absurd per-pupil cost of over $7,000 per student. A public charter school receives $3,000 per student for facilities costs, which is intended to cover lease + occupancy expenses.

So, there is an equity argument to be had (whether Public Charters produce similar or better outcomes with similar populations of students). But the efficiency argument -- whether the government, or non-profit entities, do a better job of spending public dollars -- seems to be a non-starter. Our public policy should be geared toward removing as many barriers to charter expansion as possible.

There's also an equity problem with Duke Ellington vs. the DCPS buildings that have not been renovated yet. It reeks of a huge political pull that pushed aside renovations of schools that haven't been touched since the '70s.

Furthermore, the admissions process allows non-residents to be admitted while residents are rejected.

Has the Post done an exposé on Duke Ellington?

Why should a performing arts school admit a kid with little or no talent simply because s/he is a DC resident. It defeats the purpose and mission of the school.

Is a performing arts school for those with the chops. Your kid has no talent. No admission.
Because it's a DC PUBLIC SCHOOL, not a private performing arts school.

It's a performing arts school for those with the chops. Your kid is without talent No admission. It's a magnet school for performing arts. Magnet schools do not allow students who are not up for the task to gain admission.

My kid probably is without musical talent - but not high school aged yet.

Wrapping in yearly operations and then billion dollar renovations would put fair out of state tuition at about $30-$40k per year. Ready to pay your fair share, VA/MD moocher?

[Anonymous]

I am very concerned now that VA and MD people are stealing our precious DC resources. But I want to make sure that I am not accidentally using any of their resources!

Do you think it's okay to use the beltway, if I stay within DC limits? In addition, I'm not sure what to do about the airports. Should we stop flying altogether?

Thankfully, we have national chains like Costco and Walmart IN dc, so I don't have to cross the border there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am very concerned now that VA and MD people are stealing our precious DC resources. But I want to make sure that I am not accidentally using any of their resources!

Do you think it's okay to use the beltway, if I stay within DC limits? In addition, I'm not sure what to do about the airports. Should we stop flying altogether?

Thankfully, we have national chains like Costco and Walmart IN dc, so I don't have to cross the border there!

This does not make the point you think it does.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Ew. So what you are saying is you don't care about educating all kids. You just care about educating kids as long as they choose DCPS?

You are just gross.

I care about having buildings for public schools. I don't care about giving buildings to private companies.

Nice try with the extrapolation BTW.

Charter schools are public schools.

Charter schools are private companies that run public schools.

DP - wow PP, nice overgeneralization which = misrepresentation. But since you're claiming they're private companies, please, do us the honor of naming the private companies that are behind: Yu Ying, LAMB, Stokes, 2 Rivers, CMI, Mundo Verde, Haynes and Capital City. What are the names of the private corporations or companies that own them/run them?

I know Kipp and a few others are part of much larger models, but since you're trying to paint everyone with one giant (ignorant) brushstroke, name the private companies/corporations behind the schools listed above?

I won't hold my breath...

NP. The Walmart Foundation has given YY and MV lots of money over the years. My kid is at one of the schools you listed, and I had no qualms in describing my kid's education as privately/independently operated with tax payers dollars. It is what it is. By the way, the school was described the same way by many of the parents as we talked while watching our children run around playing. Acknowledging the truth does not mean that the schools are not wanted and needed.

Acknowledging the truth is a good thing - you should try it sometime. Walmart and corporations contributing to or donating to a school do NOT = "the school is owned by a private company or corporation". You are twisting a truth of corporate donations into a ridiculous lie of a private corporation-run school.

Again, the truth is a good thing, try it sometime.

Tell that to the owner/operators of the Amos, Basis, KIPPs, Options, And Friendsjip charters. I'm sure there are others. And by the time the non-elected (not accountable to the public) charter board catch on that such charters are more interested in for-profit opposed to educating, the owners have siphoned millions from the tax payers.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Oooooohhh, now I understand who you are! You're another bitter person who didn't get into the highly regarded charter that is in your neighborhood and you're pissed that there's no neighborhood preference! You resent that people from other far away wards got in but you don't have a right!

You're not concerned about DC's kids overall at all, so stop trying to fool us, it ain't working. Being angry that charters don't allow neighborhood preference shows you support the old system that, when unchallenged by competition produced a very very bottom line "Haves" and "Have nots" IB structure that either you could afford to buy into, or you couldn't. You didn't send your kids to school in Wards 5, 7 or 8 twelve years ago to "invest in community", so why are you calling on people to do something you didn't even do yourself?

Anyone who harps on the fact that charters do NOT give neighborhood preference is bitter that they actually offer an OPTION to families who live near crappy neighborhood schools TODAY. When you are willing to sacrifice your kids' educations TODAY in the hopes of making the worst of the worst schools better TOMORROW for someone else's kids, then we'll listen to you. But now you're just bitter that charters don't give you what you want. District-wide lotteries give families with awful options today better options for their kids TODAY. It's up to DCPS to do the work to improve the schools in basic ways (which, actually, I think they're doing a better job of now than they've ever done) so people WANT to go to those schools and not trek across DC. Until then though, who are you to try to deny families a choice today for their kids who need educating TODAY?

Actually, you're completely wrong. I send my child to my in-boundary DCPS which was ranked #1 on our submission to the lottery. I am invested in my community.

You are the one who is only concerned for yourself. Again, please move. PLEASE. Just go away.

Maybe you're a product of DC public schools from way back after all, because your reading comprehension is lacking in a huge way. It's not about whether you send your kids to any neighborhood public school today. It's about your over-generalizations that charters are the problem when in fact the very families you want to invest today in your IB school would mostly not have even been considering your school (unless you're in NW) 12 years ago when the charters you love to blame didn't exist. They would have been planning moves to MoCo or Fairfax and the mythical investment in local schools due to lack of other options you keep shouting about would still not happen. Because it didn't happen when there were no charters.

And, in fact, the fact that you are sending your child to your IB school today calls into serious question what you would have done when charters were first starting out and you had to choose between a miserably performing school (again, unless you're in NW) and a promising new possibility, even though it was untested.

You simply CANNOT sit here on your high horse deriding the choices families are making when you very well yourself may not have made the same choice if you were choosing when charters were first starting.

But much more importantly, stop blaming charters. DCPS **is** actually on the rise, and the threat of charters has overall been the main factor that allowed for decades-long failed policies, relationships, politics and leadership to get turned on it's side and allow for some new ideas. The fight is far from over - test scores are still overall unacceptable and some schools are still in miserable physical condition, and there's a lot about teacher training and retention that still has to be vastly improved. But overall DCPS schools are tangibly in better shape today than they were 15 yrs ago by a long shot.

Now it's up to DCPS to make itself a school system parents WANT to choose, and in the meantime thank goodness families who still live IB for unacceptable schools can at least apply (and pray) through the lottery to better schools.

Focus your vitriol on making DCPS better, not on taking choices away from people when the absence of those choices won't solve the problems of IB schools anyway.

Now who can't read? DCPS is a system that i WANTED to choose. #1 choice.

We are not talking about when charters were first starting or 15 years ago. We are talking about today. There was a time when charters were good for the city. That time has passed. Justifying your decisions based on factors that do not affect you is very telling. How many lies do you need to tell yourself to sleep at night?

I don't have vitriol, I think you must be looking in the mirror. I am simply focused on improving my community for all within it instead of looking out only for myself and as such I don't have to justify my choices as you are compelled to so fervently justify yours.

NP and I agree with others: there's no evidence that the DCPS schools families are not choosing now will be chosen in 5 he absence of desired charters. Plenty of families post on DCUM each lottery season about not getting into their desired schools and planning to move rather than attend their IB. When DCPS has addressed the still poor quality of instruction in many schools then they can start looking for outside entities to blame for less than full enrollment. The investment you seek is still a long way away for many schools and charters are not the problem.

Are these people really leaving? The population in DC is up, not down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am very concerned now that VA and MD people are stealing our precious DC resources. But I want to make sure that I am not accidentally using any of their resources!

Do you think it's okay to use the beltway, if I stay within DC limits? In addition, I'm not sure what to do about the airports. Should we stop flying altogether?

Thankfully, we have national chains like Costco and Walmart IN dc, so I don't have to cross the border there!

Great point. We can also use VA public schools whenever we want even though we live in DC. Also, I'm so grateful that I'll get in state tuition at VA state colleges.

Mooch.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Charter schools are private companies that run public schools.

DP - wow PP, nice overgeneralization which = misrepresentation. But since you're claiming they're private companies, please, do us the honor of naming the private companies that are behind: Yu Ying, LAMB, Stokes, 2 Rivers, CMI, Mundo Verde, Haynes and Capital City. What are the names of the private corporations or companies that own them/run them?

I know Kipp and a few others are part of much larger models, but since you're trying to paint everyone with one giant (ignorant) brushstroke, name the private companies/corporations behind the schools listed above?

I won't hold my breath...

NP. The Walmart Foundation has given YY and MV lots of money over the years. My kid is at one of the schools you listed, and I had no qualms in describing my kid's education as privately/independently operated with tax payers dollars. It is what it is. By the way, the school was described the same way by many of the parents as we talked while watching our children run around playing. Acknowledging the truth does not mean that the schools are not wanted and needed.

Acknowledging the truth is a good thing - you should try it sometime. Walmart and corporations contributing to or donating to a school do NOT = "the school is owned by a private company or corporation". You are twisting a truth of corporate donations into a ridiculous lie of a private corporation-run school.

Again, the truth is a good thing, try it sometime.

Tell that to the owner/operators of the Amos, Basis, KIPPs, Options, And Friendsjip charters. I'm sure there are others. And by the time the non-elected (not accountable to the public) charter board catch on that such charters are more interested in for-profit opposed to educating, the owners have siphoned millions from the tax payers.

What you say about being more interested in making a profit than educating is absolutely true of Options and Friendship, but where is your evidence that this is true of Amos, Basis and Kipp? The fact that especially Basis and Kipp are part of a national network of schools does NOT mean they automatically are out to make a profit and driven by educating kids. Having worked in 2 Kipp schools outside of DC I have no doubt educating kids is the top priority and reason for being there, even if not everyone agrees with how they run their model.

Where's your evidence that Kipp and Basis are driven by making a profit and not educating kids?

[Anonymous]

Many DCPS schools get grants from private corporations too.

[Anonymous]

This does not make the point you think it does.

The point where you are incapable of understanding humor? I think I've made it very well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many DCPS schools get grants from private corporations too.

Yes, I notice those in this thread harping on corporate donations to charters keep ignoring this point about DCPS schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This does not make the point you think it does.

The point where you are incapable of understanding humor? I think I've made it very well.

Yeah, that was really funny and didn't completely miss the point that DC students can't attend MD or VA schools. But mostly it was really funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This does not make the point you think it does.

The point where you are incapable of understanding humor? I think I've made it very well.

Funny only because we are all laughing at you, not with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This does not make the point you think it does.

The point where you are incapable of understanding humor? I think I've made it very well.

Funny only because we are all laughing at you, not with you.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This does not make the point you think it does.

The point where you are incapable of understanding humor? I think I've made it very well.

Funny only because we are all laughing at you, not with you.

+1

+1. I was thinking the same thing! Best part is s/he still doesn't understand the concept.