Future of Brent Pk3?
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Anonymous
Lots of research showing that universal PK, which DC doesn't quite have, gets better results academically. Dollar for dollar, investments in early education get more and better results than anything past 1st grade. Here's one summary. http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-the-government-fund-universal-pre-k/pre-k-is-good-but-universal-pre-k-is-better |
Anonymous
11:38 here. What I was suggesting was universal pre-K with some sort of income preference for the lottery, so that those who needed free pre-K the most would get the preference. I'm not a policy person, so I have no idea how that would work but I think that would be the most equitable. |
Anonymous
In my opinion, it was made to "catch" high SES families for the purpose of improving scores. Also, there was a funding shift: previously money that had gone to the child care development fund could now go to DCPS. So money shifted from the subsidy program, head start, etc to DCPS. |
Anonymous
The DME proposed setting aside 10 percent of PK seats for at risk children but that has been mothballed: I don't think means testing is a solution 99 percent of the time at Brent because it would be indexed to the poverty line. Brent is far from alone in its inability to accommodate all inbound families for PK3 and 4. Does anyone want to add another layer of complexity to the lottery by forcing parents to input personal financial information into MySchoolDC and then verify with tax returns upon enrollment? And would t this have the effect of causing some families to reconsider committing to DCPS or top charters? |
Anonymous
I'm afraid the jury is still out in terms of documenting long-term benefits. http://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?cid=25919841&bcid=25919841&rssid=25919831&item=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.edweek.org%2Fv1%2Few%2F%3Fuuid%3DD556964C-6C3E-11E5-9B16-71C9B3743667 |
Anonymous
| I don't think it would be a solution for Brent -- this is really just a digression from the original thread in response to the question of what would be more equitable than a lottery. And yes, implementation would be very challenging (imagine DCPS dealing with the paperwork for that when there are already so many residency cheats). |
Anonymous
Because 80% is larger than 50% by a statistically significant margin. If you can't see that, not sure how else to help you with the logic. It's hard to dumb it down any further. |
Anonymous
DCPS was bleeding students to the charters who were already offering PS/PK. Rhee realized that if she could at least get some families in the door at PS/PK, then some of them might stay. Reality is that there's still a brain drain the higher up you go at the vast majority of schools, but it did serve to make it look like DCPS wasn't losing as bady as it is. |
Anonymous
No it isn't. If 50% of the IB Brent population were shut out of PK3 and PK4, where exactly do you think all those families would go? I doubt everyone of those people would get seats at a HRCS or WOTP school. I really doubt half of the IB population would move to the burbs. The reality is that the majority of the people who are shut out for both years will grumble and complain, but will show up at K, and DCPS knows this. |
Anonymous
like the jury is still out on climate change? the article rightly addressed the key issue over quality where there is enormous variance. DC PK is widely considered high quality "There's a huge variation in what's being called the same name—prekindergarten," said Dale Farran, a co-principal investigator on the TN-VPK study and senior associate director of the Peabody Research Institute. "You can be sure you will not get the same result in all these variations." |
Anonymous
Two years is definitely a harder ask and it increases if a family has more than one child. With siblings being shut out too in some years, a family with bad lottery luck and multiple kids could have 4+ years of being shut out, and yes that increases the likelihood of moving, by a lot. Making PK4 available to most families would change that. |
Anonymous
| Honest question: Why do many of the elementary schools in NW only have PK4? Did they previously have PS3 and then drop or did they never have it? |
Anonymous
Never had it - mostly a question of space and also because the schools were filled with high-SES families. The PK3 dollars were allocated to areas of higher need. Brent has always been an outlier in this regard -- some trace it to a decision / effective lobbying by Hill parents who were concerned by the popularity of TR and felt PK3 would help Brent compete. |
Anonymous
So we can somewhat track this. Of the current K, 30 IB families didn't get in PS3. Come K, 20 of those families enrolled and 10 did not. I know one of those families and they ended up a charter school. |
Anonymous
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Brent admins and parent leaders know that the PreK3 problem is steadily solving itself as affordable real estate inventory for young families shrinks slowly but steadily across the Hill. When we were looking to buy a place in the Brent District in 2010, like many of the current ECE and K parents, we visited a dozen suitable properties (2-3 bedrooms, under 900K) in the span of a month. Now you'd be lucky to visit a dozen such properties in the span of a year, in the same catchment area. As a result, there weren't nearly as many PreK3 applicants this year as last, and there weren't as many last year as there were in 2013 (this year's bumper K crop). I doubt that you're going to see younger siblings shut out from PreK3 again, or most of the in-boundary applicants (as in 2015) As pointed out, those shut out will be able to make do at AppleTree or wherever else. I was shut out for two years, know how it feels, and sympathize with those in the same boat. But at least market forces are mitigating the severity of the problem in the community.
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