Feeling sad about your lottery results . . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that the situation will get significantly worse next year when DCPS sets aside one-quarter of lottery seats for at-risk children.

God forbid anyone at a disadvantage (read: non-whites) get any sort of a helping hand over my white child...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not happy, but I do think that setting aside 25% of spots for at-risk kids is the right thing to do. Universal PK wasn't meant for the affluent who can afford to pay for it.

That being said, I'm selfish and I'd love to see charters schools set aside 25% for at-risk, 25% for paid applicants, and 50% straight lottery. I'd absolutely pay for the school I got shut out of because it meets a very specific need for us.

Uhh NO if you can pay, pay for private school!
WTF

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should do 75% paid 25% at risk

PP is unclear on the concept of public school...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you look at the initial budget allocations for DCPS for SY 2015-16 each school's draft budget shows the percentage of at-risk students they anticipate will be enrolled next year. For example, Mann and Janney show 1% at-risk. Murch, Key and Lafayette show 3%. Compare that to a school like Savoy with 82% at-risk or Drew with 83% and it's easy to see how some schools have the odds stacked against them. Personally, I think ensuring that those schools have the resources they need to meet their population would be much more effective then saying some of them can escape their local school and go to a Janney or a Mann. Simple logistics present a challenge...only those at-risk kids with parents who are able to get them there will be able to take advantage of this "opportunity." And what about aftercare? At most of the upper NW schools the aftercare is costly and NOT run through DCPS. But what do I know?

Not to mention oversubscribed and only available on a waitlist basis even for enrolled local children. Is DCPS going to provide roundtrip transportation to Upper NW, subsidize aftercare, and circumvent the waitlists there too? Where is the proposal for how they are going to make this work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that the situation will get significantly worse next year when DCPS sets aside one-quarter of lottery seats for at-risk children.

God forbid anyone at a disadvantage (read: non-whites) get any sort of a helping hand over my white child...

Let's try this on for size. School X has 100 spots for PK4, so 25 of those seats will be set aside for at risk. Assuming these seats are filled, and the 25 IB students who are shut out qshow up the following year for K, the school will need to add an additional K class just to accommodate the added population. What happens the next year? Parents will demand an extra 1st Grade classroom to keep student-teacher ratios below 25:1, and so on. This could result in an extra six classrooms for K-5. Right? So how will you fell when classroom ratios jump from the low 20s to upper 20s to 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that the situation will get significantly worse next year when DCPS sets aside one-quarter of lottery seats for at-risk children.

I agree with the poster who said worse for some and better for some. Lets aknowledge that. Our kids will be ok because we have the resources to make hard, not ideal decisions - like private or moving/long commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that the situation will get significantly worse next year when DCPS sets aside one-quarter of lottery seats for at-risk children.

I agree with the poster who said worse for some and better for some. Lets aknowledge that. Our kids will be ok because we have the resources to make hard, not ideal decisions - like private or moving/long commute.

Except that not everyone who is not "at risk" can actually afford private, or can simply move... There still is a shred of middle class in DC as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not happy, but I do think that setting aside 25% of spots for at-risk kids is the right thing to do. Universal PK wasn't meant for the affluent who can afford to pay for it.

That being said, I'm selfish and I'd love to see charters schools set aside 25% for at-risk, 25% for paid applicants, and 50% straight lottery. I'd absolutely pay for the school I got shut out of because it meets a very specific need for us.

Uhh NO if you can pay, pay for private school!
WTF

Create more private schools with reasonable tuition rates and enough seats to accommodate the demand and I will. And I promise you that a charter would love to take a few tuition-paying folks to subsidize others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not happy, but I do think that setting aside 25% of spots for at-risk kids is the right thing to do. Universal PK wasn't meant for the affluent who can afford to pay for it.

That being said, I'm selfish and I'd love to see charters schools set aside 25% for at-risk, 25% for paid applicants, and 50% straight lottery. I'd absolutely pay for the school I got shut out of because it meets a very specific need for us.

Uhh NO if you can pay, pay for private school!
WTF

Create more private schools with reasonable tuition rates and enough seats to accommodate the demand and I will. And I promise you that a charter would love to take a few tuition-paying folks to subsidize others.

And then those paying kids could do no wrong, because the school wouldn't risk losing a cash cow. The admin would bend over backwards for these paying parents, who would have a greater say in how things are run--after all, they are paying for it.

See what a slippery slope that is? You don't pay to go to public school. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not happy, but I do think that setting aside 25% of spots for at-risk kids is the right thing to do. Universal PK wasn't meant for the affluent who can afford to pay for it.

That being said, I'm selfish and I'd love to see charters schools set aside 25% for at-risk, 25% for paid applicants, and 50% straight lottery. I'd absolutely pay for the school I got shut out of because it meets a very specific need for us.

Uhh NO if you can pay, pay for private school!
WTF

Create more private schools with reasonable tuition rates and enough seats to accommodate the demand and I will. And I promise you that a charter would love to take a few tuition-paying folks to subsidize others.

It's more like you are looking for the taxpayer to subsidize your child's semi-private education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not happy, but I do think that setting aside 25% of spots for at-risk kids is the right thing to do. Universal PK wasn't meant for the affluent who can afford to pay for it.

That being said, I'm selfish and I'd love to see charters schools set aside 25% for at-risk, 25% for paid applicants, and 50% straight lottery. I'd absolutely pay for the school I got shut out of because it meets a very specific need for us.

Uhh NO if you can pay, pay for private school!
WTF

Create more private schools with reasonable tuition rates and enough seats to accommodate the demand and I will. And I promise you that a charter would love to take a few tuition-paying folks to subsidize others.

And then those paying kids could do no wrong, because the school wouldn't risk losing a cash cow. The admin would bend over backwards for these paying parents, who would have a greater say in how things are run--after all, they are paying for it.

See what a slippery slope that is? You don't pay to go to public school. Period.

+1. Just like the kids of big donors at colleges get special attention when they do poorly... I've seen it when I was teaching at a local private university. We don't need that situation at public schools.

[Anonymous]

I'm a socialist, and i don't support the planned at-risk program. As much as the lottery is chaos, it is a good democratic system. It works a lot better than a standard "you go to your in bounds school, end of story" program in most school districts. When you start tooling with the system, setting aside this percentage for at-risk students, this percentage for teacher, this percentage for siblings, this percentage for kids of vets.... You push out the people not falling into those categories, creating more of a dual-tier system then you ever had to begin with. The people who "can" will go to privates, move to more expensive neighborhoods (which will get ever more expensive and less diverse), commute to crazy charters.

[Anonymous]

This fracturing of DCPS is very sad, and the reality is the only reason charters do well and become "highly regarded" is because of these enormous barriers to entry (navigating the lottery process, logistics of attendance across the district, etc). It is good they are expanding access, but truly it will be lip service until *every* child in DCPS defaults to a "lottery" and transportation is provided for all.

Of course, then we'll be back to DCPS, only with busing. Sure that will be popular.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless, of course, you are a vulnerable kid or family who can't pay to move or send your kid to private school. In other words, the ones who truly *need* access to quality education opportunities, because of challenges they face at home.

+100

And affluent folks like us will attend IB and make the most of it. Great education and experience. We're Title 1 with unimpressive test scores but a flourishing first grader.