The downside of the DC school lottery

[Anonymous]

Good god, this idea to basically replicate the old system again.

It’s Groundhog Day with these people.

[Anonymous]

As a repeat lottery loser, I certainly understand the OP's perspective. We had our first decent draw this year, got off multiple waitlists, and it felt like an embarrassment of riches. But there is more stability in the current system, the waitlists would be far more erratic with multiple draws.

[Anonymous]

Agree this would not be better. There would still be someone with all bad numbers. The only solution is to increase the number of quality options.

[Anonymous]

The real problem is that the school lottery is a repeated game with highly correlated outcomes and it is being modelled as a single outcome. As pointed out by a previous poster, it also exaggerates the idea of the ordering of choices being meaningful when there are really tiers of preference. For example, if the preference between two choices is either zero or swamped by the noise of uncertainty, then this heavy emphasis on efficiency with respect to trading after assignment is silly. Ordinal ranking just isn't communicating all the information that parents have compiled.

[Anonymous]

+1 that the only solution is to increase quality. It's amazing how much lower the lottery anxiety is in my neighborhood since the IB school became acceptable through K.

[Anonymous]

The problem isn't that the lottery is poorly designed. The problem is that high-quality education should not be a scarce resource that is allocated by lottery in a first-world country.

I don't want more choices. I just want nicer things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn't that the lottery is poorly designed. The problem is that high-quality education should not be a scarce resource that is allocated by lottery in a first-world country.

I don't want more choices. I just want nicer things.

Then move to the suburbs.

[Anonymous]

The gaming happens by putting all the burden on parents to list preferences that best serve their child. For examp, hiding desirable middle school and high school paths in language immersion that may not be obvious to less sophisticated parents.

[Anonymous]

I’m pretty sure my oldest applied for school the year the new lottery system began. The big advantage I see is that it improves transparency and reduces the chances of f*c*ery for schools “reserving” spaces for certain families and mysterious waitlist movement that apparently used to occur.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m pretty sure my oldest applied for school the year the new lottery system began. The big advantage I see is that it improves transparency and reduces the chances of f*c*ery for schools “reserving” spaces for certain families and mysterious waitlist movement that apparently used to occur.

I've used both systems and believe me, the common lottery is far superior.

Having a different number for every school might give a perception of hedging, but it isn't really hedging. Instead of a bad master number, you could have 12 bad numbers. There's still going to be someone with a really bad outcome, who doesn't get into any good schools, and it still could be you. It's a much more complicated with no real improvement in outcomes, and it leads to the swapping issue. The only way to really hedge is to apply to schools where you have a very good chance of getting in, but those are fewer and fewer.

The parents who are making their IB schools better are doing us all a service by expanding capacity. Similarly when DCPS or charters expand seats or new schools. That's really the only solution.

I don't think there's actually a shortage of quality seats in upper elementary WOTR. It sometimes takes a while to get into a top choice and certain specific things like French or Hebrew or Montessori or a path to middle school are in short supply. But I do think there's a seat in adequate elementary school for everyone WOTR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m pretty sure my oldest applied for school the year the new lottery system began. The big advantage I see is that it improves transparency and reduces the chances of f*c*ery for schools “reserving” spaces for certain families and mysterious waitlist movement that apparently used to occur.

Yes. Way, way too much shady dealing. It still happens somewhat, like at SSMA with their secret Spanish waiting list of favoritism and arbitrariness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This. Every year there is at least one poster on DCUM who posts something like this. Because your very basic understanding is clearly superior to the Nobel prize winning algorithm designed to prevent gaming and reward only true preference.

This is the Pete Buttigieg effect: people who don’t know Harvard types think everyone should be super-impressed by them. While people who are or know Harvard types are capable of asking smart questions about problems and having a conversation about pros and cons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn't that the lottery is poorly designed. The problem is that high-quality education should not be a scarce resource that is allocated by lottery in a first-world country.

I don't want more choices. I just want nicer things.

Then move to the suburbs.

Move to a rich “white flight” suburb where people use zoning laws to prevent density, keep housing prices cripplingly high, and create sprawl and traffic that makes all of us have long commutes so you can exclude people.

Fixed that for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn't that the lottery is poorly designed. The problem is that high-quality education should not be a scarce resource that is allocated by lottery in a first-world country.

I don't want more choices. I just want nicer things.

Then move to the suburbs.

Thank you, Mr. Chancellor. Will you help load my UHaul?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The real problem is that the school lottery is a repeated game with highly correlated outcomes and it is being modelled as a single outcome. As pointed out by a previous poster, it also exaggerates the idea of the ordering of choices being meaningful when there are really tiers of preference. For example, if the preference between two choices is either zero or swamped by the noise of uncertainty, then this heavy emphasis on efficiency with respect to trading after assignment is silly. Ordinal ranking just isn't communicating all the information that parents have compiled.

One legit complaint about the current lottery is that it has no way of accounting for intensity of preference. If I slightly prefer A to B but you strongly prefer A to B, then utility would be maximized by giving you A and me B, even if that's not a trade I would voluntarily agree with. The problem is there's no way of formalizing that and trying to do so opens all sorts of avenues for gaming.

The current system doesn't deal with ties well either. Imagine there are schools A and B, equivalent in all ways but some distance apart. I live equidistant between them so I am indifferent, but you live within walking distance of A and strongly prefer it. I list my choices as A then B, strictly because of alphabetical order, and I have a higher lottery number so I get A and you get B. We could trade and both be better off (I would have the psychic income of helping you out).

But these are edge cases.