Today's Post OpEd from DCPS consultants
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Anonymous
These don't seem at all analogous to what the WP Op-Ed was suggesting. The first two you are mentioning have admissions based on test scores. We're talking lotteries for 3 and 4 year olds based on luck. |
Anonymous
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My $0.02 on the proposal (reposted from another thread):
Clusters are way too big for all families to make it work. I am self-employed and work from home. Kid is in an OOB school 30+ min away because we didn't get into our IB school across the street. Taking him to and from school blows 2 hours a day I could be working. Factor in lack of flexibility in work schedule and lack of reliable transport for poor families, and even a cluster commute could be a huge burden. |
Anonymous
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Venting about this awful proposal on DCUM is all well and good.
But do we think Catania or Evans etc can make good use of this? This could be pretty risky for Gray, especially if Henderson is seen to be tacitly in approval... maybe some good can come out of this. |
Anonymous
I'm with Scott Pearson on this ("A solution in search of a problem.") Tell me again why a Big Flip is something we need to avoid? |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
This. Many times over. But I'm a racist gentrifier from 2002, so I'm sure there are many points I'll be accused of not understanding. |
Anonymous
The objection to a school system that leads to significant racial segregation is not hard to understand. The question is whether you can address this without doing away with the neighborhood schools that attract higher SES families and that they will invest in. Retaining an OOB quota in all schools for which FARM families have a preference seems like an obvious and simple solution. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Yes, but a 50% quota only for select areas that are already diverse??? |
Anonymous
Two points: 1. We already have significant racial segregation. In fact, I would say the word "significant" understates the problem. 2. "The Big Flip" isn't presented in terms of increasing integration. The assertion is made, unsupported, that allowing a school that is currently more than 50% FARMS to become less than 50% FARMS -- "The Big Flip" -- is inherently bad, and something we as a society should be working actively to prevent. I'm sorry, there's just a really big leap of logic there. |
Anonymous
The objection to a school system that leads to significant racial segregation is not hard to understand. The question is whether you can address this without doing away with the neighborhood schools that attract higher SES families and that they will invest in. Retaining an OOB quota in all schools for which FARM families have a preference seems like an obvious and simple solution. No-- improving schools in poor neighborhoods so that ALL students have access to excellent schools regardless of their neighborhood in the obvious solution. If creating diversity in the schools is your focus, use housing policy to increase economic diversity. I'm a Brent parent and yes, I am uncomfortable with the Big Flip that has happened at the school. But I am not so selfish as to think that Brent going from predominantly OOB to predominately IB is the biggest problem in DCPS. "A solution in search of a problem." that nails it. Those of us in the Brent neighborhood have tried to increase low income housing units in the area. that would be a much better "fix" for the "problem" of a comparative lack of diversity at Brent (compared to what is a good question though-- not compared to WOTP schools, but evidently that is OK because . . . those neighborhoods never made much of an attempt to be diverse, so why push them into that now? Is that the story we are going with?) |
Anonymous
You've got your causality in the reverse direction. The school system is not LEADING to segregation. Segregation/Gentrification is leading to the school system changes. Moreover, even a cursory understanding of the racial composition of the schools in question would lead one to conclude that segregation isn't the concern here: it is about preventing historically majority (exclusively?) black schools from becoming significantly white. That sounds more racist to me than the "Big Flip." |
Anonymous
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Let me rephrase the authors' suggestion:
You don't like me moving into your neighborhood and sending my kids to school? Well then, just redline me out. Might as well have a separate "FARMS Only" water fountain while you're at it. |
Anonymous
| Not to beat a dead horse but this Op Ed just kills me. We've lived in EOTP/WOTR since before our kids were born and they are well into grade school. Along the way, many of our neighbors with kids have decamped to Maryland and Virginia for better schools, and I don't begrudge their choices. We have chosen to stay and go the charter route and we are lucky to be at a great charter that happens to be quite diverse. That said, we constantly struggle with whether we are doing right by our kids by not leaving DC. Then along comes Mr. Petrilli who, after doing similar soul searching, decided to move to BETHESDA and tells those of us who chose to stay that we somehow part of a "problem". What a HYPOCRITE! |
Anonymous
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My favorite insinuation was that we were "squeezed out of schools west of the park and unable to afford private schools."
No other alternatives you could think of? 1. Not interested in schools west of the Park. 2. Able to afford private and not going to send my kid there. 3. Committed to DCPS/public schools. 4. Convinced of the school's educational model. 5. Not worried about child's ability to learn. 6. Committed to making a better DC... Not all of us are down for all of that, but for many at least part of that is the truth. And this guy thinks we do what we do because west-of-the-Park shut us out or we're poor? |