Ward 3 - Wilson feeders meeting last night: did anyone attend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, as long as we're throwing out ideas:
-Close Deal. Overcrowding gone. Students can be given "Displaced-Deal" preference in the lottery
-Cap enrollment. IB, OOB feeder students can all be given an equal opportunity to lottery in to Deal. Leftovers can lottery elsewhere.

OK, let's try those. The first is a little silly because it's shutting down a functioning school. But even so, let's consider it. I assume the first result of either of those is that all the Deal students will flood Hardy, which leave it overcrowded. Then they'll all flood Takoma EC, MacFarland, and the charters. Is that what DCPS wants?

Or are you just trying to shock everyone with a Donald Trump "blow it all up" solution?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are ridiculous.

Paying families cash?
"Culling" students??

WTF??

Happy to hear your better ideas. DCPS already rejected the easy answers - shrinking boundaries and restricting OOB feeder rights - so people are trying to get creative to solve the problem. When there are only limited solutions on the table, crapping on them doesn't help.

The only solution DCPS seems to be offering is spending millions to build more schools or rent space in NWDC.

Spend more on DCPS EOTP/EOTR to make them more attractive. There have been many ways suggested. When in doubt, spend money on actually making things better instead of coming up with weird perverse incentive payments. It just sounds like a bad sociology experiment.

They keep trying this. It doesn't work. You can get people to come for ECE but they peel off by 1st or 2nd.

Take this as a thought experiment. Start at an extreme - like private school tuition. Fund MacFarland at $40,000 per student operating funds, and use that money wisely to work on school culture and offer attractive programs - honors, small pull outs, extra-curriculars, etc. I think you'd find a significant number of people would choose that over Deal. Not all, but enough to help with overcrowding.

But that's clearly too much money. So what about $30,000 per student? What would that look like and how attractive would it be? $20,000? Find the sweet spot that reduces the pressure on Deal, and actually might benefit a large number of disadvantaged kids. But we probably lack the political will to spend that much on kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are ridiculous.

Paying families cash?
"Culling" students??

WTF??

Happy to hear your better ideas. DCPS already rejected the easy answers - shrinking boundaries and restricting OOB feeder rights - so people are trying to get creative to solve the problem. When there are only limited solutions on the table, crapping on them doesn't help.

The only solution DCPS seems to be offering is spending millions to build more schools or rent space in NWDC.

Spend more on DCPS EOTP/EOTR to make them more attractive. There have been many ways suggested. When in doubt, spend money on actually making things better instead of coming up with weird perverse incentive payments. It just sounds like a bad sociology experiment.

They keep trying this. It doesn't work. You can get people to come for ECE but they peel off by 1st or 2nd.

Folks like you have been saying we'd leave our EOTP DCPS by PK4 when I was in PK3, and the goal posts have just kept moving. Next year, you'll tell me we'll leave for sure by 3rd.
And it's strange how people have kids enrolled in our school after 1st and 2nd grade, but then, you probably don't consider them people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, as long as we're throwing out ideas:
-Close Deal. Overcrowding gone. Students can be given "Displaced-Deal" preference in the lottery
-Cap enrollment. IB, OOB feeder students can all be given an equal opportunity to lottery in to Deal. Leftovers can lottery elsewhere.

OK, let's try those. The first is a little silly because it's shutting down a functioning school. But even so, let's consider it. I assume the first result of either of those is that all the Deal students will flood Hardy, which leave it overcrowded. Then they'll all flood Takoma EC, MacFarland, and the charters. Is that what DCPS wants?

Or are you just trying to shock everyone with a Donald Trump "blow it all up" solution?

Honestly, I thought the cash payments to families with students who choose not to go to Deal was Trumpian, was frustrated that very few others see that, and suggested alternatives that seemed just as logical in my mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take this as a thought experiment. Start at an extreme - like private school tuition. Fund MacFarland at $40,000 per student operating funds, and use that money wisely to work on school culture and offer attractive programs - honors, small pull outs, extra-curriculars, etc. I think you'd find a significant number of people would choose that over Deal. Not all, but enough to help with overcrowding.

But that's clearly too much money. So what about $30,000 per student? What would that look like and how attractive would it be? $20,000? Find the sweet spot that reduces the pressure on Deal, and actually might benefit a large number of disadvantaged kids. But we probably lack the political will to spend that much on kids.

I agree with your thought experiment - there must be some hypothetical amount of programming money that DCPS could spend at MacFarland to make it attractive enough to peel off students from Deal. If, for example, we offer every student a 5:1 ratio of students to teachers, steak and ice cream for lunch every day, and pony rides before school, then MacFarland will get filled. The problem is that DCPS clearly doesn't know how to target programming to attract students. So lots of that spending on programming has only marginal returns in attracting students (e.g., kids like ice cream but don't really care about the steak, so that's wasted money). The cash-payout program is sort of the logical extreme of your own thought experiment: If DCPS just hands out cold cash instead of programming, how much cash is required to get students to join MacFarland? While it may feel unsavory, I'm betting the cash is more of a motivator than the programming, and I'm betting it's also cheaper for DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are ridiculous.

Paying families cash?
"Culling" students??

WTF??

Happy to hear your better ideas. DCPS already rejected the easy answers - shrinking boundaries and restricting OOB feeder rights - so people are trying to get creative to solve the problem. When there are only limited solutions on the table, crapping on them doesn't help.

The only solution DCPS seems to be offering is spending millions to build more schools or rent space in NWDC.

Spend more on DCPS EOTP/EOTR to make them more attractive. There have been many ways suggested. When in doubt, spend money on actually making things better instead of coming up with weird perverse incentive payments. It just sounds like a bad sociology experiment.

They keep trying this. It doesn't work. You can get people to come for ECE but they peel off by 1st or 2nd.

Take this as a thought experiment. Start at an extreme - like private school tuition. Fund MacFarland at $40,000 per student operating funds, and use that money wisely to work on school culture and offer attractive programs - honors, small pull outs, extra-curriculars, etc. I think you'd find a significant number of people would choose that over Deal. Not all, but enough to help with overcrowding.

But that's clearly too much money. So what about $30,000 per student? What would that look like and how attractive would it be? $20,000? Find the sweet spot that reduces the pressure on Deal, and actually might benefit a large number of disadvantaged kids. But we probably lack the political will to spend that much on kids.

DCPS is already spending $18-20,000 per child.

And honestly there is nothing that they could have done to make me enroll my kids in the middle school years at the EC we are IB for (my kids are now in 7th and 10th; 2 students from that Ward 4 EC mugged my student a block from the campus last fall). There are just too many students with too many issues -- and it's considered one of better low performing schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, as long as we're throwing out ideas:
-Close Deal. Overcrowding gone. Students can be given "Displaced-Deal" preference in the lottery
-Cap enrollment. IB, OOB feeder students can all be given an equal opportunity to lottery in to Deal. Leftovers can lottery elsewhere.

OK, let's try those. The first is a little silly because it's shutting down a functioning school. But even so, let's consider it. I assume the first result of either of those is that all the Deal students will flood Hardy, which leave it overcrowded. Then they'll all flood Takoma EC, MacFarland, and the charters. Is that what DCPS wants?

Or are you just trying to shock everyone with a Donald Trump "blow it all up" solution?

Honestly, I thought the cash payments to families with students who choose not to go to Deal was Trumpian, was frustrated that very few others see that, and suggested alternatives that seemed just as logical in my mind.

I'm sorry you see the cash payments as Trumpian - but they're not about blowing anything up. THey're just about playing by the "pull not push" rules that DCPS is imposing. If the only way to get students out of Deal is to pull (attract) them, then let's just attract them in the most efficient way possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, as long as we're throwing out ideas:
-Close Deal. Overcrowding gone. Students can be given "Displaced-Deal" preference in the lottery
-Cap enrollment. IB, OOB feeder students can all be given an equal opportunity to lottery in to Deal. Leftovers can lottery elsewhere.

OK, let's try those. The first is a little silly because it's shutting down a functioning school. But even so, let's consider it. I assume the first result of either of those is that all the Deal students will flood Hardy, which leave it overcrowded. Then they'll all flood Takoma EC, MacFarland, and the charters. Is that what DCPS wants?

Or are you just trying to shock everyone with a Donald Trump "blow it all up" solution?

Honestly, I thought the cash payments to families with students who choose not to go to Deal was Trumpian, was frustrated that very few others see that, and suggested alternatives that seemed just as logical in my mind.

I'm sorry you see the cash payments as Trumpian - but they're not about blowing anything up. THey're just about playing by the "pull not push" rules that DCPS is imposing. If the only way to get students out of Deal is to pull (attract) them, then let's just attract them in the most efficient way possible.

And efficiency is a good goal, but when you talk about spending public dollars disproportionately on the weatlhier/whiter kids in DCPS, you need to take a minute to think about optics even if you have no regard for equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If we are dealing with both Deal and Wilson being overcrowded, why not make Deal for 6th and 7th grade only, and Hardy for 8th and 9th grade? Make it one big pool of students with the current feeders and make better use of Hardy.

I really like this idea. It makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take this as a thought experiment. Start at an extreme - like private school tuition. Fund MacFarland at $40,000 per student operating funds, and use that money wisely to work on school culture and offer attractive programs - honors, small pull outs, extra-curriculars, etc. I think you'd find a significant number of people would choose that over Deal. Not all, but enough to help with overcrowding.

But that's clearly too much money. So what about $30,000 per student? What would that look like and how attractive would it be? $20,000? Find the sweet spot that reduces the pressure on Deal, and actually might benefit a large number of disadvantaged kids. But we probably lack the political will to spend that much on kids.

I agree with your thought experiment - there must be some hypothetical amount of programming money that DCPS could spend at MacFarland to make it attractive enough to peel off students from Deal. If, for example, we offer every student a 5:1 ratio of students to teachers, steak and ice cream for lunch every day, and pony rides before school, then MacFarland will get filled. The problem is that DCPS clearly doesn't know how to target programming to attract students. So lots of that spending on programming has only marginal returns in attracting students (e.g., kids like ice cream but don't really care about the steak, so that's wasted money). The cash-payout program is sort of the logical extreme of your own thought experiment: If DCPS just hands out cold cash instead of programming, how much cash is required to get students to join MacFarland? While it may feel unsavory, I'm betting the cash is more of a motivator than the programming, and I'm betting it's also cheaper for DCPS.

It's different because the end goal of DCPS is to educate kids. Better educated students is a public good. Paying people cash to move them around doesn't do that and it's just creepy. At least paying ridiculous amounts of $$ for education could do some good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are ridiculous.

Paying families cash?
"Culling" students??

WTF??

Happy to hear your better ideas. DCPS already rejected the easy answers - shrinking boundaries and restricting OOB feeder rights - so people are trying to get creative to solve the problem. When there are only limited solutions on the table, crapping on them doesn't help.

The only solution DCPS seems to be offering is spending millions to build more schools or rent space in NWDC.

Spend more on DCPS EOTP/EOTR to make them more attractive. There have been many ways suggested. When in doubt, spend money on actually making things better instead of coming up with weird perverse incentive payments. It just sounds like a bad sociology experiment.

They keep trying this. It doesn't work. You can get people to come for ECE but they peel off by 1st or 2nd.

Take this as a thought experiment. Start at an extreme - like private school tuition. Fund MacFarland at $40,000 per student operating funds, and use that money wisely to work on school culture and offer attractive programs - honors, small pull outs, extra-curriculars, etc. I think you'd find a significant number of people would choose that over Deal. Not all, but enough to help with overcrowding.

But that's clearly too much money. So what about $30,000 per student? What would that look like and how attractive would it be? $20,000? Find the sweet spot that reduces the pressure on Deal, and actually might benefit a large number of disadvantaged kids. But we probably lack the political will to spend that much on kids.

DCPS is already spending $18-20,000 per child.

And honestly there is nothing that they could have done to make me enroll my kids in the middle school years at the EC we are IB for (my kids are now in 7th and 10th; 2 students from that Ward 4 EC mugged my student a block from the campus last fall). There are just too many students with too many issues -- and it's considered one of better low performing schools.

I'm talking about actual $$ the school sees, which is closer to $10K. If you doubled or tripled that, it would have a huge impact.

Perhaps based on your anecdote, you'd never go for it. But you'd benefit with Deal being less crowded if 5% or 10% of your neighbors did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take this as a thought experiment. Start at an extreme - like private school tuition. Fund MacFarland at $40,000 per student operating funds, and use that money wisely to work on school culture and offer attractive programs - honors, small pull outs, extra-curriculars, etc. I think you'd find a significant number of people would choose that over Deal. Not all, but enough to help with overcrowding.

But that's clearly too much money. So what about $30,000 per student? What would that look like and how attractive would it be? $20,000? Find the sweet spot that reduces the pressure on Deal, and actually might benefit a large number of disadvantaged kids. But we probably lack the political will to spend that much on kids.

I agree with your thought experiment - there must be some hypothetical amount of programming money that DCPS could spend at MacFarland to make it attractive enough to peel off students from Deal. If, for example, we offer every student a 5:1 ratio of students to teachers, steak and ice cream for lunch every day, and pony rides before school, then MacFarland will get filled. The problem is that DCPS clearly doesn't know how to target programming to attract students. So lots of that spending on programming has only marginal returns in attracting students (e.g., kids like ice cream but don't really care about the steak, so that's wasted money). The cash-payout program is sort of the logical extreme of your own thought experiment: If DCPS just hands out cold cash instead of programming, how much cash is required to get students to join MacFarland? While it may feel unsavory, I'm betting the cash is more of a motivator than the programming, and I'm betting it's also cheaper for DCPS.

It's different because the end goal of DCPS is to educate kids. Better educated students is a public good. Paying people cash to move them around doesn't do that and it's just creepy. At least paying ridiculous amounts of $$ for education could do some good.

But most agree that there isnt' really anything wrong with Macfarland, except there aren't enough higher SES children to balance out the student body and make parents comfortable with teh idea of going there. The curriculum is the same at MacFarland and Hardy, the teachers have the same credentials. For all we know, the teachers may even be better than ones at Deal.

What this is about is what will actually make enough people take that leap.

[Anonymous]

The mayor's cronies refuse to send their kids to their IB schools. No one else should feel any need to do so.

[Anonymous]

But it's not just Deal students you'd be pulling toward different schools: students could be incentivized to come from privates and high-performing charters, too.

Truly, I think what's missing from the recent thought games is the obvious incentive that DCPS simply avoids offering, as much as it can: advanced classes for academics. The lack of such offerings is what motivates grade-level kids to go to privates, charters, or relocate housing. The entire problem is caused by too many students who are one or more grade levels behind; you can't expect too many parents to willingly drop their kids into that cohort, unless there's a way for their kids to get more rigorous instruction at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take this as a thought experiment. Start at an extreme - like private school tuition. Fund MacFarland at $40,000 per student operating funds, and use that money wisely to work on school culture and offer attractive programs - honors, small pull outs, extra-curriculars, etc. I think you'd find a significant number of people would choose that over Deal. Not all, but enough to help with overcrowding.

But that's clearly too much money. So what about $30,000 per student? What would that look like and how attractive would it be? $20,000? Find the sweet spot that reduces the pressure on Deal, and actually might benefit a large number of disadvantaged kids. But we probably lack the political will to spend that much on kids.

I agree with your thought experiment - there must be some hypothetical amount of programming money that DCPS could spend at MacFarland to make it attractive enough to peel off students from Deal. If, for example, we offer every student a 5:1 ratio of students to teachers, steak and ice cream for lunch every day, and pony rides before school, then MacFarland will get filled. The problem is that DCPS clearly doesn't know how to target programming to attract students. So lots of that spending on programming has only marginal returns in attracting students (e.g., kids like ice cream but don't really care about the steak, so that's wasted money). The cash-payout program is sort of the logical extreme of your own thought experiment: If DCPS just hands out cold cash instead of programming, how much cash is required to get students to join MacFarland? While it may feel unsavory, I'm betting the cash is more of a motivator than the programming, and I'm betting it's also cheaper for DCPS.

It's different because the end goal of DCPS is to educate kids. Better educated students is a public good. Paying people cash to move them around doesn't do that and it's just creepy. At least paying ridiculous amounts of $$ for education could do some good.

But most agree that there isnt' really anything wrong with Macfarland, except there aren't enough higher SES children to balance out the student body and make parents comfortable with teh idea of going there. The curriculum is the same at MacFarland and Hardy, the teachers have the same credentials. For all we know, the teachers may even be better than ones at Deal.

What this is about is what will actually make enough people take that leap.

Believe it or not, some people aren't hung up on high SES, as if there's some kind of osmotic action going on that imparts education from high SES kids. There are correlations between high SES kids and test scores, but that doesn't mean they are causing it.
For those of you who can't get over the high SES thing, stay at Deal. I think enough people would be willing to go for a school with large numbers of low SES kids if the right culture and academics are there. As long as I see a path for my kids to be safe and grow, I'll do it. I'd absolutely bet that $40,000 per year would make that happen, and probably for something less than that.