Your post is self-contradictory. You claim that no one will choose to travel for certain schools, yet you want "redraw boundaries," which would force people to travel to these schools (i.e., their new "IB" schools). Do you really think that people with options in Ward 3 will abide by your forced plan -- rather than simply moving or going private? |
So true. |
NP. There is no rational interpretation of the comment you replied to that can be interpreted the way you did. If the best you can come up with in response to their post is to harp on that language (that clearly does not mean what you pretend to believe it means) then that speaks pretty poorly for your position. Which is annoying because I happen to think the public policy of having kids retain feeder rights is the right outcome. But I don't defend it by trying to twist a minor turn of phrase from those with whom I disagree. |
The bolded tells us a great deal about how much you fundamentally misunderstand the actual demographics of DC. If you want to meaningfully participate in these types of public policy debates you might want to get outside your upper NW neighborhood of lawyers, non-profit execs and college educated friends. |
DC is under court order to allow OOB attendance. Until Brown v Board, DC had two public school systems, Black and white, with two superintendents, two sets of facilities and two faculties. When legal school segregation ended residential segregation was still the norm, and white Washington thought they would be clever and draw school boundaries where the white neighborhoods went to white schools and the non-white neighborhoods went to the Black schools, and made a rule that you had to attend your in-boundary school. It took another dozen years for the courts to straighten it out, but a series of court decisions in the late 1960's and early 1970's directed DCPS to draw boundaries without regard for race, and if there were available seats at any public school in the city those seats had to be made available to students who lived out-of-boundary. DCPS is still operating under those court decrees. |
None of which requires feeder pattern access unless their are available seats. The rest of your history lesson is just that, a history lesson. Objection, your honor, nonresponsive. |
LOL. I don’t live in upper NW — or in any part of NW, for that matter. I’m a DC resident of nearly three decades who has lived in three different quadrants over that time. So I do know a little about the demographics of DC. And I know that it’s self-contradictory to say, on the one hand, that people from the richest ward in town won’t travel to certain schools but, on the other, to assume that they will if boundaries are simply redrawn. |
On the other hand, people travel much further for private schools. It's not the distance it's the quality. |
Please go back and read the post I was responding to. Objection denied. |
“…if there were available seats…” At the over-enrolled,schools, there are no available seats. Therefore, no OOB attendance at those schools need be allowed under your scenario. |
The redrawn boundaries and limits on OOB attendance at other schools (thanks to the PP for clarifying that OOB students are only required if there are available seats at the OB school) would not require anyone to travel further than their IB school. It would reduce student travel and fill seats at under-enrolled schools that need the per pupil funding to be able to offer greater course selection and more ECs. If redrawing the boundaries results in people in W3 being IB for different schools, then yes, they would have to decide to go to that new IB, go private or move. Just like other people in the city and most people in the country do all the time. Why should they be different? |
| DC should allow tracking at the high school level. That is the only way they will convince families to try their neighborhood high school. It would ultimately benefit all the students at the school as more students would mean more dollars for the school and would allow the school to offer a greater variety of electives and AP classes and additional extracurricular activities. AP courses should be open to all students. There are many kids of color who would benefit from the higher level classes as well. DCPS also needs to do a better job with Career and Tech education which is very weak at the moment. They should have a CTE school like Montgomery County and Arlington. No matter where you go to HS, you should be able to do a half day of automotive repair or HVAC classes if that is your interest. DCPS is woefully behind the times unfortunately. Every high school should offer a couple of CS classes |
| I grew up in California schools that were always over capacity. It didn’t affect my education to have classes that met in a trailer. |
I'm the PP you were replying to. I was replying to a PP who wrote: "The solution is to redraw boundaries and require people to enroll in their IB school just like most school districts in the country." As a matter of law, DCPS can't do that. Yes, DCPS could limit OOB to available seats. But they don't want to. And that's not the point I was responding to. |
| Crap, I replied to the wrong post. 17:03 was in response to 13:40. |