Is Charter Neighborhood Preference a good idea?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| Tommy Wells is in favor of neighborhood preference for charters, I believe. |
Anonymous
| Tommy Wells will do whatever he can to overcome his extreme whiteness. |
jsteele
Site Admin Offline
Site Admin Offline
Yes, as he told me last night, he "absolutely" is in favor. |
Anonymous
|
I agree with pp who stated the ranking system, similar to DCPS' lottery, would be one solution, and better than geography preference. This would reduce commuters, and could also account for language preference while still allowing and invested parent in ward 4 a shot at a school they are willing to travel for because it's a great fit for their kids.
My impression is that most of the lottery winners at SWS this year were still in ward 6 and those that weren't are still what the school community is looking for in terms of their involvement in the Reggio model. |
Anonymous
Thank you for letting me know, he just lost my vote. |
Anonymous
What needs to be done is one lottery, charter and DCPS, where each person ranks as many schools as they are interested in. You get your number, they go down your list in order until they find a school with a space, and you have to attend that school. If they get to the bottom of the list and there hasn't been a school with space, you go to your in-boundary school. Implicitly, your in-boundary school would be the last one on your list. That would end any gamesmanship, there's no incentive to put anything other than your true preference. It would also greatly cut down on the September shuffle. A nice side-benefit would be that there would be a treasure-trove of information about the relative desirability of every school in the system. I disagree that there should be any kind of weighting system where people can increase their chances by giving a school a higher weighting. This would tilt the system even more unfairly toward those with good in-boundary choices. Imagine a system where everyone gets a certain number of points to spread across their choices. Someone with an acceptable IB school could put all the points on a single charter. Someone who doesn't have an acceptable IB choice needs to spread their points to guarantee they get in somewhere. |
Anonymous
Mine too! |
Anonymous
| Some of the charters are stronger because of the diversity that bringing people from different parts of the city together creates. I am not saying that I am totally against neighborhood lottery slots, but the issue is complicated. |
Anonymous
Again, it cannot be said enough: IT IS NOT A POPULARITY CONTEST. Each school is different and has different offerings. What is interesting to one family won't be interesting to the next. People need to do their research on which school is the best fit for their kid's interests and capabilities. All of this "neighborhood preference" and "one lottery" talk really only serves to obfuscate and cloud the whole purpose of having diversity and school choices. |
Anonymous
Isn't the whole point of school choice in essence a popularity contest? Parents make the best choice for their family, schools try to attract students, and the schools that are successful are rewarded with resources? And the ones that fail to attract students either have to up their game or close? The problem in DC right now is that the supply of desirable seats at schools is so low that almost nobody has a meaningful choice. We currently have de facto rationing, where the questions about how to most fairly and efficiently allocate the limited number of quality seats overwhelm any ability to place each child in the school that's right for him. We're miles away from the point where parents can weigh competing schools and pick the one that's right for their child, because everyone is concentrating on just getting in somewhere. In this atmosphere school choice is essentially broken, because the market isn't sending signals. If you truly believe in school choice, what you would want to do is create more choices that appeal to more families, until you get to the point where almost everyone is going to a school that they picked because it was right for them. (Not necessarily their number one pick, but one they want.) The way to get to that point is to use the signals that parents send when they rank their choices, and then use that information to allocate resources in a way that creates more options that appeal to more families. Frankly, I think if there were sufficient choice a neighborhood preference would be unnecessary. If there were lots of good choices, spread throughout the city, most people would prefer to go to a good school nearby rather than the absolute best school. The question boils down to whether neighborhood preference is something that gets us closer to the point of having quality choices for all, or just perpetuates the shortage and inequality that exists currently. |
Anonymous
|
This is a very informative thread. Thank goodness it hasn't dissolved into boosterism and bashing.
Maybe certain charters should have grandfather clauses for neighborhood preference. I heard that charter law already has this and first charter had grandfathered preference for something like two years. It could focus on charters getting neighborhood DCPS buildings or expanding an existing general, not specialized, model to other parts of the city. Temporary swing spaces wouldn't count. Maybe there could be a way for charters to opt-in to neighborhood or language preference up to grade 2 or 3. This could provide some stability in early childhood and early elementary options. Just because a school goes from pk-8 or 12, doesn't mean it's the right place for every child who starts there or even every child in your family. Picking a school from few, if any, lottery results is not "school choice". It's "school luck". A citywide public school Chancellor (no matter who it is) should have the power to turn some DCPS into charters, provide charters with DCPS space, or hand over DCPS to charter organizations that will ensure language or boundary preferences. It's time for anything goes school choice to become stable, long-term school options. |
Anonymous
|
no
it creates inequalities All things being equal, parents will more seek local programs, so there is already an imbalance in favor of the neighborhood kids I DO support more tracking of lottery winners, though; a person should commit to ONE of the lottery choices within 2 weeks of the drawing |
Anonymous
Muriel Bowser is as well |
Anonymous
Is in favor of neighborhood preference? Do you have information to back that up? |
Anonymous
Perfectly stated. If there were good choices for all we wouldn't be so obsessed with how they are rationed. |