Greater Greater Washington story on school enrollment growth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are going to have to limit PreK to low income families. Universal PreK is great but why does a family making $150k a year need it? They will need to pay for daycare or private PreK.

Bc EOTP the high-SES preschool parents do a ton of fundraising and activism. And bc if they get settled in a charter preschool they will never come back.

[Anonymous]

Whatever they are doing now is not working. Just off the top of my head, Van Ness opened 4 years ago and already needs space. Jefferson MS will be full next year (the first year in the renovated building), 4 years early and before Van Ness kids show up. The new Maury will also be full the day it opens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to have to limit PreK to low income families. Universal PreK is great but why does a family making $150k a year need it? They will need to pay for daycare or private PreK.

Bc EOTP the high-SES preschool parents do a ton of fundraising and activism. And bc if they get settled in a charter preschool they will never come back.

Also the PPF formula is higher for preschoolers than for older kids, and the ELL plus up is higher too. So principals want it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to have to limit PreK to low income families. Universal PreK is great but why does a family making $150k a year need it? They will need to pay for daycare or private PreK.

Bc EOTP the high-SES preschool parents do a ton of fundraising and activism. And bc if they get settled in a charter preschool they will never come back.

There isn’t going to be enough room at charters either...did you read the article?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to have to limit PreK to low income families. Universal PreK is great but why does a family making $150k a year need it? They will need to pay for daycare or private PreK.

Bc EOTP the high-SES preschool parents do a ton of fundraising and activism. And bc if they get settled in a charter preschool they will never come back.

There isn’t going to be enough room at charters either...did you read the article?

There are plenty of buildings in Ward 5 still, for charters or expanded or new DCPS. I did read the article but it seems to be assuming Ward 3 conditions apply citywide and they do not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whatever they are doing now is not working. Just off the top of my head, Van Ness opened 4 years ago and already needs space. Jefferson MS will be full next year (the first year in the renovated building), 4 years early and before Van Ness kids show up. The new Maury will also be full the day it opens.

So let them open more. Preschools can move to nearby sites. The Emery building is vacant, as is Old Miner, Fletcher-Johnson, and many others. Banneker is to grow, and Bard adds a ton of capacity. McKinley Middle and Langley are nowhere near full. McKinley Tech did not even fill up in the lottery. Seaton has room for an addition. There are teardowns and empty warehouses in my area that could be used. Yes it costs money but it happens.

[Anonymous]

Nick, do you have anything to say about San Francisco? We're waiting...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nick, do you have anything to say about San Francisco? We're waiting...

Ward 3 equity at its finest. Oh, SF system is unpopular, says Nick. Not a peep about the increase in segregation and inequity that it produced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nick, do you have anything to say about San Francisco? We're waiting...

Ward 3 equity at its finest. Oh, SF system is unpopular, says Nick. Not a peep about the increase in segregation and inequity that it produced.

Actually, the articles I've read on the SanFran state that the all-lottery system actually DID increase diversity of students across the board within their schools, but the test scores continued to be terrible, and high income family students resisted it like the plague and either went to the burbs in increasing numbers, or some high SES stayed if they could afford private$$ in the City. It was a failure academically, and extremely unpopular, so they booted it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nick, do you have anything to say about San Francisco? We're waiting...

Ward 3 equity at its finest. Oh, SF system is unpopular, says Nick. Not a peep about the increase in segregation and inequity that it produced.

Actually, the articles I've read on the SanFran state that the all-lottery system actually DID increase diversity of students across the board within their schools, but the test scores continued to be terrible, and high income family students resisted it like the plague and either went to the burbs in increasing numbers, or some high SES stayed if they could afford private$$ in the City. It was a failure academically, and extremely unpopular, so they booted it.

yup again you need to keep Ward 3 alone in-bound only stop sibling preference and OOB to get a handle on the population. To get the best pyramid you have to pay up just like everywhere else in the country
For EOTP provide tracking/honors at the middle school level and then the test in high schools are fine
EOTR close schools and provide community school support to the ones remaining

[Anonymous]

I know this is not going to be a popular idea. But, why not make dcps schools (other than special programs like ELL, SPED, application high schools) IB ONLY schools? Maybe is all newish residents most of whom are upper/middle class were had to attend their IB school DCPS would finally get pressure to bring them all up to higher standards. Not to mention the greater amount of parent involvement in helping with and lobbying for resources.
Let charters be the only ones in the lottery and ad a at risk preference along with what already is in place.
And stop letting charter under 10 year and/or with unproven success rates expand.
If we had IB only schools bussing would be possible, as well as more community based investments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nick, you mean well, but overcrowing is a WOTP issue and I don't think overhauling the whole system for everyone is going to be acceptable EOTP and EOTR. If you think people in Ward 3 will accept a lottery assignment at Ballou, think again.

The answer IMO is to strengthen the existing schools so that people want to attend, and to consider reopening or expanding spaces that are available, as needed. If Wilson-zoned parents cared more about quality elsewhere, it could happen. But you seem to assume Ward 3 conditions of overcrowing and no more spaces apply everywhere. That just isn't true.

Nick here.

Today DCPS has 13,000 empty seats so you could argue that any crowding is a policy issue not a facilities issue. But if the projections hold, in eight years those empty seats are going to be gone. This will be a new historic era for DCPS. There may be policy challenges, but there are going to be real facilities issues-- and not just WOTP.

I believe in neighborhood-based schools, for a lot of reasons. But right now nobody at any level of city government is doing the things that will need to be done to keep them a viable option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know this is not going to be a popular idea. But, why not make dcps schools (other than special programs like ELL, SPED, application high schools) IB ONLY schools? Maybe is all newish residents most of whom are upper/middle class were had to attend their IB school DCPS would finally get pressure to bring them all up to higher standards. Not to mention the greater amount of parent involvement in helping with and lobbying for resources.
Let charters be the only ones in the lottery and ad a at risk preference along with what already is in place.
And stop letting charter under 10 year and/or with unproven success rates expand.
If we had IB only schools bussing would be possible, as well as more community based investments.

Thank You this is the only fair way to do these things. As it is right now you can save money on real estate and get "private school" for free with the lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow this article is so clueless.

how so?

Because parents will never accept pure lottery, and it is not logistically feasible for people even if they liked it philosophically. The tide is turning against it as San Francisco's experience has shown.

Because someone with a clue would know that DCPS numbers are guesses at best and lies at worst. Not just the enrollment projections, but the capacity stats, are really questionable.

Because if you compare these numbers with the enrollment projections in the SY 19-20 budgets, they don't match up well.

Because DCPS can and does add capacity, e.v. Van Ness, Bard, Brookland Middle, Wells Middle. And opening new middle and high schools can result in capacity increases in other grade levels.

Hi, this is Nick Keenan, the article's author.

I made a conscious decision not to question the projections for the article. I realize that DCPS capacity numbers are built on a shaky foundation at best, and that the assignment of future growth to specific schools is conjecture. The reason I left that out is that it doesn't really change the underlying story. The population projections come from Office of Planning, they have a history of being conservative, and their 5-10 year projections are based on housing and current demographics, which means that the projections are based largely on houses that have already been built and kids that have already been born. In the article I hint at several ways the projections may actually be too low.

The underlying story is that for 50 years DCPS hasn't really had to worry about facilities, at least not about expanding them. Unpack this sentence for a bit: "Even though DC has gained over 22,000 public school students since 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS shrunk from 134 to 110 schools, the number of seats still exceeds the number of students by about 25%." DCPS has 13,000 empty seats even though it just closed 24 schools and the city just finished adding 22,000 students? WTF? How many empty seats did it have ten years ago? 30,000? But we are on the cusp of a historical break. For the first time in 60 years DCPS has to think about capacity.

The things that have worked in the past few decades just aren't going to work any more. There is a reason that DCPS hasn't made more than minor boundary adjustments in almost 50 years. Boundaries don't really matter when you've got tens of thousands of empty seats and three quarters of the kids assigned by lottery anyway.

As to the comment, "parents will never accept pure lottery," what do you propose instead? Take the example of Lafayette from the article -- "projected to have 1,167 students in a building with a capacity for 805. However, the seven closest elementary schools to Lafayette will all also be over capacity, by a combined 853 students." It's not a simple case of moving a line from one slightly overcrowded school toward a neighboring one with capacity. All those kids need to go somewhere, and the schools with capacity are over on the other side of the city.

Anyway, I welcome the opportunity to interact with you and the discussion.

Thanks,
Nick

Question to Nick: Are you children in DCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nick, you mean well, but overcrowing is a WOTP issue and I don't think overhauling the whole system for everyone is going to be acceptable EOTP and EOTR. If you think people in Ward 3 will accept a lottery assignment at Ballou, think again.

The answer IMO is to strengthen the existing schools so that people want to attend, and to consider reopening or expanding spaces that are available, as needed. If Wilson-zoned parents cared more about quality elsewhere, it could happen. But you seem to assume Ward 3 conditions of overcrowing and no more spaces apply everywhere. That just isn't true.

Nick here.

Today DCPS has 13,000 empty seats so you could argue that any crowding is a policy issue not a facilities issue. But if the projections hold, in eight years those empty seats are going to be gone. This will be a new historic era for DCPS. There may be policy challenges, but there are going to be real facilities issues-- and not just WOTP.

I believe in neighborhood-based schools, for a lot of reasons. But right now nobody at any level of city government is doing the things that will need to be done to keep them a viable option.

I just don't see why they can't do new construction, reopen closed schools, and build additions.