At-risk lottery preference

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Strongly in favor. The modest impact is what makes it politically feasible.

Charters will not do this on their own because, despite their professions of wokeness, it is really hard work and their high-SES parents won't like it. They aren't going to take the hit to their budget, operations, culture, or test scores unless peer schools take it too.

To be fair charters cannot legally add this preference- it has to go through the council.

Doesn't Congress have to make this change for charters? I ask this without any belief that I know the answer, but aren't there aspects of charter law in the city that only Congress can change? Do I remember correctly that they set up the allowable preferences in the law that created charters in the District?

No. The Council can do add a preference, as they did for the students with disability preference, and military family preference.

So long as the requirement does not set up too significant a barrier to 'open enrollment' they will not run afoul of the School Reform Act. The Attorney General and the Council's lawyers have said that a native speakers' preference, for example, crosses that line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not trying to troll, really, but I don't understand how this can work. Just 20 years ago, white people barely sent their kids to DCPS. Now, many more do. More educated Black people do, too. Many places have reached the critical mass which creates change for all. If you minimize the 'educated parents' families to further the very worthy goal of helping at-risk families, do you really think that they will stay? I can't help thinking that this would facilitate them decamping for the suburbs sooner.

The preference was modeled only for schools with less than 25% at-risk. If 75% is not a critical mass to you, the problem is within you.

But aren't all (or very close to all) the DCPS schools with less than 75% at risk already at or over capacity? My kids were at a JKLM (now graduated) with a very low at risk percentage. The school is currently out of classrooms and is filling its current classes--some with as many as 27 kids--with almost all in boundary kids. If you have 25 kids per class and you need to add in 7 more of at risk kids per class (every class), what happens? Then you get into the more difficult question of what do you with those 7 neighborhood kids you just displaced? How do you decide which kids are displaced? Where do they go to school? Or does the school just run classes of 32 kids?
You can't have "right to attend" neighborhood schools plus a requirement that neighborhood schools take an additional 25% of kids from elsewhere.

You are forgetting the whole other sector. And t

And within DCPS, there are still significant OOB numbers who are in the MS and HSs due to feeder path guarantees.

To do this effectively in DCPS, you'd probably have to curtail/eliminate feeder rights for any OOB student who is not at risk. The idea is to prioritize OOB at-risk over OOB not-at risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not trying to troll, really, but I don't understand how this can work. Just 20 years ago, white people barely sent their kids to DCPS. Now, many more do. More educated Black people do, too. Many places have reached the critical mass which creates change for all. If you minimize the 'educated parents' families to further the very worthy goal of helping at-risk families, do you really think that they will stay? I can't help thinking that this would facilitate them decamping for the suburbs sooner.

The preference was modeled only for schools with less than 25% at-risk. If 75% is not a critical mass to you, the problem is within you.

But aren't all (or very close to all) the DCPS schools with less than 75% at risk already at or over capacity? My kids were at a JKLM (now graduated) with a very low at risk percentage. The school is currently out of classrooms and is filling its current classes--some with as many as 27 kids--with almost all in boundary kids. If you have 25 kids per class and you need to add in 7 more of at risk kids per class (every class), what happens? Then you get into the more difficult question of what do you with those 7 neighborhood kids you just displaced? How do you decide which kids are displaced? Where do they go to school? Or does the school just run classes of 32 kids?
You can't have "right to attend" neighborhood schools plus a requirement that neighborhood schools take an additional 25% of kids from elsewhere.

The study is here. https://www.myschooldc.org/resources/data Try reading it before you get all panicky, nobody is trying to kick you out of your high-income school.

The study was a re-run of 16-17 school year data, so I think the overcrowding wasn't as bad back then. Nowadays they'd probably set the bar higher like 30% to reach more kids and more schools. The plan was never to force schools to go over capacity or to displace neighborhood kids. But if a spot is offered, at-risk kids would have preference.

If you think your school is offering too many waitlist spots, take it up with your principal. And be prepared to do without whatever extra programming those overcrowded classrooms are funding, and remember that the effect would be a much whiter school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not trying to troll, really, but I don't understand how this can work. Just 20 years ago, white people barely sent their kids to DCPS. Now, many more do. More educated Black people do, too. Many places have reached the critical mass which creates change for all. If you minimize the 'educated parents' families to further the very worthy goal of helping at-risk families, do you really think that they will stay? I can't help thinking that this would facilitate them decamping for the suburbs sooner.

The preference was modeled only for schools with less than 25% at-risk. If 75% is not a critical mass to you, the problem is within you.

But aren't all (or very close to all) the DCPS schools with less than 75% at risk already at or over capacity? My kids were at a JKLM (now graduated) with a very low at risk percentage. The school is currently out of classrooms and is filling its current classes--some with as many as 27 kids--with almost all in boundary kids. If you have 25 kids per class and you need to add in 7 more of at risk kids per class (every class), what happens? Then you get into the more difficult question of what do you with those 7 neighborhood kids you just displaced? How do you decide which kids are displaced? Where do they go to school? Or does the school just run classes of 32 kids?
You can't have "right to attend" neighborhood schools plus a requirement that neighborhood schools take an additional 25% of kids from elsewhere.

This. Part of the benefit is that it stops certain charters from shirking their share of the more challenging work. And certain parents from insulating themselves from real life.
You are forgetting the whole other sector. And t

And within DCPS, there are still significant OOB numbers who are in the MS and HSs due to feeder path guarantees.

To do this effectively in DCPS, you'd probably have to curtail/eliminate feeder rights for any OOB student who is not at risk. The idea is to prioritize OOB at-risk over OOB not-at risk.

[Anonymous]

No one is asking neighborhood schools to take 25% at-risk kids. The preference would only be available to those schools with low numbers of at-risk kids (there's a list of them in the 16-17 study) and it would prioritize admission of at-risk kids for AVAILABLE SEATS.

(Honestly, if you take a cynical view of the whole system, adding such a preference in WOTP DCPS schools might incentivize them to take fewer OOB kids entirely because the extra per pupil $ might no longer be "worth it.")

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one is asking neighborhood schools to take 25% at-risk kids. The preference would only be available to those schools with low numbers of at-risk kids (there's a list of them in the 16-17 study) and it would prioritize admission of at-risk kids for AVAILABLE SEATS.

(Honestly, if you take a cynical view of the whole system, adding such a preference in WOTP DCPS schools might incentivize them to take fewer OOB kids entirely because the extra per pupil $ might no longer be "worth it.")

It already isn’t worth it

[Anonymous]

I think this changing the math for the charters than many of the "popular" DCPS schools. The question is for the non at risk families that are suddenly shut out, do they bail from the city all together or stick around to improve their neighborhood schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this changing the math for the charters than many of the "popular" DCPS schools. The question is for the non at risk families that are suddenly shut out, do they bail from the city all together or stick around to improve their neighborhood schools.

I don't think that many will get shut out. Surveys by the DME have shown that ALL parents prioritize having a school close to home. Some will seize the opportunity to try to a 'better' school than is in their neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this changing the math for the charters than many of the "popular" DCPS schools. The question is for the non at risk families that are suddenly shut out, do they bail from the city all together or stick around to improve their neighborhood schools.

I don't think that many will get shut out. Surveys by the DME have shown that ALL parents prioritize having a school close to home. Some will seize the opportunity to try to a 'better' school than is in their neighborhood.

Isn't the city like 75% at risk? If so, all of the EOTP families that are bailing to charter middle schools will have a lot tougher time getting in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this changing the math for the charters than many of the "popular" DCPS schools. The question is for the non at risk families that are suddenly shut out, do they bail from the city all together or stick around to improve their neighborhood schools.

I don't think that many will get shut out. Surveys by the DME have shown that ALL parents prioritize having a school close to home. Some will seize the opportunity to try to a 'better' school than is in their neighborhood.

Isn't the city like 75% at risk? If so, all of the EOTP families that are bailing to charter middle schools will have a lot tougher time getting in.

No. At risk is a smaller universe because the definition is narrower. That percentage is 46%.

75-80% was the percentage when they used economically disadvantaged (aka FARMS recipients) as the metric.

[Anonymous]

That at-risk statistic is based on the number of kids currently using public schools (it is also too high, I think). Any at-risk preference should also include a parallel discussion of disciplinary issues. One of the reasons that 45% of the families utilizing public education in DC elect to choose charter schools is a belief that regular DCPS does not manage discipline effectively. It only takes 1 or 2 chronic disrupters in a class to make it impossible for the kids in the class who would like to learn to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this changing the math for the charters than many of the "popular" DCPS schools. The question is for the non at risk families that are suddenly shut out, do they bail from the city all together or stick around to improve their neighborhood schools.

I don't think that many will get shut out. Surveys by the DME have shown that ALL parents prioritize having a school close to home. Some will seize the opportunity to try to a 'better' school than is in their neighborhood.

Many neighborhoods don’t have a better school closer to home. I can see this driving families into the suburbs again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That at-risk statistic is based on the number of kids currently using public schools (it is also too high, I think). Any at-risk preference should also include a parallel discussion of disciplinary issues. One of the reasons that 45% of the families utilizing public education in DC elect to choose charter schools is a belief that regular DCPS does not manage discipline effectively. It only takes 1 or 2 chronic disrupters in a class to make it impossible for the kids in the class who would like to learn to do so.

+ 100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this changing the math for the charters than many of the "popular" DCPS schools. The question is for the non at risk families that are suddenly shut out, do they bail from the city all together or stick around to improve their neighborhood schools.

I don't think that many will get shut out. Surveys by the DME have shown that ALL parents prioritize having a school close to home. Some will seize the opportunity to try to a 'better' school than is in their neighborhood.

Many neighborhoods don’t have a better school closer to home. I can see this driving families into the suburbs again.

Definitely. Many families are already going to the burbs for middle school. Expect that trend in elementary to increase with above.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I fully support this, although I would not benefit from it. Anything that can help kids in bad situations with motivated parents get onto a new track -- by moving to a school with more support or a more competitive cohort or even just away from violence -- should be supported.

That said, I think it's pretty clearly a bandaid for the bullet wound that is unequal access to educational opportunities in the District.

REALLY!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

Yes, really.