DME Kicks Off DCPS Boundary Review; Changes Expected for 2015-16 School Year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard someone on the radio today who said the fairest proposed system would be to randomly assign students to particular DCPS schools, to assure a mixture of more affluent students and disadvantaged students. So a student in AU Park (and their siblings) might be assigned a spot in Ward 8 and a kid from Barry Farm could go to Janney.

I really, really hope they do it. It is the fairest thing!

And the easiest way to get affluent parents leaving the district in droves, eroding the tax base and making schools worse.

Many, many affluent people attend private school so this whole debate is silly. As an EotP resident, I feel my right to attend Deal is just as valid as JKLMM. I pay a very large amount in taxes. My money is just as good as yours.

I'd argue that as an EOTP resident, you do not have any right to attend Deal other than what is granted through OOB regulations. However, your child DOES have a right to attend a school that is just as good as Deal. That is where the rubber meets the road. What can we do to replicate the success of Deal in other schools? What are the key factors that created a tipping point? I can identify a few: 1) the perceived effectiveness of Ms. Kim. She became known for cracking down on discipline while simultaneously improving academic offerings; 2) the school renovation -- a nice physical plant does count for something; and 3) the introduction of the IB program which made parents believe that someone besides DCPS was watching the hen house through the accreditation process, i.e. no cheaping out on foreign language offerings etc.

My ES currently feeds to Deal. It is not an OOB situation.

[Anonymous]

No one seems to want address the coment about transportation ....solutions anyone.

[Anonymous]

Aren't significant numbers of high schoolers already using Metro/Metrobus to get to school? There are already several application high schools.

The lottery for everyone idea does sound awful. I heard the person on NPR the other day saying that everyone agrees that diversity is a key element, and I thought to myself, really? Does EVERYONE care about that? With droves of white people sending their kids to the JKLMs and lots of AA families choosing schools like KIPP, I'm not so sure.

This seems to me to be a middle school fight. Because there's only one "good" middle school within all of DCPS. So if you are zoned for it now, I can see why you would be anxious about losing it.

But for the majority of DC that lives EotP, does anyone really care strongly which middle school you are zoned for? I don't. Our middle school is so bad (and underenrolled), I am fairly certain I would never consider sending my kids there. There is not another DCPS middle school anywhere nearby where I would send my kids. But open a magnet middle school somewhere Metro accessible and EotP, and I would consider it.

[Anonymous]

So to avoid transportation issue the city wide lottery would only be for middle and high school?

[Anonymous]

San Francisco tried the random city wide school lottery and it had the effect of driving upper middle class families out of the city. Some would say this was part of the plan, since families consume more city services than, for example, gay mem with dogs, who are higher net tax payers. A dog park is cheaper to fund than a renOvated school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, the lottery-for-all thing is very much on the table. It's possible that it is there as a cynical trick to make upper middle class residents more willing to pay more to make local schools EOTP better. Of course we already have very high per pupil expenditures, so that would not be very rational.

Either way anybody who thinks boundary elimination is not on the table is naive or in denial. The same is true about anybody who thinks this committee is actually a blank slate.

+1. I would have thought losing boundaries was not on the table until I heard Abigail Smith talk on Kojo Nnamdi show, re-read their published goals and checked out the backgrounds of the people on the committee. Now I think it is the hidden agenda: to very slowly do away with neighborhood boundaries and unite the DCPS and charter sectors to reach economic integration in all the schools. These people are zealots and and they care primarily about the poor children who are so cheated in our system and will simply try to leverage wealthy folks as much as possible to close the achievement gap. True believers. They will start with the high schools and it will go gradually down from there once people are used to the idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh, the lottery-for-all thing is very much on the table. It's possible that it is there as a cynical trick to make upper middle class residents more willing to pay more to make local schools EOTP better. Of course we already have very high per pupil expenditures, so that would not be very rational.

Either way anybody who thinks boundary elimination is not on the table is naive or in denial. The same is true about anybody who thinks this committee is actually a blank slate.

+1. I would have thought losing boundaries was not on the table until I heard Abigail Smith talk on Kojo Nnamdi show, re-read their published goals and checked out the backgrounds of the people on the committee. Now I think it is the hidden agenda: to very slowly do away with neighborhood boundaries and unite the DCPS and charter sectors to reach economic integration in all the schools. These people are zealots and and they care primarily about the poor children who are so cheated in our system and will simply try to leverage wealthy folks as much as possible to close the achievement gap. True believers. They will start with the high schools and it will go gradually down from there once people are used to the idea.

While San Francisco may be the model other cities are looking to emulate, I don't see DCPS discarding elementary boundaries.

[Anonymous]

^^ This. Also, there was a recent push to give attendance rights to families living near sought after charters. It would seem strange to go in the complete opposite direction given the showing of political favor towards increasing rights to schools in the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Upper NW, you had a good run not having to pay for private middle and HS for half a decade. But you voted for the other guy, overwhelmingly. Now it's time for payback. It's not personal.

we can always secede. United Neighborhoods of Upper Caucasia. you will need a passport to go to the zoo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper NW, you had a good run not having to pay for private middle and HS for half a decade. But you voted for the other guy, overwhelmingly. Now it's time for payback. It's not personal.

we can always secede. United Neighborhoods of Upper Caucasia. you will need a passport to go to the zoo

Doing away with boundaries for MS and HS will democratize the city. I think it is a fabulous idea. Keep the ES boundaries then provide extra help at the MS & HS level to get those students in poor performing ES to catch up. It might actually work.

[Anonymous]

"Democratize"? Don't you mean "sink to the lowest common denominator?"

No, it won't work. Highly educated and/or HHI parents who have slowly, slowly reinvested in DCPS at the MS and HS level through Deal, Wilson and Walls will just abandon hope. You can't divy up the populations of Walls and the Wilson academies, send those kids as small delegations to all the other high schools, and expect any meaningful change to occur in those other high schools. And you won't have a delegation to send, as the parents of those kids seek other alternatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Democratize"? Don't you mean "sink to the lowest common denominator?"

No, it won't work. Highly educated and/or HHI parents who have slowly, slowly reinvested in DCPS at the MS and HS level through Deal, Wilson and Walls will just abandon hope. You can't divy up the populations of Walls and the Wilson academies, send those kids as small delegations to all the other high schools, and expect any meaningful change to occur in those other high schools. And you won't have a delegation to send, as the parents of those kids seek other alternatives.

OK fine. Let upper caucasia have their little bubble and give the rest of us SOMETHING to work with, like middle schools with different areas of focus that might act as "feeders" to high schools with areas of focus (STEM, Arts, IB, etc).

[Anonymous]

This would Have the effect of getting rid of feeder rights. So you could get in to a NW school but have no right to stay with your cohort or even be guaranteed any school

[Anonymous]

As for a San Francisco "solution" ask any parent whose kid used to be in SF public schools how that had worked out.

Involuntarily assigning well prepared students to struggling schools across town while hoping for a better overall academic outcome is naive. Taking them out of neighborhoods where their parents have sacrificed to find homes and invested substantial volunteer effort to improved local schools to where they are today is basically a Communist-style idea. And I don't say that lightly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Upper NW, you had a good run not having to pay for private middle and HS for half a decade. But you voted for the other guy, overwhelmingly. Now it's time for payback. It's not personal.