Common Lottery Algorithm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I said in my post that there clearly is not enough info for the public. What is ridiculous is the idea that the public needs the same level of information as the schools who have to participate in it, give info to the lottery and then process the results after, who need to know what this new process requires of their staff... There is a lot of info and detail on how this process should run that is inappropriate to give to the public.

People need enough info to make informed decisions, which for this process amounts to lots of details about each school and understanding the basics (how many choices, when lottery opens, when it closes, when is the draw, how will the choices be made (I absolutely agree there needs to be more info about that), how do you rank, how do siblings apply, etc. But there is plenty of info that those in the schools need to run their end of this that has nothing to do with how you choose. You may want that info, but you certainly don't need it.

I couldn't disagree more.

The schools are not actors in the lottery. They just say how many spots they have and they're done. They don't need to know at all how it works. The parents are the actors, they create their rankings. As has been repeatedly demonstrated in this thread, nuances in the implementation of the algorithm make a difference in how your ranking affects the outcome. No family should lose a slot at their preferred school because they misunderstood the process and ranked improperly.

At a more conceptual level, even if parents don't "need" to know, they deserve to know. It's a taxpayer-funded program, under DC law the presumption is that the public has the right to any publicly-created information unless there is a compelling reason to keep it secret. There is obviously a lot of concern about the lottery, unnecessary secrecy undermines public trust and delegitimizes the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whatever you do for a living, you clearly don't serve the public on any systemic level. Because you don't know the difference between being transparent about a process... And the level of detail involved in implementing that process. .

What was disclosed yesterday pertaining to sibling preferences isn't a matter of transparency or unneeded process details - it's a matter of know all of the factors that have an effect on the decisions we make.

If you want to rank your preferences in their true order, wouldn't it make sense to know that you stand a chance of getting on a specific waitlist in a position lower than the one you were accepted at? Don't you think that would affect how you rank the schools? They are publically saying one thing and internally saying another. This runs completely counter to the purpose of the lottery - making an informed decision on the future of your child's education.

[Anonymous]

Lets be honest - this is tough stuff to understand (see previous 22 pages.) I doubt many of the people even RUNNING the process truly grasp every minute detail of the algorithm and how it sorts or works. The person here who seems to have the strongest grasp is a self-admitted statistician who has likely had years and years of formal education in the field.

If I were in charge, I may withhold certain information that I could safely assume will only confuse the masses and thereby lead to an attempt at gaming the system that will only penalize them - them being everyone who hasn't had years and years of graduate level math. In this case, the best instruction I could give them is the simple: rank in order of true preference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lets be honest - this is tough stuff to understand (see previous 22 pages.) I doubt many of the people even RUNNING the process truly grasp every minute detail of the algorithm and how it sorts or works. The person here who seems to have the strongest grasp is a self-admitted statistician who has likely had years and years of formal education in the field.

If I were in charge, I may withhold certain information that I could safely assume will only confuse the masses and thereby lead to an attempt at gaming the system that will only penalize them - them being everyone who hasn't had years and years of graduate level math. In this case, the best instruction I could give them is the simple: rank in order of true preference.

I disagree. There is in fact no math at all needed to understand how the lottery works. If the FAQ were a little better written this thread would have been one page instead of 22. Basically there are two problems with the FAQ:

1. There was always an institutional reluctance in DCPS (and now OSSE) to acknowledge that if families with a higher preference level get all the seats at a given school, those with lower preference have zero chance of getting a seat. So you get mealy-mouthed sentences like "When there are more students than spaces at a school, students who have a preference (such as a sibling preference) will be the first to be offered spaces. Then, random selection decides which other students will be offered spaces." And we spend 21 pages debating whether that means if in-boundary families take all the slots whether the chances for OOB are just smaller or truly zero.

2. The FAQ doesn't address the question of what happens to families that have more than one child in the same lottery, and two children get accepted into different schools. In fact, the FAQ has the apparently incorrect information that "students will be placed on the waitlist of any of the choices they ranked above the school where they were matched." The unstated exception to that rule is when a child has been accepted to a school the siblings will be kept on the waitlist even if they ranked it lower than the school where they were accepted.

I would also be more emphatic that the best strategy is always to rank your choices in your true order of preference, there is no reason to consider your chances of getting in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lets be honest - this is tough stuff to understand (see previous 22 pages.) I doubt many of the people even RUNNING the process truly grasp every minute detail of the algorithm and how it sorts or works. The person here who seems to have the strongest grasp is a self-admitted statistician who has likely had years and years of formal education in the field.

If I were in charge, I may withhold certain information that I could safely assume will only confuse the masses and thereby lead to an attempt at gaming the system that will only penalize them - them being everyone who hasn't had years and years of graduate level math. In this case, the best instruction I could give them is the simple: rank in order of true preference.

I disagree. There is in fact no math at all needed to understand how the lottery works. If the FAQ were a little better written this thread would have been one page instead of 22. Basically there are two problems with the FAQ:

1. There was always an institutional reluctance in DCPS (and now OSSE) to acknowledge that if families with a higher preference level get all the seats at a given school, those with lower preference have zero chance of getting a seat. So you get mealy-mouthed sentences like "When there are more students than spaces at a school, students who have a preference (such as a sibling preference) will be the first to be offered spaces. Then, random selection decides which other students will be offered spaces." And we spend 21 pages debating whether that means if in-boundary families take all the slots whether the chances for OOB are just smaller or truly zero.

2. The FAQ doesn't address the question of what happens to families that have more than one child in the same lottery, and two children get accepted into different schools. In fact, the FAQ has the apparently incorrect information that "students will be placed on the waitlist of any of the choices they ranked above the school where they were matched." The unstated exception to that rule is when a child has been accepted to a school the siblings will be kept on the waitlist even if they ranked it lower than the school where they were accepted.

I would also be more emphatic that the best strategy is always to rank your choices in your true order of preference, there is no reason to consider your chances of getting in.

I disagree, with number 1. There is no reluctance in releasing information/questions answered. My School DC has a hotline that is currently running and operating. You can call them and ask them these questions directly without having to identify yourself, keeping anonymity. Only DCPS schools have an "in-boundary" preference, therefore, it would only apply to them not charter schools.


For #2 - the information is NOT incorrect. Students WILL be placed on those waitlists of the schools they ranked higher. What this should indicate to parents is that, if they have more than one child applying for the lottery, if the grade levels they are entering allows, they should, in my opinion, rank the schools of both children equally. That is, if John and Susie are entering the lottery, i would rank school A as the number 1 choice for both of the students. This way, one can hope that they may have equal or better chances, but again, it is contingent upon available spaces, etc.

It seems very pessimistic to think somehow the education system is trying to "game" parents in any way. The reason this was created was to give everyone a fair chance to apply to all schools. Yes, there are some caveats to this because different schools have different preferences, specializations, etc. but the end result is that all families will be able to apply to a school they may not have had the opportunity to otherwise. Furthermore, folks in the education system realize how stressful this system may be for families and are doing, in my opinion, as much as possible to relieve some of that anxiety.

As the saying goes, you can make all of the people happy some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but never all of the people all of the time. It's like saying because i strategically picked my Mega million lottery numbers, i should have won. Everything will be at random, and everyone will have a fair chance. Highly recommend all parents to rank at least 12 schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lets be honest - this is tough stuff to understand (see previous 22 pages.) I doubt many of the people even RUNNING the process truly grasp every minute detail of the algorithm and how it sorts or works. The person here who seems to have the strongest grasp is a self-admitted statistician who has likely had years and years of formal education in the field.

If I were in charge, I may withhold certain information that I could safely assume will only confuse the masses and thereby lead to an attempt at gaming the system that will only penalize them - them being everyone who hasn't had years and years of graduate level math. In this case, the best instruction I could give them is the simple: rank in order of true preference.

I agree completely, because I have lived this reality. I've seen what happens when a high stakes process that is being rolled out for the first time gives too much info to the general public: the confusion that ensues, the anger when people realize they agonized over details that totally didn't impact the outcomes, the places where people gave up because they thought they couldn't participate because they didn't understand.

No one is saying there is enough clear, concise info out there about this year's lottery from a "parent making their choices" perspective. But the idea that the public (yes, the taxpaying public, which I am part of) needs the SAME amount of detail/same level of detail is uninformed, and I say that as someone who has had to actually make these kinds of roll outs a reality, and seen the costs and benefits of how much info is not enough, how much is too much, etc. Not expecting anyone to believe me just because of this, but want to say yes, I totally agree to this PP and the other who said the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Not to muddy the chain - which I think has ultimately turned out to be very informative and on-track, but one odd emotional result I'm experiencing while reading through all of this is anger that any Public or Charter school had the ability to opt out of this.

It seems to me that if it's so difficult to convince everyone that the process is "fair" that to allow those few schools a chance to completely bypass the process leaves me feeling I have very little reason to believe those few schools' lottery processes (whether they entail time stamps, etc.) are on any level "fair."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lets be honest - this is tough stuff to understand (see previous 22 pages.) I doubt many of the people even RUNNING the process truly grasp every minute detail of the algorithm and how it sorts or works. The person here who seems to have the strongest grasp is a self-admitted statistician who has likely had years and years of formal education in the field.

If I were in charge, I may withhold certain information that I could safely assume will only confuse the masses and thereby lead to an attempt at gaming the system that will only penalize them - them being everyone who hasn't had years and years of graduate level math. In this case, the best instruction I could give them is the simple: rank in order of true preference.

I agree completely, because I have lived this reality. I've seen what happens when a high stakes process that is being rolled out for the first time gives too much info to the general public: the confusion that ensues, the anger when people realize they agonized over details that totally didn't impact the outcomes, the places where people gave up because they thought they couldn't participate because they didn't understand.

No one is saying there is enough clear, concise info out there about this year's lottery from a "parent making their choices" perspective. But the idea that the public (yes, the taxpaying public, which I am part of) needs the SAME amount of detail/same level of detail is uninformed, and I say that as someone who has had to actually make these kinds of roll outs a reality, and seen the costs and benefits of how much info is not enough, how much is too much, etc. Not expecting anyone to believe me just because of this, but want to say yes, I totally agree to this PP and the other who said the same thing.

I think you're confusing not volunteering information with concealing it. Clearly, how an issue is framed is important, you don't want people to be distracted. But if a process can't stand up to public scrutiny it needs to be rethought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lets be honest - this is tough stuff to understand (see previous 22 pages.) I doubt many of the people even RUNNING the process truly grasp every minute detail of the algorithm and how it sorts or works. The person here who seems to have the strongest grasp is a self-admitted statistician who has likely had years and years of formal education in the field.

If I were in charge, I may withhold certain information that I could safely assume will only confuse the masses and thereby lead to an attempt at gaming the system that will only penalize them - them being everyone who hasn't had years and years of graduate level math. In this case, the best instruction I could give them is the simple: rank in order of true preference.

I disagree. There is in fact no math at all needed to understand how the lottery works. If the FAQ were a little better written this thread would have been one page instead of 22. Basically there are two problems with the FAQ:

1. There was always an institutional reluctance in DCPS (and now OSSE) to acknowledge that if families with a higher preference level get all the seats at a given school, those with lower preference have zero chance of getting a seat. So you get mealy-mouthed sentences like "When there are more students than spaces at a school, students who have a preference (such as a sibling preference) will be the first to be offered spaces. Then, random selection decides which other students will be offered spaces." And we spend 21 pages debating whether that means if in-boundary families take all the slots whether the chances for OOB are just smaller or truly zero.

2. The FAQ doesn't address the question of what happens to families that have more than one child in the same lottery, and two children get accepted into different schools. In fact, the FAQ has the apparently incorrect information that "students will be placed on the waitlist of any of the choices they ranked above the school where they were matched." The unstated exception to that rule is when a child has been accepted to a school the siblings will be kept on the waitlist even if they ranked it lower than the school where they were accepted.

I would also be more emphatic that the best strategy is always to rank your choices in your true order of preference, there is no reason to consider your chances of getting in.

I disagree, with number 1. There is no reluctance in releasing information/questions answered. My School DC has a hotline that is currently running and operating. You can call them and ask them these questions directly without having to identify yourself, keeping anonymity. Only DCPS schools have an "in-boundary" preference, therefore, it would only apply to them not charter schools.

I chose the word "reluctance" carefully. I was trying to capture the natural human tendency to avoid giving others bad news. Let me try to give a concrete example. Let's say you are interested in having your child attend Stoddert for pre-K and you live out of boundary. You inquire about the chances. I'm going to give two possible answers, both are completely true. You tell me which one is more helpful:

Answer A: You need to sign up now for the lottery, the drawing is in March. You can maximize your chance of getting into Stoddert by putting it #1 on your lottery ranking.

Answer B: Last year all of the pre-K slots at Stoddert were taken by in-boundary families that already had a sibling at the school. There were 99 in-boundary applicants for 18 spots. In order for any out of boundary family to have a chance 81 in-boundary families would have to decline a spot, and that has never happened.

When writing about the lottery, this historical tendency of DCPS has been to de-emphasize scarcity, to write answers more like answer A. Interestingly, many charters go the other way and talk up the overwhelming demand for their school, I think they realize it's good for business.

Anonymous wrote:
For #2 - the information is NOT incorrect. Students WILL be placed on those waitlists of the schools they ranked higher. What this should indicate to parents is that, if they have more than one child applying for the lottery, if the grade levels they are entering allows, they should, in my opinion, rank the schools of both children equally. That is, if John and Susie are entering the lottery, i would rank school A as the number 1 choice for both of the students. This way, one can hope that they may have equal or better chances, but again, it is contingent upon available spaces, etc.

Maybe not incorrect but incomplete. When a sibling gets in the other sibling is put on that school's waitlist, even if it's a lower-ranked pick. Upthread there is official-sounding confirmation of this.

The optimal strategy is to rank schools in your actual preference. If it's different for two of your kids, rank each kid in the order that's best for him.

Anonymous wrote:

It seems very pessimistic to think somehow the education system is trying to "game" parents in any way. The reason this was created was to give everyone a fair chance to apply to all schools. Yes, there are some caveats to this because different schools have different preferences, specializations, etc. but the end result is that all families will be able to apply to a school they may not have had the opportunity to otherwise. Furthermore, folks in the education system realize how stressful this system may be for families and are doing, in my opinion, as much as possible to relieve some of that anxiety.

As the saying goes, you can make all of the people happy some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but never all of the people all of the time. It's like saying because i strategically picked my Mega million lottery numbers, i should have won. Everything will be at random, and everyone will have a fair chance. Highly recommend all parents to rank at least 12 schools.

It's not that the system is trying to game the parents. The problem is that school choice is inherently broken in DC, because there aren't enough choices. According to the DME website half of the kids in the lottery last year didn't get into any of their choices. Frankly, the fact that the lottery is such a big deal is an admission of failure. The reality is that DCPS has a whole lot of schools that not a whole lot of people want to go to.

[Anonymous]

The salient takeaway is "rank the schools in the order you want them." Some people want to hear about the labor pains; most people just want to see the baby.

This is a public good allocation problem. There is more demand for the public good (high quality public school seats) than supply. The system is designed to equitably and efficiently (based on individual preference) distribute that good, given a rather odd-set of preconditions (boundary priority, sibling priority, pre-screening of selective high-schools, etc.)

I understand the desire for more information about the process/model. But those details shouldn't change your strategy. Research the schools for your child(ren), find the best fit(s) for you, and rank those schools accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to muddy the chain - which I think has ultimately turned out to be very informative and on-track, but one odd emotional result I'm experiencing while reading through all of this is anger that any Public or Charter school had the ability to opt out of this.

It seems to me that if it's so difficult to convince everyone that the process is "fair" that to allow those few schools a chance to completely bypass the process leaves me feeling I have very little reason to believe those few schools' lottery processes (whether they entail time stamps, etc.) are on any level "fair."

I feel the opposite, why would this schools participate when the is no one, including the organization themselves, who understand how t works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to muddy the chain - which I think has ultimately turned out to be very informative and on-track, but one odd emotional result I'm experiencing while reading through all of this is anger that any Public or Charter school had the ability to opt out of this.

It seems to me that if it's so difficult to convince everyone that the process is "fair" that to allow those few schools a chance to completely bypass the process leaves me feeling I have very little reason to believe those few schools' lottery processes (whether they entail time stamps, etc.) are on any level "fair."

Yu Ying's process is totally public. You should go watch it (unless you didn't apply and don't really care), because it's unfortunate that you are doubting it when you don't know anything about it apparently. Anyone who has gone in person can see how old fashioned (the cage rotating lottery machine they spin before each draw) and transparent their process is. They take the card and project the student's name and info on the list of open slots as they go along. What is "unfair" or suspicious about that, when there are as many people as interested in the room who can see which names get pulled?

Can't speak to Creative Minds or Stokes. I was interested in attending their lotteries last year, but I think Stokes was entirely electronic and not public, and CM was definitely NOT public. CM also didn't post their admitted and waitlist ever, so if there was any process last year that seemed a little shady (because of the lack of public information shared beyond calling the school and them just telling you where YOU are on the waitlist), it was CM.

But I don't understand painting all the processes as "unfair" without actually looking into the differences between the processes last year.

[Anonymous]

Yu Ying, may be transparent but its illegal to preference queue standers the way they do. But that is a debate for another thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yu Ying, may be transparent but its illegal to preference queue standers the way they do. But that is a debate for another thread.

You have every right to not like the waitlist process YY uses, but it is entirely legal under the rules and laws that govern the charter school board. Protest it if you like, complain about it if you like, but don't try to deceive people that it's in any way illegal because it is TOTALLY LEGAL. Many will argue whether it's fair or not, and that is also another thread, but again, no, not illegal. And you calling it that doesn't make it true. It's legal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yu Ying, may be transparent but its illegal to preference queue standers the way they do. But that is a debate for another thread.

You have every right to not like the waitlist process YY uses, but it is entirely legal under the rules and laws that govern the charter school board. Protest it if you like, complain about it if you like, but don't try to deceive people that it's in any way illegal because it is TOTALLY LEGAL. Many will argue whether it's fair or not, and that is also another thread, but again, no, not illegal. And you calling it that doesn't make it true. It's legal.

To be even more clear, it's actually spelled out as an option by the rules that govern all DC charter schools. They all have the option, but only Stokes and YY had used it in recent years. So it's not even about vague interpretation. It's a clearly articulated option that charter schools can take, and YY chose it.