Ward 3 - Wilson feeders meeting last night: did anyone attend?
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Anonymous
DP: absolutely correct. People keep spouting off this notion that Deal and Wilson have to be crowded to be diverse without looking at the numbers. It just isn't true folks. |
Anonymous
Wilson's population today still includes significant numbers of families from SW that are grandfathered in. If you look at the pipeline, it's headed toward a very different demographic mix. Honestly I think the way equity should be addressed is to finally implement the 10% at-risk set asides at every Wilson feeder school and end the current OOB lottery system, where anyone who gets lucky gets in, including wealthy, white students from other parts of town. |
Anonymous
Politics is often more about perception that reality. Access to OOB seats is a huge issue. Cutting the number of OOB seats at Deal and Wilson is threatening to the ~28,000 kids who are OOB somewhere else, they could be next. It's much easier to get political sympathy for preserving OOB access than for alleviating crowding. |
Anonymous
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I think something people commenting, and DCPS as a whole, has to decide is whether the prime focus is really on relieving overcrowding and improving DCPS schools, ... or instead, whether the prime focus here on racial score-keeping. If what's really going on is that Deal and Wilson have to hit some sort of racial quota for students of color, then DCPS should just say what that quota is, so people can figure out a plan that meets the quota.
If there is a "secret" quota that DCPS is imposing, then it leads to inefficiencies and frustration. People will keep proposing solutions that seem logical, but will unwittingly fail the racial quota test. DCPS will make up vague reasons why the solution is being rejected ("equity" or "fairness"), and everyone will be frustrated. I don't really think DCPS or most people commenting have any hard quota that they're applying (like "must be 71.5% students of color"), but I do think DCPS and the people running this Working Group do have some more specific requirement than the vague statement of "equity" when it considers these options. I know DCPS may not want to admit it, and probably never will, but I do wish they would just say with specificity the particular factors they are using to judge the "equity" of different proposals. A couple posters here seem to believe that "equity" requires that any plan cannot reduce by even 1% the number of students of color at Wilson. If that's their position, just state it openly. If you have some different criteria, then say what those are. Sorry for the disorganized thoughts. I intended to write something short, but it kept growing as I thought of other points. |
Anonymous
No doubt it's an issue of politics and perception. But let's be clear: What we're discussing is NOT actual segregation or anything even close to it. What we're discussing is people abusing the loaded term "segregation" to sway perceptions and gain political advantage. |
Anonymous
But when the rest of the DCPS neighborhood high schools schools are 98-99% poor and minority, and under-achieving, then the system is segregated even if Wilson itself is not. |
Anonymous
I don't think that is accurate. The old DME materials before the boundary change suggests that was not a large percentage anyway -- this was the data on 9th grade for 2013-14 (the class that just graduated): Wilson HS 217 39% Deal 86 15% Hardy 86 15% not data available (i.e, new to DCPS: so just moved in bound, or in bound and coming from private school) 68 12% Wilson HS (repeating 9th) 29 5% Oyster Adams 11 2% Jefferson MS 8 1% Paul JHS PCS 54 10% other (coming from within the DCPS/PCS system, but fewer than 5 from each school so school not listed individually) |
Anonymous
| DCPS does not care (a whole lot) about relieving overcrowding but at the same time it's not about "race" (per se) either. What some commentators here see is lost on most is that the plurality of students in DC public schools are very low income and are at least two grade levels behind where educators say they should be. Ask yourselves: why should they give two sh*ts about upper-income overcrowding when most of their high schoolers can't read at an 8th grade level? Don't get caught up in race/quota/segregation arguments/distractions when the truth is a gigantic elephant in the room and isn't really about any of those things. |
Anonymous
If the current OOB lottery system truly ends, and that frees up capacity, then I doubt anyone would oppose the 10% at-risk set asides. But since we're on that topic, do you recall exactly how those set-asides were supposed to work? Was the idea that each ES feeder would set aside 10% of seats for at-risk students, which would lead to 10% of the MS being at-risk, and then 10% of the HS being at-risk? Or were they somehow cumulative, which would mean 10% of each ES would be reserved for at-risk students, while in MS you'd get the 10% feeding up from ES + an additional 10% new at-risk students for a total of 20% at-risk? And then by HS, you'd be looking at essentially 30% at-risk. I seem to recall from the boundary discussion that what was being proposed was a cumulative system. If so, that seems problematic for a few reasons. |
Anonymous
The issue is that SW used to be IB for Wilson. Jefferson didn't feed there (it fed to Eastern) but some people living IB for Jefferson (ie, in SW) could send their kids to Wilson regardless of whether they went to Jefferson or not. So some of the kids from the no data available, Paul PCS, and other categories may have lived in SW and had a right to attend Wilson. This situation is going to be over in a couple years anyway. For better or worse, with rising IB rates at Wilson feeders, rising housing costs in Wilson's boundary, and boundary/feeder changes, Wilson and its feeders will be a lot richer and whiter 5 years from now than 5 years ago. |
Anonymous
I don't recall re cumulative or not, but the fact is that not all students will qualify as 'at risk' for the duration of their school career. Personally I don't see 30% as problematic at a large comprehensive high school. In fact you probably need that number to be able to have the kinds of supports (learning specialists, social workers, psychologists) required. |
Anonymous
That assumes that kids who are at risk at one point are always at risk and that all kids continue through their feeder patterns, both of which seem unlikely. Also, one of the at-risk categories can only be met by high schoolers (being in HS and only having the credits to graduate the year after kids your age). I expressed concern about this years ago that it would lead to lots of redshirting and requests for kids to be held back among EOTP families who wanted to compete for the at-risk seats at Wilson later on. |
Anonymous
I'm 11:08, and I agree with you in the big sense. Instead of wasting time, energy, and money negotiating the many complex racial, SES, and other issues associated with overcrowding at Deal and Wilson, DCPS should spend its limited resources on the more difficult problem of addressing the 60-70% of students who cannot read on grade level. I appreciate that it's easier and more satisfying to spend time gerrymandering Wilson HS to achieve some nirvana of diversity and equity, and that's certainly the sort of thing that newspapers and magazines like to write about. But it's not doing anything for rest of the school system. IMHO, DCPS should quit playing social scientist and stop trying to gerrymander Wilson into a "diversity nirvana," and instead just solve that problem the obvious way. Then focus on improving the other schools. |
Anonymous
I think Jefferson did feed it, at least it part. Because the boundaries went beyond SW. If I recall, the line was at 3rd or 4th St SE, which included the Brent district. So one of the four (!) feeder patterns at Brent was Brent, Jefferson, and Wilson. Makes you wonder which member of Congress got that set up in the late 60s or 70s. |
Anonymous
Have you ridden the metro lately? There's nothing easy about it, and it's not getting better. If a family moves EOTP to a more affordable neighborhood, putting their 10 year old on two trains to get to school is a PITA. The kid will rack up tardies. It is not sustainable. |