Recommended Viewing - Fordham Institute Panel Discusses Controlled Choice for DC (Capitol Hill)

[Anonymous]

Thoughtful discussion of barriers to a choice set (nee controlled choice) scenario including difficulties with respect to tracking and differentiation in a classroom setting where low-SES students are in need of remediation.

http://edexcellence.net/events/encouraging-integrated-schools-in-the-district-of-columbia

[Anonymous]

The discussion also makes clear that a controlled choice scenario has to happen in a context where all of the choices in a choice set are high quality schools. That is the baseline that we are not even close to having here in Washington, DC.

Many of these advocates for controlled choice policies live ( and have their children enrolled in school ) on another planet.

[Anonymous]

There is little more loathsome than social experiments inflicting their ideas on other people's children.

I swear he could walk into a bus and I would start to believe in God again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The discussion also makes clear that a controlled choice scenario has to happen in a context where all of the choices in a choice set are high quality schools. That is the baseline that we are not even close to having here in Washington, DC.

Many of these advocates for controlled choice policies live ( and have their children enrolled in school ) on another planet.

See Petrilli, for instance: he preaches for controlled choice in DC but lives in Bethesda!!

[Anonymous]

THe problem with the choice sets is that they almost certainly make a single school the shunned pariah. It's a human nature thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The discussion also makes clear that a controlled choice scenario has to happen in a context where all of the choices in a choice set are high quality schools. That is the baseline that we are not even close to having here in Washington, DC.

Many of these advocates for controlled choice policies live ( and have their children enrolled in school ) on another planet.

See Petrilli, for instance: he preaches for controlled choice in DC but lives in Bethesda!!

Controlled choice for thee! (But not for me.)

[Anonymous]

I think I love Chester Finn.

[Anonymous]

Holy. This just fired me up SO SO SO much.

[Anonymous]

Check out Petrilli's tweet from 3/21:

Fantastic panel on #controlledchoice this morning! Though, if anything, it made me less supportive of the idea.

Best quote:

DC should "not have an algorithym determining . . . whose choices are going to be constrained by somebody else's notion of where they should go to school.

-- Chester Finn

It is also interesting that Kahlenberg glossed over the fallout from implementing controlled choice in Wake County, NC.

One take away, there is no empirical evidence that busing high-SES students to low performing schools results in higher performing schools

Opponents of controlled choice need to counter "choice set" with something like #chanceset or #noneighborhoodchancesets

[Anonymous]

Studies have shown that academic returns from economic integration diminish as school poverty levels increase. Children who live in public housing and attend schools where no more than 20 percent of students were FARMS eligible did best, while children in public housing who attended schools where as many as 35 percent of students qualified for FARMS did no better.academically than public housing children who attended schools where 35 to 85 percent of students qualified for FARMS.

Heather Schwartz, HOUSING POLICY IS SCHOOL POLICY: ECONOMICALLY INTEGRATIVE HOUSING PROMOTES ACADEMIC SUCCESS IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY (Century Foundstion, 2010)

[Anonymous]

I find it fascinating that Mr. Petrilli spends so much time talking about Brent but seems to know so very little. The Fifth Graders at Brent are not actually from Anacostia as he asserts, but why let facts get in the way of a good story when you are selling yourself as a leading intellectual light in the field of education reform known as SEI (socioeconomic integration).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it fascinating that Mr. Petrilli spends so much time talking about Brent but seems to know so very little. The Fifth Graders at Brent are not actually from Anacostia as he asserts, but why let facts get in the way of a good story when you are selling yourself as a leading intellectual light in the field of education reform known as SEI (socioeconomic integration).

Where are Brent 5th graders from? Other parts of the Hill or SW?

[Anonymous]

The current Brent 5th graders are mainly from the Hill.

[Anonymous]

#noneighborhoodchancesets

this makes sense. we need catch phrases that embody the shortcomings for these bad plans.

[Anonymous]

Who knew Ben Stein was so into education.