Is Charter Neighborhood Preference a good idea?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Again, it cannot be said enough: IT IS NOT A POPULARITY CONTEST. Each school is different and has different offerings. What is interesting to one family won't be interesting to the next. People need to do their research on which school is the best fit for their kid's interests and capabilities. All of this "neighborhood preference" and "one lottery" talk really only serves to obfuscate and cloud the whole purpose of having diversity and school choices.

Isn't the whole point of school choice in essence a popularity contest? Parents make the best choice for their family, schools try to attract students, and the schools that are successful are rewarded with resources? And the ones that fail to attract students either have to up their game or close? The problem in DC right now is that the supply of desirable seats at schools is so low that almost nobody has a meaningful choice. We currently have de facto rationing, where the questions about how to most fairly and efficiently allocate the limited number of quality seats overwhelm any ability to place each child in the school that's right for him. We're miles away from the point where parents can weigh competing schools and pick the one that's right for their child, because everyone is concentrating on just getting in somewhere.

In this atmosphere school choice is essentially broken, because the market isn't sending signals. If you truly believe in school choice, what you would want to do is create more choices that appeal to more families, until you get to the point where almost everyone is going to a school that they picked because it was right for them. (Not necessarily their number one pick, but one they want.) The way to get to that point is to use the signals that parents send when they rank their choices, and then use that information to allocate resources in a way that creates more options that appeal to more families.

Frankly, I think if there were sufficient choice a neighborhood preference would be unnecessary. If there were lots of good choices, spread throughout the city, most people would prefer to go to a good school nearby rather than the absolute best school. The question boils down to whether neighborhood preference is something that gets us closer to the point of having quality choices for all, or just perpetuates the shortage and inequality that exists currently.

I think you are still missing the point - once again, schools vary in terms of offerings and capabilities - some are stronger in athletics, some are stronger in the arts, some are stronger in STEM and so on. Why would you send your STEM-loving kid to a school that is weak on STEM, but "popular" because of its athletics program? That makes no sense. If someone is interested in "choice" purely as a function of popularity as opposed to WHAT MAKES SENSE FOR THEIR KID they are completely missing the point. And, with so many parents that seem clueless and who don't seem to be doing their homework on schools other than just a superficial pass at "popularity" or taking a scattershot shotgun approach at applying to a whole slew of schools and seeing where they get in, it's no wonder the lottery system is so clogged, and it's no wonder why there's so much "september shuffle" et cetera.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
I think you are still missing the point - once again, schools vary in terms of offerings and capabilities - some are stronger in athletics, some are stronger in the arts, some are stronger in STEM and so on. Why would you send your STEM-loving kid to a school that is weak on STEM, but "popular" because of its athletics program? That makes no sense. If someone is interested in "choice" purely as a function of popularity as opposed to WHAT MAKES SENSE FOR THEIR KID they are completely missing the point. And, with so many parents that seem clueless and who don't seem to be doing their homework on schools other than just a superficial pass at "popularity" or taking a scattershot shotgun approach at applying to a whole slew of schools and seeing where they get in, it's no wonder the lottery system is so clogged, and it's no wonder why there's so much "september shuffle" et cetera.

I think you and the poster to whom you are replying are simply disagreeing about theory versus reality. In theory, school choice would allow DC parents to evaluate the various offerings and select the one most appropriate for their child. In reality, the chance of getting into your number one choice is sufficiently slim that parents are happy to get into any "good" school ("good" not necessarily equaling "most appropriate"). Parents are not missing the point about what makes sense for their kid. Rather, they are accurately getting the point that the choice that makes sense is unlikely to be available.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think you are still missing the point - once again, schools vary in terms of offerings and capabilities - some are stronger in athletics, some are stronger in the arts, some are stronger in STEM and so on. Why would you send your STEM-loving kid to a school that is weak on STEM, but "popular" because of its athletics program? That makes no sense. If someone is interested in "choice" purely as a function of popularity as opposed to WHAT MAKES SENSE FOR THEIR KID they are completely missing the point. And, with so many parents that seem clueless and who don't seem to be doing their homework on schools other than just a superficial pass at "popularity" or taking a scattershot shotgun approach at applying to a whole slew of schools and seeing where they get in, it's no wonder the lottery system is so clogged, and it's no wonder why there's so much "september shuffle" et cetera.

I think you and the poster to whom you are replying are simply disagreeing about theory versus reality. In theory, school choice would allow DC parents to evaluate the various offerings and select the one most appropriate for their child. In reality, the chance of getting into your number one choice is sufficiently slim that parents are happy to get into any "good" school ("good" not necessarily equaling "most appropriate"). Parents are not missing the point about what makes sense for their kid. Rather, they are accurately getting the point that the choice that makes sense is unlikely to be available.

But, if you toss neighborhood preference for charters into the mix, that even slim choice is gone.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think you are still missing the point - once again, schools vary in terms of offerings and capabilities - some are stronger in athletics, some are stronger in the arts, some are stronger in STEM and so on. Why would you send your STEM-loving kid to a school that is weak on STEM, but "popular" because of its athletics program? That makes no sense. If someone is interested in "choice" purely as a function of popularity as opposed to WHAT MAKES SENSE FOR THEIR KID they are completely missing the point. And, with so many parents that seem clueless and who don't seem to be doing their homework on schools other than just a superficial pass at "popularity" or taking a scattershot shotgun approach at applying to a whole slew of schools and seeing where they get in, it's no wonder the lottery system is so clogged, and it's no wonder why there's so much "september shuffle" et cetera.

I think you and the poster to whom you are replying are simply disagreeing about theory versus reality. In theory, school choice would allow DC parents to evaluate the various offerings and select the one most appropriate for their child. In reality, the chance of getting into your number one choice is sufficiently slim that parents are happy to get into any "good" school ("good" not necessarily equaling "most appropriate"). Parents are not missing the point about what makes sense for their kid. Rather, they are accurately getting the point that the choice that makes sense is unlikely to be available.

When we have parents doing things like griping about kids having to learn Chinese at Yu Ying, it's pretty clear that they didn't care about "appropriate" or make any informed choice when they turned the application in. That would only get WORSE when it's reduced to neighborhood preference and unified lottery and application process where it's just a simple matter of checking an extra box on the application to apply.

[Anonymous]

Ultimately it would probably spell the end of specialized school offerings. Why bother offering something like immersion, STEM, Arts, or an IB program when the system just makes it all indiscriminate and now a majority of applicants don't even care about it, they just checked the box for every and all schools.

[Anonymous]

A unified application would help, a lot. Much more than neighborhood preference.

Imagine that you want Spanish immersion, but can only choose 6 or 8 schools total. You'd put down Mundo Verde, of course, and LAMB. Maybe Tyler SI and Bancroft. But you'd better also add Bethune, Powell, Marie Reed and your in-bounds DCPS to make sure you get in somewhere. You probably won't bother with YuYing and Inspired Teaching at all, thereby reducing the applicants at both of those.

[Anonymous]

Thought they are going to an unified application process for the forecoming application cycle and charters have a choice to opt in.

[Anonymous]

I don't really see it as helping. I think unified applications as will likely be implemented, and a greatly broadened lottery process will then cause far more randomization and will clog up schools with people form whom the school was 5th or 6th preference, who don't really want to be there, as opposed to those who do actually want there as 1st or 2nd preference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't really see it as helping. I think unified applications as will likely be implemented, and a greatly broadened lottery process will then cause far more randomization and will clog up schools with people form whom the school was 5th or 6th preference, who don't really want to be there, as opposed to those who do actually want there as 1st or 2nd preference.

And how is that different from the way it is now? I know very few people who have gotten their first or second choices, other than in-bounds schools, in the past couple of lottery cycles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't really see it as helping. I think unified applications as will likely be implemented, and a greatly broadened lottery process will then cause far more randomization and will clog up schools with people form whom the school was 5th or 6th preference, who don't really want to be there, as opposed to those who do actually want there as 1st or 2nd preference.

And how is that different from the way it is now? I know very few people who have gotten their first or second choices, other than in-bounds schools, in the past couple of lottery cycles.

Now people at least have to go out of their way to apply, it minimizes the likelihood of the scattershot, check all the boxes approach. With a unified lottery, unless it is very specifically focused and targeted (which it probably won't be) you will likely have EVEN LESS chance of getting into the charter you want. That's how it's different.

[Anonymous]

No, the unified lottery will drastically limit the number of schools you can apply for. Think six to 10, total, including DCPS. It is the opposite of the scattershot approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, the unified lottery will drastically limit the number of schools you can apply for. Think six to 10, total, including DCPS. It is the opposite of the scattershot approach.

I'm all for a unified lottery for charters, but it should be separate from the DCPS one and you should get more schools to apply to. DCPS has inbounds students it can rely on, with the exception of a couple of schools; charters don't. The popular charters will of course be fine under a limited lottery selection system, but the less popular ones will suffer. I think you should get at least 12-15 schools to put on your list, in ranked order.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, the unified lottery will drastically limit the number of schools you can apply for. Think six to 10, total, including DCPS. It is the opposite of the scattershot approach.

I'm all for a unified lottery for charters, but it should be separate from the DCPS one and you should get more schools to apply to. DCPS has inbounds students it can rely on, with the exception of a couple of schools; charters don't. The popular charters will of course be fine under a limited lottery selection system, but the less popular ones will suffer. I think you should get at least 12-15 schools to put on your list, in ranked order.

I agree that less-popular charters will suffer in the beginning, until people learn to cover their bases with "safety" schools. There will need to be some way to apply for leftover seats after the lottery occurs. But yes, people will need to be very careful with their choices and rankings.

[Anonymous]

I hope that neighborhood preference is never an option with charters. It's the great equalizer we have left.

[Anonymous]

* will specialized schools like Yu Ying or Bridges be as successful if people get in not because they really love the school's specialty but because it's popular and located nearby?

Most of the YY families are already there because it's popular and located nearby (many Petworth and North Hill families) and a much better option than their weak IB schools. They claim to love the specialty without having any deep or abiding connection to Chinese culture or the Chinese language. The problem you predict already exists, and on a grand scale. If you want to find a big group of parents who love the specialty for its own sake, look no further than a weekend heritage Chinese school in Rockville.