Deal is tremendously overcrowded - something is to give

[Anonymous]

13:34 you should have applied for the chancellor job. This is clearly bugging you a lot.

Short of that, getting all worked up on DCUM does nothing. Let it go.

[Anonymous]

"WOTP slots for kids from outside of the immediate neighborhood should be going to low income kids from poorly performing schools not to middle class kids who can easily be bundled into a new set of high performing schools EOTP. And that will incidentally maintain WOTP diversity and increase it EOTP - I trust that you understand diversity can also be inclusive of white and middle class families and doesn't just mean a school with some number of minority students?

And I'm saying this as someone who works in political consulting... while it may be earnest (giving you the benefit of the doubt), those set-aside slots will seem insignificant and ephemeral politically and the people who win them have no baked-in constituency since they are random lottery winners. But the parents at Bancroft and Shepherd are loud. As are the middle-class families from Brookland and Hillcrest who use OOB slots now. The headline will be "mayor kicks hispanic and black students out to create a gentrified Deal"

Try again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

"WOTP slots for kids from outside of the immediate neighborhood should be going to low income kids from poorly performing schools not to middle class kids who can easily be bundled into a new set of high performing schools EOTP. And that will incidentally maintain WOTP diversity and increase it EOTP - I trust that you understand diversity can also be inclusive of white and middle class families and doesn't just mean a school with some number of minority students?

And I'm saying this as someone who works in political consulting... while it may be earnest (giving you the benefit of the doubt), those set-aside slots will seem insignificant and ephemeral politically and the people who win them have no baked-in constituency since they are random lottery winners. But the parents at Bancroft and Shepherd are loud. As are the middle-class families from Brookland and Hillcrest who use OOB slots now. The headline will be "mayor kicks hispanic and black students out to create a gentrified Deal"

Try again.

Well what do you suggest instead? We can't set aside slots by race though you can get pretty close to doing that in DC by doing in based on income. There are a lot of OOB slots today at Deal and Wilson so you make the number high enough to be credible and part of how the OOB demand gets solved is when you create a second high performing MS & HS to absorb some of that demand.

But we can bundle up some neighborhoods with significant numbers of middle class families (many of which are AA by the way) into new school boundaries.

The alternative really is an over crowded Deal & Wilson. Or you go back to the crazy city wide lottery proposal from 6 years ago for MS & HS and everyone suffers similarly.

I think bundling kids up by SES status in new boundaries is the most politically palatable of the options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

"WOTP slots for kids from outside of the immediate neighborhood should be going to low income kids from poorly performing schools not to middle class kids who can easily be bundled into a new set of high performing schools EOTP. And that will incidentally maintain WOTP diversity and increase it EOTP - I trust that you understand diversity can also be inclusive of white and middle class families and doesn't just mean a school with some number of minority students?

And I'm saying this as someone who works in political consulting... while it may be earnest (giving you the benefit of the doubt), those set-aside slots will seem insignificant and ephemeral politically and the people who win them have no baked-in constituency since they are random lottery winners. But the parents at Bancroft and Shepherd are loud. As are the middle-class families from Brookland and Hillcrest who use OOB slots now. The headline will be "mayor kicks hispanic and black students out to create a gentrified Deal"

Try again.

DP. Also, I think it's just a really weird social dynamic to have rich white WOTP kids attend school with low-income kids, who will be like, 99% black/Hispanic students. If I were white (I'm not), I'd want my white kids to attend school with some middle class kids of color, too. If Bancroft/Shepherd are kicked out, and OOB slots are only reserved for low-income kids, that won't happen, since most black/Hispanic middle class families don't live WOTP.

This may not be a strong argument, but that sort of set-up doesn't appeal to me. That would be one segregated lunchroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"WOTP slots for kids from outside of the immediate neighborhood should be going to low income kids from poorly performing schools not to middle class kids who can easily be bundled into a new set of high performing schools EOTP. And that will incidentally maintain WOTP diversity and increase it EOTP - I trust that you understand diversity can also be inclusive of white and middle class families and doesn't just mean a school with some number of minority students?

And I'm saying this as someone who works in political consulting... while it may be earnest (giving you the benefit of the doubt), those set-aside slots will seem insignificant and ephemeral politically and the people who win them have no baked-in constituency since they are random lottery winners. But the parents at Bancroft and Shepherd are loud. As are the middle-class families from Brookland and Hillcrest who use OOB slots now. The headline will be "mayor kicks hispanic and black students out to create a gentrified Deal"

Try again.

DP. Also, I think it's just a really weird social dynamic to have rich white WOTP kids attend school with low-income kids, who will be like, 99% black/Hispanic students. If I were white (I'm not), I'd want my white kids to attend school with some middle class kids of color, too. If Bancroft/Shepherd are kicked out, and OOB slots are only reserved for low-income kids, that won't happen, since most black/Hispanic middle class families don't live WOTP.

This may not be a strong argument, but that sort of set-up doesn't appeal to me. That would be one segregated lunchroom.

[Anonymous]

How about ending OOB rights and pouring money into so-called failing schools? Solve both problems.

[Anonymous]

The only fair thing to do is to make all residents go into a lottery. Do away with all boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Shepherd ES boundary is both East and West of the Park. Deal is closer for half the students. Honestly, I don’t know of another MS because the schools around Shepherd are k-8 campuses.

[Anonymous]

The only plausible solution I see is application middle schools. The situation could sort itself out. No one can explain why there are application only high schools but not middle and elementary. All the AA whining about the schools would be all white doesn't fly. A ton of AA families send their kids to private schools. Just can't understand why it's so much animosity toward the concept. Maybe people like paying for private schools...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only plausible solution I see is application middle schools. The situation could sort itself out. No one can explain why there are application only high schools but not middle and elementary. All the AA whining about the schools would be all white doesn't fly. A ton of AA families send their kids to private schools. Just can't understand why it's so much animosity toward the concept. Maybe people like paying for private schools...

Because it's expensive, and DCPS will still need to provide by-right middle schools for all. So you are taking the same number of students are spreading them around to yet more buildings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about ending OOB rights and pouring money into so-called failing schools? Solve both problems.

Money doesn't solve the issue at failing schools...it's all about what happens at home. Provide and the nice and shiny things you want. If parents are not "being parents", the results will be the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only plausible solution I see is application middle schools. The situation could sort itself out. No one can explain why there are application only high schools but not middle and elementary. All the AA whining about the schools would be all white doesn't fly. A ton of AA families send their kids to private schools. Just can't understand why it's so much animosity toward the concept. Maybe people like paying for private schools...

Because it's expensive, and DCPS will still need to provide by-right middle schools for all. So you are taking the same number of students are spreading them around to yet more buildings.

Your response makes no sense at all. It's no more costly than operating Walls, Banneker, and Tech. You have your in-bound schools but you also have magnet middle schools like the high schools.

IF it's done properly, families would choose other options rather than track across the city. DCPS has been selling schools to developers for years and there under enrolled schools that could be used.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just like shipping WOTP kids to a half-empty school EOTP is a non-starter, so is excluding Bancroft (majority Hispanic) and Shepherd (majority AA) from their historic feeder pattern. One solution from another thread was to pull Ward 4 schools -- Lafayette and Shepherd -- into another middle school together as a compromise where families both east and west of the park feel the "pain" of a new feeder system. A solution like that where no "side" wins is the only thing that's politically viable. The people who bitch about EOTP hipsters or middle-class black families using YOUR schools are sadly bitter and obviously new to how DC works.

Again we devolve into stupidity in these discussions.

If you look at the history of the boundaries it is not in fact the full history that these schools have fed to Wilson & Deal.

In fact Wilson used to have boundaries that were essentially proportional to the neighborhood as were the rest of DC schools. And if you aren't aware of this you should educate yourself and this point is to the white and black EOTP parents digging in about this but the EOTP Middle and High Schools used to actually be quite diverse - I can't find the article now but I don't think I'm imagining that Coolidge was majority white until the mid 1960's.

But either way we all lose if this doesn't get solved and the only way to solve it is to move significant numbers of students to a different MS & HS. Unless you think it makes sense for our kids to attend a MS with 2000 kids and a HS with 3000 - and we are going to get there in 3-4 years if something is not done.

WOTP slots for kids from outside of the immediate neighborhood should be going to low income kids from poorly performing schools not to middle class kids who can easily be bundled into a new set of high performing schools EOTP. And that will incidentally maintain WOTP diversity and increase it EOTP - I trust that you understand diversity can also be inclusive of white and middle class families and doesn't just mean a school with some number of minority students?

You're right, PP, redlining and school segregation worked until the Civil Rights Movement! Why did we mess up a good thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only plausible solution I see is application middle schools. The situation could sort itself out. No one can explain why there are application only high schools but not middle and elementary. All the AA whining about the schools would be all white doesn't fly. A ton of AA families send their kids to private schools. Just can't understand why it's so much animosity toward the concept. Maybe people like paying for private schools...

Because it's expensive, and DCPS will still need to provide by-right middle schools for all. So you are taking the same number of students are spreading them around to yet more buildings.

More application honor classes within existing neighborhood middle schools would be cheaper, easier to implement and less controversial. You can see the arrangement working well enough at Hardy and Stuart Hobson, with more challenge, and in-boundary families, in the mix. DCPS could prioritize, and fund, more academic tracking all over the City with good results quickly in diverse neighborhoods, e.g. the Navy Yard, Capitol Hill, Brookland, Eckington, Hill Crest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only fair thing to do is to make all residents go into a lottery. Do away with all boundaries.

Hey, Bernie, go back to Burlington!