WaPo magazine article on the lottery

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Only 27% are enrolled in their IB school."

So despite hundreds of millions in renovations, expansion of Pk3, students returning to DCPS for HS ... the percentage of students attending their IB has only increased 2% since the last boundary review.

For the last time, parent don’t choose schools based on renovations!! If it’s underperforming, lacks rigor etc, no one cares how shiny and new it is.

This! My IB is newly renovated and looks amazing. Still underperforming.

If my IB elementary hadn't been renovated, it would definitely have been crossed off my list. Windows were broken, bathrooms were unusable, kids had to wear coats in the classrooms because the heat wasn't working. Even the brightest kids would underperform in those conditions. Now that it's renovated, I can feel the change in morale every time I walk into the building. It feels like a place where kids can learn, and the school is definitely taking advantage of its new labs, auditorium, common spaces, etc.

Great. I’m sure you plan to enroll your kid eventually at brookland middle and then Dunbar? Both have abysmal test scores but the buildings are brand new.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the elementary level, when the majority of prospective IB students cannot get into their EOTP IB at PK3 and PK4 because 70% of seats are for OOB ELL, they rarely try to enroll when they can by-right.
In other words, at least EOTP, you can't blame those for leaving, when their peer cohort couldn't get in.

That is a example of why bilingual schools need to be citywide. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to access a specialized program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the elementary level, when the majority of prospective IB students cannot get into their EOTP IB at PK3 and PK4 because 70% of seats are for OOB ELL, they rarely try to enroll when they can by-right.
In other words, at least EOTP, you can't blame those for leaving, when their peer cohort couldn't get in.

what? Is this Bruce-Monroe? Our school is where kids go when they don't get in to Bruce-Monroe and they typically leave us for K.

Do they go back to Bruce Monroe?

They aren’t coming back to Brice Monroe for K. Certainly not any English dominant kids.

I know people who did. It wasn't their top lottery choice but they did attend for a few years.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"Only 27% are enrolled in their IB school."

So despite hundreds of millions in renovations, expansion of Pk3, students returning to DCPS for HS ... the percentage of students attending their IB has only increased 2% since the last boundary review.

[/quote]

For the last time, parent don’t choose schools based on renovations!! If it’s underperforming, lacks rigor etc, no one cares how shiny and new it is.[/quote]

This! My IB is newly renovated and looks amazing. Still underperforming. [/quote]

If my IB elementary hadn't been renovated, it would definitely have been crossed off my list. Windows were broken, bathrooms were unusable, kids had to wear coats in the classrooms because the heat wasn't working. Even the brightest kids would underperform in those conditions. Now that it's renovated, I can feel the change in morale every time I walk into the building. It feels like a place where kids can learn, and the school is definitely taking advantage of its new labs, auditorium, common spaces, etc. [/quote]


Great. I’m sure you plan to enroll your kid eventually at brookland middle and then Dunbar? Both have abysmal test scores but the buildings are brand new.[/quote]

Oh stop it. People are just saying it is a factor. We considered SSMA but chose Langley and building condition and space was definitely an important reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Only 27% are enrolled in their IB school."

So despite hundreds of millions in renovations, expansion of Pk3, students returning to DCPS for HS ... the percentage of students attending their IB has only increased 2% since the last boundary review.

For the last time, parent don’t choose schools based on renovations!! If it’s underperforming, lacks rigor etc, no one cares how shiny and new it is.

And yet, that's where we have invested, as a city. Shiny and a zillion bells and whistles probably isn't needed, but fixing dilapidated buildings is.

We do need better options, and that starts with investing in DC adults who need supports and skills and safe neighborhoods and good paying jobs to enter and stay in the workforce. Without that, the underperforming schools are fighting an uphill battle that they will not win.

Yes, I happened to be reading this article at the same time. How can a city that allows this to happen expect to have kids doing well at school? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2019/03/22/feature/this-is-not-me/?utm_term=.a3dc3b3673ed&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Only 27% are enrolled in their IB school."

So despite hundreds of millions in renovations, expansion of Pk3, students returning to DCPS for HS ... the percentage of students attending their IB has only increased 2% since the last boundary review.

If the goal is to get people to attend their beautiful, brand new neighborhood schools, it is easy to do: eliminate other free options. Won't happen though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Only 27% are enrolled in their IB school."

So despite hundreds of millions in renovations, expansion of Pk3, students returning to DCPS for HS ... the percentage of students attending their IB has only increased 2% since the last boundary review.

If all those crazy-expensive new schools had been built in NW or even NE, they would be much more successful and drive higher enrolment.

But leave it to DCPS and the Mayor to build them where they make no sense, just to buy votes...and then be surprised when they are half-empty or failing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Only 27% are enrolled in their IB school."

So despite hundreds of millions in renovations, expansion of Pk3, students returning to DCPS for HS ... the percentage of students attending their IB has only increased 2% since the last boundary review.

If all those crazy-expensive new schools had been built in NW or even NE, they would be much more successful and drive higher enrolment.

But leave it to DCPS and the Mayor to build them where they make no sense, just to buy votes...and then be surprised when they are half-empty or failing.

Brookland Middle is in NE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Only 27% are enrolled in their IB school."

So despite hundreds of millions in renovations, expansion of Pk3, students returning to DCPS for HS ... the percentage of students attending their IB has only increased 2% since the last boundary review.

If all those crazy-expensive new schools had been built in NW or even NE, they would be much more successful and drive higher enrolment.

But leave it to DCPS and the Mayor to build them where they make no sense, just to buy votes...and then be surprised when they are half-empty or failing.

Huh? So you're saying kids in SE should not get new school buildings, while those in NW do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Only 27% are enrolled in their IB school."

So despite hundreds of millions in renovations, expansion of Pk3, students returning to DCPS for HS ... the percentage of students attending their IB has only increased 2% since the last boundary review.

If all those crazy-expensive new schools had been built in NW or even NE, they would be much more successful and drive higher enrolment.

But leave it to DCPS and the Mayor to build them where they make no sense, just to buy votes...and then be surprised when they are half-empty or failing.

Cardozo and Dunbar are in NW. So is the New North MS/Coolidge campus and MacFarland. Brookland MS is in NE so is the refurbished Maury and the soon-to-be redone CHML.

Plus, there are more kids living in Ward 8 than there are in several of the WOTP wards put together. It makes sense to build and maintain schools where kids live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love this line:
"Because My School DC’s software places students, the system levels the playing field for families who lack political connections or the time and resources to stand in lines, lobby school principals and complete scores of applications."

The implication being that families who don't lack political connections don't have to deal with this nonsense.

Not sure I read it the same way.

Pre-Common lottery, when every single school ran its own enrollment process and/or lottery, if you knew (or were) a politically connected person or the principal or registrar at a school, you could enroll, regardless of being IB or OOB or what your number was.

If you weren’t connected and you had time, you would sleep out to submit your apps for school-level lottery because you got a preference based on when you turned your app in. There was a one block line of tents outside Oyster one year.

If the article had gone into the pre-common lottery history then the excerpt would have made sense: In the past you had to sleep on the sidewalk and cronyism was rampant, the new system has done away with all that. But the article just had that bit sitting by itself without context. The use of the present tense is also confusing.

I wouldn't be surprised if the reporter had originally put it in but it got cut in editing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wish there would be a citation for this stat.

... "That majority white Ward 3 has no charter schools — with their mandate to take applications from throughout the city — compounds the problem. So does the fact that white students make up only 15 percent of the city’s public school enrollment, while studies estimate that about half the city’s white students attend private schools. So one path to desegregating the city’s schools is persuading more white students to stay in the public sector. “There are choices white families are making that are reinforcing the status quo racially,” says Smith, the former deputy mayor for education...."

Write to the author for their source on this...they should be able to provide...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Only 27% are enrolled in their IB school."

So despite hundreds of millions in renovations, expansion of Pk3, students returning to DCPS for HS ... the percentage of students attending their IB has only increased 2% since the last boundary review.

If the goal is to get people to attend their beautiful, brand new neighborhood schools, it is easy to do: eliminate other free options. Won't happen though.

If your goal is to get families with children to leave the city, then do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eyeroll. There are choices DCPS is making that cause people to leave if they can. Do something about the widespread incompetence and corruption and maybe more people would stay.

That’s what fuels your choice, sure, but her point stands that individual choices of white families perpetuate the status quo.

How many white kids would you need to make a school like Ballou not a dropout mill? Even if those kids came in what would that do for the current kids, nothing it would just hide their failures under successes. White kids make schools attractive they don’t help poor struggling kids, I’ll never get why people don’t understand this. Also there aren’t enough white kids so at what point does the buck stop ?

[Anonymous]

To combine students from a high performing school and students of a low performing school and have it help the low performers, the ratio needs to be greater than 2:1, like maybe 75%+ high performing students.

I read that somewhere long ago; can’t remember the details. But the point is that the goal is not achieved without a super-majority of students coming from a high-performing school.