Moving from DCPS to Charter but commute is terrible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may not realize when your kids are very young is that there's tons of good options when it comes to elementary schools, but as the child ages, the options get much, much worse. DCI is a massive improvement over MacFarland and Roosevelt, and a 20 minute commute seems fairly normal. And there's not a huge price difference between living in Petworth and living in Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park, and you could end up moving closer to DCI eventually.

So true. Everyone is fighting for access to OOB schools, not because that school is much better than the neighborhood school, but because the guaranteed Middle is superior. The lottery here is infuriating. Maybe this could be fixed by getting rid of all guaranteed spots and having every middle be lottery.

You're frustrated by your little scramble in elementary school and your solution is to burn down the city.

making all spots in all dcps schools subject to the lottery would be a whole lot fairer than what we do now, where we auction off spaces in the most desirable schools via housing prices while the least desirable schools are half empty. some of these schools are extremely underenrolled.

It works for charters, of course, and has for many years, but somehow, someway it would be just impossible for DCPS too.

Damn, you are so stupid. It works for charter because people are opting in. The citywide lottery would be forcing people out of their neighborhood school.

So much of the revival of the city was due to an impression that schools were improving, allowing more parents with young kids to stay. (The impression was overly optimistic at the time but it still worked). This would be over.

[Anonymous]

If you think you will move to suburbs eventually, just move now. Otherwise you are just making yourself miserable for a few years for no reason and postponing the inevitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may not realize when your kids are very young is that there's tons of good options when it comes to elementary schools, but as the child ages, the options get much, much worse. DCI is a massive improvement over MacFarland and Roosevelt, and a 20 minute commute seems fairly normal. And there's not a huge price difference between living in Petworth and living in Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park, and you could end up moving closer to DCI eventually.

So true. Everyone is fighting for access to OOB schools, not because that school is much better than the neighborhood school, but because the guaranteed Middle is superior. The lottery here is infuriating. Maybe this could be fixed by getting rid of all guaranteed spots and having every middle be lottery.

You're frustrated by your little scramble in elementary school and your solution is to burn down the city.

making all spots in all dcps schools subject to the lottery would be a whole lot fairer than what we do now, where we auction off spaces in the most desirable schools via housing prices while the least desirable schools are half empty. some of these schools are extremely underenrolled.

This is also the fastest way to improve the school system with ONE condition: people have to stay in. They can’t just flee.

This is the fastest way to get people to flee DC

PP here: that’s right, so you have to provide incentives to get people to stay. It’s that or a Hukao system (very bad).

If DCPS could guarantee a safe, clean, schools system they’d do a lot. They refuse to do what it takes to guarantee the safety of kids, and simply don’t have the willingness to punish bad kids or remove disruptive kids from classrooms. That would mean ignoring federal law by basically kicking IEP kids to special school, so it’s not an unalloyed good,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may not realize when your kids are very young is that there's tons of good options when it comes to elementary schools, but as the child ages, the options get much, much worse. DCI is a massive improvement over MacFarland and Roosevelt, and a 20 minute commute seems fairly normal. And there's not a huge price difference between living in Petworth and living in Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park, and you could end up moving closer to DCI eventually.

So true. Everyone is fighting for access to OOB schools, not because that school is much better than the neighborhood school, but because the guaranteed Middle is superior. The lottery here is infuriating. Maybe this could be fixed by getting rid of all guaranteed spots and having every middle be lottery.

You're frustrated by your little scramble in elementary school and your solution is to burn down the city.

making all spots in all dcps schools subject to the lottery would be a whole lot fairer than what we do now, where we auction off spaces in the most desirable schools via housing prices while the least desirable schools are half empty. some of these schools are extremely underenrolled.

It works for charters, of course, and has for many years, but somehow, someway it would be just impossible for DCPS too.

That’s not how charters work. Parents have to opt in to lottery into a charter. The parent has to be knowledgeable enough about the due dates, platforms, etc. A large portion of DC children do not live with parents who do that, for many different reasons.

What PP is suggesting is automatic lottery for every enrolled kid at any school. People would move out of DC in that scenario.

Many many more parents than you assume do this. That's why Ward 7 and 8 DCPS schools are under enrolled and most of the kids go to charters. Look up the enrollment rates for Ballou and Anacostia High Schools compared to the number of kids living in the area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may not realize when your kids are very young is that there's tons of good options when it comes to elementary schools, but as the child ages, the options get much, much worse. DCI is a massive improvement over MacFarland and Roosevelt, and a 20 minute commute seems fairly normal. And there's not a huge price difference between living in Petworth and living in Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park, and you could end up moving closer to DCI eventually.

So true. Everyone is fighting for access to OOB schools, not because that school is much better than the neighborhood school, but because the guaranteed Middle is superior. The lottery here is infuriating. Maybe this could be fixed by getting rid of all guaranteed spots and having every middle be lottery.

You're frustrated by your little scramble in elementary school and your solution is to burn down the city.

making all spots in all dcps schools subject to the lottery would be a whole lot fairer than what we do now, where we auction off spaces in the most desirable schools via housing prices while the least desirable schools are half empty. some of these schools are extremely underenrolled.

It works for charters, of course, and has for many years, but somehow, someway it would be just impossible for DCPS too.

That’s not how charters work. Parents have to opt in to lottery into a charter. The parent has to be knowledgeable enough about the due dates, platforms, etc. A large portion of DC children do not live with parents who do that, for many different reasons.

What PP is suggesting is automatic lottery for every enrolled kid at any school. People would move out of DC in that scenario.

Many many more parents than you assume do this. That's why Ward 7 and 8 DCPS schools are under enrolled and most of the kids go to charters. Look up the enrollment rates for Ballou and Anacostia High Schools compared to the number of kids living in the area.

Who said anything about Ward 7 and 8 specifically? I know lots of kids go to charters- but another chunk of kids have parents that either don’t know or care to do the lottery. It’s a choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may not realize when your kids are very young is that there's tons of good options when it comes to elementary schools, but as the child ages, the options get much, much worse. DCI is a massive improvement over MacFarland and Roosevelt, and a 20 minute commute seems fairly normal. And there's not a huge price difference between living in Petworth and living in Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park, and you could end up moving closer to DCI eventually.

So true. Everyone is fighting for access to OOB schools, not because that school is much better than the neighborhood school, but because the guaranteed Middle is superior. The lottery here is infuriating. Maybe this could be fixed by getting rid of all guaranteed spots and having every middle be lottery.

You're frustrated by your little scramble in elementary school and your solution is to burn down the city.

making all spots in all dcps schools subject to the lottery would be a whole lot fairer than what we do now, where we auction off spaces in the most desirable schools via housing prices while the least desirable schools are half empty. some of these schools are extremely underenrolled.

It works for charters, of course, and has for many years, but somehow, someway it would be just impossible for DCPS too.

Damn, you are so stupid. It works for charter because people are opting in. The citywide lottery would be forcing people out of their neighborhood school.

So much of the revival of the city was due to an impression that schools were improving, allowing more parents with young kids to stay. (The impression was overly optimistic at the time but it still worked). This would be over.

What are you even talking about? The only schools that would see a significant impact would be Ward 3 schools. No one is clamoring to go to DCPS schools east of the park. Also, you have your history completely wrong. The reason parents east of the park now don't move when their kids get to school age, is because of the lottery and charters give them lots of good options. The only part of the city were people are super into DCPS is Ward 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may not realize when your kids are very young is that there's tons of good options when it comes to elementary schools, but as the child ages, the options get much, much worse. DCI is a massive improvement over MacFarland and Roosevelt, and a 20 minute commute seems fairly normal. And there's not a huge price difference between living in Petworth and living in Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park, and you could end up moving closer to DCI eventually.

So true. Everyone is fighting for access to OOB schools, not because that school is much better than the neighborhood school, but because the guaranteed Middle is superior. The lottery here is infuriating. Maybe this could be fixed by getting rid of all guaranteed spots and having every middle be lottery.

You're frustrated by your little scramble in elementary school and your solution is to burn down the city.

making all spots in all dcps schools subject to the lottery would be a whole lot fairer than what we do now, where we auction off spaces in the most desirable schools via housing prices while the least desirable schools are half empty. some of these schools are extremely underenrolled.

It works for charters, of course, and has for many years, but somehow, someway it would be just impossible for DCPS too.

That’s not how charters work. Parents have to opt in to lottery into a charter. The parent has to be knowledgeable enough about the due dates, platforms, etc. A large portion of DC children do not live with parents who do that, for many different reasons.

What PP is suggesting is automatic lottery for every enrolled kid at any school. People would move out of DC in that scenario.

The only people who would move would be Janney and Deal and JR parents worried that undesirables (ie poor black kids) would be joining their schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may not realize when your kids are very young is that there's tons of good options when it comes to elementary schools, but as the child ages, the options get much, much worse. DCI is a massive improvement over MacFarland and Roosevelt, and a 20 minute commute seems fairly normal. And there's not a huge price difference between living in Petworth and living in Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park, and you could end up moving closer to DCI eventually.

So true. Everyone is fighting for access to OOB schools, not because that school is much better than the neighborhood school, but because the guaranteed Middle is superior. The lottery here is infuriating. Maybe this could be fixed by getting rid of all guaranteed spots and having every middle be lottery.

You're frustrated by your little scramble in elementary school and your solution is to burn down the city.

making all spots in all dcps schools subject to the lottery would be a whole lot fairer than what we do now, where we auction off spaces in the most desirable schools via housing prices while the least desirable schools are half empty. some of these schools are extremely underenrolled.

It works for charters, of course, and has for many years, but somehow, someway it would be just impossible for DCPS too.

Damn, you are so stupid. It works for charter because people are opting in. The citywide lottery would be forcing people out of their neighborhood school.

So much of the revival of the city was due to an impression that schools were improving, allowing more parents with young kids to stay. (The impression was overly optimistic at the time but it still worked). This would be over.

What are you even talking about? The only schools that would see a significant impact would be Ward 3 schools. No one is clamoring to go to DCPS schools east of the park. Also, you have your history completely wrong. The reason parents east of the park now don't move when their kids get to school age, is because of the lottery and charters give them lots of good options. The only part of the city were people are super into DCPS is Ward 3.

San Francisco did this and it was an epic disaster that pushed upper income families out of the public school system and increased segregation. They are now admitting that it was a disaster and going back to neighborhood schools.

https://www.sfusd.edu/schools/enroll/student-assignment-policy/student-assignment-changes

[Anonymous]

Get an ebike, OP! That way you get a workout and it's not lost time. The bike lane on Michigan makes it super easy to get from Petworth to Brookland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may not realize when your kids are very young is that there's tons of good options when it comes to elementary schools, but as the child ages, the options get much, much worse. DCI is a massive improvement over MacFarland and Roosevelt, and a 20 minute commute seems fairly normal. And there's not a huge price difference between living in Petworth and living in Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park, and you could end up moving closer to DCI eventually.

So true. Everyone is fighting for access to OOB schools, not because that school is much better than the neighborhood school, but because the guaranteed Middle is superior. The lottery here is infuriating. Maybe this could be fixed by getting rid of all guaranteed spots and having every middle be lottery.

You're frustrated by your little scramble in elementary school and your solution is to burn down the city.

making all spots in all dcps schools subject to the lottery would be a whole lot fairer than what we do now, where we auction off spaces in the most desirable schools via housing prices while the least desirable schools are half empty. some of these schools are extremely underenrolled.

It works for charters, of course, and has for many years, but somehow, someway it would be just impossible for DCPS too.

Damn, you are so stupid. It works for charter because people are opting in. The citywide lottery would be forcing people out of their neighborhood school.

So much of the revival of the city was due to an impression that schools were improving, allowing more parents with young kids to stay. (The impression was overly optimistic at the time but it still worked). This would be over.

What are you even talking about? The only schools that would see a significant impact would be Ward 3 schools. No one is clamoring to go to DCPS schools east of the park. Also, you have your history completely wrong. The reason parents east of the park now don't move when their kids get to school age, is because of the lottery and charters give them lots of good options. The only part of the city were people are super into DCPS is Ward 3.

San Francisco did this and it was an epic disaster that pushed upper income families out of the public school system and increased segregation. They are now admitting that it was a disaster and going back to neighborhood schools.

https://www.sfusd.edu/schools/enroll/student-assignment-policy/student-assignment-changes

Perhaps it would be a disaster for racist white people who spent $4 million to buy a house in-boundary for Janney. Everyone else? Not so much!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get an ebike, OP! That way you get a workout and it's not lost time. The bike lane on Michigan makes it super easy to get from Petworth to Brookland.

Ebikes are an excellent way to get your kids killed on the way to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may not realize when your kids are very young is that there's tons of good options when it comes to elementary schools, but as the child ages, the options get much, much worse. DCI is a massive improvement over MacFarland and Roosevelt, and a 20 minute commute seems fairly normal. And there's not a huge price difference between living in Petworth and living in Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park, and you could end up moving closer to DCI eventually.

So true. Everyone is fighting for access to OOB schools, not because that school is much better than the neighborhood school, but because the guaranteed Middle is superior. The lottery here is infuriating. Maybe this could be fixed by getting rid of all guaranteed spots and having every middle be lottery.

You're frustrated by your little scramble in elementary school and your solution is to burn down the city.

making all spots in all dcps schools subject to the lottery would be a whole lot fairer than what we do now, where we auction off spaces in the most desirable schools via housing prices while the least desirable schools are half empty. some of these schools are extremely underenrolled.

It works for charters, of course, and has for many years, but somehow, someway it would be just impossible for DCPS too.

That’s not how charters work. Parents have to opt in to lottery into a charter. The parent has to be knowledgeable enough about the due dates, platforms, etc. A large portion of DC children do not live with parents who do that, for many different reasons.

What PP is suggesting is automatic lottery for every enrolled kid at any school. People would move out of DC in that scenario.

The only people who would move would be Janney and Deal and JR parents worried that undesirables (ie poor black kids) would be joining their schools.

They would move because they would lottery into schools across town and that's not what they signed up for. This has happened in other cities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We did basically this for Basis, and it was the best decisions we ever made for our kids' education.

Same.

We wanted to stay in DC and sent kids to BASIS for MS and HS.

School is rigorous and is very easy to get to by metro/bus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may not realize when your kids are very young is that there's tons of good options when it comes to elementary schools, but as the child ages, the options get much, much worse. DCI is a massive improvement over MacFarland and Roosevelt, and a 20 minute commute seems fairly normal. And there's not a huge price difference between living in Petworth and living in Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park, and you could end up moving closer to DCI eventually.

So true. Everyone is fighting for access to OOB schools, not because that school is much better than the neighborhood school, but because the guaranteed Middle is superior. The lottery here is infuriating. Maybe this could be fixed by getting rid of all guaranteed spots and having every middle be lottery.

You're frustrated by your little scramble in elementary school and your solution is to burn down the city.

making all spots in all dcps schools subject to the lottery would be a whole lot fairer than what we do now, where we auction off spaces in the most desirable schools via housing prices while the least desirable schools are half empty. some of these schools are extremely underenrolled.

It works for charters, of course, and has for many years, but somehow, someway it would be just impossible for DCPS too.

Damn, you are so stupid. It works for charter because people are opting in. The citywide lottery would be forcing people out of their neighborhood school.

So much of the revival of the city was due to an impression that schools were improving, allowing more parents with young kids to stay. (The impression was overly optimistic at the time but it still worked). This would be over.

What are you even talking about? The only schools that would see a significant impact would be Ward 3 schools. No one is clamoring to go to DCPS schools east of the park. Also, you have your history completely wrong. The reason parents east of the park now don't move when their kids get to school age, is because of the lottery and charters give them lots of good options. The only part of the city were people are super into DCPS is Ward 3.

San Francisco did this and it was an epic disaster that pushed upper income families out of the public school system and increased segregation. They are now admitting that it was a disaster and going back to neighborhood schools.

https://www.sfusd.edu/schools/enroll/student-assignment-policy/student-assignment-changes

Perhaps it would be a disaster for racist white people who spent $4 million to buy a house in-boundary for Janney. Everyone else? Not so much!

I do not live in Ward 3 and my child goes to an “undesirable school”. If the system went full lottery and they had us trekking across town (including desireable schools on the Hill) we’d move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may not realize when your kids are very young is that there's tons of good options when it comes to elementary schools, but as the child ages, the options get much, much worse. DCI is a massive improvement over MacFarland and Roosevelt, and a 20 minute commute seems fairly normal. And there's not a huge price difference between living in Petworth and living in Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park, and you could end up moving closer to DCI eventually.

So true. Everyone is fighting for access to OOB schools, not because that school is much better than the neighborhood school, but because the guaranteed Middle is superior. The lottery here is infuriating. Maybe this could be fixed by getting rid of all guaranteed spots and having every middle be lottery.

You're frustrated by your little scramble in elementary school and your solution is to burn down the city.

making all spots in all dcps schools subject to the lottery would be a whole lot fairer than what we do now, where we auction off spaces in the most desirable schools via housing prices while the least desirable schools are half empty. some of these schools are extremely underenrolled.

It works for charters, of course, and has for many years, but somehow, someway it would be just impossible for DCPS too.

That’s not how charters work. Parents have to opt in to lottery into a charter. The parent has to be knowledgeable enough about the due dates, platforms, etc. A large portion of DC children do not live with parents who do that, for many different reasons.

What PP is suggesting is automatic lottery for every enrolled kid at any school. People would move out of DC in that scenario.

The only people who would move would be Janney and Deal and JR parents worried that undesirables (ie poor black kids) would be joining their schools.

They would move because they would lottery into schools across town and that's not what they signed up for. This has happened in other cities.

Yikes. You have literally no clue how the lottery works, do you? That's not how it works at all.