Catania's Statement on Boundary/Feeder Changes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here's the thing that's killing me. The boundary redraw had nothing to do with improving school quality and everything to do with right-sizing schools. PERIOD.

Why does it take a boundary redraw for anyone to pay attention to school quality? These issues existed well-before the DME proposal. Where was Catania then?

I'll be curious to see if the proposal will be halted for a year. The whole thing is stupid and backwards - typical DC I guess.

Catania did take the time to visit just about every DC public and charter school from what I understand including our school. He also held community meetings in every section in town on education. I don't think Bowser did this at all. Catania has my vote.

Congratulations? Maybe he can get an Xbox Live Achievement for that, but I don't see what that has to do with the quality of his education policies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here's the thing that's killing me. The boundary redraw had nothing to do with improving school quality and everything to do with right-sizing schools. PERIOD.

Why does it take a boundary redraw for anyone to pay attention to school quality? These issues existed well-before the DME proposal. Where was Catania then?

I'll be curious to see if the proposal will be halted for a year. The whole thing is stupid and backwards - typical DC I guess.

Catania did take the time to visit just about every DC public and charter school from what I understand including our school. He also held community meetings in every section in town on education. I don't think Bowser did this at all. Catania has my vote.

Congratulations? Maybe he can get an Xbox Live Achievement for that, but I don't see what that has to do with the quality of his education policies.

Give Bowser some credit. She's been visiting Montreal, Austin, Atlanta, San Francisco, Houston and a number of other cities for fundraising and "listening." I think she's been hiding out far from DC so she doesn't have to debate Cataniia and Schwartz.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here's the thing that's killing me. The boundary redraw had nothing to do with improving school quality and everything to do with right-sizing schools. PERIOD.

Why does it take a boundary redraw for anyone to pay attention to school quality? These issues existed well-before the DME proposal. Where was Catania then?

I'll be curious to see if the proposal will be halted for a year. The whole thing is stupid and backwards - typical DC I guess.

Catania did take the time to visit just about every DC public and charter school from what I understand including our school. He also held community meetings in every section in town on education. I don't think Bowser did this at all. Catania has my vote.

Congratulations? Maybe he can get an Xbox Live Achievement for that, but I don't see what that has to do with the quality of his education policies.

Give Bowser some credit. She's been visiting Montreal, Austin, Atlanta, San Francisco, Houston and a number of other cities for fundraising and "listening." I think she's been hiding out far from DC so she doesn't have to debate Cataniia and Schwartz.

Because, who doesn't want to interrupt their summer vacation to watch a Bowser-Catania debate on DC Cable Access...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here's the thing that's killing me. The boundary redraw had nothing to do with improving school quality and everything to do with right-sizing schools. PERIOD.

Why does it take a boundary redraw for anyone to pay attention to school quality? These issues existed well-before the DME proposal. Where was Catania then?

I'll be curious to see if the proposal will be halted for a year. The whole thing is stupid and backwards - typical DC I guess.

Catania did take the time to visit just about every DC public and charter school from what I understand including our school. He also held community meetings in every section in town on education. I don't think Bowser did this at all. Catania has my vote.

Congratulations? Maybe he can get an Xbox Live Achievement for that, but I don't see what that has to do with the quality of his education policies.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm really no fan of Bowser and can't think of anything she can do at this point to sway my vote her way.

So I really, really want a reason to vote for Catania but this statement isn't doing it, either. The boundary/assignment changes could not possibly please everyone but it can be refined and amended. All can agree that school quality needs to be addressed, but that can't happen in a year so what's the point of delay - especially when there are grandfather clauses for those who want status quo?

For all the talk of Catania's intelligence and thorough understanding of the state of DCPS, he's been pretty whisper quiet on what he thinks needs to be done to raise school quality. What's his vision? More funding? Innovative programming? Just . . . "make the schools better"???

It doesn't take a lot to criticize what we've got. It seems to me that Catania is just more vociferous than most, but it doesn't mean he's got a plan for making it better. If he wants to be a drag on the painful boundary review process we just went through without at least talking about what direction he wants to go in, I have to keep giving him the side eye.

This. This. This. And, if Catania really cared about eduction, why isn't he busting his butt promising to make these new schools top-notch. Putting in a budget, securing the best teachers from a nationwide search, finding leaders to run it, etc. If he was dynamite, he could say let's make this happen and inspire confidence. Like pp said, Gray handed him the perfect set-up, and he's not taking it.

Catania can't do that now. He is not yet the mayor. But, that's exactly what he wants to do. The DME released a plan calling for a bunch of things -- new schools for one -- that require budget support and all levels of planning. The recommendations don't include any of that. Catania's entire statement is essentially saying that while the recommendations have a lot of good ideas, they are simply ideas. Before parents are discouraged by half-baked ideas, develop them into concrete projects that can be implemented.

I'm seeing in some of the discussions in other threads that there is considerable confusion and/or lack of understanding of the final recommendations. I think it is highly likely that many current supporters are going to give many of the recommendations a second though when they understand them better. It is much better to slow down and make sure we are getting the deal that we want rather than rushing and ending up with buyer's remorse.

The more I think about the boundary process vis a vis the issue of school quality, the more I believe it was right to keep them separate.

Quality would have been a noisy side show to the three-ring circus we had this year and we'd probably still be embroiled with no end in sight.

What I'd like to see is the same thorough treatment given to improvement and quality, with data-driven examination of DCPS and school districts in other cities, several rounds of public input, and some shared language on policy objectives that go beyond testing.

Just what makes highly-regarded public and public charter schools so good? People want to say that it's high SES families, but if that's the case, we should be satisfied with school assignments that redistribute that demographic into lower performing schools - but we're not.

Still, it's a start to getting butts into seats, which is something that needs to happen at the earlier grade levels, when stakes aren't so high. But every year of delay means more families peeling off. There's just no reason to do so, except an emotional appeal for votes. Implementation is the best way to learn what tweaks need to be made. For example, you could have a school quality plan aimed at one particular student demographic with no accounting for a different population swelling in that school. Let's just get it started.

[Anonymous]

^^ However doing this process poorly also means families peeling off, and doing so in a huff. The way the process has been handled feels rushed and doesn't take under consideration budget implications. There are several schools in dire need of repair/renovation. Is it even possible that DCPS will be able to keep renovations on schedule, let alone build new schools?

[Anonymous]

Exactly pp. You can't do one without the other when quality has so much to do with who is feeding in to (or choosing not to attend) their by-right school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ However doing this process poorly also means families peeling off, and doing so in a huff. The way the process has been handled feels rushed and doesn't take under consideration budget implications. There are several schools in dire need of repair/renovation. Is it even possible that DCPS will be able to keep renovations on schedule, let alone build new schools?

You can never get 100% buy in. So who's "peeling off" now? A handful of families each from Crestwood, Cleveland Park, Marshall Heights and Navy Yard?
We are going to stop a mainly progressive realignment for that?

Yes, the budget needs to be tackled but the budget needs to be tackled every year. Do you honestly think that adding school boundary changes to that circus would make this process easier?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ However doing this process poorly also means families peeling off, and doing so in a huff. The way the process has been handled feels rushed and doesn't take under consideration budget implications. There are several schools in dire need of repair/renovation. Is it even possible that DCPS will be able to keep renovations on schedule, let alone build new schools?

You can never get 100% buy in. So who's "peeling off" now? A handful of families each from Crestwood, Cleveland Park, Marshall Heights and Navy Yard?
We are going to stop a mainly progressive realignment for that?

Yes, the budget needs to be tackled but the budget needs to be tackled every year. Do you honestly think that adding school boundary changes to that circus would make this process easier?

+100. Plus, there is no reason for those families to peel off now, especially the NE ones, because they'll see no change at all until there are new schools and programs in place, and there's grandfathering. They will decide whether to stay or not several years from now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ However doing this process poorly also means families peeling off, and doing so in a huff. The way the process has been handled feels rushed and doesn't take under consideration budget implications. There are several schools in dire need of repair/renovation. Is it even possible that DCPS will be able to keep renovations on schedule, let alone build new schools?

You can never get 100% buy in. So who's "peeling off" now? A handful of families each from Crestwood, Cleveland Park, Marshall Heights and Navy Yard?
We are going to stop a mainly progressive realignment for that?

Yes, the budget needs to be tackled but the budget needs to be tackled every year. Do you honestly think that adding school boundary changes to that circus would make this process easier?

Sorry, it's not just a handful of families that can be easily written off. Most families with higher achieving students on Capitol Hill will continue to peel off starting in Third Grade, just as they have been doing for years. It is comical that the DME spent any time considering whether to take away Brent's feeder to Eliot-Hine. You would have thought that high-SES families were beating down the door to get in. And then realigning Tyler to Jefferson? To what end? Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

So who "wins" by preserving the status quo? The Ward 7 and 8 students who get to attend a middle school located in the heart of Capitol Hill (Stuart-Hobson) through the Watkins and Ludlow-Taylor feeds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ However doing this process poorly also means families peeling off, and doing so in a huff. The way the process has been handled feels rushed and doesn't take under consideration budget implications. There are several schools in dire need of repair/renovation. Is it even possible that DCPS will be able to keep renovations on schedule, let alone build new schools?

Anyone peeling off "in a huff" is likely to do so anyway, regardless of an extra year. DCPS needs families that are going to face realities and jump in. There's not any one public school in the city - DCPS or charter - that reached "highly regarded" status without that critical element. Those given to huffiness will always gravitate to the places where that works for them.

My kid is only PK4, but his education has to move forward so I feel that there's no time to waste. I'd really love to see a candidate who shares that sense of urgency in their policy objectives.

For those who support Catania in his proposed delay, what do you hope and expect would be accomplished in a year?