Greater Greater Washington story on school enrollment growth

[Anonymous]

The only reason I live in the city is so that I have a walkable lifestyle. I want to walk my kids to school. Not drive. So I bought a house that had inbound schools that I liked. Take that away for an all-lottery system and I'm leaving the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only reason I live in the city is so that I have a walkable lifestyle. I want to walk my kids to school. Not drive. So I bought a house that had inbound schools that I liked. Take that away for an all-lottery system and I'm leaving the city.

yup exactly again Ward 3 schools should be inbound only
other schools should have tracking and honors options
and more schools EOTR should close. Its inefficient to have entire staff for less than 250 kids in middle school and 300 kids in high schools

[Anonymous]

Create some sort of cluster of schools that include Bunker Hill, Burroughs, and Noyes like Peabody, Watkins, and Stuart Hopson. Address issues with Brookland Middle school so that families will be excited about going there and be part of the cluster. Or make Bunker Hill a fantastic high performing citywide school. Also, replace the closed school in Ft Lincoln with a state of the art school/educational campus.

[Anonymous]

What about a lottery only system for high school? Students can apply to a special focus program or one of 4 comprehensive high schools.

High school students can travel independently -- most do already.

Turn Wilson into a middle/elementary school to deal with WOTP crowding.

[Anonymous]

Wait, so Nick thinks going to a no-boundary system, which means that Ward 3 kids will not get seats in Ward 3 schools and will have to commute across the park, is politically feasible but renovating some unused buildings is not? LOL!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nick, you mean well, but overcrowing is a WOTP issue and I don't think overhauling the whole system for everyone is going to be acceptable EOTP and EOTR. If you think people in Ward 3 will accept a lottery assignment at Ballou, think again.

The answer IMO is to strengthen the existing schools so that people want to attend, and to consider reopening or expanding spaces that are available, as needed. If Wilson-zoned parents cared more about quality elsewhere, it could happen. But you seem to assume Ward 3 conditions of overcrowing and no more spaces apply everywhere. That just isn't true.

Nick here.

Today DCPS has 13,000 empty seats so you could argue that any crowding is a policy issue not a facilities issue. But if the projections hold, in eight years those empty seats are going to be gone. This will be a new historic era for DCPS. There may be policy challenges, but there are going to be real facilities issues-- and not just WOTP.

I believe in neighborhood-based schools, for a lot of reasons. But right now nobody at any level of city government is doing the things that will need to be done to keep them a viable option.

Nick,

Did you speak with officials in DCPS and OSSE? Did they express a few of the ideas mentioned in your story? For example, you state:

"DCPS may not be able to continue as a neighborhood-based school system"
"It may not be possible to draw boundaries for each school that include the school building." --- WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN?
"The city may not have the political will to spend hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars on new schools when it would mean that some existing schools would be part empty."

I'd like to know if these are the sentiments being expressed by DCPS.

Frankly, according to the statement I bolded above, it sounds like you're concluding that DCPS/OSSE is purposely undermining the neighborhood-based school system in order to bust it up. If so, this is extremely concerning. We know forced lotteries are a failure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS has to develop a better method for evaluating residency. They should develop software that will check all enrollment against tax records, DMV, and SNAP benefits. Any address discrepancies are thoroughly evaluated.

You mean like the OSSE/OTR website that doesn't have its security credentials properly registered?

ossedctax.com

Yes but I don’t know what the site looks like because I’m not using it without security certificates! DCPS should get certificates and only allow people to go through it, unless they’re homeless.

ossedctax.com is a redirect to https://sled.osse.dc.gov/ResidencyVerification/Index/2546, which has a valid SSL certficate. You can check this by clicking on the site name and "view site information", then "view certificate" in Chrome or the equivalent for other browsers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about a lottery only system for high school? Students can apply to a special focus program or one of 4 comprehensive high schools.

High school students can travel independently -- most do already.

Turn Wilson into a middle/elementary school to deal with WOTP crowding.

No, but thanks. The kids that drive Wilson's moderately successful test scores won't stick around hoping to lottery into a decent program. We certainly wouldn't have.

I remember saying this to the former deputy mayor for education, and she seemed really non-plussed by the idea that the parents that DCPS wants actually have choices and won't accept uncertainty. Although I'm sure she must have heard the same thing dozens of times before, she acted like she hadn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about a lottery only system for high school? Students can apply to a special focus program or one of 4 comprehensive high schools.

High school students can travel independently -- most do already.

Turn Wilson into a middle/elementary school to deal with WOTP crowding.

No, but thanks. The kids that drive Wilson's moderately successful test scores won't stick around hoping to lottery into a decent program. We certainly wouldn't have.

I remember saying this to the former deputy mayor for education, and she seemed really non-plussed by the idea that the parents that DCPS wants actually have choices and won't accept uncertainty. Although I'm sure she must have heard the same thing dozens of times before, she acted like she hadn't.

You are in the minority. 75% of all students in DC are not in their IB school. And the numbers are even higher for high school given the number of application school students.

More importantly, the city frankly doesn't care if a few thousand families IB for Wilson leave any more than they would care if I left my EOTP house due to school choices I didn't like. There are plenty of people who will buy both our homes and the city will make money on the transaction fees.

The metric you are citing just isn't one that matters to the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about a lottery only system for high school? Students can apply to a special focus program or one of 4 comprehensive high schools.

High school students can travel independently -- most do already.

Turn Wilson into a middle/elementary school to deal with WOTP crowding.

No, but thanks. The kids that drive Wilson's moderately successful test scores won't stick around hoping to lottery into a decent program. We certainly wouldn't have.

I remember saying this to the former deputy mayor for education, and she seemed really non-plussed by the idea that the parents that DCPS wants actually have choices and won't accept uncertainty. Although I'm sure she must have heard the same thing dozens of times before, she acted like she hadn't.

You are in the minority. 75% of all students in DC are not in their IB school. And the numbers are even higher for high school given the number of application school students.

More importantly, the city frankly doesn't care if a few thousand families IB for Wilson leave any more than they would care if I left my EOTP house due to school choices I didn't like. There are plenty of people who will buy both our homes and the city will make money on the transaction fees.

The metric you are citing just isn't one that matters to the city.

NP, I'm a charter parent right now but I would strongly oppose an all-lottery system. Because of what happened with equity and segregation in San Francisco, and because I like the idea that I know what my worst-case scenario is, and have an option within a reasonable distance from home if at any time I want to leave our charter. Just because someone is a charter school parent does not mean they don't care about their IB school.

[Anonymous]

Hey Nick! Do you have anything whatsover to say about the increase in segregation in San Francisco after they imposed the same idea that you're proposing? Do you care AT ALL about that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about a lottery only system for high school? Students can apply to a special focus program or one of 4 comprehensive high schools.

High school students can travel independently -- most do already.

Turn Wilson into a middle/elementary school to deal with WOTP crowding.

No, but thanks. The kids that drive Wilson's moderately successful test scores won't stick around hoping to lottery into a decent program. We certainly wouldn't have.

I remember saying this to the former deputy mayor for education, and she seemed really non-plussed by the idea that the parents that DCPS wants actually have choices and won't accept uncertainty. Although I'm sure she must have heard the same thing dozens of times before, she acted like she hadn't.

You are in the minority. 75% of all students in DC are not in their IB school. And the numbers are even higher for high school given the number of application school students.

More importantly, the city frankly doesn't care if a few thousand families IB for Wilson leave any more than they would care if I left my EOTP house due to school choices I didn't like. There are plenty of people who will buy both our homes and the city will make money on the transaction fees.

The metric you are citing just isn't one that matters to the city.

Sorry, but the city does care if the schools' scores will crater. Which they will if you force families to attend an unknown school across the city when a perfectly great school is a few blocks from their house.

We live in Glover Park. I can rent my rowhouse out for $5.5K easily and net a tidy profit every month if they tell me I need to shlep my kid to Ward 6 for middle school. I live three blocks from the local MS, why would I (or any other family with means) stick around to have DCPS/OSSE tell me where to go? The families in Ward 3 are basically the financial tax base for the rest of DCPS. If you force them into city-wide lottery, they will pull up their stakes very quickly. How does the DC government make up for the short fall?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hey Nick! Do you have anything whatsover to say about the increase in segregation in San Francisco after they imposed the same idea that you're proposing? Do you care AT ALL about that?

+1. Really does seem uncaring to not even acknowledge the concern, at least as a political obstacle. Nick: Increase in segregation, are you pro or con?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about a lottery only system for high school? Students can apply to a special focus program or one of 4 comprehensive high schools.

High school students can travel independently -- most do already.

Turn Wilson into a middle/elementary school to deal with WOTP crowding.

We are at a Wilson feeder and I think that's a great idea. You could have innovative programming at different high schools, which kids could select based on interest. It would make the test in schools stronger too. It would be much fairer from an equity standpoint too.

But DCPS would have to be OK colocating schools, since no one elementary or middle school should be big enough to fill the building.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about a lottery only system for high school? Students can apply to a special focus program or one of 4 comprehensive high schools.

High school students can travel independently -- most do already.

Turn Wilson into a middle/elementary school to deal with WOTP crowding.

We are at a Wilson feeder and I think that's a great idea. You could have innovative programming at different high schools, which kids could select based on interest. It would make the test in schools stronger too. It would be much fairer from an equity standpoint too.

But DCPS would have to be OK colocating schools, since no one elementary or middle school should be big enough to fill the building.

I'm so against it. What if you don't get into a good school? The proportion of at-risk kids in the system is so high, and DCPS' serving of them so inadequate, that it's a real possibility.