Lottery for all middle and high schools -- what are people really proposing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12:26 here... I DO have an actual suggestion: The bottom line is that the schools need to improve, DCPS needs to recognize that many people perceive deep problems, that, as a result, people are avoiding many of the DCPS schools like the plague to instead move away (if they can), or send their kids to privates (if they can afford it), shlep their kids across town to charters, shlep their kids across town as OOB, et cetera. That is the stark reality that DCPS needs to deal with. City-wide lottery is just dealing with the symptoms, not the root cause.

NOBODY should be forced to have to go through all of that. NOBODY should be forced to move or shlep their kids across town to get access to a decent school.

This BS about just treating symptoms, denying there's a problem, paying it lip service, and deflecting of blame to everything else isn't going to solve anything.

You are stubbornly blind to the truth. The problem in parts of the city other than where you live is multi-generational poverty and lots of societal dysfunction. What does improve the school mean in cases of concentrated poverty? And if the school was improved in order to serve kids poor backgrounds well it still might not be a good fit for those in the neighborhood who dont need this kind of specialized Programming. You are entirely disregarding the fact that most families who lottery to OOB schools are not avoiding their neighborhood school, but they are avoiding the difficulties and environment created by the families in those schools. Simply improving schools citywide as you suggest does nothing to address the real motivations here

This x 1000

[Anonymous]

I disagree, and you are missing the point. At this point there's nothing external that's driving issues of concentrated multigenerational poverty other than the same economic issues facing all Americans. Practices like redlining which created segregated ghettoes in the past are now illegal, and many people are escaping those neighborhoods, and they are giving way to gentrification. Many neighborhoods around DC are changing fast. But the schools are still lagging behind. And it's stubborn blindness to that truth that I'm talking about. You on the other hand seem to be focused on catering to the status quo - which is what continues the cycle of concentrated multigenerational poverty as opposed to disrupting it.

[Anonymous]

You may be right that neighborhoods are slowly changing from concentrated poverty to less-concentrated poverty. But even in that slow change, there will be a very long tie when children burdened by the effects of poverty will outnumber those who are not. At the same time, DCPS needs to dig itself out from decades of dysfunction and corruption and mismanagement.

While the socio-economic balances change and the school system as a whole improves ( could take 10 years or more )
a visionary leader would find a way to build bridges for the families they would like to see engage and stay with the school system.

For a while, this "bridge"was the OOB lottery system. Now it might need to look more like some academic magnet schools or a controlled choice situation where academically ambitious families could cluster themselves ( that happens anyway with charters and OOB lotteries--but it could be effective if run officially by DCPS ).

It DOES NOT look like tough love and "forcing" families to use and improve their local schools. It needs to be much more subtle than that. If only we had the leadership to make this happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12:26 here... I DO have an actual suggestion: The bottom line is that the schools need to improve, DCPS needs to recognize that many people perceive deep problems, that, as a result, people are avoiding many of the DCPS schools like the plague to instead move away (if they can), or send their kids to privates (if they can afford it), shlep their kids across town to charters, shlep their kids across town as OOB, et cetera. That is the stark reality that DCPS needs to deal with. City-wide lottery is just dealing with the symptoms, not the root cause.

NOBODY should be forced to have to go through all of that. NOBODY should be forced to move or shlep their kids across town to get access to a decent school.

This BS about just treating symptoms, denying there's a problem, paying it lip service, and deflecting of blame to everything else isn't going to solve anything.

You are stubbornly blind to the truth. The problem in parts of the city other than where you live is multi-generational poverty and lots of societal dysfunction. What does improve the school mean in cases of concentrated poverty? And if the school was improved in order to serve kids poor backgrounds well it still might not be a good fit for those in the neighborhood who dont need this kind of specialized Programming. You are entirely disregarding the fact that most families who lottery to OOB schools are not avoiding their neighborhood school, but they are avoiding the difficulties and environment created by the families in those schools. Simply improving schools citywide as you suggest does nothing to address the real motivations here

And lotterying into all-lottery schools won't solve the problem either. Those schools will simply be filled with families trying to "escape" eachother.

[Anonymous]

Survey of "other comparable school districts" from the advisory committee to the Deputy Mayor for Education: http://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Policy%20Brief%202-%20Student%20Assignment%20Policies%20in%20Other%20Cities_Final%20Draft.pdf

Although the report notes that "All three cities—Seattle in particular
—chose to reduce the level of choice in favor of a greater connection between
schools and their neighborhoods and local residents." the comparator cities still a substantial amount, if not entirely, city-wide choice for high and middle schools.

I would not dismiss the possibility that this could happen in the DC (more than it is already, of course).

[Anonymous]

The solution i for the people who bought properties in Logan Circle, Capitol Hill, Eckington and Michigan Park to get involved with their local schools and help create the kind of culture that appears to make the WOTP schools successful. Simply shuffling kids across the city isn't going to solve the problem, and the OOB/Lottery thing causes too much angst.

[Anonymous]

^^exactly. oob shuffle is just a band aid not a solution!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The solution i for the people who bought properties in Logan Circle, Capitol Hill, Eckington and Michigan Park to get involved with their local schools and help create the kind of culture that appears to make the WOTP schools successful. Simply shuffling kids across the city isn't going to solve the problem, and the OOB/Lottery thing causes too much angst.

Yes, we have to do it ourselves because we can't rely on the paid employees to do it for us. It's the Barry years all over again.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that's the biggest heartburn of it all. Parents shouldn't have to be pumping all of this hard work and volunteer time into reforming their local schools in the first place. This is what DCPS has people on the payroll for. If the full-time employees on the payroll can't do as good a job as some bunch of part-time parent volunteers, then you have to wonder what the hell is going on in DCPS...

[Anonymous]

Parents are not doing what employees should be doing at the wotp schools. 'Get involved' in your local school is code for contribute money and show your upper middle class face at school events. Both additional $$ and the social capital upper middle class families bring to the school help it to attract other upper middle class families. That's your job. Once the poor have moved on, the teaching and administration more or less look after themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents are not doing what employees should be doing at the wotp schools. 'Get involved' in your local school is code for contribute money and show your upper middle class face at school events. Both additional $$ and the social capital upper middle class families bring to the school help it to attract other upper middle class families. That's your job. Once the poor have moved on, the teaching and administration more or less look after themselves.

I agree with this except for the idea that the current families need to or will move on. These schools are not full to the brim with children in the first place. If the families with prepared kids and higher educational expectations show up and participate in the school, all the kids will benefit.

As a parent at a WOTP school, I agree that parents are not solving educational problems and they are not driving the curriculum. They are driving things like community involvement and the quality of afterschool enrichment. They care about the curriculum and you can bet they are asking questions and informed about the schools, but they are not doing this work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents are not doing what employees should be doing at the wotp schools. 'Get involved' in your local school is code for contribute money and show your upper middle class face at school events. Both additional $$ and the social capital upper middle class families bring to the school help it to attract other upper middle class families. That's your job. Once the poor have moved on, the teaching and administration more or less look after themselves.

This is so, so, so disturbing. "After the poor have moved on"????!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution i for the people who bought properties in Logan Circle, Capitol Hill, Eckington and Michigan Park to get involved with their local schools and help create the kind of culture that appears to make the WOTP schools successful. Simply shuffling kids across the city isn't going to solve the problem, and the OOB/Lottery thing causes too much angst.

Yes, we have to do it ourselves because we can't rely on the paid employees to do it for us. It's the Barry years all over again.

The school system can lay dawn a baseline of services, but it takes parent involvement to make a school great. That's what makes the JKLMM schools and Bethesda schools what they are. No two ways about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents are not doing what employees should be doing at the wotp schools. 'Get involved' in your local school is code for contribute money and show your upper middle class face at school events. Both additional $$ and the social capital upper middle class families bring to the school help it to attract other upper middle class families. That's your job. Once the poor have moved on, the teaching and administration more or less look after themselves.

This is so, so, so disturbing. "After the poor have moved on"????!!!

Disturbing ... and true. Name a desirable DCPS school that doesn't have have falling numbers of OOB & FARMS students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents are not doing what employees should be doing at the wotp schools. 'Get involved' in your local school is code for contribute money and show your upper middle class face at school events. Both additional $$ and the social capital upper middle class families bring to the school help it to attract other upper middle class families. That's your job. Once the poor have moved on, the teaching and administration more or less look after themselves.

This is so, so, so disturbing. "After the poor have moved on"????!!!

Disturbing ... and true. Name a desirable DCPS school that doesn't have have falling numbers of OOB & FARMS students.

Falling numbers or falling percentage? They are not the same thing.