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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Not interested in a 3rd grade math lesson. Interested if you know of a desirable DCPS school that has rising numbers (percentages, if you like) of OOB or FARMS kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Not interested in a 3rd grade math lesson. Interested if you know of a desirable DCPS school that has rising numbers (percentages, if you like) of OOB or FARMS kids.

The point is, if more prepared students go to a school the existing student body does not have to leave for it to become a successful school. If there is a larger student body and the new students come from higher SES families that value education then the percentage of FARMs students can go down without the numbers of FARMS students going down.

I believe Hearst has been on an upward trend and it maintains a good number of OOB student with rising numbers of IB students. I do not know what its FARMS numbers are.

Also, I think you are wrong to link low performance and the presence of OOB students. OOB students by definition come from families that care about education, as they are often taking their kids halfway across the city to get a better education than is provided at their in-boundary school. OOB student numbers go down when a school becomes more successful because there are fewer available spots when more in-boundary families attend. Deal became successful with a significant number of OOB students. The problem is the inability to satisfy the demand, not that the OOB students are unprepared.

[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.

I wrote this post and some have touched on my greater point. The general curriculum for the schools are the same. The difference, as one noted, between JKLMM/Bethesda schools is the parent involvement to help supplement the enrichment of the kids and volunteer for the school. Yes, if a school EOTP has an involved parent community, the families at the school won't seek OOB options. If everyone angsting about this got more involved with their by-right elementary, then it will help solve some of the issues being raised. The next issue would be middle and high schools, but we need to start somewhere.

[Anonymous]

If you build up the east side parent organizations at elementary age you then can build up what the community really wants at middle school and high school. Everything that has gone on on the Hill over the last 10 years is something to learn from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you build up the east side parent organizations at elementary age you then can build up what the community really wants at middle school and high school. Everything that has gone on on the Hill over the last 10 years is something to learn from.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about building a new middle school? I remember that was brought up by Mary Cheh at some point a while back. Any mention of that in the focus groups, or other meetings? Or turning Duke Ellington back to Western. Seems like better option to overcrowding, Would have to pull kids from successful school and put them into failing ones in unsafe neighborhoods.

Talk about Ellington getting moved always appears on these threads. The school is being completely remodeled, starting next year so that building is off the table.

This is short sighted. The present Ellington is not near any Metro and should be more central, or ideally co-located by a major cultural institution. The current building should best be restored to its former role as Western high school. A state of the art Ellington facility should be built near the Kennedy Center, maybe on air rights above the freeway or near Arena Stage in SE. That would be a great educational enhancement opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of the DCPS schools, I believe that Stuart Hobson had a wait list that not all students were admitted.

don't forget the charter middle schools, which on your list would join Hardy as a "lottery". Basis, Cap City, Washington Latin, 2 Rivers, EL Haynes, I would guess all had more 5th / 6th graders interested than they were able to enroll.

In a couple years, DCI will also be "lottery".

DCI is lottery NOW!!! You stand your best chance of getting in this year for 6th and 7th grades. There will be around 30-40 slots we heard

[Anonymous]

All- as a parent of a 3 yr old, I'd just like to thank everyone for one of the most thoughtful and insightful discussions on this issue to date.

[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.

The part that parents find themselves in the middle of is in raising hell about the troublemaker kids in the school, about the lousy teacher, the lousy facility, the unresponsive administrator, et cetera. That's the part that the paid employees should be dealing with but too often don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your premise, about setting aside the "all the upper NW folks will leave town or go private" and the "if you lottery Deal or Wilson, they will cease to be desirable schools" arguments, is the real issue. I live in upperNW, cannot afford private for two kids (rented for 9 years until we could buy a small fixer upper, no biglaw partner here), and if there is a citywide lottery we are going to move (unless we can get a spot at a good MS and HS charter, which I think at that point would be even more difficult). there is no way I am going to drive my kids potentially across town, or let them go by themselves in middle school, when Deal and Wilson are three blocks away. tax me more if you need more money to promote better schools everywhere, but this type of solution would simply be nonsense and would drive us (and I think others) out. I am not sure what is left would make great DC shools.

Agree with this except for any implication that the problem is a lack of money. It is not, the problem is an unwillingness to take any action that appears to be intended to intentionally create a significant majority of prepared kids in a well run middle school. It appears too elitist if it does not happen by the happenstance of a pretty good school located in an UMC area of the city being turned into a desireable school (what happened at Deal). Thy cannot creat a new middle fed by the successful ESs that do not currently feed Deal.

Charter parent here. Can't wait to have those would-be Deal kids at Latin or BASIS.

And add to this the sad fact that under this system, Deal and Wilson are likely to regress. So even if you get a spot, you might not want to send them.

Sure am glad I didn't buy that house in Crestwood or Mt. Pleasant . . .

We got outbid a couple of years ago on a fantastic house in Crestwood. 11' ceilings, 4k+ sq ft, etc. Our kids are going private, but we still dodged a bullet in terms of property value if it ends up no longer being IB for Deal and Wilson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your premise, about setting aside the "all the upper NW folks will leave town or go private" and the "if you lottery Deal or Wilson, they will cease to be desirable schools" arguments, is the real issue. I live in upperNW, cannot afford private for two kids (rented for 9 years until we could buy a small fixer upper, no biglaw partner here), and if there is a citywide lottery we are going to move (unless we can get a spot at a good MS and HS charter, which I think at that point would be even more difficult). there is no way I am going to drive my kids potentially across town, or let them go by themselves in middle school, when Deal and Wilson are three blocks away. tax me more if you need more money to promote better schools everywhere, but this type of solution would simply be nonsense and would drive us (and I think others) out. I am not sure what is left would make great DC shools.

Agree with this except for any implication that the problem is a lack of money. It is not, the problem is an unwillingness to take any action that appears to be intended to intentionally create a significant majority of prepared kids in a well run middle school. It appears too elitist if it does not happen by the happenstance of a pretty good school located in an UMC area of the city being turned into a desireable school (what happened at Deal). Thy cannot creat a new middle fed by the successful ESs that do not currently feed Deal.

Charter parent here. Can't wait to have those would-be Deal kids at Latin or BASIS.

And add to this the sad fact that under this system, Deal and Wilson are likely to regress. So even if you get a spot, you might not want to send them.

Sure am glad I didn't buy that house in Crestwood or Mt. Pleasant . . .

We got outbid a couple of years ago on a fantastic house in Crestwood. 11' ceilings, 4k+ sq ft, etc. Our kids are going private, but we still dodged a bullet in terms of property value if it ends up no longer being IB for Deal and Wilson.

These posts sound like schadenfreude, let's be nice...