Revised Boundary Recommendations to be released on or about June 13

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Get this straight. Nobody goes to a charter because they prefer to travel. They go to a charter or an OOB school because the school that serves their BOUNDARY is unacceptable, poorly run, dangerous or a mess. Charter schools pop up in jurisdictions where the regular schools suck for a reason. The vast majority of families would ( and do looking at the USA as a whole ) to to the school they are assigned to by address if it served their kid weLl. Stop confusing this. It is the same lame argument for closing all under enrolled schools. Well..... No one wants to go there. Yes. Because it is a terrible school. Fix it and we will go there.

PP here. I lived in Ward 8 for ten years so I understand this concept really well. No amount of fixing would have ever convinced me to send my child to our IB school. Out of 50+ families in our development, I can't think of any that did. So why not give that school the same flexibility that it's charter competitors have to focus on a targeted population? Special needs, math focused, whatever. Instead of setting up shop to serve the random 300 or 50 kids that happen to live within a couple of blocks?

Maybe a good neighborhood school is one that is flexible and focused enough to serve the needs of the neighborhood -- to have specific classes, or sections for specific needs.

Part of the idea of charters was to provide competition to traditional public schools (TPS) so they'd respond and get better. That's silly. The purpose of schools is to educate children, not compete with each other. Part of the deal was that the teachers in charters would be better because that weren't unionized -- another silly notion --- there is no evidence that unionization negatively affects teacher quality and some evidence that a positive correlation exists. Charters were also supposed to provide "choice" but our lengthy experiment with them in DC has shown parents that charters often leave parents without choice when they strike out in the lottery and find that the school system has done nothing to improve their neighborhood schools.

The thing is if no one but parents wants to improve the neighborhoods, it will be hard to make it happen. When the city officials are actually working against neighborhood schools and in favor of an "all-choice" system they are not working on behalf of the taxpayers who are paying their salaries.

==============

We can call the notion behind charters silly, but they are the facts on the ground. DCPS can either adapt to them or continue to whither away.

Or the charters can adapt to DCPS -- if DCPS management was actually trying to build up neighborhood schools instead of caving to charters. remember how charters were supposed to keep regular public schools on their toes (again we're forgetting the purpose of schools - to educate children - not compete with each other). But what's happening instead is that regular public schools are just welcoming charters to take over. The school system is doing it -- not parents

[Anonymous]

11:21, responding to 15:04.

1. I'm not sure why you keep calling it "forced diversity" or suggesting anyone here have some "fear" of diversity. As the system stands now, most of the schools are pretty darn diverse. For example, Wilson High School is 45% African American, 25% white, 17% Latino, and 8% Asian. No one's afraid of diversity.

2. The big difference between the A/B/C proposals and the current situation is that despite preferences, they suggest more students will be pushed out of their local neighborhood schools.

3. It seems a little silly to expand the choice options for DCPS schools, and try to improve all of them. Given that DCPS has many more schools than necessary right now, it seems a better approach to funnel students to a limited number of schools where DCPS can focus its efforts on improvement. In essence, less than open choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:11:21, responding to 15:04.

1. I'm not sure why you keep calling it "forced diversity" or suggesting anyone here have some "fear" of diversity. As the system stands now, most of the schools are pretty darn diverse. For example, Wilson High School is 45% African American, 25% white, 17% Latino, and 8% Asian. No one's afraid of diversity.

2. The big difference between the A/B/C proposals and the current situation is that despite preferences, they suggest more students will be pushed out of their local neighborhood schools.

3. It seems a little silly to expand the choice options for DCPS schools, and try to improve all of them. Given that DCPS has many more schools than necessary right now, it seems a better approach to funnel students to a limited number of schools where DCPS can focus its efforts on improvement. In essence, less than open choice.

15:04 here.

On your first point, I was responding to this paragraph:

But why were some of the original A-C proposals targeted so differently (citywide lottery & choice sets)? I think it's because those alternatives have been used by some other cities, and they are really favored by some of the consultants working for DME, as methods to increase racial & economic diversity in schools. Some of these consultants have written various posts and op-ed pieces promoting lottery & choice-set approaches as ways to promote diversity. Given that some of her key advisors are pushing diversity models as a goal, it makes sense that those kind of proposals were offered as possible alternatives.

Maybe I should have just asked you why you think promoting diversity is the objective of policy examples A-C. Each of them says what they are trying to do and that's to give a number of options to where families have a right to enroll. In fact, "right to enroll" is the most over-used phrase in A, B and C. I can't figure out how they're being perceived as promoting diversity. And I'm not being facetious, just wondering where and how you're getting the diversity angle.

On your second point, you can only be worried about losing your neighborhood school if you've already got a good one. That's understandable, but look at it from the perspective of families in one of those Top Ten priority clusters, where the options are limited or nil - they're already pushed out of their neighborhood schools. Even if they're willing to try it for PS-K, they're ready to bail at the first opportunity to get into a school that feeds Deal. And as we know, all these OOB students are crowding families with proximity to desirable schools. Choice sets is one idea - just an idea - for providing some post-elementary predictability. It's not a good idea for Ward 3 schools, but maybe it is for one of those priority clusters.

On the third point, it's a little unfair to value your own neighborhood school and then cavalierly say that others should be closed. Closing a school is something that brings just as much uproar and protest as the boundary proposals have brought to Ward 3. Some of the failing schools probably will be closed, and it's one of the recommendations in the policy brief linked up thread, but that only means an increased demand for seats in other schools. And parents in those areas would need a reason to choose alternatives that aren't already near or over capacity.

[Anonymous]

Reading the thread about School Within a School and Ludlow Taylor ( http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/135/388579.page ) I can't help but think their situation was impetus for the choice sets idea.

If I understand it correctly, these are two geographically close schools, one with specialized programming open to city-wide lottery. Most families at the school live within proximity, if not in-boundary, and they'd like a proximity preference to truly make it a "neighborhood" school that's still open city-wide. But that might harm progress being made at Ludlow-Taylor, where families also want to see growth in IB attendance.

I'm not advocating choice set as a solution here, but it's an eye-opening example of how that policy might work. Everyone with geographic proximity gets a preference in a ranked lottery for both schools (and whatever other schools are nearby) and get guaranteed placement in one or the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The boundary change is a complete distraction. Instead of trying to replicate the few quality neighborhood elementary schools. DCPS may ultimately end up undermining these schools. If you notice the boundaries are not even being considered as a "proposal," they are not included in Option A,B, or C. In fact all DC residents would lose the right to a proximity preference which is appaling. However in proposal C teachers would have rights to schools over neighbors -- shame on the DME consultants for even proposing a "solution" like this.

In Ward 3, the exercise is being used to soften up families with extremely walkable schools that are less than 5 minutes walking from their home to get used to having to commute by car. This will prime these families to become part of an experiment for city-wide elementary schools or charters. Resources have been put into expanding Janney (twice), modernizing Hearst (same capacity just beautiful new facilities), and Murch with promised shovels in the ground by 2015 (the Murch principal is happily looking at a major expansion of the school and has already ordered additional trailers). There should be no overcrowding issue in Ward 3, if there is it means that DCPS officials responsible for planning exercises should lose their jobs. We know the boundary exercise in Ward 3 is a distraction. Stop by and see where the proposed homes are located and see the impact of these changes on young elementary school children who are being taken from schools less than two blocks from their homes. Ironically the new plan has several families moving from the doubly expanded Janney to Murch. Seriously if anyone in the city is happy with the boundary change who is directly impacted by it please chime in. I have not met a single family that is impacted by the boundary change that supports it. From where I sit, it sounds to me like DCPS is proposing a deck chair reshuffling, a conspiracy, or is operating at an extremely high level of incompetence. None of these prospects inspire me to have any confidence in the exercise being led by the DME. I think that the process needs to be stopped and restarted with a clear strategy for family engagement and a focus on children.

A large and vocal group of families throughout the city want quality neighborhood elementary schools for their children. Why can't DCPS focus on this as a goal? Seems like DCPS itself supported this goal, because we were sold a "methodology based on the premise that all students should have the choice of a performing school in their neighborhood."

DME how do you propose to support performing schools in all neighborhoods? in the priority neighborhoods in the city?

This is a glaring example of how in Dysfunctional City one hand doesn't know (or doesn't care) what the other is doing. At the same time that DCPS/DME are proposing to put more students into cars at the price of walkabililty, DC's planning office and DDOT for several years have aggressively pushed the opposite policies. These include trying to eliminate or reduce off-street parking requirements for new development, to discourage car use, reducing lanes on major avenues in favor of bike lanes, etc. Future plans include congestion road pricing. You would think that the Office of the Mayor (of which DME is a part) would be coordinating major policy initiatives, but no.

[Anonymous]

This is a glaring example of how in Dysfunctional City one hand doesn't know (or doesn't care) what the other is doing. At the same time that DCPS/DME are proposing to put more students into cars at the price of walkabililty, DC's planning office and DDOT for several years have aggressively pushed the opposite policies. These include trying to eliminate or reduce off-street parking requirements for new development, to discourage car use, reducing lanes on major avenues in favor of bike lanes, etc. Future plans include congestion road pricing. You would think that the Office of the Mayor (of which DME is a part) would be coordinating major policy initiatives, but no.

What if choice sets wouldn't work in your cluster, but were extremely beneficial in another?

As I posted in 9:38 above, the SWS discussion has a lot of people claiming that they want that proximity preference which they don't have. They may have a right to attend Ludlow-Taylor, which is very close-by, but some don't want it. Wouldn't it be better to give these families prefernce for another geographically-close school then drive them off to a charter in another part of the city?

Even the fear that everyone would choose SWS over Ludlow-Taylor is tempered by the fact that the specialized programming at SWS is not for everyone.

My own neighborhood school is dual language. But what if I preferred traditional learning offered at another school that's also close by? Maybe I'd like to have a choice between the two. And maybe that geographicaly-convenient choice is better than a charter or OOB school that puts me and the kid in a car every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This is a glaring example of how in Dysfunctional City one hand doesn't know (or doesn't care) what the other is doing. At the same time that DCPS/DME are proposing to put more students into cars at the price of walkabililty, DC's planning office and DDOT for several years have aggressively pushed the opposite policies. These include trying to eliminate or reduce off-street parking requirements for new development, to discourage car use, reducing lanes on major avenues in favor of bike lanes, etc. Future plans include congestion road pricing. You would think that the Office of the Mayor (of which DME is a part) would be coordinating major policy initiatives, but no.

What if choice sets wouldn't work in your cluster, but were extremely beneficial in another?

As I posted in 9:38 above, the SWS discussion has a lot of people claiming that they want that proximity preference which they don't have. They may have a right to attend Ludlow-Taylor, which is very close-by, but some don't want it. Wouldn't it be better to give these families prefernce for another geographically-close school then drive them off to a charter in another part of the city?

Even the fear that everyone would choose SWS over Ludlow-Taylor is tempered by the fact that the specialized programming at SWS is not for everyone.

My own neighborhood school is dual language. But what if I preferred traditional learning offered at another school that's also close by? Maybe I'd like to have a choice between the two. And maybe that geographicaly-convenient choice is better than a charter or OOB school that puts me and the kid in a car every day.

You're ignoring the earlier poster's point about a disfunctional city administration: one agency promotes a high-traffic policy, while another seeks to restrict traffic. But hey, nothing new; we've all chosen to live here.

To your point about a lottery school in the same proximity as a somewhat desirable "neighborhood school": why wouldn't the obvious solution be to give a proximity preference to the lottery school? DCPS would have to come up with some kind of metric for what constitutes "proximity," but that would seem a less sticky solution than getting this "choice sets" business started.

I mean, I don't like the idea of "proximity preference" for a lottery school, either (I'm sure Walls and Banneker wouldn't care for it, for example), but once DCPS got started with the whole "choice" thing within DCPS (outside of charters, that is), it's too much to expect for them to admit initiating foolish policy in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This is a glaring example of how in Dysfunctional City one hand doesn't know (or doesn't care) what the other is doing. At the same time that DCPS/DME are proposing to put more students into cars at the price of walkabililty, DC's planning office and DDOT for several years have aggressively pushed the opposite policies. These include trying to eliminate or reduce off-street parking requirements for new development, to discourage car use, reducing lanes on major avenues in favor of bike lanes, etc. Future plans include congestion road pricing. You would think that the Office of the Mayor (of which DME is a part) would be coordinating major policy initiatives, but no.

What if choice sets wouldn't work in your cluster, but were extremely beneficial in another?

As I posted in 9:38 above, the SWS discussion has a lot of people claiming that they want that proximity preference which they don't have. They may have a right to attend Ludlow-Taylor, which is very close-by, but some don't want it. Wouldn't it be better to give these families prefernce for another geographically-close school then drive them off to a charter in another part of the city?

Even the fear that everyone would choose SWS over Ludlow-Taylor is tempered by the fact that the specialized programming at SWS is not for everyone.

My own neighborhood school is dual language. But what if I preferred traditional learning offered at another school that's also close by? Maybe I'd like to have a choice between the two. And maybe that geographicaly-convenient choice is better than a charter or OOB school that puts me and the kid in a car every day.

You're ignoring the earlier poster's point about a disfunctional city administration: one agency promotes a high-traffic policy, while another seeks to restrict traffic. But hey, nothing new; we've all chosen to live here.

To your point about a lottery school in the same proximity as a somewhat desirable "neighborhood school": why wouldn't the obvious solution be to give a proximity preference to the lottery school? DCPS would have to come up with some kind of metric for what constitutes "proximity," but that would seem a less sticky solution than getting this "choice sets" business started.

I mean, I don't like the idea of "proximity preference" for a lottery school, either (I'm sure Walls and Banneker wouldn't care for it, for example), but once DCPS got started with the whole "choice" thing within DCPS (outside of charters, that is), it's too much to expect for them to admit initiating foolish policy in the first place.

I haven't ignored anything. To the contrary, I provided an example for how the choice sets policy could work to keep families at a school closer to their home. If I live in the neighborhood of Ludlow-Taylor, but I prefer the SWS Reggio Emelia program that's just a couple blocks away, the choice set scenario gives me a better shot at getting into that school. AND it keeps me closer to home.

It's not something that would work for the JKLM/Hearst/Eaton situation, but it could actually be beneficial for other areas of the city.

I'm one who thinks a city-wide school with specialized programming should give equal access to everyone. But we have charters for that. Parents who are willing to drive their kids across town for a particular school should not have that access diminished by neighborhood preference. But if it's a DCPS school and DC wants to encourage neighborhood attendance, then it makes sense to give families geographical preference. As I see it, that's the objective of choice sets.

And I'll point out that the DME has not "pushed" anything as of yet. The policy examples A-C have not yet reached the stage of policy, proposal or even recommendation. They're just examples of policy that could meet the objective of giving families more choices than they currently have, with preference for choices that are close to where they live.

That would be in line with policy that seeks to limit commuter patterns.

[Anonymous]

What this looks like to me is an attempt to make sense of a game of 52-card pick-up. You can try to place order on anything -- but that doesn't mean the result will be pretty (hint: it won't). I think it would be wiser to wipe the cards off deck and try again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reading the thread about School Within a School and Ludlow Taylor ( http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/135/388579.page ) I can't help but think their situation was impetus for the choice sets idea.

If I understand it correctly, these are two geographically close schools, one with specialized programming open to city-wide lottery. Most families at the school live within proximity, if not in-boundary, and they'd like a proximity preference to truly make it a "neighborhood" school that's still open city-wide. But that might harm progress being made at Ludlow-Taylor, where families also want to see growth in IB attendance.

I'm not advocating choice set as a solution here, but it's an eye-opening example of how that policy might work. Everyone with geographic proximity gets a preference in a ranked lottery for both schools (and whatever other schools are nearby) and get guaranteed placement in one or the other.

They're not really analogous. The choice set is to throw a much wider swath of Capitol Hill into the mix (including parts that aren't nearly as close to either school you named), and make it a free for all lottery among 5 schools. And at least that choice set had two existing specialized school options. Many didn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading the thread about School Within a School and Ludlow Taylor ( http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/135/388579.page ) I can't help but think their situation was impetus for the choice sets idea.

If I understand it correctly, these are two geographically close schools, one with specialized programming open to city-wide lottery. Most families at the school live within proximity, if not in-boundary, and they'd like a proximity preference to truly make it a "neighborhood" school that's still open city-wide. But that might harm progress being made at Ludlow-Taylor, where families also want to see growth in IB attendance.

I'm not advocating choice set as a solution here, but it's an eye-opening example of how that policy might work. Everyone with geographic proximity gets a preference in a ranked lottery for both schools (and whatever other schools are nearby) and get guaranteed placement in one or the other.

They're not really analogous. The choice set is to throw a much wider swath of Capitol Hill into the mix (including parts that aren't nearly as close to either school you named), and make it a free for all lottery among 5 schools. And at least that choice set had two existing specialized school options. Many didn't.

It's also not really a representative example of how a choice set would change dynamics, at all, because SWS is not a neighborhood school now. Thus, putting SWS and Ludlow-Taylor in a choice set is win/win for neighbors. They don't have any right to SWS now, but now they have a chance at a school that most consider superior to Ludlow-Taylor. When a choice set is made up of what was all formerly neighborhood schools, one of which is currently markedly better than others, the dynamics are far different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading the thread about School Within a School and Ludlow Taylor ( http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/135/388579.page ) I can't help but think their situation was impetus for the choice sets idea.

If I understand it correctly, these are two geographically close schools, one with specialized programming open to city-wide lottery. Most families at the school live within proximity, if not in-boundary, and they'd like a proximity preference to truly make it a "neighborhood" school that's still open city-wide. But that might harm progress being made at Ludlow-Taylor, where families also want to see growth in IB attendance.

I'm not advocating choice set as a solution here, but it's an eye-opening example of how that policy might work. Everyone with geographic proximity gets a preference in a ranked lottery for both schools (and whatever other schools are nearby) and get guaranteed placement in one or the other.

They're not really analogous. The choice set is to throw a much wider swath of Capitol Hill into the mix (including parts that aren't nearly as close to either school you named), and make it a free for all lottery among 5 schools. And at least that choice set had two existing specialized school options. Many didn't.

It's also not really a representative example of how a choice set would change dynamics, at all, because SWS is not a neighborhood school now. Thus, putting SWS and Ludlow-Taylor in a choice set is win/win for neighbors. They don't have any right to SWS now, but now they have a chance at a school that most consider superior to Ludlow-Taylor. When a choice set is made up of what was all formerly neighborhood schools, one of which is currently markedly better than others, the dynamics are far different.

I'm not following your point about changed dynamics.

Puttting SWS in a choice set would mean getting the proximity preference that parents say they want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading the thread about School Within a School and Ludlow Taylor ( http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/135/388579.page ) I can't help but think their situation was impetus for the choice sets idea.

If I understand it correctly, these are two geographically close schools, one with specialized programming open to city-wide lottery. Most families at the school live within proximity, if not in-boundary, and they'd like a proximity preference to truly make it a "neighborhood" school that's still open city-wide. But that might harm progress being made at Ludlow-Taylor, where families also want to see growth in IB attendance.

I'm not advocating choice set as a solution here, but it's an eye-opening example of how that policy might work. Everyone with geographic proximity gets a preference in a ranked lottery for both schools (and whatever other schools are nearby) and get guaranteed placement in one or the other.

They're not really analogous. The choice set is to throw a much wider swath of Capitol Hill into the mix (including parts that aren't nearly as close to either school you named), and make it a free for all lottery among 5 schools. And at least that choice set had two existing specialized school options. Many didn't.

It's also not really a representative example of how a choice set would change dynamics, at all, because SWS is not a neighborhood school now. Thus, putting SWS and Ludlow-Taylor in a choice set is win/win for neighbors. They don't have any right to SWS now, but now they have a chance at a school that most consider superior to Ludlow-Taylor. When a choice set is made up of what was all formerly neighborhood schools, one of which is currently markedly better than others, the dynamics are far different.

I'm not following your point about changed dynamics.

Puttting SWS in a choice set would mean getting the proximity preference that parents say they want.

Right. My point was that you can't extrapolate from that to a conclusion about how a choice set without SWS would work. The original poster seemed to be trying to say that the SWS/LT situation suggests some benefit to choice sets more broadly.

[Anonymous]

Or the SWS neighbors lottery into Miner! I'm sure they'll be thrilled. Ah, choice sets....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reading the thread about School Within a School and Ludlow Taylor ( http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/135/388579.page ) I can't help but think their situation was impetus for the choice sets idea.

If I understand it correctly, these are two geographically close schools, one with specialized programming open to city-wide lottery. Most families at the school live within proximity, if not in-boundary, and they'd like a proximity preference to truly make it a "neighborhood" school that's still open city-wide. But that might harm progress being made at Ludlow-Taylor, where families also want to see growth in IB attendance.

I'm not advocating choice set as a solution here, but it's an eye-opening example of how that policy might work. Everyone with geographic proximity gets a preference in a ranked lottery for both schools (and whatever other schools are nearby) and get guaranteed placement in one or the other.

But this example shows the fundamental flaw with the thinking behind choice sets. Why is any kid who lives nearby and wants to attend not attending? The only reason would be that someone who lives further away had a better lottery number. What becomes of that person in a new system? They're worse off.

The fundamental logical flaw with choice sets is thinking that mutually beneficial trades are possible-- that's it's possible to change the assignment process so that everyone benefits. In the current assignment process, an explicit characteristic is that no mutually beneficial trades are possible -- in order for one child to be better off, another has to be worse off. Which gets to the conceptual flaw with choice sets, which is thinking that there was something wrong with our existing assignment policies. Our existing policies do an excellent job of rationing a scarce resource -- seats at desirable schools. What's wrong is that there are too many schools that few people want to send their kids to and too few schools that a lot of people want to send their kids to. People don't like the outcome -- half of the families who play the lottery don't get matched to any of their choices -- but that's not a problem with the way the lottery works, that's a problem with their not being enough schools that people want to go.