What would happen if families in dc all had their kids attend their In Boundary school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
The only reason I am willing to live in NE DC at all is because I have school choice. If I didn't, I would never have moved here, and I would move away if I did live here. It's that simple.


The question is whether there are enough people like you in your area of NE DC that, if they all actually stayed in bounds, they could help turn schools around in a reasonable time period. I don't know the answer, but don't think the question is clear cut.



I live in NE, DC and it’s no way I would send my child to my neighborhood elementary, middle or high school. He has been in a ward 6 school since pk3 and now heading to Washington Latin after matching from the lottery. It’s just too much of work to risk my child in his In-boundary school and I’m not willing to chance that with him. That’s why I support school choice. If it was mandated to send your kids to their neighborhood school you better bet I would be using my aunt address to place my child in one of the top rated schools that’s talked about constantly on DCUM.

So without school choice you would commit fraud? I guess fraud "prevention" is a reason to keep choice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The core flaw in this whole way of thinking is that it's based on the assumption that DCPS will deliver an adequate school if enough high-income people demand it. That's just not how it works. DCPS doesn't really care what people want, and often isn't capable of delivering it even if it wanted to. It's not a vending machine where you put in 200 high income kids and a good principal and talented teachers and a superintendent who isn't a sadistic lunatic pops out the bottom. It takes years and years of effort and for many people, the payoff isn't going to happen in time for their kid or even younger siblings to benefit from it. And attending a badly functioning school for many many years is a high price to pay for principle or social altruism.

+yup. Anyone can care about schools but it matters most when you have skin in the game and your children are school age. Childhood is fleeting. With kids who are close to graduation I can say from experience that I spent tons of energy and time on school issues when it mattered for me. Now that my kids are almost done, my attention is shifting. Parents will never, ever chance their child's education on a crappy or even iffy solution if they have other options. Talk to more parents who have tried to make a go of it at their struggling title 1 school. Often your efforts and middle class mindset aren't even welcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
The only reason I am willing to live in NE DC at all is because I have school choice. If I didn't, I would never have moved here, and I would move away if I did live here. It's that simple.


The question is whether there are enough people like you in your area of NE DC that, if they all actually stayed in bounds, they could help turn schools around in a reasonable time period. I don't know the answer, but don't think the question is clear cut.



I live in NE, DC and it’s no way I would send my child to my neighborhood elementary, middle or high school. He has been in a ward 6 school since pk3 and now heading to Washington Latin after matching from the lottery. It’s just too much of work to risk my child in his In-boundary school and I’m not willing to chance that with him. That’s why I support school choice. If it was mandated to send your kids to their neighborhood school you better bet I would be using my aunt address to place my child in one of the top rated schools that’s talked about constantly on DCUM.

So without school choice you would commit fraud? I guess fraud "prevention" is a reason to keep choice?

While it's wrong, I wouldn't blame her.

[Anonymous]

Someone posts a thread like this every few months. There is not that much parents can do at the end of the day especially when it comes to middle and high schools. Parents are not the problem. DCPS leadership is for the most part ineffective and incompetent. OSSE is even worse unfortunately. OSSE is full of patronage hires - people who don’t know much about education and are not even particularly interested in it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
The only reason I am willing to live in NE DC at all is because I have school choice. If I didn't, I would never have moved here, and I would move away if I did live here. It's that simple.


The question is whether there are enough people like you in your area of NE DC that, if they all actually stayed in bounds, they could help turn schools around in a reasonable time period. I don't know the answer, but don't think the question is clear cut.



I live in NE, DC and it’s no way I would send my child to my neighborhood elementary, middle or high school. He has been in a ward 6 school since pk3 and now heading to Washington Latin after matching from the lottery. It’s just too much of work to risk my child in his In-boundary school and I’m not willing to chance that with him. That’s why I support school choice. If it was mandated to send your kids to their neighborhood school you better bet I would be using my aunt address to place my child in one of the top rated schools that’s talked about constantly on DCUM.

So without school choice you would commit fraud? I guess fraud "prevention" is a reason to keep choice?

While it's wrong, I wouldn't blame her.

I don't know. I would say the proper response would be to move or go private, but I guess some people just don't feel like the rules apply to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we stop pretending that all gentrification is done by white people and that it’s a black/ white issue? It’s far more a class issue than anyone gives voice to. Most folks with money also don’t send their kids to the low achieving schools in rural poor predominantly white areas. It’s not so much about race (though in we can acknowledge that institutional racism does impact class mobility), but to simply blame DCPS issues on “white parents” not wanting to send their kids to school with “Black kids”, is actually code for middle/ upper middle class college educated parents (of all races) don’t want to send their kids to school with children who come from and continue to live in generational poverty and deal with the issues that brings. And it seems like in this constant conversation on DCUM the presumption is that all brown kids are poor. Which is simply not true.

I hate to contradict this, but DC does not have the demographics of America or even the rest of the DMV. There are few middle class residents of any kind. Our upper income families include a black minority. Our lower income families include almost zero white people. So we can say it is "not true" that "all brown kids are poor" but the massive intersectionality of race and class in DC is totally skewed.

BEST Comment in this thread. It's pretty clear that in DC, white=money.

I assure you in a place like Tennessee or Kentucky, white does not automatically mean you have money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The core flaw in this whole way of thinking is that it's based on the assumption that DCPS will deliver an adequate school if enough high-income people demand it. That's just not how it works. DCPS doesn't really care what people want, and often isn't capable of delivering it even if it wanted to. It's not a vending machine where you put in 200 high income kids and a good principal and talented teachers and a superintendent who isn't a sadistic lunatic pops out the bottom. It takes years and years of effort and for many people, the payoff isn't going to happen in time for their kid or even younger siblings to benefit from it. And attending a badly functioning school for many many years is a high price to pay for principle or social altruism.

I want some one to illustrate this. Like a New Yorker cartoon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The core flaw in this whole way of thinking is that it's based on the assumption that DCPS will deliver an adequate school if enough high-income people demand it. That's just not how it works. DCPS doesn't really care what people want, and often isn't capable of delivering it even if it wanted to. It's not a vending machine where you put in 200 high income kids and a good principal and talented teachers and a superintendent who isn't a sadistic lunatic pops out the bottom. It takes years and years of effort and for many people, the payoff isn't going to happen in time for their kid or even younger siblings to benefit from it. And attending a badly functioning school for many many years is a high price to pay for principle or social altruism.


+yup. Anyone can care about schools but it matters most when you have skin in the game and your children are school age. Childhood is fleeting. With kids who are close to graduation I can say from experience that I spent tons of energy and time on school issues when it mattered for me. Now that my kids are almost done, my attention is shifting. Parents will never, ever chance their child's education on a crappy or even iffy solution if they have other options. Talk to more parents who have tried to make a go of it at their struggling title 1 school. Often your efforts and middle class mindset aren't even welcome.

That's it in a nutshell. The DCPS bureaucracy LIKES having a school system that is predominantly lower-income, as that means less accountability. High income, highly educated parents are demanding; they want accountability; they want non-responsive bureaucrats (like the guy who couldn't get the Giant donation form correct as described by a PP above) fired. That's why DCPS gave "autonomous" status to most WOTP elementaries years ago---sort of a "we'll leave you alone if you leave us alone" bargain. The whole theory behind charters 20 years ago was that charters enabled more school choice for niche programs: expeditionary learning, montessori, dual language, classics---and that charters would also cause regular DCPS to up its game. DCPS' only response was to throw millions and millions at renovating high schools EOTP without doing anything else.

[Anonymous]

my experience with joining a local DCPS that had almost no people with experience with advocacy and gaining access is that once "white people" (which as others have mentioned, means upper income people with time, education, bureaucratic and business experience with POWER basically, who are...generally White) showed up, the bureaucracy started to react. Not act like we were in charge, but before it had acted like it did NOT have to give a shit about these underprivileged people AT ALL. Which really sucks. And I say this not to say that "white people" are cool or should have any power, but once people like that start showing up in a school things start to become much more responsive. It is one more thing that proves how shitty America is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Without charter schools, one would be able to buy a rowhouse for $250K in Petworth, Brightwood Park, etc.

But nobody would.

Sure they would. People without kids.

Why do people without kids need a house? I would stay in an apartment.

To have space for stuff people like. Like hobbies, which are a thing that childless adults often use to fill their free time. I have heard tales of craft rooms, and libraries, and gyms, and guest bedrooms.

So, is there some narrative here, or is this purely a tangent?

DC shouldn't have good schools so that the childless can have hobby rooms?

People without children are not a sub-species of individuals undeserving of full, examined lives. They are not "filling their time" anymore than parents of children are "filling time." If they want to have a guest bedroom, and can afford a mortgage, it's none of your business. We could also look at the HGTV-esque millennial materialism - where each child "needs" their own room and parents "need" an en suite bathroom. Many parents who insist on these features magically survived a childhood where they shared bedrooms and bathrooms. It's not charter schools driving up the prices of neighborhoods - it's people not wanting to spend hours commuting, the fact that people are single longer (or divorced) - this is why you see PG country experiencing mass growth even though the schools are not great, or Wheaton experiencing a "renaissance."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Without charter schools, one would be able to buy a rowhouse for $250K in Petworth, Brightwood Park, etc.

But nobody would.

Sure they would. People without kids.

Why do people without kids need a house? I would stay in an apartment.

To have space for stuff people like. Like hobbies, which are a thing that childless adults often use to fill their free time. I have heard tales of craft rooms, and libraries, and gyms, and guest bedrooms.

So, is there some narrative here, or is this purely a tangent?

DC shouldn't have good schools so that the childless can have hobby rooms?

People without children are not a sub-species of individuals undeserving of full, examined lives. They are not "filling their time" anymore than parents of children are "filling time." If they want to have a guest bedroom, and can afford a mortgage, it's none of your business. We could also look at the HGTV-esque millennial materialism - where each child "needs" their own room and parents "need" an en suite bathroom. Many parents who insist on these features magically survived a childhood where they shared bedrooms and bathrooms. It's not charter schools driving up the prices of neighborhoods - it's people not wanting to spend hours commuting, the fact that people are single longer (or divorced) - this is why you see PG country experiencing mass growth even though the schools are not great, or Wheaton experiencing a "renaissance."

Dude, there's really nothing in this thread that is putting down childless people. That seems to be weirdly manufactured. Someone just spoke about their own preference for an apartment over a house.

This thread, though, is about schools, which teach children, so it's odd to be focusing on the people without children, particularly when that link to the present dialogue seems to be non-existent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At our EOTP school, a small group of parents have joined with teachers to keep schools closed indefinitely. Anyone who advocates to reopen— just giving families the choice— is labelled racist. As a result, we will change schools via the lottery. Ending 7 years of our kids attending this school.

Sad. What school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our EOTP school, a small group of parents have joined with teachers to keep schools closed indefinitely. Anyone who advocates to reopen— just giving families the choice— is labelled racist. As a result, we will change schools via the lottery. Ending 7 years of our kids attending this school.

Sad. What school?

Yeah, you really need to out this school. And I blame the Chancellor for abdicating his duty to individual principals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The core flaw in this whole way of thinking is that it's based on the assumption that DCPS will deliver an adequate school if enough high-income people demand it. That's just not how it works. DCPS doesn't really care what people want, and often isn't capable of delivering it even if it wanted to. It's not a vending machine where you put in 200 high income kids and a good principal and talented teachers and a superintendent who isn't a sadistic lunatic pops out the bottom. It takes years and years of effort and for many people, the payoff isn't going to happen in time for their kid or even younger siblings to benefit from it. And attending a badly functioning school for many many years is a high price to pay for principle or social altruism.


+yup. Anyone can care about schools but it matters most when you have skin in the game and your children are school age. Childhood is fleeting. With kids who are close to graduation I can say from experience that I spent tons of energy and time on school issues when it mattered for me. Now that my kids are almost done, my attention is shifting. Parents will never, ever chance their child's education on a crappy or even iffy solution if they have other options. Talk to more parents who have tried to make a go of it at their struggling title 1 school. Often your efforts and middle class mindset aren't even welcome.

That's it in a nutshell. The DCPS bureaucracy LIKES having a school system that is predominantly lower-income, as that means less accountability. High income, highly educated parents are demanding; they want accountability; they want non-responsive bureaucrats (like the guy who couldn't get the Giant donation form correct as described by a PP above) fired. That's why DCPS gave "autonomous" status to most WOTP elementaries years ago---sort of a "we'll leave you alone if you leave us alone" bargain. The whole theory behind charters 20 years ago was that charters enabled more school choice for niche programs: expeditionary learning, montessori, dual language, classics---and that charters would also cause regular DCPS to up its game. DCPS' only response was to throw millions and millions at renovating high schools EOTP without doing anything else.

Very interesting.

So is it white privilege a la Nice White Parents? Should they then not do anything etc? Or is it good to use your white privelege in this way? This discussion finally getting interesting.

I like hearing from folks who actually have real school examples, if you’re willing to name them. We avoided our IB and only looked at one or two other nearby DCPS. In NE. Sometimes feel like we should’ve invested more, other times honestly so glad we never had to deal.

[Anonymous]

+1 on outing the school from the other side. It'd be interesting to see whether there is a school where teachers, principals and a few parents can keep a DCPS school "closed." I assume you mean very limited opening, not actually closed, if it's a DCPS.

In our kids' school, a very few parents spoke up very screamy and aggressive, OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN and sent like 50 bulleted questions to everyone telling the Principal to answer them all right now and by the way reopen yesterday. And when a very few parents said "look this is hard, we want to get through this as a community" these couple parents screamed louder and started blaming everyone for not reopening NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!!! And it's really stupid because there were other parents thinking creatively and trying to work through the community toward reopening gradually more and more, and all these couple of screamers did was make themselves sound insane.