Reply to Is the School Lottery System Transparent??

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I still think folks are too cramped in their thinking about OP's options, as if everything is riding on the first house they buy or on placing all their chips on the lottery.  This seems to me to ignore things like the future potential for appreciating of DC real estate and continued improvement in the DC public and charter school landscape.  There's already a good amount of flexibility out there for early elementary, and while middle and high schools have a ways to go, they offer a much better world than even a few years ago.  As others are suggesting, why not buy in Trinidad or Eckington or Park View or some other "gritty" neighborhood with better housing prices and some quiet buzz, plus elementary options that will last you three or four years?  Then see how those schools improve and play the lottery for a few years to try and get something through fourth or fifth grade? By then, you might not be in bounds for a good middle school, but you might have lotteried into something, or your house might have appreciated enough to sell for a premium to someone who cares less about schools so that you could trade up to a better neighborhood.  This is exactly what happened to us.  Not saying it's a guarantee -- but frankly, there are no guarantees in life.  Just risks that some people are comfortable with and some are not.  Why not go after something new and different?  It's not like OP can't decide in a few years it's not for them and then head for the suburbs.  But for now, it sounds like OP is game for trying something else.  [/quote]

Families with small kids and housing budgets of $450k are of limited means and should not be gambling on real estate speculation -- and trying to buy in neighborhoods with buzz can end very badly and they will not have resources to recover, move, or pay for private school. It's fine if you are childless or can call up mom and dad to cover grandkids tuition but it sounds like OP needs that budge to work out of the box not spread her risk on school potter or real estate gentrification lottery. [/quote]

Words like "gambling", "speculation", and "lottery" are basically just negative slogans for risk choices that, at least to our family, were more than worth it, because they weren't actually that risky, but rather offered a realistic chance at a payoff that to us was really valuable.

All of us take risks every second of the day -- leaving our house, getting in a car, applying for a job, deciding where to live, having a kid, etc.  The important question isn't whether a choice is "risky" but how to accurately measure the risk, and then deciding if it is worth taking to you.

Every time I have to drive my family to Springfield VA for a birthday party and my head starts to hurt from all the traffic and endless cul-de-sacs and carbon copy chain retail, I am so SUBJECTIVELY happy that I took the DC housing market "gamble" (which OBJECTIVELY has more than tripled in value in the last 20 years, including increasing or holding steady in every single year except for 2008 and 2009) AND rolled the dice multiple times on the DC school "lottery" (which OBJECTIVELY matches 75 percent of parents with one of their requested schools, and 85 percent of those with one of their top 3 choices).

Again, I'm not saying these are objectively guarantees, but they're not the same as day trading stocks or playing the slots in Vegas either.  I'm also not saying that OP's family will subjectively find DC to be the right choice for them.  I just don't think you can objectively classify living in DC as a choice that only diehards can subjectively handle or appreciate.  [/quote]
It's called a lottery by DCPS. But I'm glad the real estate bubble saved you from the ravages of suburban living. [/quote]

Just because DCPS calls it a lottery doesn't make it a casino game.  All I'm suggesting is that the words we use don't always portray reality.  For example, is it really accurate to call DC's real estate market a "bubble"?  As if it's about to burst?  If so, how many more years (beyond the current streak of 32, since the last time prices fell more than 7 percent was 1982) can we expect to wait before it does?

Similarly, I never said the suburbs were a ravaged war zone.  I said driving in them hurts my head, in ways that I stated were subjective to me.  I can understand and appreciate why others would subjectively feel the opposite.   I am just suggesting that OP try to objectively measure the risks more accurately than some are suggesting, and then make a subjective decision that's right for her and her family.    [/quote]

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