Reply to Revised Boundary Recommendations to be released on or about June 13

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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.[/quote]

15:04 here.

On your first point, I was responding to this paragraph:
[quote]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. [/quote]

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, [b]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. [/b] 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.[/quote]

This in bold is a sweeping generalization about the top ten priority clusters. In fact there are a number of up and coming schools in those clusters, and some of the families in those clusters currently live IB for Deal and/or Wilson and/or feed to Deal. There are some terrible schools represented in those top ten priority clusters, to be sure, but also some fast improving ones. And there are a lot of families who are interested in attending those schools and are not applying OOB anywhere else. Spend some time with that report and actually look at the names of the schools in those clusters and you will understand. The key thing to understand is that not all schools within those clusters are "priority" - in fact some are "rising" (if you are not familiar with the 4-point scale, it is explained in the report). In other words, up and coming schools get thrown together with poor performing schools in those clusters. DCPS and DME fully understand this nuance which is why in the report you see different recommendations for different schools within the clusters. For example, priority/focus schools are often recommend to be closed whereas rising schools are recommended to be strengthened.

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