Reply to Unite to Stop DME School Proposals

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Reply to "Unite to Stop DME School Proposals"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] We see a two-tier system emerging with schools that have above average performance (such as Deal) or are completely failing our children in middle and high school. Keep elementary schools as they are, in other words do no harm. Several of the elementary school proposals further limit access to good elementary schools by shifting boundaries to increase in-boundary enrollment therefore decreasing the number of spots for our out-of-boundary children.[/quote]

OP, the problem I am having with your call to stop the DME proposals is that it's contradictory.

I want greater in-boundary enrollment in my school.

The two-tier system that you see as [i]emerging[/i] has been that way for decades. It's not the result of poor planning at the local level. It originated with No Child Left Behind and its mandate that kids in failing schools be placed in succeeding schools and that funding follow the student.

Now we are where we are, with some schools overcrowded, and others emptied out and continuing to fail.  That's an unsustainable model, no matter who gets the finger of blame in this political season or next. You want to fix neighborhood schools? Fix the funding model.  No one is talking about that.

In the meantime, when you say leave the schools as they are, you're limiting my options as a parent. When you wax altruistically about maintaining space for "our OOB students" you're talking about MY child - and I don't want his best shot to be in YOUR school.

If there's one thing about which parents can unite, it's that no one wants to be out of boundary.

I agree with you that the middle and high school options are deplorable and there's not nearly enough in the DME proposals to address that.  But efforts do have to start at elementary, because that's where parents are won into the system or lost forever.  And at this time, that's where the critical mass of needed parents exists.  [/quote]

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