Reply to Study: "Discussions of D.C. public school options in an online forum" (yes, this one)

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[quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele]Another huge flaw. On page 23 there is a section specifically looking at Brookland. It says this:

[quote]The conversations about Brookland schools on DC Urban Moms illustrate one mechanism by which this self-segregation occurs. Nearly three thousand forum conversations, almost one-fifth of the total, mention at least one Brookland elementary school, and total attention to these schools has grown over time. But DC Urban Moms participants focus heavily on a few schools in the neighborhood. On average, elementary schools in Brookland that are less than 50 percent Black are mentioned more than four times as often per year as schools that are more than 50 percent Black. Figure 8 plots this correlation.[/quote]

On the face of it, this supports the argument that DCUMers are a bunch of Klan members. But, then look at which schools are being discussed. The frequently-mentioned schools are all charters. Charters are open to students regardless of where they live in the District. So, any of our posters might be interested in those schools. The less-talked-about schools are public and therefore have residency restrictions. Fewer of our posters have a reason to discuss those schools.

This data simply cannot be taken seriously.
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Except that in Brookland, most of the in-bounds schools have enough open spaces to accept many if not most external applicants, so, while I totally and completely agree that this study is terrible, this particular point doesn't quite hold up.[/quote]

The only way your point would matter is if the DCPS schools in Brookland are significantly better than the inbounds DCPS in the other neighborhoods. Nobody is going to lottery to another neighborhood's school if it is even worse or the same as their own inbounds public. So, the folks from other neighborhoods incentivized to discuss Brookland DCPS schools largely live in neighborhoods that are not well represented on DCUM.
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