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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]All these discussions of OOB set asides always focus on what happens to the overcrowded Ward 3 schools.  That is certainly understandable, but the better question is what happens to the Ward 7/8 type schools that lose more students?  That's the key part of the question that never gets discussed, at least not nearly enough.

What happens to the at-risk families that don't have the means or ability or desire to leave their in-bounds school? Does this lead to more school closings and fewer neighborhood options?  Is helping some, while leaving some in even worse shape worth it?  And have they done any studies to see how many will be worse off compared to how many will be better off by pulling more kids out of neighborhood schools?

To me, this the important systemic question - much more important to the overall health of the school system than how Janney and Lafayette absorb the 10% OOB set aside because we may be making a policy choice to widen the education gap instead of close it and raise up all schools. [/quote]

That's right. I think you're right that we can rest reasonably assured that the JKLM schools can successfully incorporate students, even if the capacity constraints are real. (They are.) You're also right that this could hamper progress at failing schools.

That said, I believe it beats the alternative.

As an aside, I think the OOB set-asides are well-designed. 10% in elementary school. These can be spread throughout multiple grades. Another 10% get added in 6th grade for middle school. There should be greater capacity to incorporate more students then, since some students would just be peeling off to privates. And, introducing the new students in 6th grade gives them 3 years to be brought up to speed (if need be) before sending them off to high school. (A persistent concern from within and without ward 3 parents is that the new students may not be adequately prepared, and that could hurt the incumbent students and the new student.) The same cycle repeats for 9th grade.

If you're going to do OOB set-asides, I think this is the way to do it. I was opposed to OOB set-asides before. I am no longer opposed to them. [/quote]

With due respect, you just did exactly what I was talking about. You immediately went right back to focusing only on how it impacts or affects the schools gaining the OOB students, while completely ignoring how it works for the schools with a higher percentage of low SES students (I realize you paid lip service to "this could hamper progress at failing schools" but you simply dismissed that with any real discussion of how it could hamper them, how many kids would be left behind, what if anything could be done to mitigate the damage.

Without some study and data on those questions, how can we really conclude that, as you put it, "it beats the alternative"?

(FYI, the alternative, in my mind, being a real effort to deal with the harmful affects of poverty, directing more resources to schools that are struggling, and providing incentives and support for families to stay in and improve neighborhood families - if the contention is that the alternative is doing nothing, I reject that).  [/quote]

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