Reply to Greater Greater Washington story on school enrollment growth

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What about a lottery only system for high school? Students can apply to a special focus program or one of 4 comprehensive high schools.

High school students can travel independently -- most do already.

Turn Wilson into a middle/elementary school to deal with WOTP crowding.

[/quote]

No, but thanks.  The kids that drive Wilson's moderately successful test scores won't stick around hoping to lottery into a decent program.  We certainly wouldn't have.

I remember saying this to the former deputy mayor for education, and she seemed really non-plussed by the idea that the parents that DCPS wants actually have choices and won't accept uncertainty.  Although I'm sure she must have heard the same thing dozens of times before, she acted like she hadn't.[/quote]

You are in the minority. 75% of all students in DC are not in their IB school. And the numbers are even higher for high school given the number of application school students.

More importantly, the city frankly doesn't care if a few thousand families IB for Wilson leave any more than they would care if I left my EOTP house due to school choices I didn't like. There are plenty of people who will buy both our homes and the city will make money on the transaction fees.

The metric you are citing just isn't one that matters to the city. [/quote]

NP, I'm a charter parent right now but I would strongly oppose an all-lottery system.  Because of what happened with equity and segregation in San Francisco, and because I like the idea that I know what my worst-case scenario is, and have an option within a reasonable distance from home if at any time I want to leave our charter.  Just because someone is a charter school parent does not mean they don't care about their IB school.[/quote]

Same here. We're leaving our charter in the fall to go to our ok-but-not-great IB DCPS school in the Fall. Already enrolled at our DCPS. We bought in this area knowing we might want to leave our charter, and that the DCPS  elementary is good enough and feeds to Deal and Wilson which was our main goal. We decided our HRC isn't worth the commute so we're going to our DCPS. I wouldn't even live in DC if I couldn't control our in boundary schools and commute. Going to an all lottery system would send DC right back to the 80's with UMC flight to the suburbs once kids are school aged. While DCPS progress hasn't been as swift as some may like, there has been some progress, largely due to parents investing in their neighborhood schools. This would just undo it all. I hope I'm not wrong, but I think DCPS wouldn't want to trash the progress they've made.[/quote]

I think quite a people in DCPS see the community investment and think that they need to "spread the love" to other areas. That somehow destroying the cohorts and sense of community in the currently desirable schools will make DCPS more equitable.

Newsflash: it won't. Those communities are built - more than anything - by time commitments. Money helps, but it doesn't replace the time and effort of parents to volunteer at the school, work on the PTA, and be actively engaged with their kids' education on a daily basis. No amount of money can solve those issues.

I'm fine paying more in taxes to make other DC schools better and to get them more resources, smaller classes, more wrap-around services, etc. But if DCPS smoking some strong stuff if they think those engaged parents will remain if you take away their neighborhood school. The entire point of buying my house was so I could walk my son to elementary school everyday and grab a bus to the office. [/quote]

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