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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just think that the main problem is that DC parents are not an organized constituency.  We need to speak up more and vote as a voting block if we want to have a say in our city.  [/quote]

There's too much dividing DC public school parents though. I live on the East side, where quality of IB elementary schools varies wildly for families. A lot of families play the lottery, and those that "win" the PK lottery for charters are just on a totally different track from neighbors in DCPS schools.

It's hard to build school community, especially at struggling schools, because people will leave via the lottery or to go private. Or they move. Sometimes within the area, for better schools, but also just in general -- DC is a pretty transient place.

People can find common cause with parents at the same school, but IME they tend to view families at other schools with suspicion or assume they can't possibly have the same concerns. Or, alternatively, they are viewed as competition for limited resources.

On our block, there are around 10 families with kids in public elementary, and only three of them attend the nearby IB. Everyone else is either OOB at another DCPS or at a charter (and somehow, bizarrely, none of them appear to attend the same OOB or charter). Conversations about education and schools with these neighbors are strained and limited, because people just do not have the same priorities. And that's among a group of families who all live in the same neighborhood and have more socioeconomic similarities than a lot of families in the district.

I used to think "oh if only DC parents could band together and ask for better." I have given up on that. I don't even believe the small cohort of parents at our school that we are friends with and seem to share educational values with will survive through MS -- I know almost all of us are lotterying for charters for 5th, and most probably won't get in but some will. Some of those that get shut out will attend the IB MS, but some won't. Of those that attend the IB MS, even fewer wills send their kids to the IB HS. The upshot is that we have little motivation to be one of the families who sticks that feeder pattern out, because we are signing our kids up to lose friends year after year. So we will likely become one of the people who leaves, and someone else's kids will be sad we left (and my kids will be sad we left, and we'll all have to figure out how to handle it).

It sucks.[/quote]

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