Reply to Mayor Bowser to Make Education Policy and Personnel Announcement

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Reply to "Mayor Bowser to Make Education Policy and Personnel Announcement - Boundary Decision?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Jeff, I appreciate your thoughtful comments.  I don't really agree with your underlying point though.  In essence, you seem to be saying that just about everyone from the Crestwood/16thSH area would have refused to attend MacFarland/Roosevelt out sheer rage after having lost access to Deal/Wilson.  In effect, you're saying they're like the frustrated voters from 2004 who threaten to run away to Canada rather than live under the oppressive yoke of the the Bush dictatorship.  I think that's unrealistic exaggeration, for the same reason I thought it was an exaggeration 2004.  People get mad and threaten to leave, and some do actually leave, but most will stay and muddle through because they lack options or inertia is just to strong.  It's those that stay who would form the strong core of MacFarland/Roosevelt.

You suggest that if families can choose either Deal/Wilson or MacFarland/Roosevelt, they will somehow start to embrace MacFarland/Roosevelt.  I think that's unrealistic.  If given the choice, I cannot imagine anyone leaving the safe choice of Deal to take a chance on MacFarland.  I fear that almost everyone with actual choice will choose Deal.  The families who choose MacFarland are more likely to be those with particularly complex circumstances where school proximity is paramount.  I predict [b]the highest SES families, and the families most motivated by education [/b](two similar, but not identical, groups), will arrange to choose Deal.  As a result, MacFarland/Roosevelt will look less attractive and will spiral downward.  I am perhaps a cynic, but I consider my pessimistic view more realistic here.

IMHO, few political leaders will make the right choice when it's a hard one that's personally damaging to them.  Vincent Gray was in the rare position to make a hard - but right - choice without much damage, and I applaud him for doing it.  Here, I fear Mayor Bowser took the easy path that helps her political position, but hurts DCPS as a whole.[/quote]

I know other middle / high SES families from the neighborhood that are interested in MacFarland and not because of "complex circumstances".  Pretty simply, I feel that our neighbors in Petworth are more of a community to us than people WOTP, and I want our kids to go to school in the community - at least through middle school.  Sure, it needs to have a good environment and good academic offerings, but it doesn't need to be [i]the same as[/i] Deal.  Even Roosevelt has more academic offerings being put on the table.  If the school environment can be shown to be better... well, ok - I'm focused on MS now.[/quote]

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