Reply to Zoning Lafayette out of Deal/Wilson

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You know what crazy people (and agree with the PP, this is a total fantasy thread), here's the real story:

- Our kids shouldn't be used as a [b]social engineering experiment [/b]because they are UMC and live in stable homes.  Call that elitist, privileged, whatever, but no kid should have to deal with it because some social justice warrior deems it so.

- Of course we are going to scream when you ship our kids out of our neighborhood to an unproven school with abysmal test scores.  NOBODY would want that to happen.

- The schools you are talking about sending us to, while smaller, do not have the same sort of extra curriculars (sports, arts) what have you that Deal and Wilson already have.

I think if Lafayette parents are convinced that the experience would be the same wherever else than it would be at Deal and Wilson, we would be OK with it.  Contrary to what this thread suggests, I don't think Chevy Chase is full of racists.  It is, however, full of families who want what's best for their kids, and Wells and Cardozo are just not going to cut it now.  The expectations are just higher.

And, finally, for all the Deal bashers here, it IS a great place.  The team approach keeps it small, and I can say especially over the last two years DD has had uniformly amazing teachers.  I don't know who you've had.  I'm sorry your snowflake can't handle the size, I'm sure when you pick their classes for them in college it will be better.[/quote]

I occasionally see this term thrown around by the same sorts of folks who use the term 'SJW.'  What exactly does this mean?  How would this play out, in terms of outcomes?

Also, Wells isn't even open yet,[b] so how can you remark about the extracurricular options or test scores there?[/b]  What are you basing your predictions on?  DCPS PARCC data, along with other research, suggests that kids from affluent, educated families tend to do well even in lower-performing schools, so your alarm at the prospect of redistricting is somewhat puzzling.[/quote]

That's precisely the point - there AREN'T any, and it will take years to develop them.  [b]And what it means is that people are so blinded by "social justice" that they fail to see how it can actually impact real people[/b].  It doesn't make you a bad person to not want to send your kid to a shitty school on a the theory that your smart, UMC kid is going to suddenly solve all of the inherent problems of urban poverty by just sitting next to some kid in a classroom.[/quote]

There might be an ounce of sympathy if there was any concern whatsoever for the so-called "shitty schools."  Some of us don't think anyone should have to send their kids to a "shitty school" regardless of address.  The solution for Ward 3 families is not enrolling charters or OOB and traveling across town -- that's only required of families in Wards 7 & 8.[/quote]

I think folks ARE concerned about the shitty schools.  But remember, a lot of those problems are not just the schools, but the problems the kids at those schools bring with them.  Redrawing school boundaries won't solve that issue.[/quote]

I agree that redrawing boundaries won't solve generational poverty, but that doesn't mean that schools dealing with the greatest burdens of poverty should be denied additional resources to effectively support higher needs students.

There are three main persistent elitism themes on DCUM -- 1) talking about "shitty schools" like they exist in a vacuum and fail the children who need them most, or 2) denigrating kids and their care givers who come to school with a heavy load of stuff to deal with.  . . maybe  3) combination of 1) and 2) above

Not to paint too broadly but I fail to see any meaningful concern about the plight of students and communities with higher needs than their entitled families from anyone who would call any legitimate school "shitty"[/quote]

The poorest schools DO get the most money per student.  In some cases, twice as much as Ward 3 schools.  Money is not the problem. The problem is not student resources, it’s student home life.  The schools are being asked to solve problems they are not equipped to solve. It’s a sad conundrum, but one that no one has been able to solve on a large scale anywhere in this country. And overcrowding Ward 3 schools is a spiteful response that hurts more kids that it helps.

Here’s some sobering reading:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/04/08/can_we_fix_the_schools_maybe_not_139978.html

[/quote]

Totes, Plessy v. F. sitch. Let those poor unfortunate souls thrive over yonder in Ward 4, CC is more unincorporated North Bethesda in “outlook.”  We’ve got the right (white) privilege. Deal forever! [/quote]

Sweetheart, Brown v. Board was decided 3 generations ago.  Since that time trillions of dollars have been directed to closing the achievement gap.  To absolutely no meaningful avail.  I don’t know what the solution is either. But I do know that a 2000 student Deal is not the answer.  And you know it too.

[/quote]

[b]Right, which is why we’re suggesting moving some of the feeders to other MS and HS.[/b] [/quote]

[b]Start with the two feeder schools that have 800 kids.[/b][/quote]

PPs have hit it on the head.  I do numbers and geography for a living.  Deal and Wilson are simply victims of their own success.  Community should be very proud of how they've made these two schools so desirable.  While OOB feeder rights were a legitimate beef in past years (and to this day, residency "fraud" or rather fluidity in permutations of how to define where students sleep at night with which relative, etc. but hard to fix without becoming the Stasi), it's almost 2020 and due to changing demographics, OOB is not what it used to be.  Deal/Wilson bursting at the seams with IB students from popular JKLM, Hearst is healthy, Eaton is at Hardy, etc.  To fix Deal/Wilson overcrowding, need to shrink the attendance zone or make people attrite on their own.  Loved 16:48's comment about how Mayor Bowser is 22% percent of her way to "Alice Deal for all!"  :lol:

Throwing out my two cents, but reducing pressure at Deal is straightforward.  Package a giant UMC school with a smaller one and move to a neighboring middle school.  People will be upset, but this can be spun in a positive way, as long as families moved out of Deal are kept inside the Wilson HS pyramid.  High school is a different story.  Telling families they're being moved from Wilson to Cardozo/Roosevelt/Coolidge will just make them quit DCPS, go private, MoCo, or possibly to a DCPS choice school (perhaps the secret agenda of DCPS!)

For Deal, 1) Janney + Hearst to Hardy, or 2) Lafayette + Shepherd to Wells.  This would tip Hardy for sure and possibly Wells.  Notice how some DCUM Janney parents who witnessed the Deal improvement over the past decade see early signs of how Hardy is just a few years from turning that corner as well?  (calm down everyone... redistricting begins in 2023 at the earliest with changes implemented in 2025 and beyond)  Both solutions allow one or two EOTP schools to remain at Deal (Bancroft + possibly Shep?), preserving what DC leadership has always wanted.  Imagine vast majority of reasonable Ward 3 parents can live with a different MS (see Eaton) as long as their kids remain in the Wilson HS pyramid.

For Wilson, struggling to identify what would relieve sufficient pressure, short of doing something drastic like a Murch-Deal-EOTP HS feeder pattern (e.g. having the Murch kids who stayed at Deal join Lafayette+Shep at Coolidge/Roosevelt.  My inner SJW wants to believe it'd be great to have another large, high-performing traditional HS to rival Wilson in sports, etc. but hey, a girl can dream!)  Moving Shepherd/Hyde-Addison/Eaton/Hearst/Bancroft all or piecemeal to Coolidge/Roosevelt/Cardozo might help, but only nibbles at the margins of the demographic core "problem" = giant, high-performing JKLM schools full of IB kids.  Also likely opposed by Mayor Bowser and others who want to maintain the EOTP connection to the WOTP high school.

However, seeing as how few if any boundaries changed in the last redistricting, the most likely (and safest!) DCPS response figures to maintain the status quo and leave Wilson boundaries as is, hoping that the pushiest parents get fed up and leave on their own, perhaps even for the vaunted Walls/Banneker/new McKinley/DESA that the DC establishment loves to promote.

Disclaimer: Lived on the Hill for 15 years - still amazed that younger parents are excited about Stuart-Hobson, but again, all happening due to gentrification = "changing demographics."  Times they are a changing!
[/quote]

This is an excellent post and makes several excellent points that I wish very much - as a Lafayette parent - DCPS would listen to. [/quote]

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