Reply to Ward 3 - Wilson feeders meeting last night: did anyone attend?

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Reply to "Ward 3 - Wilson feeders meeting last night: did anyone attend?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]And efficiency is a good goal, but when you talk about spending public dollars disproportionately on the weatlhier/whiter kids in DCPS, you need to take a minute to think about optics even if you have no regard for equity.[/quote]

I'm the one who proposed the cash payment idea.

First, I don't necessarily think most of the payments will go to wealthy white kids.  Several people have already posted here that there's no way they'd move from Deal to MacFarland for even $10,000 per year.  A wealthy family will be less motivated because the money is a smaller proportion of their income.  [b]I suspect the people most likely to change schools for a cash payment will be families who have only moderate income, so the money is more enticing.[/b]  And to the extent white families are afraid of leaving Deal because of a fear of other neighborhoods and other races (as some have claimed here), I suspect that tilts the payments toward more non-white families that live outside of NWDC.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the family most likely to take this payment for a move to MacFarland is one that lived EOTP and not far from MacFarland, but which managed to get into the Deal feeder system via grandfathering or OOB [b]or because they live someplace like Shepherd Park.[/b]  THey're families who would love a functioning MS close to home, but who stick with Deal only because the local MS is not yet safe enough.  The cash payment might be enough to push them over the edge.  The payment program would be open to all eligible for Deal, so there's nothing that limits the payment to wealthy white students.  Wealthy white families that are sick of Deal overcrowding might take it.  But plenty of others will too.

Second, I think the cash payment is all about equity.  It's giving equal opportunity to every family at Deal, regardless of income.  It's aimed at boosting the cohort of students and benefits at an EOTP schools, at the expense of WOTP Deal.  It's exactly the sort of thing DCPS has been doing by spending on programming at EOTP schools, but it's just trusting families to use the cash wisely themselves rather than paternalistically spending it for them on wasted school programs they don't really want. [/quote]

OP here.  I think perhaps some OOB families might take advantage of this.  However, if I know my neighbors at all, Shepherd Park and similar upper 16th St. neighborhoods would not go for this.  At all.  Most families with school-age kids are upper middle class, at minimum.  Many already have their kids in expensive private schools, judging by the number of GDS and other private stickers on cars--this is part of the reason Shepherd is underutilized by IB families (along with families opting for HRCS).  There is no way $1,000 or even $10,000 would entice these families.  I haven't lived here long, but I really doubt that idea would go far here.

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Also from my home in Shepherd Park, Deal is the local middle school. I get to Deal 5 minutes faster than I would Macfarland. I know this welll as I have a kid at Deal used to work near Roosevelt.[/quote]

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