Reply to Mayor Bowser to Make Education Policy and Personnel Announcement

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]And as for the statement underlined, yes, Bowser also believes that the river should not be a boundary, hence the Miller/Eastern decision. I think this stance of the park/river not being a boundary is a respectable one, and shared by others too, including members of the DME committee. It was obvious in their final draft. Some DCUM posters like to argue that the Deal boundary looks gerrymandered, but it's obvious what's behind it: a belief that the city's best by-right middle school should be shared across the park and by a racially and economically diverse set of families. [/quote]
I have no problem with the idea that the park or river should not be a de facto boundary.  But the simple fact is that the boundaries need to change because they're currently drawn too broadly, and result in too many children attending Deal and Wilson.  The park is a convenient boundary marker, because it avoids the common problem of people complaining that when two sides of a street are zoned differently.  But if it makes you happy to avoid the park as a boundary, then we can set the boundary precisely one block east of the park, and the children of Crestwood (or whatever neighborhood) can be split between two schools.  FWIW, I think Bowser is just using this "park is not a boundary" line to justify a favor she wants to give her Ward 4 supporters.

What really offends me about your post though is the casual accusations of racism that you and some others like to level at anyone who disagrees with you.  You don't know me, or anything about me besides the fact that I disagree with you on this one issue.  And yet you think my disagreement gives you the right to make all sorts of wrong assumptions about me and my views on race and economic diversity.  But I live far further east than Crestwood, and my family has no rights to Deal or Wilson, no matter how this turns out.  So screw you.  Check your damn assumptions.[/quote]

I didn't call you racist. You (or a group of like-minded posters in this thread) keep asking the same question over and over again: how can we reduce crowding at Deal. But it's been answered, on DCUM and in the boundary review process. DME staff stated openly that maintaining diversity at Deal was the main rationale behind the new Deal boundary. Some effort was made to reduce crowding, by removing Eaton, and by removing Crestwood and 16th St Heights (which has been preserved by Bowser but delayed for a number of years). The DME staff also said that their plan would alleviate crowding at Deal. But as you point out, they could have reduced the crowding even more, by eliminating all EOTP areas that were IB for Deal. They declined to do so. [b]We can therefore conclude that for the DME, the reduction of crowding was important, but not so important that it be done at the cost of eliminating diversity at Deal.[/b] Why is this so difficult for you to understand? In a city where most of the education options are poor and there is an ugly history of segregation, why wouldn't the city attempt to maximize access to its few success stories, especially for diverse populations?

Look, you are either very, very, very, very concerned about school crowding. Or... you would have liked to see some of these EOTP neighborhoods rezoned to MacFarland in order to help build critical mass at that school. Or... you are just generally upset that some people have access to higher quality schools while others do not.

If the former, there are a couple of things for you to consider. The first is, as I've said, the policy makers don't see crowding as the most important policy issue in DC education.  And I think most residents of DC and even most families at Deal agree. Better to have some crowding, if diverse access to quality can be maintained. You are entitled to disagree. Many of us attended high quality but crowded public schools when we were children. Perhaps you attended uncrowded schools. If that's the case, I encourage you to read the research. There is some correlation between class size and outcomes, but I'm not aware of a correlation between school size and outcomes, or building capacity and outcomes (short of fire hazard). It's more of a preference. Some people like small cozy schools, some like large ones with lots of programs. But as long as a decent teacher ratio is maintained (Deal's is 1:24), then the quality is objectively the same. [b]Therefore, from a policy perspective, it is not reasonable to cut off access to a quality school, especially for a diverse population, simply because other people might prefer a smaller school.[/b]

If it's either of the latter, then I'm sorry it didn't work out the way you wanted. As Jeff has tried to explain to you, I don't think you would have been successful in forcing people, people who bought or rented IB for Deal and had that expectation, to work on MacFarland with you against their will. But in any event, surely this plan for a revitalized MacFarland gives more reason for optimism than what was there before. Meaning, when you or anyone else bought or rented your houses in years prior to this boundary review, you researched the schools at the time and you decided to go ahead anyway. And now the city is promising you something better than whatever you could reasonably have expected when you bought or rented your houses.  
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