Reply to What would happen if families in dc all had their kids attend their In Boundary school?

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I'd love for this to be the case. Here in Petworth there are, what, 5? DCPS elementary schools near the Middle School and High School complex, and while we're interested in sending our kids all the way through depending on their interests, I know that having more of the mix that's in our neighborhood in those schools would be better than the sorted-curated experience that exists now.

I think the broad expectation that people would flee is incorrect. I think if the system's rules changed people would self-sort earlier, but a place like Petworth would still be full of gentrifiers (not using the term angrily) just not the ones who insist on diversity meaning 30%+ white in a neighborhood that's 1/3 that or insists on a curriculum meant to shed students who aren't working at grade level.

An interesting follow-on effect would probably be that neighborhoods where middle class families haven't in real life embraced the schools would probably gentrify faster/harder.

However - and think about this in context of the boundary changes coming up - I do not believe that an ironclad "middle-class-families-can't-sort-in-DCPS" choice is going to be on the table. The Mayor does not want it on the table (ironic because my guess is that her daughter will go to Catholic schools) and the people who are against it are the more powerful voices.

So OP - I love this, but let's think further about how we make more of this actually get done.  
Perhaps we make the lottery narrower: in DCPS you get 3 choices and PCS you get 3 choices and if your student is at-risk they get 12 choices. 
Or you put at-risk preference ahead of everything and let at risk push middle class families back down the waitlist by enrolling whenever they want wherever they want because they have information gaps, typically. 
Or you add programs add local MS/HS that promote buy-in without making them hard cohorts, e.g., Petworth's own MacFarland gets a DCPS promise and can state that they'll have a teacher for Algebra I and Algebra II and may share them with Roosevelt HS. Or McKinley Tech offers HS-level science for students who can do the work.
Just some ideas - this isn't my job but I feel like people who do the work in DCPS, PCS, and in related think tanks can come up with reasonable limits and carrots to put into the political process. They just aren't really proposing any of it.[/quote]

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