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

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]13:23 posting - you can call me "J".  Is there something I can call you?

I worry we're misunderstanding each other, so let me spell out my views and my understanding of what you're saying.

1. I'm definitely not angry at Brian or the W3 gang.  I think they're doing good work.  I am impressed at their stamina in the face of headwinds.

2. I think this overcrowding situation is incredibly complex and difficult to solve in a way that will be productive for DCPS and will make even a plurality of people happy.  It's complex because it dredges up issues of school-quality, educational equity, race, funding, and political power.

3. I'm pretty confident there's no one solution that will satisfy everyone.  I suspect the best path forward will need to be a mixture of several different initiatives that combine to solve the problem while keeping peace among the various interests.

4. I'm frustrated that DCPS has unilaterally decided to take some approached "off the table" - specifically (a) the possibility of adjustments to OOB feeder rights, (b) the possibility of adjustments to feeder patterns, and (c) the possibility of adjustments to school boundaries.  It's especially frustrating because DCPS has given no explanation for why those approaches - which a very sizable portion of the community seems to favor - cannot even be considered.  If DCPS/DME has legitimate reasons not to pursue those approaches, then DCPS/DME should be willing to spell those reasons out and discuss them openly.  If there are other limitations that DCPS/DME is putting on the available approaches, then those should be explained as well.  Otherwise, community involvement is ineffective and frustrating.

5. I suspect DCPS/DME really wants to delay this issue entirely until after the next election, or perhaps indefinitely.  I think people need to be active and pushy if they want DCPS to actually address this issue.[/quote]

Please call me Z.  I appreciate your cordial tone-- I should not be so cranky!

Here's the thing.  I agree that taking schools out of the feeder pattern is politically unrealistic.  I do.  And I understand that they don't want to make any changes that would make Wilson serve fewer students of color.  They did the reboundary process and now it's done, no more changes for a while.  I don't live in Ward 3 and have no plans to send a kid to Wilson ever.  My kid goes to a Title I that many of the people all worked up about Wilson would never, ever consider.  So I really don't have anything at stake with the feeder patterns thing.

What really frustrates me, though, is this.  It seems like the only solution in the long term is to develop a second large comprehensive high school that upper-income families are willing to attend.  But the things that would have to be done to make that happen are not politically feasible either.  I think to make, say, Eastern or Coolidge into a desirable school, would cost millions of dollars.  It is fantastically expensive to serve the needs of low-income and academically challenging students while also providing the kinds of things that attract upper-income and high-achieving students.  And to do it for just one school is politically very challenging, for one school to get a ton of money and others not.  Test-in programs are politically difficult too because they wouldn't necessarily be as racially diverse as downtown would like, and would require extra money too.  So it's just very, very difficult to do.  And it frustrates me that downtown is up-front about changing feeder patterns being off the table because it's too hard, yet they will not acknowledge that creating a second comprehensive high school is also politically unrealistic.  Why is one unrealistic proposal being moved off the table, but we are expected to maintain the charade for other unrealistic proposals?

Brian, I would love to hear your thoughts on this.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics