Reply to Why is the overcrowding issue so complex?

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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]I have to recommend again this article:
https://ggwash.org/view/71802/can-dcps-survive-the-coming-enrollment-surge

Money quote:
[quote]
For most of the past 50 years, DC Public Schools (DCPS) has had way too many schools, and the most pressing facilities issue for the agency has been how to close and dispose of unneeded buildings in an orderly manner. Even though DC has gained over 22,000 public school students since 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS shrunk from 134 to 110 schools, the number of seats still exceeds the number of students by about 25%.

Today, DCPS has a capacity of 61,925 seats and only 48,043 students, according to the Master Facilities Plan. However, if the projections hold, by 2027 – which is only eight years away – DCPS will have 61,697 students. For the first time in 60 years—two generations—DCPS is going to be full. And it's likely going to grow from there.
[/quote][/quote]

Ward 3 is seeing what the rest of the city is going to be seeing very soon. [/quote]

I don't know why you believe this - there is a massive amount of spare MS and HS capacity EOTP and you don't have to go to Anacostia to find it.  Just at Coolidge, Cardozo and Roosevelt alone you can accommodate 1500+ kids no problem.  I get that gentrifiers don't want their kids to attend those schools but people in Ward 3 shouldn't have to deal with unsafe conditions at Deal and Wilson to accommodate them either.[/quote]

1) Make kids go IB for high school no matter what. It will fix deal if people know they aren't getting feeder rights. 
2) Make an income maximum for the School lottery of 75k per year per family. Then no more white families buying cheap EOTP homes and expecting Ward 3 schools but poor families still have a shot for good starts .[/quote]

You also need to find someway to cut UMC families out of charters or alternately allow charters to evolve over time to being more neighborhood oriented.  Charters were a solution to 1995's problems - I doubt 25 years ago anyone would have anticipated so many UMC white families flooding the charters and taking slots they anticipated would be going to working class POC from poor neighborhoods.  Gentrifying neighborhoods should be seeing dramatic improvements in their in-bound schools but aren't because gentrifiers aren't enrolling their kids and that in fact is causing things to worsen at these schools instead of improve as their enrollment sags.

You want to live in Petworth?  Great - part and parcel of the deal should be you send your kids to their neighborhood school along with your neighbors kids who have lived in the neighborhood for generations rather than holding up your nose and using your superior resources to enroll your kids elsewhere.[/quote]

LMAO. I live in Petworth and the first thing my long-time neighbours told me was that no one on the block sends their kids IB and they could help us find a school.[/quote]

+1000.  I tried so hard at our IB.  For years.  And my neighbors all rolled their eyes and went to Catholic and Friendship schools.  After four years of beating my head on the brick wall of dysfunction and incompetence that is DCPS, I saw the light.[/quote]

Yet your neighborhood still has under enrolled public schools that some people in the neighborhood are sending their kids too.

I get that there is some chicken and egg stuff here but someone needs to go first and primary reasons schools improve are their demographics change and because parents get involved and help to improve them.  Everyone from Petworth racing all over DC for charters and OOB Public Schools makes that impossible and leads to overcrowding in Ward 3 which also makes those schools worse.[/quote]

Yes, some people are-- lottery losers, late arrivals, idealistic upper income people, and lots of immigrants.  But emphatically not longtime neighborhood residents.

You are missing the point.  People "went first" 5 years ago.  Parents *are* involved.  It's not like people aren't giving DCPS a chances. But the harder they try and the longer they stay, the more they learn about how deeply and profoundly toxic DCPS actually is at the central office.  That is the problem.  Not people's unwillingness to work or to give it a chance.[/quote]

You are missing the point.

The Ward 3 schools you are clamoring for are dealing with the exact same toxic DCPS central office.

The difference is the Ward 3 schools have a critical mass of UMC parents with the resources and clout to overcome those problems which in the process lifts all of the students at a school.

I appreciate that some people tried and didn't succeed but the answer is to duplicate the SES mix that has lifted WOTP schools not to further dissipate those students around the city rather than concentrating them in their own neighborhoods.

And it isn't the fault of those parents who have tried - it is the fault of city leaders who won't take on the charters and re-draw the boundaries and end all of the OOB feeder rights which would enable the city to create additional clusters of successful public schools in DC.[/quote]

Try a little math.  There is no way the SES mix of Ward 3 would be duplicated even if everyone did attend their IB.  There aren't enough high income people for that.  And if Ward 3 schools lost their OOB parents they would have considerably less political clout and would likely be worse schools because of it.  Favoritism of Ward 3 schools is part of DCPS' dysfunction and inherent racism, but it's the only way Ward 3 schools can keep their parents satisfied.  Without that's the system falls apart and there are no schools that anyone is satisfied with.[/quote]

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