Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way they'll be able to pull off the lottery come December with so much reprogramming necessary based on address changes, new levels of preference, etc. Gray and his successor may embrace the changes but the people tasked to put it into play will fail miserably. Curious how many charters will continue to agree to be part of a unified lottery.

I talked to the person from DME responsible for the technical side of thee myschoolsdc.com lottery and she said that it will be very easy to get it ready for the new boundaries. I was surprised, but she was very confident.

Sorry, I don't buy it. The people who launched the Federal Health Insurance Exchange were confident too and there were contracts in place that dwarf whatever My School DC has. We're talking a brand new lottery based on new boundaries, new preference (at-risk), set asides that vary in percentage (elementary v. 6th v. 9th) and will be different for each school based on current at-risk percentages compared to the full enrollment (or is school capacity or how will it be calculated?) and a system where principals are going to be striped of their authority to handle their own waitlist. Plus principals at some schools are going to have to stand ready to offer PS3 and PK spots to anyone in-boundary as a matter of right, regardless of what the space or personnel budget allows. It is going to be very complex and they will have to execute it well, otherwise people will not trust the results. Let's remember that DCPS sent out prepopulated enrollment paperwork this year which all indicated the wrong grade for current DCPS students.

No IT person thought ACA was going to work correctly out of the box, way too many different entities to deal with. DC's lottery is no where near as complex, no matter how many rules you add. The algorithm is already in place and more importantly, the school staffs and parents will have a year of training under their belt.

Anonymous wrote:Good point about the dangers of waiting too long... Lose even more families.

The opportunity cost of delaying is real.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way they'll be able to pull off the lottery come December with so much reprogramming necessary based on address changes, new levels of preference, etc. Gray and his successor may embrace the changes but the people tasked to put it into play will fail miserably. Curious how many charters will continue to agree to be part of a unified lottery.

I talked to the person from DME responsible for the technical side of thee myschoolsdc.com lottery and she said that it will be very easy to get it ready for the new boundaries. I was surprised, but she was very confident.

Sorry, I don't buy it. The people who launched the Federal Health Insurance Exchange were confident too and there were contracts in place that dwarf whatever My School DC has. We're talking a brand new lottery based on new boundaries, new preference (at-risk), set asides that vary in percentage (elementary v. 6th v. 9th) and will be different for each school based on current at-risk percentages compared to the full enrollment (or is school capacity or how will it be calculated?) and a system where principals are going to be striped of their authority to handle their own waitlist. Plus principals at some schools are going to have to stand ready to offer PS3 and PK spots to anyone in-boundary as a matter of right, regardless of what the space or personnel budget allows. It is going to be very complex and they will have to execute it well, otherwise people will not trust the results. Let's remember that DCPS sent out prepopulated enrollment paperwork this year which all indicated the wrong grade for current DCPS students.

Anonymous wrote:But aren't families choosing neighborhood schools more and more already?
It seems to me that DCPS should be working on those new middle schools while young families are starting to go to the neighborhood schools. This will keep the families invested in those schools with a hopeful eye on the future MS.
Let the trend take hold and encourage it to continue by supporting what parents are already doing and investing in the future. Isn't that what Catania basically has said?

I too am a bit of a conspiracy theorist about charter schools. I am not convinced that there aren't alterior motives ($$$$$$) and that the real plan is to impode DCPS to make way for more charters a la New Orleans without the hurricane. Money to be made...just ask the couple in charge of Basis.

You worry about your conspiracy, meanwhile my two kids are getting a rock solid education - and having a great time at BASIS..

But aren't families choosing neighborhood schools more and more already?
It seems to me that DCPS should be working on those new middle schools while young families are starting to go to the neighborhood schools. This will keep the families invested in those schools with a hopeful eye on the future MS.
Let the trend take hold and encourage it to continue by supporting what parents are already doing and investing in the future. Isn't that what Catania basically has said?

I too am a bit of a conspiracy theorist about charter schools. I am not convinced that there aren't alterior motives ($$$$$$) and that the real plan is to impode DCPS to make way for more charters a la New Orleans without the hurricane. Money to be made...just ask the couple in charge of Basis.

Good point about the dangers of waiting too long... Lose even more families.

The urgency is all about taking advantage of demographic trends to get higher SES kids into lower performing schools. The recession-driven baby boom has given the city a critical mass of kids currently in the early grades of ES with more on the way. If more of them get into their neighborhood schools and stick with those schools through the testing grades - as opposed to jumping around to charters and OOB, which weakens cohorts and challenges teachers who have to deal with varied learning levels - then there 's a greater chance of raising scores at underperforming schools. You also have solid classes ready to feed the middle and high schools.

If we wait until say 2016-17, we lose more families to OOB and charter in those early grades, and we still have overcrowded schools, underenrolled schools, and more families moving to the suburbs.

My kid's going into PK4 at a rising school that feeds into a non-existent MS. We need more than that school to rise - we need the other neighborhood schools around us to fill up and rise as well, so there are plenty of "well-prepared" 6th graders to feed that middle school.

The new boundary proposal puts us at an ES that I would not consider an option if I hadn't learned (thanks to the unified lottery) that it went from priority to reward in just three years.

It doesn't take as long as you think to turn schools around. But the time to start is now.

Could it be a promise to open DCPS by weakening neighborhood schools. BASIS is private and there are many other private charters that want to enter DC. Destabilizing DCPS could make it easy for charters in 2016. Particularly because growth is slowing in DC and several are predicting a recession. Where will the funds come from for the "new middle schools," all these people could be forced into charters very quickly under a scarce resource scenario.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way they'll be able to pull off the lottery come December with so much reprogramming necessary based on address changes, new levels of preference, etc. Gray and his successor may embrace the changes but the people tasked to put it into play will fail miserably. Curious how many charters will continue to agree to be part of a unified lottery.

I talked to the person from DME responsible for the technical side of thee myschoolsdc.com lottery and she said that it will be very easy to get it ready for the new boundaries. I was surprised, but she was very confident.

I also talked to someone from the common lottery who said that all the charter schools that participated this year will be participating next year.

Anonymous wrote:There is no way they'll be able to pull off the lottery come December with so much reprogramming necessary based on address changes, new levels of preference, etc. Gray and his successor may embrace the changes but the people tasked to put it into play will fail miserably. Curious how many charters will continue to agree to be part of a unified lottery.

I talked to the person from DME responsible for the technical side of thee myschoolsdc.com lottery and she said that it will be very easy to get it ready for the new boundaries. I was surprised, but she was very confident.

There is no way they'll be able to pull off the lottery come December with so much reprogramming necessary based on address changes, new levels of preference, etc. Gray and his successor may embrace the changes but the people tasked to put it into play will fail miserably. Curious how many charters will continue to agree to be part of a unified lottery.

That would be hard to do when the lottery opens in December. People will have already applied under the new boundaries.

I think the fear/assumption you express PP has been gaining momentum and therefore whoever gets elected will not get a free pass in trying to blame it on their predecessor. They will be blamed and there will be demand that they undo what was done. In think the candidates should come forward now to say "stop this."

I agree they should slow it down. But I wonder if the mayoral candidates secretly want something to go through so that the controversy is pinned on Gray and they don't have to make tough political decisions. I think it will go through.

I attended the meeting a Takoma last week where several people pushed the DME and her team to explain why they are insisting on sticking to the deadline they established at the start of this process, long before I believe they (or we) understood all that this process would entail? Why are they continuing on this death march? Why must their proposals go into effect for 2015-16 when big things like new middle schools and phasing out education campuses are obviously several years away? Is it because of a contract that is in place? Because of the mayoral election? Why? I just don't understand the unflinching determination by the DME to tie this thing up by September and put it into effect for the following school year. It seems so crazy to me

Mary Cheh issued a letter today calling for the DME to revisit her rushed, artificial timeline. Thoughts?