Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to think the lottery was fair. But after COVID and seeing how certain zip codes were given preference for potentially life saving vaccines I no longer have faith in our system. Equity is so baked into DC at all costs that anyone who thinks the school lottery is immune from that is deceiving themselves.

But this makes no sense because the city was transparent about giving those zip codes vaccine preference and explained why they were doing so. You might have found the policy unfair, but it wasn't secretive and the city was very transparent about what they were doing.

So it makes no sense to look at that and think, therefore, the lottery must be secretly rigged in favor of certain kids. Obviously DC feels comfortable being transparent about programs that may seem unequal but which they believe are more equitable. If they wanted to change the lottery to benefit certain populations, they would and they would just say that's what they are doing.

That's basically what the "equitable access" preference for certain charters is, and again, totally transparent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many people replying here are conflating lottery administration and outcomes, which are transparent and fair, with the public policy decisions and outcomes associated with preferences (e.g, equitable access, IB). Some of you are tin foil hat confused; that's unfortunate but understandable. But some of you are intentionally muddying the waters for your own amusement. That's plain mean.

The lottery is fair and transparent. It applies the rules as they are written. Whether or not you think the rules should be what they are is different question entirely. Let's not confuse the two.

Dumb post from a dumb person. Nothing at all added.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to think the lottery was fair. But after COVID and seeing how certain zip codes were given preference for potentially life saving vaccines I no longer have faith in our system. Equity is so baked into DC at all costs that anyone who thinks the school lottery is immune from that is deceiving themselves.

But this makes no sense because the city was transparent about giving those zip codes vaccine preference and explained why they were doing so. You might have found the policy unfair, but it wasn't secretive and the city was very transparent about what they were doing.

So it makes no sense to look at that and think, therefore, the lottery must be secretly rigged in favor of certain kids. Obviously DC feels comfortable being transparent about programs that may seem unequal but which they believe are more equitable. If they wanted to change the lottery to benefit certain populations, they would and they would just say that's what they are doing.

That's basically what the "equitable access" preference for certain charters is, and again, totally transparent.

Anonymous wrote:I used to think the lottery was fair. But after COVID and seeing how certain zip codes were given preference for potentially life saving vaccines I no longer have faith in our system. Equity is so baked into DC at all costs that anyone who thinks the school lottery is immune from that is deceiving themselves.

Anonymous wrote:Many people replying here are conflating lottery administration and outcomes, which are transparent and fair, with the public policy decisions and outcomes associated with preferences (e.g, equitable access, IB). Some of you are tin foil hat confused; that's unfortunate but understandable. But some of you are intentionally muddying the waters for your own amusement. That's plain mean.

The lottery is fair and transparent. It applies the rules as they are written. Whether or not you think the rules should be what they are is different question entirely. Let's not confuse the two.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lottery is not rigged and it's very transparent. Now there are interesting ramifications of not considering demographics that you flag. For example, my child is in K at a school on the Hill where the racial makeup of the school has moved from majority black to majority white. This reflects the neighborhood. When we were in prek3 and prek4, the % of white kids skyrocketed from previous years (much more heavily white than the neighborhood). One could make the argument that race or income or other family demos should be considered so ECE has a balanced class reflective of the neighborhood. But prek3 and prek4 aren't a right to attend in boundary and aren't mandated. The universal prek program in DC was set up to not include these demos and I'm not an education researcher so can't speak to benefits or drawbacks. We went to an open house at SWS and were asking why the school is so white and what they were going to do about that...and were honestly told that it's hard because the rules of the lottery don't take into account race. So they are focusing on marketing so all students know about SWS and there's an applicant pool reflective of the city. The schools themselves can't do anything to change the lottery results even if they want to...and some of why they might want to might be for very good reasons.

All this to say, I would take the tin foil hat off. There's some very interesting and important discussions to be had about the lottery, does it lead to equitable outcomes and how to improve school choice and options in DC...but I don't think those are the discussions you're interested in having.

The schools can apply to implement Equitable Access preference. If SWS told you there is nothing they can do, they are lying. Many DCPS are doing it.

Anonymous wrote:The lottery is not rigged and it's very transparent. Now there are interesting ramifications of not considering demographics that you flag. For example, my child is in K at a school on the Hill where the racial makeup of the school has moved from majority black to majority white. This reflects the neighborhood. When we were in prek3 and prek4, the % of white kids skyrocketed from previous years (much more heavily white than the neighborhood). One could make the argument that race or income or other family demos should be considered so ECE has a balanced class reflective of the neighborhood. But prek3 and prek4 aren't a right to attend in boundary and aren't mandated. The universal prek program in DC was set up to not include these demos and I'm not an education researcher so can't speak to benefits or drawbacks. We went to an open house at SWS and were asking why the school is so white and what they were going to do about that...and were honestly told that it's hard because the rules of the lottery don't take into account race. So they are focusing on marketing so all students know about SWS and there's an applicant pool reflective of the city. The schools themselves can't do anything to change the lottery results even if they want to...and some of why they might want to might be for very good reasons.

All this to say, I would take the tin foil hat off. There's some very interesting and important discussions to be had about the lottery, does it lead to equitable outcomes and how to improve school choice and options in DC...but I don't think those are the discussions you're interested in having.

Anonymous wrote:I've wondered for years, and I figure there must be a former DCPS employee who knows the answer. So here's my list of questions: does the lottery take into account gender? What about ward? Or is it more like taking a percentage of each ward based on how many applicants from that ward? I have no idea why this isn't common knowledge and seems to be so hush hush, but here if there is someone who has actual details on how kids names are selected, I'd like to know.

Anonymous wrote:I used to think the lottery was fair. But after COVID and seeing how certain zip codes were given preference for potentially life saving vaccines I no longer have faith in our system. Equity is so baked into DC at all costs that anyone who thinks the school lottery is immune from that is deceiving themselves.