Anonymous wrote:It's absurd that anyone's seriously suggesting reserving space for OOB kids as way of ensuring diversity. Everyone knows that what makes Deal a good school is the students at Deal -- i.e., the in bound students. Instead of trying to find ways to get more OOB kids into Deal, how about enticing some Deal students to go to other schools around the city?

What exactly makes the in bound students the reason Deal is a good school?

It's absurd that anyone's seriously suggesting reserving space for OOB kids as way of ensuring diversity. Everyone knows that what makes Deal a good school is the students at Deal -- i.e., the in bound students. Instead of trying to find ways to get more OOB kids into Deal, how about enticing some Deal students to go to other schools around the city?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the reference-- so DC needs to integrate the population of upper northwest. what is DC doing to entice African-Americans to live in upper northwest? I know this will sound racist, but the decree is fundamentally racist, but maybe DC could increase public housing in upper northwest as a way to encourage black families EOTP to move into Deal's boundary. Then the city can limit Deal to only those that live in the neighborhood without violating the decree.

Why do they need public housing? I'm a poor foreigner renting in upper NW so my kid can go to one of the schools here.I chose less space so he can go to the school of our choice.

Not to diverge from a schools discussion to a city planning discussion, but there should be affordable housing (not "public housing," which is a largely discredited concept that conjures unpleasant images of Cabrini-Green) in ALL parts of the city, not just the "poor" sections. All parts of the ciy should share the "burden," and concentrated low-income housing is bad for the entire city.

Deal is overpopulated.Time to make Hardy into neighborhood school.I'm sending my kid to Hardy, and I have a feeling he'll do great there.I'll do extra homeschooling if I have to, but I'm not paying $30k for private nor am I going to drive over through town in rush hour to get to school.
There are many "diversities" , I'm rooting for the international one that includes different races.

I agree with you 100% PP. My kids attended Lafayette and are now at Deal but I really wish the Lafayette community would have staked some guidelines like this and ensured that the school population would always be at least 25% OOB. I know it's pollyana-ish but so many white families talk about wanting diversity, I just with they would put their money where their mouth is. I didn't have the courage to call them on it.

(FWIW we are an IB AA family)

^ I support this in principle. My concern remains:

1) There is an optimal amount of OOB. I don't know this number, but it needs to be low enough to not drive out the anchor families but high enough to actually do some good.
2) BIG ONE: what happens when you have 1000 spots at a school, with 200 reserved for OOB but 900 IB demand? The school must first be able to accommodate all IB families. That's the crux of the issue.

Tell me that my kid won't get into our neighborhood ES and that I'm supposed to drive her across town and I'm gone before you finish the sentence.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the reference-- so DC needs to integrate the population of upper northwest. what is DC doing to entice African-Americans to live in upper northwest? I know this will sound racist, but the decree is fundamentally racist, but maybe DC could increase public housing in upper northwest as a way to encourage black families EOTP to move into Deal's boundary. Then the city can limit Deal to only those that live in the neighborhood without violating the decree.

Why do they need public housing? I'm a poor foreigner renting in upper NW so my kid can go to one of the schools here.I chose less space so he can go to the school of our choice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A public MS or HS with Janney / Lafayette demographics in DC is politically and ethically unacceptable. Don't like it, leave.

I get why it's politically unacceptable. Why ethically? You believe that neighborhood schools are unethical?

I believe in neighborhood public schools, but they are difficult to defend in DC if they become rich/white enclaves. Those who want neighborhood schools, I would suggest, should embrace diversity and think of structures that accomodate both neighborhood priority and diversity. As illustrated by Deal, it is possible to run a great MS based on a core of students from middle/upper middle class families in the neighborhood, mixed with 25-30% lower SES/OOB students. Keep that mix and invest in bringing other MSs up to par and you have a system that can generate broad buy in. Proposing a system that turns Deal and Wilson into reflections of the student demographics at Janney and Lafayette in advance of the development of other options will generate push back from the rest of the city, and give strength to those who want a more radical break from the system of neighborhood schools (as seen in San Francisco).

My point is only that the decree is focussed on race-- not socio economics. Therefore, to conform with the decree the focus must remain on race.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the reference-- so DC needs to integrate the population of upper northwest. what is DC doing to entice African-Americans to live in upper northwest? I know this will sound racist, but the decree is fundamentally racist, but maybe DC could increase public housing in upper northwest as a way to encourage black families EOTP to move into Deal's boundary. Then the city can limit Deal to only those that live in the neighborhood without violating the decree.

Sure, I agree. But only if you discard 300 years of American history.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Cite your arguments. Saying it's a very winnable lawsuit without any appeal to legal precedent or even legalistic arguments contributes little to the discussion. Saying it so matter-of-factly when you have limited legal background is yet worse.

In 1970, Deal was redistricted to include Mann and Hearst, and the redistricting was challenged in court. Judge Skelley Wright ordered the redistricting reversed, and writing that:

any action by the Board itself which further imperils the integrated status of one of the few remaining District schools where real integration is possible ... must be treated by this court as a violation of its 1967 decree.

(see http://www.leagle.com/decision/19701040320FSupp720_1890)

The "1967 decree" was the ruling in Hobson vs. Hansen, which abolished tracking and any other school organizational schemes which were discriminatory in effect.


This ruling has governed DCPS ever since, that no redistricting can reduce the diversity of an integrated school. Note that intent is not a consideration, just the outcome.

Thank you.

Several notes, bearing in mind that I am not a lawyer (so dismiss at will). (I have studied many Supreme Court cases for economics research projects, so I'm at least familiar with legal argumentation.)

"The facts as seen by the court are that the school board is under an injunction against racial or social discrimination, and that it has violated this injunction by knowingly taking a pupil placement action which permits white children to escape an increasingly black school." The legal case cited is about removing students from a relatively integrated school for the express purpose of escaping integration. That would not be the intent, outcome, or process here. Importantly, the case pertains to the move from an undercrowded school to an overcrowded school. That cannot be emphasized enough when judging the applicability of this ruling to the present process. Those defendants [Hearst and Mann seeking to move from Gordon MS to Deal MS] admitted that the move exacerbated the crowding problem and reflected a deviation from boundary criteria. (They say it's only a small deviation.) These facts/admissions limit the scope of the ruling.

The legal opinion reaffirms neighborhood boundary policy in several places (though admittedly lukewarm). For example, "Although the court in its 1967 decree did not ban the neighborhood school policy, it did hold improper the use of this policy as an excuse for discrimination in pupil assignment." Elsewhere too.

The judge reached her verdict by concluding "ostensible reasons for [School Board Administrator] modification of the proposed cluster plan as being mere rationalizations of segregatory intent."

There seems to be some overreach here: "While the court is aware of the danger of inferring guilt in the present from a finding of guilt in the past, it does feel that a history of segregatory intent is not completely irrelevant to the inquiry."

Semi-related: here are two articles from Seattle, which moved back to a neighborhood system, saying that addressing diversity is beyond the scope of the role of public schools.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2010303704_webboundary18m.html
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2010012165_webboundaries07m.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Cite your arguments. Saying it's a very winnable lawsuit without any appeal to legal precedent or even legalistic arguments contributes little to the discussion. Saying it so matter-of-factly when you have limited legal background is yet worse.

In 1970, Deal was redistricted to include Mann and Hearst, and the redistricting was challenged in court. Judge Skelley Wright ordered the redistricting reversed, and writing that:

any action by the Board itself which further imperils the integrated status of one of the few remaining District schools where real integration is possible ... must be treated by this court as a violation of its 1967 decree.

(see http://www.leagle.com/decision/19701040320FSupp720_1890)

The "1967 decree" was the ruling in Hobson vs. Hansen, which abolished tracking and any other school organizational schemes which were discriminatory in effect.


This ruling has governed DCPS ever since, that no redistricting can reduce the diversity of an integrated school. Note that intent is not a consideration, just the outcome.

However, the Supreme Court's ruling in Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229 (1976) would likely be interpreted as overruling Hobson vs. Hansen. From Wikipedia,

The legal rule created in Washington is that under the constitution's equal protection jurisprudence, "a law or other official act, without regard to whether it reflects a racially discriminatory purpose, [is not] unconstitutional solely because it has a racially disproportionate impact." Thus, in addition to proving a discriminatory effect, a plaintiff must prove discriminatory motive on the state actor's part to receive redress under the constitution. The court noted that "disproportionate impact is not irrelevant, but it is not the sole touchstone of an invidious racial discrimination forbidden by the Constitution". The purpose-based standard elucidated in the Court's 1976 opinion has made it much more difficult for plaintiffs to prevail in discrimination suits arising under the constitution.

In a school system with a stated preference for neighborhood schools, redrawing the boundaries of an overcrowded neighborhood MS to bring enrollment down to capacity would probably survive a legal challenge, even if it has the effect of reducing minority enrollment.

De facto residential segregation is the cause of what we're seeing today. That is the problem and I an unhappy to see resort to arguments about school segregation to argue against plans that would create integration in fact. Use your principles to support just results.

Anonymous wrote:
Cite your arguments. Saying it's a very winnable lawsuit without any appeal to legal precedent or even legalistic arguments contributes little to the discussion. Saying it so matter-of-factly when you have limited legal background is yet worse.

Sorry, I assumed that even people of limited legal backgrounds were aware of that school segregation had been deemed illegal some time ago.

My argument is that even under the Hobson cases a citywide feeder pattern change has a strong basis and would pass any heightened level of scrutiny. The courts will not treat the Deal and Wilson track as a third rail, and I'm sorry that people would use this as an excuse to fight a rationalized citywide system that will reinvigorate the rest of the City. I'm tired of a city that works for some, and those that want to to climb in their bandwagon.