Anonymous wrote:We've been at a HRC for four years and please no more. Had I known what I know now I wouldn't have bought into the packaging, the rhetoric, the promises of something newer, shinier, superior. The charter my kids attended have inexperienced administrators who are lacking across the board. These schools get away with everything, get caught, apologize (sometimes), say they will improve, but whoops, it doesn't happen. It's the kids who suffer and miss fundamentals year after year. Such a frustrating experience. Wish we would have invested in our local DCPS.

Annnnddddd when the charter messes up too bad they can just rebrand themselves and come back with a different name. Sometimes for the better sometimes not. There is one charter that lost its charter then rolled over into another charter that is now hiring a ton of inexperienced brand new teachers. In the meantime DCPS is ushering out the experienced teachers because they have reached the salary cap. SMH

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing a great job making progress considering that, unlike charters, they can't IN ANY way "cherry pick" students. Or "counsel them out".

Out-of-boundary students can be sent back to their in-boundary school at the principal's discretion. Some principals use that power to "cherry pick" and "counsel out" students.

Technically, yes but at the elementary level this is rarely, if ever, done. Ive heard of it at Wilson in really egregious cases.

Dcps schools cannot cherry pick like the charters, not at all, especially with the new lottery system, its all very tightly controlled.

Negative! It is done to students from Southeast who are attending schools OOB. Typically it is the result of attendance issues. The principal will use the reasoning that if they are having trouble getting to school (or getting to school on time) then you should be at their neighborhood school. And while on the surface it might sound logical there are sometimes circumstances that are extenuating.

NO, that is not cherry-picking like charters because in the end it is another DCPS school that has to take them in.....yes, it may be one individual DCPS school that is doing this but they end up going to another one. So as a system, the comment "DCPS schools cannot cherry pick like the charters..." is correct.

Except only a zealot like yourself would think about this in terms of DCPS vs Charter. People looking for quality school options care about the school they are at (or to which they will go). They don't care about your public policy statement. So I think what the other person was trying to say is that cherry picking is something in which all good schools might engage, not just Charter schools. HRCS may do it because they want to maintain a standard and drive away "undesirable" kids, LRCS are unlikely to do so as they don't have a waitlist. Same thing at DCPS schools. An underenrolled school isn't going to drive away kids; Ludlow Taylor might. (Relax people, just an example of a school that used to take lots of OOB kids and because of the test scores and neighborhood growth they don't need to anymore.)

Most parents (low income, high income, middle income) are too busy living their lives to engage in all or none zealotry. I'm thrilled you have the time and energy to do so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing a great job making progress considering that, unlike charters, they can't IN ANY way "cherry pick" students. Or "counsel them out".

Out-of-boundary students can be sent back to their in-boundary school at the principal's discretion. Some principals use that power to "cherry pick" and "counsel out" students.

Technically, yes but at the elementary level this is rarely, if ever, done. Ive heard of it at Wilson in really egregious cases.

Dcps schools cannot cherry pick like the charters, not at all, especially with the new lottery system, its all very tightly controlled.

Negative! It is done to students from Southeast who are attending schools OOB. Typically it is the result of attendance issues. The principal will use the reasoning that if they are having trouble getting to school (or getting to school on time) then you should be at their neighborhood school. And while on the surface it might sound logical there are sometimes circumstances that are extenuating.

NO, that is not cherry-picking like charters because in the end it is another DCPS school that has to take them in.....yes, it may be one individual DCPS school that is doing this but they end up going to another one. So as a system, the comment "DCPS schools cannot cherry pick like the charters..." is correct.

Anonymous wrote:We've been at a HRC for four years and please no more. Had I known what I know now I wouldn't have bought into the packaging, the rhetoric, the promises of something newer, shinier, superior. The charter my kids attended have inexperienced administrators who are lacking across the board. These schools get away with everything, get caught, apologize (sometimes), say they will improve, but whoops, it doesn't happen. It's the kids who suffer and miss fundamentals year after year. Such a frustrating experience. Wish we would have invested in our local DCPS.

I smell a rat! This is utter BS and it's obvious. If you want to argue against charters then do it, but do it honestly. It makes no sense that you have "suffered" through your charter's incompetence for FOUR YEARS. It doesn't even pass the smell test. If you didn't like the quality of the education you were getting and preferred DCPS then you're a horrible parent with out of whack priorities. Seriously, you're either one of the charter hating BS artists that can't make an honest or intellectual argument or one of the world's worst parents. Either way I feel bad for your kids because they're going to have to overcome having a loathsome person like you as their parent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing a great job making progress considering that, unlike charters, they can't IN ANY way "cherry pick" students. Or "counsel them out".

Out-of-boundary students can be sent back to their in-boundary school at the principal's discretion. Some principals use that power to "cherry pick" and "counsel out" students.

Technically, yes but at the elementary level this is rarely, if ever, done. Ive heard of it at Wilson in really egregious cases.

Dcps schools cannot cherry pick like the charters, not at all, especially with the new lottery system, its all very tightly controlled.

Negative! It is done to students from Southeast who are attending schools OOB. Typically it is the result of attendance issues. The principal will use the reasoning that if they are having trouble getting to school (or getting to school on time) then you should be at their neighborhood school. And while on the surface it might sound logical there are sometimes circumstances that are extenuating.

Right, and there is zero evidence that charters are any more or less likely than DCPS schools to do this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing a great job making progress considering that, unlike charters, they can't IN ANY way "cherry pick" students. Or "counsel them out".

Out-of-boundary students can be sent back to their in-boundary school at the principal's discretion. Some principals use that power to "cherry pick" and "counsel out" students.

Technically, yes but at the elementary level this is rarely, if ever, done. Ive heard of it at Wilson in really egregious cases.

Dcps schools cannot cherry pick like the charters, not at all, especially with the new lottery system, its all very tightly controlled.

Negative! It is done to students from Southeast who are attending schools OOB. Typically it is the result of attendance issues. The principal will use the reasoning that if they are having trouble getting to school (or getting to school on time) then you should be at their neighborhood school. And while on the surface it might sound logical there are sometimes circumstances that are extenuating.

We've been at a HRC for four years and please no more. Had I known what I know now I wouldn't have bought into the packaging, the rhetoric, the promises of something newer, shinier, superior. The charter my kids attended have inexperienced administrators who are lacking across the board. These schools get away with everything, get caught, apologize (sometimes), say they will improve, but whoops, it doesn't happen. It's the kids who suffer and miss fundamentals year after year. Such a frustrating experience. Wish we would have invested in our local DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS does a horrible job making kids safe in the classroom. The anti-bullying law is form without substance, no doubt due to influence from DCPS. DC would do best to give everyone a voucher to send their kids where they want.

This is not restricted to DCPS. A kid in my child's HRCs (one of the ones where people stood outside overnight before they joined the common lottery) pulled out in the middle of the year because she was the target of assessing bullying. The charter school was not equipped or did not equip itself to handle the bullying. The kid will attend a new school for the 2015-16 school year.

Well, at least the bully hasn't been counseled out of the HRCS, like so many would claim. I think that bullying is a real problem in many schools.

Bullies, not bully. Think of mean girls.

People used to have paid line standers to get into Oyster.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing a great job making progress considering that, unlike charters, they can't IN ANY way "cherry pick" students. Or "counsel them out".

Or impose barriers to entry, such as only taking kids at certain entry times, or require parents to be savvy about a lottery months ahead of the start of school, or have enormous transportation hurdles.
.

Or paying people to stand in line overnight to get a good waitlist spot. Unbelievable that was ever allowed but I guess that's what made parents think they were getting a private school education for free.

I can see why they wanted the time stamp waitlist, the language is difficult and parent commitment is essential to student success, but it will be interesting to see if there are significant changes in results once the student body is more representative of a random lottery.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi Kaya!

Kaya Henderson is generally supportive of all education reform in DC.

She supports DCPS first and does not take shots at charters unless they bump up against specific plans to hold onto DCPS buildings or create new programs that duplicate what she has in mind.

That's exactly the right attitude. It's certainly how I see it. Charters are supposed to fill gaps left by the public-run system (montessori etc). They should not compete directly with it, and should be given a fair second choice for buildings after the public system has decided they're not needed.

The problem is that parents outside of wards 3, 2 and 6 are choosing charters despite their relatively worse locations, buildings, and payrolls. Go figure!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS does a horrible job making kids safe in the classroom. The anti-bullying law is form without substance, no doubt due to influence from DCPS. DC would do best to give everyone a voucher to send their kids where they want.

This is not restricted to DCPS. A kid in my child's HRCs (one of the ones where people stood outside overnight before they joined the common lottery) pulled out in the middle of the year because she was the target of assessing bullying. The charter school was not equipped or did not equip itself to handle the bullying. The kid will attend a new school for the 2015-16 school year.

Well, at least the bully hasn't been counseled out of the HRCS, like so many would claim. I think that bullying is a real problem in many schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi Kaya!

Kaya Henderson is generally supportive of all education reform in DC.

She supports DCPS first and does not take shots at charters unless they bump up against specific plans to hold onto DCPS buildings or create new programs that duplicate what she has in mind.

That's exactly the right attitude. It's certainly how I see it. Charters are supposed to fill gaps left by the public-run system (montessori etc). They should not compete directly with it, and should be given a fair second choice for buildings after the public system has decided they're not needed.

Anonymous wrote:Hi Kaya!

Kaya Henderson is generally supportive of all education reform in DC.

She supports DCPS first and does not take shots at charters unless they bump up against specific plans to hold onto DCPS buildings or create new programs that duplicate what she has in mind.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing a great job making progress considering that, unlike charters, they can't IN ANY way "cherry pick" students. Or "counsel them out".

Out-of-boundary students can be sent back to their in-boundary school at the principal's discretion. Some principals use that power to "cherry pick" and "counsel out" students.

Technically, yes but at the elementary level this is rarely, if ever, done. Ive heard of it at Wilson in really egregious cases.

Dcps schools cannot cherry pick like the charters, not at all, especially with the new lottery system, its all very tightly controlled.

Charters use the exact same lottery as DCPS.

Now yeah, and it's voluntary on their end. All charters are not apart of the common lottery.