Mike Petrilli on twitter today. Someone tweeted his oped as an" effort to help DC manage the Big Flip" and Mike tweeted back

Michael Petrilli ?@MichaelPetrilli 1h
.@alexanderrusso @samchaltain @RickKahlenberg Well, we hope they can AVOID the Big Flip!


All I can say is that his plan to avoid the Big Flip will definitely work by driving away the middle and upper class from DC awfully quick. Problem solved!

There aren't that many WOTP/EOTR schools that are working - maybe we shouldn't mess them up.

I wish DCPS would try a little harder to harness the Brent and Maury parent energy to improve the middle schools. That would help a lot more kids in DCPS. It's frustrating that I bet many, many of us know more about DCPS schools and race relations in DC than the "experts" who wrote that op-ed.

I haven't read all the comments here, but I'll chime in. I totally understand why people wouldn't want their kids to be the guinea pig of some sort of educational policy shift and would have concerns. However, one thing I have noticed is that many, many cities move towards this approach, and sometimes it works. It isn't always perfect, and sometimes it can be a complete mess that doesn't serve anyone well (not that the neighborhood school model serves everyone well, anyway, though). In Chicago, for example, the selective admissions high schools (Payton, Young, Northside Prep, Lane Tech, etc. which are very very strong strong schools) weight entrance criteria based on socioeconomic status, with different standardized test score cutoffs for different groups. The idea is that those to whom much has been given in the way of enrichment, test prep, good K-8 schools have the means to get better scores. Does it piss parents off who are high SES because their kids have to be essentially perfect to attend one of those schools whereas someone from the ghetto has to make a much lower cutoff? Sure. But proportionally, it seems to represent talented kids from different backgrounds and essentially levels the playing field. A lot of wealthy parents who don't want to play this game and don't have the money for private school in case it doesn't work out ditch the city and move to the suburbs. However, for very talented kids, the top selective admissions schools offer wonderful, enriching curriculums and this weighting of socioeconomic status doesn't seem to affect the rigor of the school, college admissions, and other measures of success. It doesn't fix the problems in the rest of the school system, and it really doesn't serve average to slightly above average kids of high SES, though.

In Austin, I know of a school that is a rigorous, public all girls prep school that just opened a few years ago that has to be 75% FARMS. Their greatschools score remains 10/10. They have a lottery for qualified candidates (I believe they need to test proficient on state exams), and they do have a bit of a weeding out to self-select for those who don't take school seriously (with some concerns about this "weeding out" process regarding discipline). But they have a good track record with academics and college admissions.

Finally, I know Berkeley moved to a cluster system not long ago, and it seems to serve high SES parents well, for the most part. It seems like more parents are comfortable sending their kids to at least elementary school in Berkeley than in the past.

This program may be a mess, and might not fix anything. But it's not doomed to failure, it depends more on how it is implemented, the changing demographics of the city, and a number of other factors. The number of charters also offers a lot of alternatives to neighborhood schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep. And the people who complain the most about evil gentrifiers are usually those who have paid the least in DC taxes for how ever many years they have lived in DC. For decades-- DC soaked the rich to allegedly "help" the poor thru the region's most generous safety net-- while most of those tax dollars were siphoned off through a bureaucratic kleptocracy. Now there is a growing middle class that is getting large enough to make demands, and the kleptocrats do not like it-- thus the race baiting anti-gentrification smokescreen.

+1 Been in DC for 23 years and bought a home 15 years ago in a newly hot EoTP neighborhood, yet get called a gentrifier just because I am white and expect more from DCPS for my children. i personally embrace all the true gentrifiers who will pay top bucks for homes around here and also have high hopes for decent neighborhood public schools.

15 years ago no neighborhood EoTP was 'hot' as I lived here 15 years ago too.

Adams Morgan?

I lived in Adams Morgan in the 90s, trust me...no one was calling it a "newly hot" neighborhood. My rent was $800 a month. We spent a lot of time on the "clean up crackhead park" - that can't be what the poster was talking about.

Anonymous wrote:I fully support requiring charters like Mundo Verde and Yu Ying to have at least 50% FARMS.

Meh. I'm more interested in seeing Janney, Key, and Mann have 50% FARMS.

Anonymous wrote:Yep. And the people who complain the most about evil gentrifiers are usually those who have paid the least in DC taxes for how ever many years they have lived in DC. For decades-- DC soaked the rich to allegedly "help" the poor thru the region's most generous safety net-- while most of those tax dollars were siphoned off through a bureaucratic kleptocracy. Now there is a growing middle class that is getting large enough to make demands, and the kleptocrats do not like it-- thus the race baiting anti-gentrification smokescreen.

The kleptocrats still spend hundreds of millions in very questionable schools and then complain about the lack of resources elsewhere.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep. And the people who complain the most about evil gentrifiers are usually those who have paid the least in DC taxes for how ever many years they have lived in DC. For decades-- DC soaked the rich to allegedly "help" the poor thru the region's most generous safety net-- while most of those tax dollars were siphoned off through a bureaucratic kleptocracy. Now there is a growing middle class that is getting large enough to make demands, and the kleptocrats do not like it-- thus the race baiting anti-gentrification smokescreen.

+1 Been in DC for 23 years and bought a home 15 years ago in a newly hot EoTP neighborhood, yet get called a gentrifier just because I am white and expect more from DCPS for my children. i personally embrace all the true gentrifiers who will pay top bucks for homes around here and also have high hopes for decent neighborhood public schools.

15 years ago no neighborhood EoTP was 'hot' as I lived here 15 years ago too.

Adams Morgan?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ms Henderson's tweet was

"Interesting & provocative ideas fr @MichaelPetrilli @samchaltain @RickKahlenberg on integrated schools in #DC http://washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-dc-schools-can-ward-off-the-big-flip/2014/01/24/90548788-8479-11e3-9dd4-e7278db80d86_story.html "

I wouldn't exactly call that an endorsement.

+1, thanks for posting the tweet. I don't see where she says she agrees with their ideas. For all we know it was her way of politely acknowledging an article was written.

I wish she had been as strong as Scott Pearson:

@SDPearson: @MichaelPetrilli @samchaltain @dcpcsb weighted lotteries are a solution in search of a problem-All but one dc charters are >=40% low income.

I was curious, so I just looked up a couple of schools and there are at least 5 charters, according to the PCSB performance reports, with less than 40% FARMS. Strange he would say that. I mean, he could have easily said, only a handful of charters are 40% low income

Yu Ying, LAMB, Creative Minds, Inspired Teaching, Mundo Verde... there may be others

Which years data are you looking at?

The 2013 school performance reports are here: http://www.dcpcsb.org/MISC/2013-School-Performance-Reports.aspx

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep. And the people who complain the most about evil gentrifiers are usually those who have paid the least in DC taxes for how ever many years they have lived in DC. For decades-- DC soaked the rich to allegedly "help" the poor thru the region's most generous safety net-- while most of those tax dollars were siphoned off through a bureaucratic kleptocracy. Now there is a growing middle class that is getting large enough to make demands, and the kleptocrats do not like it-- thus the race baiting anti-gentrification smokescreen.

+1 Been in DC for 23 years and bought a home 15 years ago in a newly hot EoTP neighborhood, yet get called a gentrifier just because I am white and expect more from DCPS for my children. i personally embrace all the true gentrifiers who will pay top bucks for homes around here and also have high hopes for decent neighborhood public schools.

15 years ago no neighborhood EoTP was 'hot' as I lived here 15 years ago too.

The 10 PS3 spots that some want to set aside for FARMs eligible students at Brent will surely tip the balance for DCPS "socioeconomic diversity.". I take it the you will have to enter HHI info into the lottery matrix? This is breathtakingly stupid.

Anonymous wrote:Yep. And the people who complain the most about evil gentrifiers are usually those who have paid the least in DC taxes for how ever many years they have lived in DC. For decades-- DC soaked the rich to allegedly "help" the poor thru the region's most generous safety net-- while most of those tax dollars were siphoned off through a bureaucratic kleptocracy. Now there is a growing middle class that is getting large enough to make demands, and the kleptocrats do not like it-- thus the race baiting anti-gentrification smokescreen.

+1 Been in DC for 23 years and bought a home 15 years ago in a newly hot EoTP neighborhood, yet get called a gentrifier just because I am white and expect more from DCPS for my children. i personally embrace all the true gentrifiers who will pay top bucks for homes around here and also have high hopes for decent neighborhood public schools.

I'm enjoying the fact that EOTPWOTR is now the new focus of schools. When I first moved to DC, no one even knew where my neighborhood was, now the it's got an 8 letter acronym.

Yep. And the people who complain the most about evil gentrifiers are usually those who have paid the least in DC taxes for how ever many years they have lived in DC. For decades-- DC soaked the rich to allegedly "help" the poor thru the region's most generous safety net-- while most of those tax dollars were siphoned off through a bureaucratic kleptocracy. Now there is a growing middle class that is getting large enough to make demands, and the kleptocrats do not like it-- thus the race baiting anti-gentrification smokescreen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ms Henderson's tweet was

"Interesting & provocative ideas fr @MichaelPetrilli @samchaltain @RickKahlenberg on integrated schools in #DC http://washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-dc-schools-can-ward-off-the-big-flip/2014/01/24/90548788-8479-11e3-9dd4-e7278db80d86_story.html "

I wouldn't exactly call that an endorsement.

+1, thanks for posting the tweet. I don't see where she says she agrees with their ideas. For all we know it was her way of politely acknowledging an article was written.

I wish she had been as strong as Scott Pearson:

@SDPearson: @MichaelPetrilli @samchaltain @dcpcsb weighted lotteries are a solution in search of a problem-All but one dc charters are >=40% low income.

I was curious, so I just looked up a couple of schools and there are at least 5 charters, according to the PCSB performance reports, with less than 40% FARMS. Strange he would say that. I mean, he could have easily said, only a handful of charters are 40% low income

Yu Ying, LAMB, Creative Minds, Inspired Teaching, Mundo Verde... there may be others

Which years data are you looking at?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about the opposite? Dilute the FARMS families to the burbs, where there's more likely to be a critical mass of middle-class that could absorb it? Rents are a lot cheaper outside of the city, and it's not as though there has ever been any real opportunity for life change for folks in multigenerational poverty as long as they stay in the city.

Ah yes, ship the poor folks out to the burbs and make them commute into the city for their jobs.

If they had worthwhile jobs in the city, they wouldn't be FARMS in the first place.

And consider that thousands of people commute into the city because they can't afford to live in the city. Lower cost of living outside the city can more than offset the cost of commuting.

You realize families were living here for generations before you thought it was "cool" to move to Cap Hill or you WOTP monster house.

Exactly.....these gentrifiers kill me

Ah -- the DC nativist arguement. Good one. I've lived in DC for 17 years, 15 of those in Cap Hill. Am I a gentrifier? I moved here single and now I'm raising a family. But it doesn't really matter if I've lived here 16 years, 16 generations or 16 minutes. There's no homesteading or grandfathering. You pay DC taxes, you're entitled to all the good and all the slop DC has to offer whether it comes from newbies or old timers.