Here's the other thing. When I talk to real people in real life, most of the families using charters feel they're doing okay in a flawed system. There are definitely some families who just love their charters, but most just feel like they were surfing and found an acceptable wave to ride, not that they took advantage of an AWESOME system. So the people who are rah rah charters on these boards seem to represent a minority of the people I see in real life. The people in real life acknowledge that yes, the charters DID take some juice away from DCPS. Of course it did and you'd be so silly not to acknowledge it. Whether or not you want to admit it, gentrification effected change on the school system, NOT the other way around. There were two paths to take. One is admittedly a hard choice - banding together and making the local school work. Especially when the local school seemed unsafe, NOBODY is blaming you for taking the charter option. However, you simply must admit that it made it harder for the rest of us, the ones without the same options, to improve the local schools. There are not enough high performing charters to accommodate every child in DC at ANY age, not just ps3 and pk4. It is musical chairs. It's the titanic. And there aren't enough lifeboats. Sadly, the best and brightest - all of you calling me names, etc on this list probably included, - who are in the lifeboats now. So you're not focused on fixing the ship. You think the lifeboats ARE the ship now. But they're small. They're too few. They're hard to get into. They're not good enough or big enough to solve the problem.

Is it so hard to at least say yes, this is much more complex than just jumping into a charter and calling it a day? That maybe you could consider giving your local schools another look, maybe you could consider voting for politicians who will put local schools on equal footing with charters, maybe you can think about policies to help the kids who are NEVER going to get into your charter school, because their parents either can't or won't put in the effort to get the kids there? The answer is not more charters within driving distances to your neighborhood.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You people who think the gentrification of DC even had a prayer relying on "neighborhood schools" slay me.

Avoiding the neighborhood schools in DC is what built Montgomery County at DC's expense.

Charter schools rescued this city. Now it's just a bonus that some of us can live in cool neighborhoods, have better school options than Ward 3, and still have a smaller mortgage.

Yeah, I agree with this. The following sentence is particularly misguided:

They're ensuring that when professional families start moving into a community, they focus on safety, police presence, and even the appearance of the local parks and green spaces, but they pay lip service only to the schools while jumping onto a rickety lifeboat in the form of charters.

The underlying assumption that all those professional families would have moved to those same neighborhoods if the only choices were crappy IB DCPS or private schools is laughable. Those neighborhoods became an option because of the possibility that there could be a public education option beyone the local DCPS (that didn't involve driving across the park to go to an OOB school every morning - not that that is an option anymore).

You are so right. That's what is both laughable and mind-numbing about the PP (or PPs) who keeps lamenting the effects the evil charters have had on parent involvement in local schools. People who see things that way always get really quiet when you ask them what the alternative to charters should have been that would have saved the neighborhood schools (i.e. something that there wasn't time to see if it worked before charters were born as a different solution). And again, if charters are such a "rickety lifeboat", why are you trying to find a way to not only get your kid in, but reform the charters so you have a shot at a heldover K spot? "Ooooh charters are so evil. Oooooh they're making me put my kid in PS/PK to have a shot. Oooooooh they should change so they hold K spots and accomodate my parenting priorities. But Ooooooh they're so evil they should have never existed in the first place, because they're ruining the neighborhood schools that I won't send my kid to. I want my kid in a popular charter dagnabbit!" It would be funny if there weren't so many people in the world who do this: damn an institution/systemic change, rewrite history to support their damnation, and all the while trying despeartely to hold their place in that damned institution.

You just don't get it. If you all jumped out of the sinking ship, instead of pulling together to patch the holes, recraft the ship, and are in an overcrowded lifeboat that forces some kids back onto the ship or into the water, I'm supposed to jump in the water?

None of you have touched my capitol hill reference. I'm sure those moms are on here, maybe they can talk about how they did it. I know some of them think it is still possible today, in other schools, but unfortunately, experience has proven to some of us that it is not. If you asked me, in person, what the alternative to charters would have been, I wouldn't not have gotten really quiet, I would have given you a thoughtful answer in person as I've tried to do here. There are examples already where local parents got together and said, gee, I don't want to leave this neighborhood we've grown to love as young 20 somethings. Look at all of us parents here on the HIll, probably 3/4 of us are going to put our homes on the market in the next few years. What if, instead, we all storm the local school, send our kids there, and demand change from within? It's a great and risky experiment but we're all bright individuals, we have big jobs and big brains, why not try our best to reform from the inside out? And you know what? They did. Look at the capitol hill cluster schools as a good example. NOte i didn't say perfect. It's hard work. But now it is IMPOSSIBLE or all but impossible work since we'd be an army of one instead of an army of, say, 5 -10, which can gather momentum and become 10-25, and suddenly you're psyched to live in bounds for peabody, brent, etc.

As far as wanting a slot at the charters, hey, charters are now the nature of the beast. I can dislike them and still feel forced to use what I see as the best of a bunch of really poor options. AND, I'm lucky enough that, despite my reluctance to send a kid at 4 or 3, I can figure out a way to make the system work acceptably for me. I can probably get in SOMEWHERE at K, and then continue to try to lottery elsewhere at older years, or eventually do private if / when we start making a reasonable salary at some point again. However, at this point, we deal with the cards we've been dealt AT THE SAME time we try to make that crappy system fairer to all kids, we also look at what we should be doing instead. The HUGE problem with charters is that there are too many of them and not enough of them at the same time. You can acknowledge that charters are part of the problem while still using them - because you have no other choice. If I have a choice between taking a path in horse dung or just stepping in it, guess which one I'm going to take?

Anyway, yes, I do think that in-bounds public schools should be the true long-term focus. But in this town, with charters being the double-edged sword that they are, ignoring them as an option is foolish. Our hands are forced to some degree, but that doesn't and shouldn't mean we can't change both the short term inadequacies and the long-term issues.

Does that make sense to you? Willing to consider my point or are you just looking to score points saying "ooooh they're so bad but I'll enroll anyway...oooooohhhh (insert whatever insult makes me feel pithy on DCUM). ?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You people who think the gentrification of DC even had a prayer relying on "neighborhood schools" slay me.

Avoiding the neighborhood schools in DC is what built Montgomery County at DC's expense.

Charter schools rescued this city. Now it's just a bonus that some of us can live in cool neighborhoods, have better school options than Ward 3, and still have a smaller mortgage.

Yeah, I agree with this. The following sentence is particularly misguided:

They're ensuring that when professional families start moving into a community, they focus on safety, police presence, and even the appearance of the local parks and green spaces, but they pay lip service only to the schools while jumping onto a rickety lifeboat in the form of charters.

The underlying assumption that all those professional families would have moved to those same neighborhoods if the only choices were crappy IB DCPS or private schools is laughable. Those neighborhoods became an option because of the possibility that there could be a public education option beyone the local DCPS (that didn't involve driving across the park to go to an OOB school every morning - not that that is an option anymore).

You are so right. That's what is both laughable and mind-numbing about the PP (or PPs) who keeps lamenting the effects the evil charters have had on parent involvement in local schools. People who see things that way always get really quiet when you ask them what the alternative to charters should have been that would have saved the neighborhood schools (i.e. something that there wasn't time to see if it worked before charters were born as a different solution). And again, if charters are such a "rickety lifeboat", why are you trying to find a way to not only get your kid in, but reform the charters so you have a shot at a heldover K spot? "Ooooh charters are so evil. Oooooh they're making me put my kid in PS/PK to have a shot. Oooooooh they should change so they hold K spots and accomodate my parenting priorities. But Ooooooh they're so evil they should have never existed in the first place, because they're ruining the neighborhood schools that I won't send my kid to. I want my kid in a popular charter dagnabbit!" It would be funny if there weren't so many people in the world who do this: damn an institution/systemic change, rewrite history to support their damnation, and all the while trying despeartely to hold their place in that damned institution.

Anonymous wrote:You people who think the gentrification of DC even had a prayer relying on "neighborhood schools" slay me.

Avoiding the neighborhood schools in DC is what built Montgomery County at DC's expense.

Charter schools rescued this city. Now it's just a bonus that some of us can live in cool neighborhoods, have better school options than Ward 3, and still have a smaller mortgage.

Yeah, I agree with this. The following sentence is particularly misguided:

They're ensuring that when professional families start moving into a community, they focus on safety, police presence, and even the appearance of the local parks and green spaces, but they pay lip service only to the schools while jumping onto a rickety lifeboat in the form of charters.

The underlying assumption that all those professional families would have moved to those same neighborhoods if the only choices were crappy IB DCPS or private schools is laughable. Those neighborhoods became an option because of the possibility that there could be a public education option beyone the local DCPS (that didn't involve driving across the park to go to an OOB school every morning - not that that is an option anymore).

Charter schools rescued this city. Now it's just a bonus that some of us can live in cool neighborhoods, have better school options than Ward 3,

No. Abe Pollin and Tony Williams kicked off the rescue of the city, and the rest was momentum from the glorious economic boom years in the late 90s / early 2000s. I'm sure that was before you arrived, though, right? Further, gay men and single 26 yr olds -- who have always been overrepresented as newcomers to the District -- are what is really fueling the boom now. Check with the US Census and the DC Office of Planning for exact stats. Some of those 26 year olds stay when they have 3 year olds -- and that's why we're having this 15=page thread -- but they'll be gone come middle school time.

And no, there are really not better school options on the whole than a handful of schools in Ward 3. Maybe YY if Mandarin is your thing. You will say Mundo Verde is "cool" and Mann is "boring" because it's in Ward 3 and has white people. That doesn't make it a stronger school though.

Anonymous wrote:You people who think the gentrification of DC even had a prayer relying on "neighborhood schools" slay me.

Avoiding the neighborhood schools in DC is what built Montgomery County at DC's expense.

Charter schools rescued this city. Now it's just a bonus that some of us can live in cool neighborhoods, have better school options than Ward 3, and still have a smaller mortgage.

This is the most out of touch post ever. Rescued the city? Not so much. Tell it to the kids across the river. They don't feel particularly rescued.

Anonymous wrote:You people who think the gentrification of DC even had a prayer relying on "neighborhood schools" slay me.

Avoiding the neighborhood schools in DC is what built Montgomery County at DC's expense.

Charter schools rescued this city. Now it's just a bonus that some of us can live in cool neighborhoods, have better school options than Ward 3, and still have a smaller mortgage.

THIS X1,000!

The same tired anti-charter rhetoric 2 posts above is representative of the denial of so many here. It doesn't matter to them that DC history proves them wrong, they are stuck in their revisionist history while silmultaneously slamming one of the main reasons their DC property values stayed stable/are increasing. Me, we rent so the influx of middle class hurts us but that doesn't make me start telling tall tales about "the evil that is charters". And all this venom while still being ready to deny another parent a K spot at a charter to suit their "no PK" needs. Insane wonders never cease.

You people who think the gentrification of DC even had a prayer relying on "neighborhood schools" slay me.

Avoiding the neighborhood schools in DC is what built Montgomery County at DC's expense.

Charter schools rescued this city. Now it's just a bonus that some of us can live in cool neighborhoods, have better school options than Ward 3, and still have a smaller mortgage.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't mean to imply that starting a k start charter school is the only way. That is what jumps out at me as a good solution that would make all parties happy.

And I don't know why you think there are fewer spots for low income kids. I've read that there a spots for all kids in dc. I don't mean to sound grumpy, but I think that is just not true. Those schools with highest concentrations of poverty are the ones most likely to have plenty of spots.

Because they are not good options. Attending PS3 or PK4 at that shitty school is not going to help these kids. BUT, attending PS3 at a better school with a wait list, is. So until you're willing to send your kid to one of those empty spots, they don't count.

Now, let me ask you, did YOU start a charter school? This is public education we are talking about here! "starting a charter school" is not realistic or feasible for the vast majority of parents in this city. Also, as stunning as you may find it, most DC families do NOT want a K start. And those who do want diverse choices. We don't want to all go to the one charter school based on the distinguishing feature of starting at K. We just don't want "mandatory" school forced on our kids at three years old.

How do you know they aren't good options? Who are you to deem schools "shitty"? No I haven't started a charter school, but I have great respect those that did. They went through hell I'm sure to get their schoolset up and determined that ps3 or prek 4 was what works for their school and the population they are trying to reach. You are free to second guess them. If starting a chart with K start seems to burdensome to you, then I recommend you politely request that this charter you want your child to attend consider opening a few spots in k. Of course they may say no, but they may go along with it. But there is no way that they could guarantee that your child wouldbe the lucky one the get one of the k slots.

Our kids attend our in boundary school and put sweat equity into the school to make it as good as possible as we were chicken to play the charter game. It worked very well for us. Maybe you could try that too--sort of hedge your bets in case the " entering charter at k " plan doesn't pan out for you.

Good luck! It's great that you are so passionate about education for your child!

I think I see a morsel of advice in here - ask charters to consider opening up spots in K. Done and done - many of us are doing that. Otherwise, you may want to read over the past few pages. At least 3 of us posting here have tried to get the neighborhood into our in-bounds schools but now that the charter game has started, there simply are zero to VERY few families willing to do it.

Quite honestly, my choice is that all in bound schools are decent. ALL of them. they're not. And instead of saying, hey, holy cow, let's fix all of the schools in DC so that ALL of the kids can benefit, they've created charters here, there, and ALMOST (but not quite) everywhere, so that parents who are not opposed to charters (even those who are, but end up feeling locked into the better of two evils) can save their own kids - maybe.

Charters are doing exactly what parents like me were afraid they would do. They're ensuring that when professional families start moving into a community, they focus on safety, police presence, and even the appearance of the local parks and green spaces, but they pay lip service only to the schools while jumping onto a rickety lifeboat in the form of charters. In the meantime, those lifeboats are full by PK4. So throw your three year old into the boat even if she doesn't need it. Doesn't matter if it takes the spot of a kid who is really sinking, hey, all's fair in love and the DC charter school mess.

Since beginning to participate in this thread (I am not the OP) I have basically become convinced that we're going to say screw this system right now, and basically spend every bit of spare time we have trying to effect change within the system. You'll see another thread from me when the small working group we've put together has a few basic ideas on how to restore fairness back into the system, and how to redirect the focus on the city's inbounds schools (all of them) and force the charters to play fair with our kids.

Good luck to all of you who are struggling to make this dysfunctional system work for your family. It's sad that we are all pitted against one another so much. I want my neighbor to be able to use the full time PS services she needs. I want to be able to get into a decent school, in bounds or not, at K, which is when school becomes mandatory in this city.

Enough with all of us fiercely holding on to our corner of the blanket. Make more blankets, and make them without so many holes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't mean to imply that starting a k start charter school is the only way. That is what jumps out at me as a good solution that would make all parties happy.

And I don't know why you think there are fewer spots for low income kids. I've read that there a spots for all kids in dc. I don't mean to sound grumpy, but I think that is just not true. Those schools with highest concentrations of poverty are the ones most likely to have plenty of spots.

Because they are not good options. Attending PS3 or PK4 at that shitty school is not going to help these kids. BUT, attending PS3 at a better school with a wait list, is. So until you're willing to send your kid to one of those empty spots, they don't count.

Now, let me ask you, did YOU start a charter school? This is public education we are talking about here! "starting a charter school" is not realistic or feasible for the vast majority of parents in this city. Also, as stunning as you may find it, most DC families do NOT want a K start. And those who do want diverse choices. We don't want to all go to the one charter school based on the distinguishing feature of starting at K. We just don't want "mandatory" school forced on our kids at three years old.

How do you know they aren't good options? Who are you to deem schools "shitty"? No I haven't started a charter school, but I have great respect those that did. They went through hell I'm sure to get their schoolset up and determined that ps3 or prek 4 was what works for their school and the population they are trying to reach. You are free to second guess them. If starting a chart with K start seems to burdensome to you, then I recommend you politely request that this charter you want your child to attend consider opening a few spots in k. Of course they may say no, but they may go along with it. But there is no way that they could guarantee that your child wouldbe the lucky one the get one of the k slots.

Our kids attend our in boundary school and put sweat equity into the school to make it as good as possible as we were chicken to play the charter game. It worked very well for us. Maybe you could try that too--sort of hedge your bets in case the " entering charter at k " plan doesn't pan out for you.

Good luck! It's great that you are so passionate about education for your child!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If you don't like your odds of getting into K and feel forced, and you just want to complain and inconvenience everyone else, good luck with that. Maybe you should have researched your options better if the way this has worked for several years is so distasteful to you.

I'm sorry, what other options are you suggesting that haven't been researched? I'm not the PP, but suggesting that you can magically research your way out of the PS3 lottery would be welcome information. There are a few PK4 start schools, like Yu Ying and Sela that I know of. SWS used to be a PK4 start, now PS3, but has had neighborhood preference until this year. Many private and parochial schools have a PK or K start, but as far as public or public charter schools, there really are not a lot of options to research. Please enlighten us.

I think the PP was saying that perhaps you should have researched your options better when you decided to live where you live (see other DCPS thread re choosing to live where you live).

Anonymous wrote:

If you don't like your odds of getting into K and feel forced, and you just want to complain and inconvenience everyone else, good luck with that. Maybe you should have researched your options better if the way this has worked for several years is so distasteful to you.

I'm sorry, what other options are you suggesting that haven't been researched? I'm not the PP, but suggesting that you can magically research your way out of the PS3 lottery would be welcome information. There are a few PK4 start schools, like Yu Ying and Sela that I know of. SWS used to be a PK4 start, now PS3, but has had neighborhood preference until this year. Many private and parochial schools have a PK or K start, but as far as public or public charter schools, there really are not a lot of options to research. Please enlighten us.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't mean to imply that starting a k start charter school is the only way. That is what jumps out at me as a good solution that would make all parties happy.

And I don't know why you think there are fewer spots for low income kids. I've read that there a spots for all kids in dc. I don't mean to sound grumpy, but I think that is just not true. Those schools with highest concentrations of poverty are the ones most likely to have plenty of spots.

Because they are not good options. Attending PS3 or PK4 at that shitty school is not going to help these kids. BUT, attending PS3 at a better school with a wait list, is. So until you're willing to send your kid to one of those empty spots, they don't count.

Now, let me ask you, did YOU start a charter school? This is public education we are talking about here! "starting a charter school" is not realistic or feasible for the vast majority of parents in this city. Also, as stunning as you may find it, most DC families do NOT want a K start. And those who do want diverse choices. We don't want to all go to the one charter school based on the distinguishing feature of starting at K. We just don't want "mandatory" school forced on our kids at three years old.

The undesireable schools that are still open are not empty. So apparently there are lots of families that don't get to choosd to sit PS/PK out just because they didn't get choice spots. They're still using the slots you would never use.

If you don't like your odds of getting into K and feel forced, and you just want to complain and inconvenience everyone else, good luck with that. Maybe you should have researched your options better if the way this has worked for several years is so distasteful to you.

Anonymous wrote:I didn't mean to imply that starting a k start charter school is the only way. That is what jumps out at me as a good solution that would make all parties happy.

And I don't know why you think there are fewer spots for low income kids. I've read that there a spots for all kids in dc. I don't mean to sound grumpy, but I think that is just not true. Those schools with highest concentrations of poverty are the ones most likely to have plenty of spots.

Because they are not good options. Attending PS3 or PK4 at that shitty school is not going to help these kids. BUT, attending PS3 at a better school with a wait list, is. So until you're willing to send your kid to one of those empty spots, they don't count.

Now, let me ask you, did YOU start a charter school? This is public education we are talking about here! "starting a charter school" is not realistic or feasible for the vast majority of parents in this city. Also, as stunning as you may find it, most DC families do NOT want a K start. And those who do want diverse choices. We don't want to all go to the one charter school based on the distinguishing feature of starting at K. We just don't want "mandatory" school forced on our kids at three years old.

I didn't mean to imply that starting a k start charter school is the only way. That is what jumps out at me as a good solution that would make all parties happy.

And I don't know why you think there are fewer spots for low income kids. I've read that there a spots for all kids in dc. I don't mean to sound grumpy, but I think that is just not true. Those schools with highest concentrations of poverty are the ones most likely to have plenty of spots.