Anonymous wrote:I agree, running those ^^ numbers will answer those questions. And those are exactly the questions to ask/numbers to run.

But for the sake of this minute though, given what we know as ballpark numbers of kids who pre-charter would have been in crappy schools, and post-charters are in good-to-great schools, isn't it still a fair question for this conversation today to ask what would have been better for those kids instead of charters? Isn't that still a fair question even without the exact numbers?

I agree it's a fair question, but this conversation will be informed by the worldview of your conversation partner. From what I observed, the extremes of this continuum are like this:

Extreme 1. I am a responsible parent who cares deeply about education of my children. I pay taxes. I am therefore entitled to receive a good product (i.e. public education) for the taxes I pay. If the local school board fails to provide me with this, I will investigate my alternatives and pick the one that provides my child with the best educational option. In this scenario, the parent is the consumer, the education is a commodity they consume, and their choices are guided by finding the best product to consume. Welfare of other children is simply not a consideration. They have parents of their own, let them figure it out. My concern is my child, full stop.

Extreme 2. I am a responsible parent who cares deeply about education of my children, but also deeply concerned about structural failures in the system. I feel bad about saving my child but leaving everyone else in the fetid pool of bad education system. I am going to invest my energies, beyond the taxes I pay, to improving the local schools, even if this results in my child getting a worse education than they would have received elsewhere. In this scenario, parental time and energy as well as education aptitude of the child are simply resources to be spread around public schools without regard for the immediate benefit of these resources (i.e. it's OK to send an academically able child from a high SES family to a failing school because it's good for poor uneducated children to be around high-SES educated children - crude but true reflection.)

I agree, running those ^^ numbers will answer those questions. And those are exactly the questions to ask/numbers to run.

But for the sake of this minute though, given what we know as ballpark numbers of kids who pre-charter would have been in crappy schools, and post-charters are in good-to-great schools, isn't it still a fair question for this conversation today to ask what would have been better for those kids instead of charters? Isn't that still a fair question even without the exact numbers?

Really, all you have to do to find the data is run the numbers on:

1. How many kids assigned to failing IB schools are now in charters? (tells you whether the charter schools changed the future of kids who would have been otherwise screwed by their IB option)

2. How many kids assigned to satisfactory/good IB schools are now in charters? (tells you how many more OOB slots are now available to others)

3. How many kids who previously lotteried into better OOB schools are now in charters? (tells you the number of kids with bad options but parents engaged enough to do something about it)

4. How many kids originally headed to private schools are now in charters? (parents dissatisfied enough with their options to pay the $$)

That will be your answer into what charter schools did to public schools. I imagine this data is pretty easy to get.

Anonymous wrote:I don't think that charter schools are a bad thing! I'm not sure that they get the credit for the "sea change" in DC education, though. Charter schools didn't even arrive in DC until 1997, long after gentrification started. The hot new charters are only a few years old, though, and the oldest are only 8 or 10 years.

And the push for charter schools, I'm sure you recall, came from Newt Gingrich and the other Republicans in Congress, and many of us here in the city feared that they would be a death blow to DCPS. I think we're all watching to see how that will play out.

I don't really understand your point, by the way. I think you are conflating a bunch of PP comments into the idea that somehow people don't like charter schools. It's foolish, though, to assume that all kids are getting a better education because of their existence. We're just creating a parallel school system of a few relatively high performing charters and elementary schools that are still inaccessible to most DC families.

Nowhere do I or any other PPs say "all kids are getting a better education". Of course that would be ridiculous, because there are charter schools that are not doing well and there are still plenty of failing DCPS schools. No one said ALL kids, not here, not anywhere that I've seen on DCUM. So you can move on from that part of your argument.

Re: your bolded statement, are you saying that the kids now in charters that are performing well or excellently would be doing just as well in DCPS? How can you get around the fact that with the #s of students enrolled in Tier 1 and Tier 2 charters, THEY are getting a better education than their neighborhood schools? And yes, the PP who keeps talking about how charters have led to disinvestment of parents in their neighborhood DCPS schools, as if somehow that would have happened if not for charters, has talked about the negative effect of charters. So yes, someone has said they're bad, even if they're still trying to get their kids in because it's the only "rickety lifeboat" they have.

So, again, the question still remains for those who damn the existence of charters (and yes, that is exactly the bottom line of PPs), what should have/could have happened at the time the charter movement really got going, that would have served the numbers of underserved kids who are now getting a better education at charter schools? Do you know how many low income kids are enrolled in adequately-to-well performing charters now? If you damn charters, you are saying that either it doesn't matter that a signficant number of underserved kids are better off or that the generations of those kids who would have had crappy outcomes was worth sacrificing in order for ___________ to happen instead. (____________ being whatever it is you think would have happened to actually improve DCPS, and we're all still waiting on what that is).

Hearst wasn't on the PS list, guess they will add it to the 2014-2015 school year.

I don't think that charter schools are a bad thing! I'm not sure that they get the credit for the "sea change" in DC education, though. Charter schools didn't even arrive in DC until 1997, long after gentrification started. The hot new charters are only a few years old, though, and the oldest are only 8 or 10 years.

And the push for charter schools, I'm sure you recall, came from Newt Gingrich and the other Republicans in Congress, and many of us here in the city feared that they would be a death blow to DCPS. I think we're all watching to see how that will play out.

I don't really understand your point, by the way. I think you are conflating a bunch of PP comments into the idea that somehow people don't like charter schools. It's foolish, though, to assume that all kids are getting a better education because of their existence. We're just creating a parallel school system of a few relatively high performing charters and elementary schools that are still inaccessible to most DC families.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't have to have kids in the schools to be a gentrifier, or even stay in the neighborhood. The PP was responding to someone's claim that gentrification came after the charter school movement.
I've lived here for 40 + years. People who had kids while they were in DC planned to either move out or go private. Then there were some families who decided to send their kids to the their IB elementary schools and save some cabbage and/or enjoy their awesome neighborhoods for a while longer. Then some more came and stayed and had some babies, and started looking at and starting charter schools.

Then people started looking at middle schools and feeder patterns, and all hell broke out with OOB and charter lotteries.

But this is the whole point. You don't have to have kids to be a gentrifier, but the tipping point for DC as a city/district that middle class families are staying in in significant numbers and then moving into in significant numbers has its seeds right after charter reform got going. Before charters, as you just said yourself, families were moving or going private. Those with the resources to go private may well still continue to go private after elementary, but with the recession and the overall turnaround that charters have brought DC, the tipping point for FAMILIES to stay has been the development of the charters.

If it wasn't charters, and families were staying and NOT moving or going private, then again, why did the "if only parents had had the chance to build that critical mass and change their neighborhood schools" not happen? If you're saying families were here and staying, there was both time and opportunity. Why didn't it happen?

And whichever version of the history you go with, the other question is still the same: at the time charters did get going, what was the alternative that would have brough this sea change of parent involvement and therefore saved neighborhood schools (and not doomed years and years of DCPS students who were failing where they were) instead of developing charters?

NP here. The families who moved were replaced by MORE gentrifiers who eventually had kids. DC/charter founders noticed the trend (young gentrifiers move in, have kids, move out) and figured out a way to stop that from happening, i.e. with charter/oob lotteries. So, yes, it's possible for gentrification to be the moving force that began the charter trend.

Anonymous wrote:You don't have to have kids in the schools to be a gentrifier, or even stay in the neighborhood. The PP was responding to someone's claim that gentrification came after the charter school movement.
I've lived here for 40 + years. People who had kids while they were in DC planned to either move out or go private. Then there were some families who decided to send their kids to the their IB elementary schools and save some cabbage and/or enjoy their awesome neighborhoods for a while longer. Then some more came and stayed and had some babies, and started looking at and starting charter schools.

Then people started looking at middle schools and feeder patterns, and all hell broke out with OOB and charter lotteries.

But this is the whole point. You don't have to have kids to be a gentrifier, but the tipping point for DC as a city/district that middle class families are staying in in significant numbers and then moving into in significant numbers has its seeds right after charter reform got going. Before charters, as you just said yourself, families were moving or going private. Those with the resources to go private may well still continue to go private after elementary, but with the recession and the overall turnaround that charters have brought DC, the tipping point for FAMILIES to stay has been the development of the charters.

If it wasn't charters, and families were staying and NOT moving or going private, then again, why did the "if only parents had had the chance to build that critical mass and change their neighborhood schools" not happen? If you're saying families were here and staying, there was both time and opportunity. Why didn't it happen?

And whichever version of the history you go with, the other question is still the same: at the time charters did get going, what was the alternative that would have brough this sea change of parent involvement and therefore saved neighborhood schools (and not doomed years and years of DCPS students who were failing where they were) instead of developing charters?

It costs nothing to apply. If you can afford to wait, and if you are living in boundary for a great school at K and won't be moving, then leave a spot for someone else! But if you want to get in to a charter, proximity or put-of-boundary school, your odds are much better if you are competing for the non-sibling spots in PS-3 than for a handful of unfilled 'transferred out' spots in PK-4. We are at a great DCPS in Petworth with amazing teachers, principal, facility...our kids were already in daycare so it was not as big a transition for them. I feel lucky our oldest got in. The waitlist for preschool spots there is now in the multiple hundreds.

You don't have to have kids in the schools to be a gentrifier, or even stay in the neighborhood. The PP was responding to someone's claim that gentrification came after the charter school movement.

I've lived here for 40 + years. People who had kids while they were in DC planned to either move out or go private. Then there were some families who decided to send their kids to the their IB elementary schools and save some cabbage and/or enjoy their awesome neighborhoods for a while longer. Then some more came and stayed and had some babies, and started looking at and starting charter schools.

Then people started looking at middle schools and feeder patterns, and all hell broke out with OOB and charter lotteries.

Anonymous wrote:

Where is your evidence that people started moving back to DC/staying in DC and gentrifying neighborhoods like Brookland, Columbia Heights, H Street near Trinidad, Mount Pleasant, all BEFORE the charter movement got well underway? There is some development that has definitely fueled further development, but even most of the development has followed AFTER gentrification started to really get into swing.

School reform was the true beginning of noticeable gentrification. Show in detail (i.e. what specific neighborhoods did gentrification start in) BEFORE charters got into a real swing?

I am not the poster you are asking; I am a brand-new poster to this sub-topic of "prove there was gentrification anyplace before charters existed." Ok, ready? I'm relabeling the subject since everyone will have a slightly different definition of 'gentrify.'

"Places that started to attract white, college-educated NEW residents, ages 23 to 35, with high earning potential, where previously there were exclusively residents with lower incomes, lower education attainment, who were typically persons of color. Post 1968 riots, pre-charter juggernaut."

Captiol Hill (true Capitol Hill, the historic district, not the random H st / stadium / navy yard stuff)
Mount Pleasant
Dupont Circle
Logan Circle
Adams Morgan
U St, between 18th and 14th.

Shaw is a close call, could put it in either column (pre or post-charter juggernaut).

I have lived here a long time, long enough to have personally been IN Logan when it was whore-and-tattoo land, and when 17th and T was considered dangerous, shitty and an incredibly stupid investment even @ $300,000 for a whole rowhouse.

So since you've been here for a long time, what were those 23-35 yr old's doing when they had kids? Are you saying they put them in DCPS? What were they doing? Because from other people who've been here for a long time, they moved in for awhile and then MOVED OUT. MOCO or Fairfax. What are you saying they did? Because again, the key difference is in STAYING, and even more moving in and staying.

What schools were they putting their kids in when they were school age (or more specifically for middle later elementary and middle school) post-1968 and pre-charters?

Anonymous wrote:U street got started WAYYYY before the charters heated up. The the Verizon center, and DC's Great Streets initiative. The fact that the real estate market never crashed here. Whatever, I fail to see that it makes a difference in this discussion.

The source of the problem, really, is that DCPS failed to respond to the charter schools/gentrification chicken-egg problem. Look at all of Ward 5, which doesn't even HAVE a middle school and not even one decent neighborhood school for all of Brookland. They even shut down the Montessori program at Langdon, which had an outside chance of attracting families. As a result, Ward 5 parents who don't feel like starting their own schools are losing their minds trying to play the lotteries.

And, by the way, we have tried to get together and formulate a plan to engage at one of the schools and work towards a solution. It is a massive task that requires a serious commitment from a critical mass of families PLUS the principal and admin, which is very, very hard to pull off.See the SWS thread to see how the same problem at Ludlow Taylor is playing out.

Agreeing to disagree about your larger version of the chicken and the egg issue on "Which came first: better school options or gentrification?", this bolded part is exactly the piece I'm trying to understand about your "version" of history. It is indeed very challenging to get that critical mass of parents involved to turn schools around. At the same time, DCPS was turning out class after class of students who in fact were not educated and were doomed from an educational standpoint from a very early point in school. The point came when a critical mass of parents, teachers, and school reformers said "Enough is enough, we've tried to work with/through DCPS and gotten blocked by WTU and some school administrations directly. We've tried what we can, now we're going to start new schools."


At THAT point, there are 2 things that don't make sense in your version of the evolution/de-evolution of charters and neighborhood schools in DC: at that point what are you saying should have been done instead that would not have further doomed ALL students in DCPS who were not at the few decently-to-well performing schools, and would have somehow overcome that challenge to getting the crtitical mass of parents involved at the neighborhood level beyond those that did try to get involved and found they couldn't make enough of a difference? As challenging as transportation and now the lottery system itself is for charters, it was established further up-thread that the majority of students in DCPCS are low-income and a critical mass of them are getting a better education than they would have got if charters had never started in DC. So in your version of history, at the point where the critical mass of frustrated parents, teachers and school reform folks said "Working within DCPS isn't working so we need to do our own thing to give these students options", what was better than starting charters that would not have further left more generations of students with NO choices instead of many many better choices, and that would have somehow had a different parent-involvement outcome at the neighborhood level?

If you can't answer that, you have absolutely no argument.

Where is your evidence that people started moving back to DC/staying in DC and gentrifying neighborhoods like Brookland, Columbia Heights, H Street near Trinidad, Mount Pleasant, all BEFORE the charter movement got well underway? There is some development that has definitely fueled further development, but even most of the development has followed AFTER gentrification started to really get into swing.

School reform was the true beginning of noticeable gentrification. Show in detail (i.e. what specific neighborhoods did gentrification start in) BEFORE charters got into a real swing?

I am not the poster you are asking; I am a brand-new poster to this sub-topic of "prove there was gentrification anyplace before charters existed." Ok, ready? I'm relabeling the subject since everyone will have a slightly different definition of 'gentrify.'

"Places that started to attract white, college-educated NEW residents, ages 23 to 35, with high earning potential, where previously there were exclusively residents with lower incomes, lower education attainment, who were typically persons of color. Post 1968 riots, pre-charter juggernaut."

Captiol Hill (true Capitol Hill, the historic district, not the random H st / stadium / navy yard stuff)
Mount Pleasant
Dupont Circle
Logan Circle
Adams Morgan
U St, between 18th and 14th.

Shaw is a close call, could put it in either column (pre or post-charter juggernaut).

I have lived here a long time, long enough to have personally been IN Logan when it was whore-and-tattoo land, and when 17th and T was considered dangerous, shitty and an incredibly stupid investment even @ $300,000 for a whole rowhouse.

U street got started WAYYYY before the charters heated up. The the Verizon center, and DC's Great Streets initiative. The fact that the real estate market never crashed here. Whatever, I fail to see that it makes a difference in this discussion.

The source of the problem, really, is that DCPS failed to respond to the charter schools/gentrification chicken-egg problem. Look at all of Ward 5, which doesn't even HAVE a middle school and not even one decent neighborhood school for all of Brookland. They even shut down the Montessori program at Langdon, which had an outside chance of attracting families. As a result, Ward 5 parents who don't feel like starting their own schools are losing their minds trying to play the lotteries.

And, by the way, we have tried to get together and formulate a plan to engage at one of the schools and work towards a solution. It is a massive task that requires a serious commitment from a critical mass of families PLUS the principal and admin, which is very, very hard to pull off.

See the SWS thread to see how the same problem at Ludlow Taylor is playing out.

Anonymous wrote: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.

The bolded part is the part that is fiction. You really are going to have to explain how you draw that conclusion. Where is your evidence that people started moving back to DC/staying in DC and gentrifying neighborhoods like Brookland, Columbia Heights, H Street near Trinidad, Mount Pleasant, all BEFORE the charter movement got well underway? There is some development that has definitely fueled further development, but even most of the development has followed AFTER gentrification started to really get into swing.

School reform was the true beginning of noticeable gentrification. Show in detail (i.e. what specific neighborhoods did gentrification start in) BEFORE charters got into a real swing?