Anonymous
Post 03/23/2014 11:18     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
I guess the issue is that randomized the schools will likely drag down the few currently decently performing schools. So this plan won't result in any good for the kids in the long run. If DCPS had any viable plan to fix the failing schools then that should be implemented prior to shifting students.
Also, and sadly, neighborhood beefs between rival school crews could make controlled choice outright dangerous for some youth. A year or so ago I was working in a SE location and I saw about 20 police cars and police tape up. I thought it was a barricade situation but the office staff said it was just school dismissal time and the cops were trying to keep rival high school kids on the proper side of the tape
Anonymous
Post 03/23/2014 11:12     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
That simplistic attitude is the reason that this ludicrous controlled choice idea will tank what gains regular dcps has managed to make in the last 15 years. You want to improve the performance of low income population regular DCPS schools? Advocate for DCPS to adopt the same teaching and administrative methods as the charter schools which are serving that population and achieving great results. Which is exactly what today's oped by Greater Greater Washington in the Post argues in favor of today. DCPS refuses to acknowledge that using different approaches with different school populations may in fact be the only way to ever get to true educational equality.
Anonymous
Post 03/23/2014 10:18     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I have a parent who has attended one of these meetings on boundary changes too and can provide my input. Nobody seems to care about the rights of those who are in bound for Wilson, even though they bought a house west of rock creek précisely for that reason. They have in mind vague ideas about controlled choice sets, full lottery and other crap and they have not even thought how long it takes to drive from palisades to Columbia heights (yes, they are thinking of making Cardozo the hs of choice for those who live in palisades). They seem oblivious to the idea that families with kids could go to Montgomery county or Virginia and just leave dc. When you tell them that public schools in NW dc improved not by chance but because of the investment of time and resources by so many ib families who cared about the local community and the nearby public school, thy tell you that everybody should get a chance. They are thinking of building 200 million dollar schools in plots of faraway empty land, call it a magnet and they tell you that if you care you can send your kid there. If I were the administrator of a dc private school I could not be more hopeful about the seeds of the disaster they are planting. If you are a family in the district who cares about the quality of dc public schools either make yourself heard or flee the city now. These people have no clue about what they are doing. Honestly, I can only think they are serving political interests or are working secretly for some private school lobbyist


Say it ain't so!


I have attended these meetings and I think you are correct, they are trying to address the system as a whole, not meet just the parochial needs of well off Washingtonians in Ward 3. If you want to say I am rich I paid a lot for my real estate and I have a right to good schools and screw the rest of the city, I guess you are right you have first amendment rights, but as far as I know there is no real estate/education right in any political document that I can find. For better or worse this problem has festered for too long because privileged people said I will take my school dollars and run away screw the rest of you. You may end of up doing that and we will miss your money, but the fact is that a school system serves a lot of students in a variety of SES situations and the DME has to think of them also, crazy thing democracy, so yes they are going to try and help those children and it may not mean your life is perfect. As a society it is easy to say oh those crappy parents they are the cause of their kids sucking at school and it is true that they may struggle to give their kids additional resources and frankly some of them do suck, but the fact is that I personally want my kid to also live in a world we don't have a permanent growing underclass which may mean we try and figure how to pull more of these kids in better schools including the one where your child attends. I promise poor kids don't have cooties.
Anonymous
Post 03/23/2014 07:27     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
>>>But for God's sake make those families stay instead of shipping kids out and in twice a day.

Make them stay? Pass a law that says no one can move? Give me a break.
Anonymous
Post 03/23/2014 00:27     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
Anonymous wrote:The only way to strenghten schools is the investment of the prospective and present parents , of the granparents, and of the neighborhood . "Gentrification" offers a unique opportunity and a fresh wave of your families with stronger background. Give these neigborhoods extra resource, investments, and support. But for God's sake make those families stay instead of shipping kids out and in twice a day.


Best words ever! At our DCPS Elementary School , on the day the Principal had called to take care of the school grounds, entire families showed up: granparents, elder brothers and sisters... At the time of PTA school action, you see that the whole neighborhood donate items (not only parents), because the School is a neighborhood value. On weekends, when users from out of the neighborhood come to play soccer in the school sprt field,it is the neighborhood parents who remind them that they cannot bring food and eat on the field, and on Sunday nights you see parents cleaning up the grounds , while their kids play, in preparation for the school weeks.

"OB rights" (not to mention the crazy proposals in the air for completely removing the school boundaries for MS and HS) break the linkage between the community and the school, between parents and the school, between homeowners and the local schools.. Have the long-term residents work together with the newcomers from gentrification.




Don't you ever get bored of listening to yourselves exhort everyone to follow your bidding? God knows, the rest of us do.

We are in a gentrifying neighborhood and we don't love our neighborhood school. We never would, never will. We are in a charter that attracts children from YOUR neighborhood. Stop trying to promote lousy DCPS schools elsewhere in the city. We're fine with the charters that everyone wants into. Shut up and quit whining for 10 minutes.
Anonymous
Post 03/23/2014 00:17     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
Anonymous wrote:+1. "Controlled Choice" isn't a private school conspiracy----it is a calculated move by the DC old guard (think Barry, Gray and all of the cronyism that is associated with them) acting to protect the cash cow that DCPS has been for their friends and family government contracting. The people who make money when they can operate without the scrutiny of demanding, educated parents are desperate to get those meddling gentrifiers out of the DCPS system. What better way than to hoodwink misguided education lefty do-gooders into embracing "controlled choice" and asserting that socio-economic diversity should be a pre-eminent educational goal unto itself---knowing full well that the result of "controlled choice" will be abandonment of DCPS by the parents they would like to get rid of anyway.



I find it hard to believe they could be so calculating as to design a plan to permanently make this a two system city.

Good luck chasing all us new breeders out of town.
Anonymous
Post 03/22/2014 23:46     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
Anonymous wrote:+1. "Controlled Choice" isn't a private school conspiracy----it is a calculated move by the DC old guard (think Barry, Gray and all of the cronyism that is associated with them) acting to protect the cash cow that DCPS has been for their friends and family government contracting. The people who make money when they can operate without the scrutiny of demanding, educated parents are desperate to get those meddling gentrifiers out of the DCPS system. What better way than to hoodwink misguided education lefty do-gooders into embracing "controlled choice" and asserting that socio-economic diversity should be a pre-eminent educational goal unto itself---knowing full well that the result of "controlled choice" will be abandonment of DCPS by the parents they would like to get rid of anyway.



I am going to print this out. I would have never been able to say it this well.
Anonymous
Post 03/22/2014 23:39     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
+1. "Controlled Choice" isn't a private school conspiracy----it is a calculated move by the DC old guard (think Barry, Gray and all of the cronyism that is associated with them) acting to protect the cash cow that DCPS has been for their friends and family government contracting. The people who make money when they can operate without the scrutiny of demanding, educated parents are desperate to get those meddling gentrifiers out of the DCPS system. What better way than to hoodwink misguided education lefty do-gooders into embracing "controlled choice" and asserting that socio-economic diversity should be a pre-eminent educational goal unto itself---knowing full well that the result of "controlled choice" will be abandonment of DCPS by the parents they would like to get rid of anyway.

Anonymous
Post 03/22/2014 20:54     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
Anonymous wrote:The only way to strenghten schools is the investment of the prospective and present parents , of the granparents, and of the neighborhood . "Gentrification" offers a unique opportunity and a fresh wave of your families with stronger background. Give these neigborhoods extra resource, investments, and support. But for God's sake make those families stay instead of shipping kids out and in twice a day.


Best words ever! At our DCPS Elementary School , on the day the Principal had called to take care of the school grounds, entire families showed up: granparents, elder brothers and sisters... At the time of PTA school action, you see that the whole neighborhood donate items (not only parents), because the School is a neighborhood value. On weekends, when users from out of the neighborhood come to play soccer in the school sprt field,it is the neighborhood parents who remind them that they cannot bring food and eat on the field, and on Sunday nights you see parents cleaning up the grounds , while their kids play, in preparation for the school weeks.

"OB rights" (not to mention the crazy proposals in the air for completely removing the school boundaries for MS and HS) break the linkage between the community and the school, between parents and the school, between homeowners and the local schools.. Have the long-term residents work together with the newcomers from gentrification.


+100 Good words - Problem is that currently some of the gentrifiers who would be eager to pitch in and help are made to feel unwelcome at their IB neighborhood schools and are instead pushed to charters or they end up moving away after a few years. We need to tamp down the xenophobia, suspicion and parochial thinking in this city.
Anonymous
Post 03/22/2014 20:46     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
Anonymous wrote:The only way to strenghten schools is the investment of the prospective and present parents , of the granparents, and of the neighborhood . "Gentrification" offers a unique opportunity and a fresh wave of your families with stronger background. Give these neigborhoods extra resource, investments, and support. But for God's sake make those families stay instead of shipping kids out and in twice a day.


Best words ever! At our DCPS Elementary School , on the day the Principal had called to take care of the school grounds, entire families showed up: granparents, elder brothers and sisters... At the time of PTA school action, you see that the whole neighborhood donate items (not only parents), because the School is a neighborhood value. On weekends, when users from out of the neighborhood come to play soccer in the school sprt field,it is the neighborhood parents who remind them that they cannot bring food and eat on the field, and on Sunday nights you see parents cleaning up the grounds , while their kids play, in preparation for the school weeks.

"OB rights" (not to mention the crazy proposals in the air for completely removing the school boundaries for MS and HS) break the linkage between the community and the school, between parents and the school, between homeowners and the local schools.. Have the long-term residents work together with the newcomers from gentrification.


+1
Anonymous
Post 03/22/2014 19:19     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
The only way to strenghten schools is the investment of the prospective and present parents , of the granparents, and of the neighborhood . "Gentrification" offers a unique opportunity and a fresh wave of your families with stronger background. Give these neigborhoods extra resource, investments, and support. But for God's sake make those families stay instead of shipping kids out and in twice a day.


Best words ever! At our DCPS Elementary School , on the day the Principal had called to take care of the school grounds, entire families showed up: granparents, elder brothers and sisters... At the time of PTA school action, you see that the whole neighborhood donate items (not only parents), because the School is a neighborhood value. On weekends, when users from out of the neighborhood come to play soccer in the school sprt field,it is the neighborhood parents who remind them that they cannot bring food and eat on the field, and on Sunday nights you see parents cleaning up the grounds , while their kids play, in preparation for the school weeks.

"OB rights" (not to mention the crazy proposals in the air for completely removing the school boundaries for MS and HS) break the linkage between the community and the school, between parents and the school, between homeowners and the local schools.. Have the long-term residents work together with the newcomers from gentrification.
Anonymous
Post 03/22/2014 19:02     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
Anonymous wrote:Ask St.Ann's Academy the rats ass they give about the improving public schools. But hurry up. They are closing in June after 90 years because of lack of enrolment,


St Ann's is Catholic. That is different.

The good, independent private schools don't need any help getting applicants. It's not just STA/NSC and Sidwell either. The strong K-8s (NPS, Sheridan, St Pats) turn tons of applicants away too. Suggesting otherwise is ludicrous. Maybe some of the Catholic schools would do better with but not the privates.



Catholic are private, i.e. not DCPS, not charter. It is true that most NW private school receive tons of applications. However, given that each kid applies to 4-5 schools, the "net" application number is only 20% of the total received.

I know for a fact (if I only could reveal my source....) that there exist concern from the mid-tier NW private schools (take away Sidwell, NC/St Albans) about the decrease in application numbers.

The "controlled lottery" or semi-random selection, of city-wide HS scheme will resolve their problems.
Anonymous
Post 03/22/2014 18:55     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Sidwell and NCS and St.Albans can draw from the pool of best kids in DC and around because they thrive on the inability of the city to give families a clear and predictable path for their kids public school options.

+2


You all seem to think most people choose these elite private schools because of the state of the public school. I don't think that is at all accurate. If it were, you wouldn't get so many MoCo and NOVA students at the top privates. Nor would you have so many rich families living in NWDC. Most families who choose private school do so because they prefer private school.



The super rich (500K +) go private and do not even bother to invest time to understand the options in the DCPS. I spoke with some who were not even familiar with the IB / OB concepts, or were not aware of which their IB schools were. Two layers below, the middle and middle/high income families, on the contrary, have shown in the past decade significant substitution patterns in favor of DCPS once the performance started to increase.

In my neighborhood (Spring Valley East) several families had their eldest kids in private schools and then enrolled the youngest ones into Janney and Deal (and not because they cared less for them).

Anonymous
Post 03/22/2014 18:44     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
Ask St.Ann's Academy the rats ass they give about the improving public schools. But hurry up. They are closing in June after 90 years because of lack of enrolment,


St Ann's is Catholic. That is different.

The good, independent private schools don't need any help getting applicants. It's not just STA/NSC and Sidwell either. The strong K-8s (NPS, Sheridan, St Pats) turn tons of applicants away too. Suggesting otherwise is ludicrous. Maybe some of the Catholic schools would do better with but not the privates.


Catholic are private, i.e. not DCPS, not charter. It is true that most NW private school receive tons of applications. However, given that each kid applies to 4-5 schools, the "net" application number is only 20% of the total received.

I know for a fact (if I only could reveal my source....) that there exist concern from the mid-tier NW private schools (take away Sidwell, NC/St Albans) about the decrease in application numbers.

The "controlled lottery" or semi-random selection, of city-wide HS scheme will resolve their problems.
Anonymous
Post 03/22/2014 16:48     Subject: When are boundary changes being announced?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The idea of assigning to a lottery the outcomes of the most important investment decisions a family has to make in a lifetime, if so unreasonably wrong and unfounded, from a social and economic point of view, that the only rationale that one can find is fulfilling lobbying from the incredibly powerful private schools (the schools + their alumni).




VERY well said. I see the process in the same way.

Let me add that the most obvious solution (keep the boundaries, eliminate OOB and feeder rights for public schools which have failed to deliver system results, have families join forces with the newcomers from gentrification to demand and pursue change in their neighborhood schools. That's the only sound investment everyone should make, invest in the community and in your schools, rather than assign to the lottery odds the chances to succeed-- and not to succeed) is not being pursued for 3 reasons:
- hidden lobby from the NW private school establishment
- fake social propaganda
- political calculations

The current OOB system has failed: local schools in the EAST quadrant have been left for attendance by the most marginal of the marginals: American kids born from illegal immigrants (there's an estimated 25,000 illegal of them in DC, many with American kids, you know?), kids with single working parent (who cannot drive them to NW twice a day), kids with parents with early mornings shift who have no choice but to walk to the nearby school by themselves as early as in K, families with disabilities to attend, with elderly granparents to attend, with mental disabilities which require constant supervision... No one is talking about them. The focus is on the rights (or, better, the CHANCES) of those who try or make in to the better NW schools. These are the families who will be affected and annoyed in the short run by the cut in the OOB and feeder right. DCPS is focusing only on them, because they are voters... The most marginal ones, who do not even have other chances but to stay in the local schools... nobody cares, they are out of the picture because in most cases they are so left out that they are NOT EVEN VOTERS, or are illegal parents (of American children).

The only way to strenghten schools is the investment of the prospective and present parents , of the granparents, and of the neighborhood . "Gentrification" offers a unique opportunity and a fresh wave of your families with stronger background. Give these neigborhoods extra resource, investments, and support. But for God's sake make those families stay instead of shipping kids out and in twice a day.

A kick away the private school lobby, let them stay out of the debate. Private school shutting down due to the raise of DCPS should be our last concern , or no concern at all.



The problem with your theory is that those particular students (American children of illegal immigrants) live in Ward 1 or the southern portion of Ward 4. They are not in the easternmost portion of the city which is almost exclusively AA and poor.


I do have ONE way in which private schools would benefit: each college takes a certain # of kids from private and from public (assuming they are acceptable) in each "state." If there were no adequate public school candidates from DC (because we have all moved to Md or Va), they would probably increase the private school quota. That has to be what they did back in the day. I remember the scandal over 20 years ago when the valedicatorian from Wilson was accepted to Georgetown and then it was discovered that he could not read.....