as was said on the "Annoyed" thread:

Nothing substantive will change, as long as parents accept that "choice" means the choice to drive all over town to get your kids to a public school based on the luck of a lottery.

How about we call it gambling and acknowledge DC parents accept that the government they pay taxes to seems to think it acceptable for parents to gamble their tax dollars on their children's education.

Le't s call it luck and acknowledge that in DC every citizen's right to a public education is strongly determined by government-sponsored luck - to add to the luck of being born (or not) to parents who are loving and attentive, educated, lucratively employed, and/or independently wealthy.

Yes, some things in life are luck, but public education?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the OP here. People are welcome to say good riddance to us, PP - but if I don't have the school I want for our kids, and can afford to move, why on earth would I stay? Childfree people will then move to our house and be happy enough there and everything will balance itself out. I like walking everywhere and being close to work, but not enough to send any of my children to a school I don't care for.

To the PP who mentioned geographical component - I saw that but the problem is we live on the Hill where our inbound school is good (Brent) but any of the other neighboring ones, not so much, so any school choice that has a decent chance of landing my DD at e.g. Tyler Traditional (or sending half of Tyler Traditional students to Brent) is not really great.

If this comes about, they will try and lure you to stay with promises of great programs and shiny new stuff. The inequality at this point is so great in our school system ( for example between the education one receives at Brent, and the one at Tyler Traditional ) that those is charge are willing to gamble that you really want to stay and will give up some certainty to do so.

In what way is the inequity so great between Tyler and Brent?

Just look at the test scores. But I don't see how destroying Brent's achievements can help Tyler. Either expand Brent or help Tyler directly. No grad school social engineering.

That's it? Test scores? You don't have anything but test scores to prove an inequity? Not facilities, curriculum, teaching quality, learning environment, special programs? Test scores are correlated with SES, so where's the inequity? Are you saying that a school is only good if it has high SES students?

I think low-ses students should have higher test scores, absolutely.

But test scores do not indicate an inequality in the opportunities offered by the two schools.

This why "equality of opportunity" becomes a pointless concept. Different kinds of students have different kinds of needs, so equality (eg facilities, fancy curriculums, even per $ expenditures) is not really a useful notion. Whatever it takes to help low-SES students should be done, whether it costs less or more than high-SES schools.

Anonymous wrote:All of the families saying that they will leave shows their selfishness and desire to only help their own children, instead of working to support and improve the entire DCPS community. I'd be glad to see you all leave and make room for families who want educational equity for all students.

wrong. we show that we are unwilling to have our lives messed up and our kids' education threatened in the name of an unreasonable (and ineffective) social experiment. and we do not interpret "education equality" as we all get bad schools and we all have to move arund town so we are all equal. and educated families want a good education for their kids, if they cannot get it in DCPS, they will go private or stay in VA and MD.

identify the schools that are doing bad, and the reasons they are doing bad, then work on them. hire the best teachers, add programs, diversify education according to the level of students. if students have issues and need extra help, give it to them. if a child does not know how to ready in 4th grade, get that child extra help so he can learn to read at grade level (you can send the child to Deal and Wilson, but if he does not how to read, he won't go anywhere). this means qual education to me, all kids, no matter what is their backround, get to go to a school with great teachers, good programs, and especially at the elementary level, the extra help they may need to learn how to read and write and math if they are not lucky enough to have a familt that supports them in their learning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the OP here. People are welcome to say good riddance to us, PP - but if I don't have the school I want for our kids, and can afford to move, why on earth would I stay? Childfree people will then move to our house and be happy enough there and everything will balance itself out. I like walking everywhere and being close to work, but not enough to send any of my children to a school I don't care for.

To the PP who mentioned geographical component - I saw that but the problem is we live on the Hill where our inbound school is good (Brent) but any of the other neighboring ones, not so much, so any school choice that has a decent chance of landing my DD at e.g. Tyler Traditional (or sending half of Tyler Traditional students to Brent) is not really great.

If this comes about, they will try and lure you to stay with promises of great programs and shiny new stuff. The inequality at this point is so great in our school system ( for example between the education one receives at Brent, and the one at Tyler Traditional ) that those is charge are willing to gamble that you really want to stay and will give up some certainty to do so.

In what way is the inequity so great between Tyler and Brent?

Just look at the test scores. But I don't see how destroying Brent's achievements can help Tyler. Either expand Brent or help Tyler directly. No grad school social engineering.

That's it? Test scores? You don't have anything but test scores to prove an inequity? Not facilities, curriculum, teaching quality, learning environment, special programs? Test scores are correlated with SES, so where's the inequity? Are you saying that a school is only good if it has high SES students?

I think low-ses students should have higher test scores, absolutely.

But test scores do not indicate an inequality in the opportunities offered by the two schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the OP here. People are welcome to say good riddance to us, PP - but if I don't have the school I want for our kids, and can afford to move, why on earth would I stay? Childfree people will then move to our house and be happy enough there and everything will balance itself out. I like walking everywhere and being close to work, but not enough to send any of my children to a school I don't care for.

To the PP who mentioned geographical component - I saw that but the problem is we live on the Hill where our inbound school is good (Brent) but any of the other neighboring ones, not so much, so any school choice that has a decent chance of landing my DD at e.g. Tyler Traditional (or sending half of Tyler Traditional students to Brent) is not really great.

If this comes about, they will try and lure you to stay with promises of great programs and shiny new stuff. The inequality at this point is so great in our school system ( for example between the education one receives at Brent, and the one at Tyler Traditional ) that those is charge are willing to gamble that you really want to stay and will give up some certainty to do so.

In what way is the inequity so great between Tyler and Brent?

Just look at the test scores. But I don't see how destroying Brent's achievements can help Tyler. Either expand Brent or help Tyler directly. No grad school social engineering.

That's it? Test scores? You don't have anything but test scores to prove an inequity? Not facilities, curriculum, teaching quality, learning environment, special programs? Test scores are correlated with SES, so where's the inequity? Are you saying that a school is only good if it has high SES students?

I think low-ses students should have higher test scores, absolutely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the families saying that they will leave shows their selfishness and desire to only help their own children, instead of working to support and improve the entire DCPS community. I'd be glad to see you all leave and make room for families who want educational equity for all students.

This is bullshit. You can create equity without destroying existing value. And it is the height of arrogance to assume that equity can be centrally planned anyway. I guarantee you that the majority of high ses parents (who are not just white btw) would be more than happy to pay in more taxes to help everyone improve. We just don't see the point of destroying achievements in the name of unproven social engineering.

Attributing whiteness to a previous post when that person made no mention of race? Truly the height of arrogance and ignorance.

Fair enough - I was combining a response to 2 posts.

Anonymous wrote:This is a mess, but a good lesson to the spoiled, privileged whites in DC that they are not quite the masters of the universe that they have come to believe they are. Shit happens and you do not always come out ahead.

If moving to Bethesda or similar to avoid an epic school mess is not coming ahead by your definition, I am OK with that. I hardly think we and anyone else who will move or go private will learn some sort of lesson about suffering.

And that's why whatever plan they can come up with has to please middle/upper-middle class families in some way. Because guess what - a lot of these families have options other than DCPS and they will take them. When you can't mandate your higher SES families stay in the system, you should do something to insentivize them. Or you can just decide you don't care if they leave, which is certainly an option but will hardly fix your broken school system.

As to the PP who said good riddance and that people like me are being selfish - sure. I am selfish. I put my child's well being and future above that of children I do not know. My DD's education is not a social experiment. You are welcome to stay and make your child's education into one.

Also, any of the social justice posters here - how many of you were ever low SES or went to a really bad school? During my childhood, I had the pleasure of being/doing both. I've worked quite hard not to repeat either experience for my child. If I have a choice (and I do), I would never send her to the kind of middle school I went to, any more than I would want her to live in the kind of neighborhood I did.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the families saying that they will leave shows their selfishness and desire to only help their own children, instead of working to support and improve the entire DCPS community. I'd be glad to see you all leave and make room for families who want educational equity for all students.

This is bullshit. You can create equity without destroying existing value. And it is the height of arrogance to assume that equity can be centrally planned anyway. I guarantee you that the majority of high ses parents (who are not just white btw) would be more than happy to pay in more taxes to help everyone improve. We just don't see the point of destroying achievements in the name of unproven social engineering.

Attributing whiteness to a previous post when that person made no mention of race? Truly the height of arrogance and ignorance.

Anonymous wrote:All of the families saying that they will leave shows their selfishness and desire to only help their own children, instead of working to support and improve the entire DCPS community. I'd be glad to see you all leave and make room for families who want educational equity for all students.

This is bullshit. You can create equity without destroying existing value. And it is the height of arrogance to assume that equity can be centrally planned anyway. I guarantee you that the majority of high ses parents (who are not just white btw) would be more than happy to pay in more taxes to help everyone improve. We just don't see the point of destroying achievements in the name of unproven social engineering.

Anything is possible, but the odds are close to nil.

Evidence of that is the great deal of trouble they went through to present proposed boundary changes for elementary schools ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/local/proposed-elementary-school-zones/ )

The areas with parents making threats have very few changes.

This is a mess, but a good lesson to the spoiled, privileged whites in DC that they are not quite the masters of the universe that they have come to believe they are. Shit happens and you do not always come out ahead.

All of the families saying that they will leave shows their selfishness and desire to only help their own children, instead of working to support and improve the entire DCPS community. I'd be glad to see you all leave and make room for families who want educational equity for all students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the OP here. People are welcome to say good riddance to us, PP - but if I don't have the school I want for our kids, and can afford to move, why on earth would I stay? Childfree people will then move to our house and be happy enough there and everything will balance itself out. I like walking everywhere and being close to work, but not enough to send any of my children to a school I don't care for.

To the PP who mentioned geographical component - I saw that but the problem is we live on the Hill where our inbound school is good (Brent) but any of the other neighboring ones, not so much, so any school choice that has a decent chance of landing my DD at e.g. Tyler Traditional (or sending half of Tyler Traditional students to Brent) is not really great.

If this comes about, they will try and lure you to stay with promises of great programs and shiny new stuff. The inequality at this point is so great in our school system ( for example between the education one receives at Brent, and the one at Tyler Traditional ) that those is charge are willing to gamble that you really want to stay and will give up some certainty to do so.

In what way is the inequity so great between Tyler and Brent?

Just look at the test scores. But I don't see how destroying Brent's achievements can help Tyler. Either expand Brent or help Tyler directly. No grad school social engineering.

That's it? Test scores? You don't have anything but test scores to prove an inequity? Not facilities, curriculum, teaching quality, learning environment, special programs? Test scores are correlated with SES, so where's the inequity? Are you saying that a school is only good if it has high SES students?

I think low-ses students should have higher test scores, absolutely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the OP here. People are welcome to say good riddance to us, PP - but if I don't have the school I want for our kids, and can afford to move, why on earth would I stay? Childfree people will then move to our house and be happy enough there and everything will balance itself out. I like walking everywhere and being close to work, but not enough to send any of my children to a school I don't care for.

To the PP who mentioned geographical component - I saw that but the problem is we live on the Hill where our inbound school is good (Brent) but any of the other neighboring ones, not so much, so any school choice that has a decent chance of landing my DD at e.g. Tyler Traditional (or sending half of Tyler Traditional students to Brent) is not really great.

If this comes about, they will try and lure you to stay with promises of great programs and shiny new stuff. The inequality at this point is so great in our school system ( for example between the education one receives at Brent, and the one at Tyler Traditional ) that those is charge are willing to gamble that you really want to stay and will give up some certainty to do so.

In what way is the inequity so great between Tyler and Brent?

Just look at the test scores. But I don't see how destroying Brent's achievements can help Tyler. Either expand Brent or help Tyler directly. No grad school social engineering.

That's it? Test scores? You don't have anything but test scores to prove an inequity? Not facilities, curriculum, teaching quality, learning environment, special programs? Test scores are correlated with SES, so where's the inequity? Are you saying that a school is only good if it has high SES students?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the OP here. People are welcome to say good riddance to us, PP - but if I don't have the school I want for our kids, and can afford to move, why on earth would I stay? Childfree people will then move to our house and be happy enough there and everything will balance itself out. I like walking everywhere and being close to work, but not enough to send any of my children to a school I don't care for.

To the PP who mentioned geographical component - I saw that but the problem is we live on the Hill where our inbound school is good (Brent) but any of the other neighboring ones, not so much, so any school choice that has a decent chance of landing my DD at e.g. Tyler Traditional (or sending half of Tyler Traditional students to Brent) is not really great.

If this comes about, they will try and lure you to stay with promises of great programs and shiny new stuff. The inequality at this point is so great in our school system ( for example between the education one receives at Brent, and the one at Tyler Traditional ) that those is charge are willing to gamble that you really want to stay and will give up some certainty to do so.

In what way is the inequity so great between Tyler and Brent?

Just look at the test scores. But I don't see how destroying Brent's achievements can help Tyler. Either expand Brent or help Tyler directly. No grad school social engineering.