- Joy and anguish for parents as D.C. releases school lottery results [Friendship PCS, Two Rivers PCS, AppleTree Early Learning PCS, and KIPP DC PCS mentioned]
- D.C. Officials: 17K Students Sign Up for Schools Lottery System [Mundo Verde PCS mentioned]
- There are not enough high quality seats in D.C. schools [Two Rivers PCS, AppleTree Early Learning PCS, and KIPP DC PCS mentioned]
Joy and anguish for parents as D.C. releases school lottery results [Friendship PCS, Two Rivers PCS, AppleTree Early Learning PCS, and KIPP DC PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
March 31, 2014
District officials released the results of the city’s school enrollment lottery late Sunday night, capping one of most anxiety-ridden times of year for thousands of parents who have been hoping to be lucky enough to get their children into a good school.
About 71 percent of students got one of their choices, according to data that Deputy Mayor for Education Abigail Smith released Monday. Of those students, 85 percent got one of their top three choices.
“I’m happy,” said Tekia Harrod, a mother from Southeast Washington whose 3-year-old daughter got into her first choice, Friendship Public Charter School’s Southeast Elementary Academy. “I do a lot of praying,” Harrod said, explaining her good fortune.
More than 17,000 students entered the lottery, which for the first time this year included all traditional schools and most charter schools. Parents were allowed to rank up to 12 schools in order of preference, and a computer algorithm — similar to the algorithm used to match doctors-in-training to medical residencies — matched children to open spots.
About 5,000 students were not matched to any school, and the city did not release data showing the number of students who secured spots at last-choice schools. For many of those families, lottery day was a heartbreak and a difficult reminder that while the city’s public education options are improving, there are still far too few well-regarded schools to meet demand.
“You are gambling on your child’s education,” said Chai Shenoy, a Takoma mother whose daughter got a spot in one of her last choices for a preschool program. Shenoy said D.C. policymakers need to treat school improvement as a key part of the city’s economic development and to realize that for many families, it is tempting to leave the city and all its uncertainty about schools for the stability of the suburbs.
“Those are conversations that all of my friends who live in D.C. are having with each other,” Shenoy said. “And nobody wants to leave D.C.”
Each of the District’s dozens of charter schools used to conduct its own lottery, and traditional schools previously had a separate lottery for students seeking preschool and out-of-boundary seats. That was daunting for parents and — because children could be admitted to more than one school and could hold onto multiple seats for months — contributed to an annual wait-list shuffle that stretched into October.
The new unified lottery is meant to streamline the application process for parents and cut down on the wait-list shuffle by admitting each child to only one school. But it does not fix the fact that there are too few schools with the programs that meet parents’ demands.
Some of the most sought-after schools have acceptance rates that rival the nation’s most selective colleges. Two Rivers, an elementary-middle school in the Noma neighborhood, received nearly 2,500 lottery applications for 60 seats — giving families about a 2.5 percent chance of getting in — while KIPP DC had about 6,540 applications for about 1,100 seats, according to Scott Pearson, executive director of the D.C. Public Charter School Board.
AppleTree Early Learning, a network of six early-childhood charter school campuses across the city, received 1,947 applications for 304 spots. “We’re pleased that we’re a popular choice,” said AppleTree President Jack McCarthy, but “the real tragedy here is that we’ve got to have lotteries because there’s a shortage of good schools.”
Smith said she was pleased that the new system operated smoothly and that community outreach efforts appear to have been successful: Lottery participation rates in the city’s eight wards are similar to the proportion of students in each ward. But she acknowledged that there are still many children who didn’t get a seat.
“People will be thrilled with the process if they get what they wanted, and if they are disappointed, they will have a very different lens through which they’re looking at the process,” she said.
Starting in kindergarten, D.C. residents have a right to attend their assigned neighborhood school without entering the lottery. But children are not guaranteed a seat before kindergarten, so preschoolers who don’t match a school are not guaranteed admission anywhere. Of the 3-year-olds who entered the lottery, 88 percent found a match.
Families admitted to a school must submit enrollment paperwork by May 1 to secure their seats. Those who don’t get admitted anywhere, or who did not complete an application earlier this year, can apply for the lottery’s second round by May 15. The second round allows schools to fill seats that are still open or add to their waiting lists.
Students still have a chance to be admitted to schools where they have been wait-listed, though because it is a new system, it is hard to say how many spots will open up.
In the past, the charter board published information about the length of wait lists at each charter and the traditional school system published more detailed information about who applied to, got into and got wait-listed at each school.
But this year, Smith’s office has not released that information, and parents only know their child’s wait-list number. That has led to frustration among families who are trying to understand the likelihood of getting into a better city school. Smith said she plans to release more data, but did not offer specifics or a timeline.
“Having data to be able to evaluate your chances is really important for people,” said Susanna Montezemolo, an Adams Morgan mother whose daughter was admitted to preschool at their neighborhood school — their 10th choice.
Montezemolo, whose daughter is 390th on the wait list at her top-choice school, said she feels strongly that the unified lottery is better than the old system.
“I feel like I got burned in this lottery, but I still think this is the best way to do it,” she said. “I think the sad thing is . . . there is just a real scarcity of high-quality seats in the city.”
D.C. Officials: 17K Students Sign Up for Schools Lottery System [Mundo Verde PCS mentioned]
The Washington Informer
March 31, 2014
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray announced Monday that more than 17,000 students applied for My School DC, the District's first-ever common lottery system for the city's public schools and most of its public charter schools.
The program received 17,322 applications from families interested in attending one of 200 DCPS or public charter schools for the 2014-15 school year, officials said.
This new process allowed families, for the first time, to use a single online application. The common lottery then maximized the number of students matched to a school they want to attend.
Families applied to 90 participating charter schools and all DCPS early childhood, out-of-boundary and specialized high schools, eliminating barriers and streamlining the process. Of the 17,322 applications received, more than 12,200 students were matched at the time of the lottery – a 71 percent match rate. Of these students, 85 percent were offered a seat at one of their top three school choices. PK3 and 9th grades had the highest number of applications submitted and also had the highest match rates compared to other grade levels — 88 percent and 78 percent, respectively. Additional students will be offered spots from waiting lists over the spring and summer.
"For years, families struggled with paperwork and processes to participate in multiple lotteries across DCPS and charters. With this new system, we helped eliminate barriers and created an environment where families can see their options all in one place, empowering families to help make the best decisions for their students," Gray said. "I’m also proud to see so many families got seats in the schools of their choice. This lottery is One City in action."
A joint effort between the Deputy Mayor for Education, DCPS, the Public Charter School Board, the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, and public charter school leaders, My School DC is a successful example of how District agencies and schools – public and public charter – can work together in an innovative way for the benefit of District families.
With more than 200 public schools participating, parents could rank up to 12 schools for each child. Families are wait-listed at schools they ranked higher than where they were matched. This makes the waiting lists a more accurate measure of demand for schools, which was often an issue in previous years.
"We are excited to be participating in the My School DC common lottery process. It has enabled our school to reach a broad audience and empowered families to make informed choices through a streamlined process. This lottery brings simplicity, fairness and transparency to a system that touches all D.C. students," said Kristin Scotchmer, executive director of Mundo Verde Public Charter School.
The distribution of applications by students’ ward of residence reflects the current distribution of public-school students in the city – an indication that families in every part of the city were able to access the application and participate in the lottery.
"The application process was easy – not intimidating. Not only did this process save me time, but having all the information on our school options in one place was very helpful and informative," said Ward 5 parent Dameon V. Alexander.
Families can log onto www.myschooldc.org and check their results or call the My School DC hotline at 202-888-6336. Families who were matched in Round 1 must submit their enrollment forms to the school where they were matched by May 1 in order to accept their seat. Anyone who was not matched with a school or missed the deadline can submit an application for Round 2 of the lottery. Applications (PK3-12) for Round 2 are due by May 15.
For more information on the process and how to submit an application for Round 2, visit My School DC.
There are not enough high quality seats in D.C. schools [Two Rivers PCS, AppleTree Early Learning PCS, and KIPP DC PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
April 1, 2014
The overwhelming takeaway from today's Washington Post article about the results of the first common public school lottery held in the nation's capital is that there are an insufficient number of high quality seats in D.C.'s public schools. The piece includes these statistics. At Two Rivers Public Charter School there were 60 openings and 2,500 students applied. At KIPP DC 6,540 kids applied for 1,100 spots. 1,947 students applied for 304 seats at AppleTree Early Learning PCS. AppleTree Institute president and CEO Jack McCarthy, who I recently interviewed, commented that "the real tragedy here is that we’ve got to have lotteries because there’s a shortage of good schools.”
A tragedy it is. This morning I counted the number of Public Charter School Board Performance Management Framework Tier 1 spots. These are seats at schools most likely to be closing the academic achievement gap. The number is an astonishing 8,035. That's out of 36,565 students currently attending charters and another 46,393 who are enrolled in DCPS. This means that out of the current 82,958 kids going to public school here 9.7 percent are attending the best educational institutions.
So after 18 years of school reform the question could be asked, just what do we think are we doing? We are no where. For all the excruciating difficult work, political fights, and lobbying we are helping an incredibly small proportion of our children. As more young families enter our city the problem is going to get worse.
This is an emergency that calls for drastic action. We better all come together and figure out what to do next. The current strategy is clearly not bringing the intended results.