Ramona Edelin: School information and choice can empower DC families

As the annual application period for DC’s public school lottery once again comes to an end, it’s an opportune time for education officials to consider how to improve school choice in the District in future years. In particular, we need to take a closer look at the flawed ranking systems that influence this lottery — increasing demand and resources for certain schools while shortchanging others.

The lottery application deadline is today for pre-K through eighth-grade students, a month after the due date for high-schoolers. A one-stop online portal for parents and guardians is available at myschooldc.org.

The yearly lottery allows families to consider traditional public schools that are not their in-boundary public school or feeder school. It also enables families to enter the lotteries for participating public charter schools, which are taxpayer-funded and tuition-free but operate independently of the traditional public school system. These unique schools educate nearly half of all DC public school students and are open to all DC families on a first-come, first-served basis. (Latin American Montessori Bilingual and St. Coletta Special Education public charter schools are the only two pre-K-through-eighth-grade programs that don’t participate in the myschooldc.org lottery, having their own systems.)

With the availability of free public transportation for DC students via Metrobus and Metrorail, it’s possible to attend a school across the city without extra cost, an important consideration for families with limited means.

When participating in the lottery, families may rank up to 12 choices in order of preference. Student names are drawn at random (aside from specified preferences such as siblings being automatically matched for any school where their brother or sister is also matched) until available places are filled; there’s also a waitlist for schools where demand exceeds the number of available seats.

The lottery website provides extensive information about the application and selection process, but other resources are also available to families. There is an annual educational festival at which different schools exhibit their diverse programs; the event for the upcoming school year was held Dec. 8. Parents can also get answers to their questions via email (info.myschooldc@dc.gov) or on a telephone hotline with multiple language options.

While any system designed to allocate high-demand spots is necessarily imperfect, the lottery at least performs this function randomly. This allows all families in comparable circumstances the same chances of securing their top choice without regard to financial resources. Accordingly, some 85 percent of students are awarded a seat at one of their top three school choices.

School choice in the District is a grassroots-led change. After public charter schools were introduced in the mid-1990s, enrollment increased exponentially as choice was extended to all regardless of income or ZIP code. Similarly, the DCPS out-of-boundary program expands the range of choices beyond simply the neighborhood traditional public school.

By contrast, many of the means of evaluating District public schools have been imposed top-down, thereby missing some of the ingredients for success. As well, some achievements are not captured by such metrics. For example, the DC Public Charter School Board separates the schools under its purview into three tiers: “high performing,” “compliant” and “under-performing,” the last of which makes them candidates for closure, and all of which influence the resources invested in them.

Such rankings, while intending to inform, can act to spread resources unevenly — to the detriment of students enrolled. Some 85 percent of Tier 2 charter schools are run by homegrown DC executives, often operating single-campus sites. Yet many of the schools with Tier 1 designations are run by non-local, multi-campus charter management organizations (CMOs) with access to more resources in the form of private funds. These big-brand operators also are advantaged in the competition for funds by virtue of networked professional development and shared curricula and instructional strategies.

Similarly, the new star-rating system — set up last year in response to requirements under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, and determined by the DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education separately from the charter board’s rankings — may reflect such factors as access to resources and the locations of schools, as much as it does school quality. For example, no public school in wards 7 and 8 received five stars, the highest available score. Public charters — including the top-performing schools in those two under-served wards — have located there by choice in order to serve students where educational needs are greatest. Yet they end up being penalized as a result because of measures that put them at a disadvantage.

The District’s public charter schools already achieve stronger on-time graduation rates (as measured by students completing high school within four years), and the sector has been ahead of the curve in improving standardized test scores while educating a higher share of economically disadvantaged students than the traditional school system. This progress — and the lifeline it offers many vulnerable students — could be enhanced by factoring into measurements such obviously influential factors as poverty and access to resources. Balancing inputs and outputs this way could provide better supports for schools dealing with the greatest challenges — and therefore the students whose educational needs are the highest.

The District has made great strides in public education quality in recent years, leading to the eighth consecutive annual increase in public school enrollment after decades of decline. DC officials also have recognized the special needs of the most disadvantaged children by increasing the per-student funds for those growing up in low-income families. The DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education ought to broaden the star-system metrics to give a clearer picture to families to inform their choices and a more even and equitable distribution of precious resources, which will better serve every District child.

Ramona Edelin is executive director of the DC Association of Chartered Public Schools.

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