Charles Young Elementary in Langston Terrace.
Enrollment drops at DCPS, while charters pick up the slack. According to the Post, charter schools now serve 26% of District children (it sounds like they are working with the number for total resident children enrolled in either a DCPS school, or a public charter, rather than actually looking at total resident children). The piece also makes the point that it isn't entirely clear if the trends reflect students leaving traditional public schools to attend charter schools, or if these are different groups of students reflecting other trends in the city.
11 comments:
One thing these articles always fail to mention is how many students, both at Charters and regular DCPS, are not in fact, DC residents. An astonishing number of kids commute from the suburbs with their parents. Just stand outside any of these schools and watch the cars with Maryland plates roll up.
That may be a situation where you have one parent who lives outside the District picking up the kids. I can't imagine that DCPS would be generating such demand in the suburbs that vast numbers of parents would falsify address info to make their kids eligible for DC schools.
I gotta tell you, if it was anything it would be the reverse, with people falsifying info to get into a suburban school rather than a DCPS.
There are several DC schools that do draw interest from the burbs, Peabody and Watkins on the Hill deal with this this problem.
It would be nice to see the data for number of District children in Public Schools, Charter Schools, Church/Faith Schools, Private Schools. and who are homeschooled (parent/ private tutors), and have it broken down by age.
The Post did article a few years ago (I think it was early 2000's) detailing students enrolled in DCPS who were not actually city residents, and it was exactly that: parents who worked in the District, dropped their kids off at a school that was convenient to their work location, and used a former address, or a relative's address to justify their enrollment. After many complaints, the District tried to crack down, but I'm not sure how effective it was.
Chris
I stand corrected. I wasn't aware of this kind of thing (kids living in the suburbs and going to DCPS/public charter schools) happening here.
Uh, yeah! Students from MD/VA make up a significant % of the DC student population and it amazes me how many people (including city officials)are not aware of this. It's very difficult to track, as the previous poster pointed out, since parents just use a DC address of a friend or relative. Consider the % of turnover at Ludlow Taylor year after year (something like 50%). Certainly the neighborhood around Ludlow does not have that much of an influx/outflux of middle school aged students every year. LT happens to be on a very convenient commuter route.
This is a burb and urban problem, I have worked as a counselor in Dc, and now Arlington, and deal with this issue daily. So many people move and have family/residents in the tristate area. So kids metro from DC to the burbs, and parents conviently drop kids off in DC. Also people from the burbs want to use the DC law concerning state tax college tutuion across the nation, by having a DC adress and dc school graduation. This can save parents thousands in college cost.
huh?
what is this tax thing for students in dc? does that mean they get state tuition in states outside of our area?
never heard of this.
DC graduates can attend any state university at in-state tuition rate or get $2500 to put toward local or historically black colleges.
http://www.norton.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=295&Itemid=6
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