I have zero faith that the administration and DCPS will take care of those that have not. Schools were torn down and converted into condo's. A democratically elected organization was taken over and stripped of power, yet we scream for representation in DC. They play by their own rules

The resentment felt by OOB parents is completely understandable. Here they are fighting to get their kids into a decent school, just to see their chances to send more kids decreased simply because families West of the Park are exercising a prerogative denied to the OOB family: namely the privilege to send their kid to a local school that's high achieving without going through a humiliating lottery.

The better way to address that resentment is to improve the local schools East of the Park. But that's a distant dream probably generations away. In the mean time, the OOB family is just struggling to find another school that still has slots open.

And that's why I find this whole thing utterly fascinating.

If DCPS and Rhee would get their act together starting with ending speaking engagements across the country, flying to Cali, taking pictures, and violating the will of the law, maybe she could actually fix schools the out of boundary students flee from. However, if they stay the course the course national Achievement scholars go waaaay down in this city and National Merit Scholars go up. Then what do you do?

Now I don't mean to be all Michelle Bachman and inject venom into this debate, but the "talks" as described in the article points to this. Yes, I would love for people to send their kids back to DCPS (I graduated from Wilson myself). However I find it appaling that we would condone this strategy. "White people flee the schools, parents of minorities try to find good schools for their kids... Kids become OOB at schools like Elington.... White people want to come back.... Minorities must go."

As far as the OOB kids will bring down their achievement is crap. When I was at Deal & Wilson I performed very well. Were there bad students from OOB? Of course they were but I insure you if your kid is a "high achiever" they have nothing to worry about because how many bad kids or less achieving kids are taking advanced math/science and electives??? Go to an AP Physics class or Calculus class in DCPS, and tell me the demographics.

The issue of Hardy and Duke Ellington School is fascinating. You have increasing numbers of local residents who are choosing to send their kids to local schools. The only reason Hardy is full of out-of-boundary kids is that for decades there haven't been enough in-boundary kids to fill it. The result is that it's not really a local school but a magnet school. The question is, do we want more "West of the Park" families sending their kids to public schools? It would probably improve the student performance of DCPS and certainly improve the communal ties within the neighborhood. But it would necessarily displace some East of the Park kids who have escaped their own underperforming schools (or rather since once you're in a school you can't be kicked out, it would preempt the ability of some East of the Park kids from getting out of their underperforming schools).

There is no doubt that most West of the Park parents who send their kids to local public schools wish that more West of the Park parents would do the same. The sad fact is that the reason Janney is such a good school is because the neighborhood has bought into the school because it is a good school because the neighborhood bought into it because...It's a chicken and the egg problem. I can totally understand the anxiety of out-of-boundary parents that Rhee is trying to jump-start that cycle for Hardy. And the symbolism of "re-creating" Western High School, which was once a White-only high school, is particularly tricky. But in the end, wouldn't the better system be one that attracted all students, rich and poor?