In his November 23 Washington Post column, Jay Mathews made a series of allegations about admissions and testing at some public charter schools, citing the theories of a former DCPS teacher.
Here’s the real story: Every one of the eight schools Mathews and former teacher cite currently participates in My School DC, the single, random lottery that determines placement for new public and public charter students. My School DC reports to a committee chaired by the Deputy Mayor of Education and made up of DC Public School and charter school leaders.
The application process through My School DC is straightforward. Families complete an application for each student, listing their school choices in their preferred order —1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, and so on. Students and their parents can select up to 12 schools.
My School DC then uses a matching algorithm to assign each student a random lottery number and attempts to match each student with his or her first choice, then second, and so on.
So if 60 students want to go to a certain public charter school that has only 30 open slots, My School DC will send the school the 30 names of those to be admitted with the rest of the students going on a waiting list in random order. The school must accept the 30 students and are not told the name, gender or ethnicity of any of the students that were matched.
Thus it’s the parents and students – and not the schools – who get to decide which public charter school they would like to attend. Parents and students are the ones who have a choice.
Because public charter schools are not neighborhood schools, parents are able to choose a quality programs anywhere in the District. Students that attend BASIS DC PCS, Washington Yu Ying PCS, or Washington Latin PCS, for example, live all across the city. Here are the maps for these two schools showing where the students live and the school is. Similar maps for every charter school in the city can be found at http://www.dcpcsb.org/report/student-location-maps.
To ensure that schools are not employing discriminating enrollment practices, the Board reviews all public charter school websites and admission materials. In 2012, the Board also implemented another strategy – the mystery shopper initiative, where staff poses as parents asking enrollment questions.
Also, Matthews mentions the DC CAS or DC Comprehensive Assessment test. Federal law requires every school to give an annual assessment in reading and math to everyone of their students in grades 3-8 and high school.
There’s no conspiracy. Students and parents make the choice and the independent My School DC uses a random lottery to fill the available public charter school seats.
Scott Pearson is the Executive Director of the DC Public Charter School Board. The Board oversees the 112 public charter schools in the District.
Students and parents make the choice and the independent My School DC uses a random lottery to fill the available public charter school seats.
