After all, the equity issue is really a moral and fairness issue. Every student in a public school system should be treated equitably with other students — quality of education from student to student certainly shouldn’t depend on parental income as it does in PPS.

Saying equity is necessary is similar to saying racism should not take place in the schools or we need to respect the legal rights of employees and students. These are givens in a public educational system. So, hey, EQUITY IN THREE YEARS. And that is being very understanding — could be EQUITY NOW.

Let’s start by doing away with neighborhood to neighborhood school transfers.

Are you running, or not? If we don’t sign up some more candidates real quick, this is going to be the worst school board election ever.

I’ll write you in anyway.

Easier? Yes, quite. But that still doesn’t mean that flight won’t happen. With “good” schools bursting at the seams, many families are already looking at the prospect of not getting into *any* of their transfer choices (“School Chance”, indeed)

The families you would lose would be the ones who are most mobile – the ones who are also likely to be the ones who would be highly active with their schools – volunteering, fundraising, etc. Within just a few blocks from us, I can count at least 3, if not 4 or 5 families who are already talking about having to move or opting out of public schooling if it came to that. Several others have already voted with their feet by going to private or online schools. Flight can happen without having to move at all.

The district has to show support behind these schools before parents will put faith into staying. The trust will not come simply because we’re forced to stay. Even if fewer families leave, it will still put a stranglehold on the influx of new families, as neighborhood schooling will weigh on their decisions even more than before.

Believe me, it weighed on our decision to move into the neighborhood – we chose to move here thinking “Well, the local elementary is ok, we can give it a few years and see if things can get better at the middle and high school” – what happened? They shut down both the elementary and middle school. Thanks, PPS! :p

My worst nightmare is where PPS ends transfers, sit back, and hope that will fix the problem. All that will succeed in doing is further drive these neighborhoods down. We have enough of a problem with other political forces conspiring to label us the “poor” or “minority” part of town.

So, to my mind, this is the PERFECT time to make significant changes in the transfer system.

Never let a crisis go to waste.

I will say this regarding white flight: It’s a helluva lot easier to enter the transfer lottery than to sell your house and move to a new neighborhood.

Low income schools get more portables to relieve the overcrowding caused by badly planned school closures. Oh and a lottery ticket for a chance to send your kid to a good school in another part of town.

We have comprehensive secondary schools in the wealthy parts of town but not rest; the likelihood of a student being assigned to a comprehensive middle or high school correlates highly to that student being white and middle class.

The two-tiered school system for grades 6-12 is probably the most likely to expose PPS to a federal Title VI complaint or lawsuit.

That said, this is just my first round of questions. If Scott is inclined to engage the community, you can be sure transfer and enrollment will be covered in due time.