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@Mary Melchior: the normal way the economy allocates a scarce resource is how much a customer is willing to pay: the law of supply and demand. In the old days, the better schools were in the better, i.e., more expensive, neighborhoods and the school resource was allocated based on money -- that is, ability to buy nice housing. If you did not have much $, you could get into a good school by being first in line. Parents would stand in line all night -- the same as trying to get tickets for a rock concert -- to get a slot at Oyster.

Nowadays, the resource is allocated by lottery. Thus the parents that are most prepared and best able to game the system have the advantage. One cute example: Because it is at capacity with kids from its feeder schools, it is impossible to get into Deal via the lottery. Parents wanting to get their kid into that school rent a closet in Georgetown for the sake of its mailing address and enroll their son or daughter into a feeder elementary school such as Hyde. These on-the-ball parents start to think about where they want to go 2-3 years in advance.

Parents will need to adapt to the new system, which involves a lot more legwork on their part than the way it worked before, which was just show up and the nearest school on the first day of class. Is this any more "fair" than the way kids got into the choice schools was before? I leave that up to you to decide. I am only trying to be accurate in describing the system as it exists.

by goldfish on Jun 15, 2012 12:34 pm • link • report