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Again, it depends entirely on the schools to which they applied. If they're all uber-popular programs, I'm not sure this really exposes a flaw in the pre-school program as a whole. Unrealistic expectations demonstrate a failing with the parents, not the system. As Oboe has said, DC law doesn't guarantee admission to the specialty charter of your choice, or the most convenient DCPS pre-school.

There's a wrinkle to this that affects preschool demand. Pre-school is an entry year for many charters and DCPS that guarantees admission once a kid reached kindergarten. So that artifically inflates the demand for those pre-school slots. Personally (and I know several families like this), I wouldn't have put my daughter in a full-day pre-school at 3 years old - but we got a slot in a coveted charter, and didn't feel we could pass it up. Absent this entry year issue, the demand for pre-school slots, at least for 3 year-olds, would drop (although I'm not sure it would be material).

This permutation doesn't matter at the most popular west-of-the-park DCPS programs - the so-called JKLM schools - because they're already over-enrolled and turning away in-bounds pre-school students. A good case could be made for expanding those programs, but the schools are already over-capacity, and it's hard to justify adding another pre-school class when it requires third-grade classes to dramatically increase in size, or be evicted to trailers. Plus, the IB kids at those schools aren't exactly the at-risk kids the DC universal pre-school program is meant to assist.

This, I suspect, is part of the reason OSSE doesn't want to change their measures - if they're forced to add a pre-school class at Murch, for example, they'll see it as a waste of resources. Those kids likely will go to preschool anyway, but the parents will have to pay for it, so this is just a subsidy to relatively wealthy (or at least better off) families that aren't the target group of this program. I'm not saying that's right, but it is understandable.

by dcd on Jun 19, 2012 1:08 pm • link • report