We know an “at-risk” preference has to be prioritized before in-boundary or sibling applications in the @MySchoolDC lottery to have its largest impact. So, what's the preference order? Well, it depends … (thread)

What’s a lottery preference? A preference (e.g. in-boundary, sibling) allows schools to favor certain students over others in their random selection process. There's a helpful FAQ on the @MySchoolDC website that explains each type of preference.
https://www.myschooldc.org/faq/key-terms#preference

There weren't always charter lottery preferences. In 1999, Congress added a sibling pref (PL106-113). In 2006, a Mendelson amendment added a pref for founding board members (L16-268). The FY15 BSA added a pref for full-time staff (L20-155). SPED & military prefs added in 2015-16.

But each LEA gets to decide which preferences they want to offer and how to order them every year. So the question remains, "what's the order?" Apparently there isn't a list ... https://twitter.com/MySchoolDC/status/1237141627321417728?s=20

Good thing #webscraping exists! Here's a list I made that pulls the preferences as listed on each school's lottery page. If I missed anything, @MySchoolDC please correct the record -- and publish an official list! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jBU0YoVOx20DxpPmQ9ARv0gygexiBkjK/view?usp=sharing

All 118 PCSs in the SY20-21 lottery choose to grant a sibling preference in some form (attending > offered if the school is already open), but only 46 put it first in line. Most (72) prioritize others first ...

111 schools grant a preference for children of full-time staff, 32 of them in first place. This includes all KIPP schools, but also Capital City, EL Haynes and several smaller LEAs. Capped at 10% of total enrollment or 20 students, whichever is smaller.

71 schools (all multi-campus LEAs) grant a transfer preference to help w/ feeder access, 30 of whom rank it first including Appletree, DC Prep and Friendship. Others prioritize siblings > transfers: incl Center City, Lee Mont., Mundo Verde, Rocketship, Stokes and a few others.

16 schools grant a "Founders preference", including 10 that order it first. The original rationale was to help encourage parental involvement (has it worked?) and limited to "no more than 10% of the school’s total enrollment or to 20 students, whichever is less".

It's worth repeating that I put this list together in my spare time and it may have errors. Better for @MySchoolDC to verify and post one. Even better would be data on matches by preference for every school like in DCPS ... https://enrolldcps.dc.gov/node/61 

Parents rely on these data to help make decisions. How you rank a school doesn't affect your chances of getting in, but families can only list up to 12 schools in their app, so they should know whether they have a realistic chance of getting a match b/f applying.

. @DCPSPlanning has a very helpful "Matches by Preference" viz on their website. 41% of DCPS matches for this fall went to kids with some form of preference. @dcpcsb could help make this type of information available for all schools.
https://enrolldcps.dc.gov/node/61 

These data allow us to see that 82% of matches in DCPS neighborhood schools w/ less than 25% "at-risk" in last year’s audit went to in-boundary students. If in-boundary > “at-risk”, there'll be little or no effect. Priority of preferences matters a lot!

Further, we can see that 100% of matches to twelve neighborhood DCPS schools went to in-boundary applicants, effectively barring those who can't afford to live in-bounds. Is this equity? @jessicasutterW6

B23-717, "Expanding Equitable Access to Great Schools Act" adds an "at-risk" preference, but "a public charter school first must receive approval from the @dcpcsb to implement this preference". That's it. Much less detail than other legislated preferences.

LEAs can choose not to grant the "at-risk" preference or rank it last. Still unclear what % "at-risk" will be used for a cutoff (research modeled < 25%), or whether more seats can be made available in non-entry grades. See example:

An "at-risk" preference must be *First Priority* or it won't have much of an impact. That's according to @MySchoolDC research published in 2018 using student-level data. Even then, it only helped about 600 kids (out of ~40,000) get new or better matches. https://twitter.com/wperkinsDC/status/991097313362960384?s=20

An alternative could be “at-risk” set aside. DCPS's pilot this yr initially struggled to fill seats, but reserved space kept spots open for post-lottery. Stevens won't have boundary or feeder rights, so still open Q if DCPS would try @ n'hood schools too. https://twitter.com/wperkinsDC/status/1260960508968161280?s=20

We could require schools (PCS & DCPS) to set aside a certain % (20% maybe?) of seats each year for "at-risk" apps. This would do a lot more to Expand Equitable Access than this bill, which allows LEAs to ignore "at-risk" or rank them after other, potentially large, pref groups.

Anyways, thanks for reading!

Lots to consider before @dcpolicycenter event this Tuesday, 7/21 @ 2pm: https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/events/event-can-enrollment-preferences-increase-equity-in-d-c-schools/

And @councilofdc hearing in two weeks, 7/31 at 10am: https://lims.dccouncil.us/downloads/LIMS/44465/Hearing_Notice/B23-0717-Hearing_Notice1.pdf

And I can’t forget to thank @betsyjwolf and @erotheroth for their help in clarifying these data and my thinking on it. My #DCEduMoms