What happened to Brent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What? There are a bunch of DCPS elementary schools in the District surrounded by valuable real estate that in-boundary high SES parents avoid after early childhood programs, mostly in lower NW and around Cap Hill.

It takes a functional school to draw parents in and keep them.

And there are dysfunctional schools filled with IB parents (see Lafayette). But the students are bright and wealthy so parents put up with it.

[Anonymous]

You're comparing apples and oranges. Chevy Chase neighborhood is not being gentrified. Lafayette has been mostly white for decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're comparing apples and oranges. Chevy Chase neighborhood is not being gentrified. Lafayette has been mostly white for decades.

Gentrification is not a goal of any city officials. It solves some issues and creates others. It is not a metric worth capturing on a rating system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What? There are a bunch of DCPS elementary schools in the District surrounded by valuable real estate that in-boundary high SES parents avoid after early childhood programs, mostly in lower NW and around Cap Hill.

It takes a functional school to draw parents in and keep them.

Actually, it takes a group of non-racist high SES parents to get together and decide to send their kid to the school, and invest in it. To their credit that is what the Brent community did. I don't understand the star formula, but I feel pretty confident in saying Brent is a great school to send your kids to. I'm sure it's just some quirk about the ratings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're comparing apples and oranges. Chevy Chase neighborhood is not being gentrified. Lafayette has been mostly white for decades.

Gentrification is not a goal of any city officials. It solves some issues and creates others. It is not a metric worth capturing on a rating system.

True. But, I think responsiveness, inclusion, and community engagement would be good metrics (although very hard to measure). The kind of qualities that gets a school buy-in from the neighborhood, and also ensures that all voices are heard and all students prioritized.

[Anonymous]

Gentrification is not a goal? What are you smoking? A municipality's tax base expands dramatically when neighborhoods gentrify. Pols and school system leaders adore gentrification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gentrification is not a goal? What are you smoking? A municipality's tax base expands dramatically when neighborhoods gentrify. Pols and school system leaders adore gentrification.

Sure the pols love the boost to public coffers, but school system not as much. There is ample public data so gains resulting exclusively from gentrification are easy to discern. Furthermore, lots of those gentrifiers don't have kids, and some gentrifiers with kids won't even consider public schools on principle. For a place like DC those gentrifiers in the public school system self-select and cluster, exacerbating disparities, stiffing greater integration, and providing supplemental funding in a self-serving manner rather than one that benefits all public ed students.

[Anonymous]

Oh get over yourself. More gentrifiers, more good schools in the inner city (built partly on a good deal of free parent labor) and some struggling boats rise with the tide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh get over yourself. More gentrifiers, more good schools in the inner city (built partly on a good deal of free parent labor) and some struggling boats rise with the tide.

Except Brent is NOT the inner city.

[Anonymous]

Oh no? I've been in the neighborhood for 30 years. I remember seeing broken glass on the Brent blacktop that would sit there during recess time for entire weeks in the late 90s (though passers by would call in to complain about it as a threat to the kids). I remember windows boarded up after a hurricane in 2001, with the wood staying where it was for several years because nobody bothered to remove it. The neighborhood has, er, changed a lot in recent years without changing its location.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh get over yourself. More gentrifiers, more good schools in the inner city (built partly on a good deal of free parent labor) and some struggling boats rise with the tide.

Bullshit. You get over yourself. DC public ed will be successful when it can't just cherry pick results from students who will thrive anywhere.

Outside of Wilson feed and a few isolated ES schools in NW and Cap Hill, what DCPS schools have benefited from gentrifiers aside from the odd bump in ECE enrollment?

[Anonymous]

Tax base expanded, more money pumped into school system to pay for everything from better teacher training to more supplies, from new building renovations to updated tech, from more special subjects to richer extra-curriculars. Stepping out of schools, more police on the streets, better maintained city parks, more job training and placement support for struggling families etc. etc.

[Anonymous]

+100.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tax base expanded, more money pumped into school system to pay for everything from better teacher training to more supplies, from new building renovations to updated tech, from more special subjects to richer extra-curriculars. Stepping out of schools, more police on the streets, better maintained city parks, more job training and placement support for struggling families etc. etc.

and yet the schools are what they are

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tax base expanded, more money pumped into school system to pay for everything from better teacher training to more supplies, from new building renovations to updated tech, from more special subjects to richer extra-curriculars. Stepping out of schools, more police on the streets, better maintained city parks, more job training and placement support for struggling families etc. etc.

and yet the schools are what they are

Schools in gentrified areas seem to be 4-5 stars. You’re welcome.