New Jackson-Reed HS (Wilson HS) School Principal - Sah Brown from Eastern High School

[Anonymous]

*Hearst

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

So, you agree that low income students were displaced. Your argument is that’s OK because they were OOB and DC favors local residents?

To me, that’s the question. People here tout gentrification — and resulting displacement — as good because it “improves the schools.” It seems really odd to tout changing out the student population by getting rid of the poor kids as an improvement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is school choice in dc. Parents don’t want to drive across town for a decent high school. Homeowners in ward 6 are very interested in raising their home values by touting awesome schools nearby. Everyone wants eastern to succeed for selfish and not so selfish reasons. But the truth of the matter is that eastern doesn’t care about luring parents to their school. They’re content with doing the bare minimum and watching as Capitol Hill parents go elsewhere. That is a failure.

And everyone here who makes excuses for the school and believes that the principal should only serve the kids at his school contribute to that failure.

They can’t see the forest for the trees and the big picture.

I mean, what ELSE is he supposed to do? Just imagine how outraged DCUM would be if a principal of a high-performing school spent a lot of time advocating for an at-risk set aside OOB for the school, or directing resources towards the bottom performers. I don't even have to imagine, because I already know.

While it is true, and there are examples of, school principals making a concerted effort to get IB families to attend the school, it doesn't follow that a principal is doing something wrong to prioritize the kids *actually at the school.* I'm not exactly sure how it worked at Hardy, but in the examples I know about on the Hill, getting IB buy-in was a family-led effort.

dp: I don’t know if the principal is to blame. I do know that DCPS should care and should task the principal with increasing IB enrollment. Because that’s how a competent school system would work.

Yes. This is half the problem and it's a no-brainer. DCPS admins aren't incentivized to strive to increase IB enrollment, which contributes to epic dysfunction in the system, fueling high charter enrollment.

You only need to look as far as Arlington for a good example of how a competent school system can work. The county has six right-sized public middle schools, each one with 850-1100 students, almost all of them IB students. Arlington parents either go private or use their IB middle school. No charter drama and little in the way of toxic racial politics in the system even though several of the middle schools enroll 25-30% poor minority kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

So, you agree that low income students were displaced. Your argument is that’s OK because they were OOB and DC favors local residents?

To me, that’s the question. People here tout gentrification — and resulting displacement — as good because it “improves the schools.” It seems really odd to tout changing out the student population by getting rid of the poor kids as an improvement.

No, it isn't remotely odd. In the DC context, it's logical because DCPS just doesn't handle poor kids well overall. System leaders fight gifted programs and academic tracking tooth and nail, which promotes racial segregation schools. Resources are funneled into one fancy school renovation after another rather than to inputs geared at giving UMC families the confidence to enroll in schools with many poor kids, e.g, small class sizes and designated pull-out groups for advanced learners. Discipline is poor in many DCPS schools with high enrollment of poor kids and admin and teacher turnover high. Poor management of schools incentivizes high SES parents to vote with their feet to well-run charters after ES EotP, and to privates WotP. Much too easy to vilify UMC parents who see displacement of poor kids as appealing in the wake of epic system failures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

So, you agree that low income students were displaced. Your argument is that’s OK because they were OOB and DC favors local residents?

To me, that’s the question. People here tout gentrification — and resulting displacement — as good because it “improves the schools.” It seems really odd to tout changing out the student population by getting rid of the poor kids as an improvement.

I believe the point here is that the goal is for kids to attend their inbound schools. Inbound kids were not attending LT or Maury. Now they are and that's a good thing. The OOB kids who were attending these schools should be attending their own inbounds schools. And yes, these schools may need improvement and that's what the city needs to be focusing on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

So, you agree that low income students were displaced. Your argument is that’s OK because they were OOB and DC favors local residents?

To me, that’s the question. People here tout gentrification — and resulting displacement — as good because it “improves the schools.” It seems really odd to tout changing out the student population by getting rid of the poor kids as an improvement.

Okay, some people who can’t afford the local rent or house in an area improving have to “move”, but others are “displaced”? Can you expand on that? I’m not getting the idea behind displacement.

Ukrainian refugees are “displaced”. Someone who may have a subsidized rent for who knows how long, being asked kindly to leave because a new condo building going up and they have to go to another county seems more along the lines of a “move”. Does anyone have a right to live a specific area in perpetuity if they can’t afford it? I’m not understanding all of this and would appreciate a concrete definition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

You seem confused. I said Adams Morgan changed 25 years ago. You invented a strawmen here.

I also talked about rents. Your tangent about homeownership is another strawman. You do realize that homeownership rates among low income, urban minority people are really low, right?

Your weird point about DC as black city for hundreds of years was another strawman. I have white extended family who have lived in DC for generations, and I remember visiting them here in the 60s. My great aunt was a proud DCPS grad. You may not be aware, but DC has a pretty complicated history with race that goes back much further than the 60s. You may want to google to origin of the name of my neighborhood and, for example, the history of the FT Reno area to start learning about it.

As for schools being disproportionately white vis a vis the demographics of the city —- do you not live here? Your post seems to reflect zero knowledge of the demographics of Janney, Heart, Murch, Lafayette, etc.

Of course, the wall of text that you wrote didn’t address the clear example of gentrification displacing IB families that I provided - Oyster ES. Care to try again?

You are using the term "displacement" to mean a demographic change in enrolled students. From there you draw a causation line to gentrification - your "clear example". That's where you are confused. If the demos changed because the population of the catchment areas changed then that might be appropriately tied to gentrification. Conversely, if the demos changed merely because the catchment area decided to enroll their kids (absent a demo shift caused) then that has nothing to do with gentrification and is the DC IB school model working as designed. You think pointing out that Oyster is whiter than it was is some sort of smoking gun; it isn't.

The fundamental problem with your argument is that you either don't understand the IB neighborhood model or don't like it. In any case you are conflating the intended results of that IB school by right model with gentrification. Your focus on Oyster to make a point about gentrification is just weird. The catchment area for Oyster is in a part of DC that has not changed much demographically. It was a white enclave even before the population increases that accelerated in the late 90s and through today. If you look at maps of the housing stock in that catchment area you notice that the vast majority are single family and condo/coop with a very small inventory of dedicated rental units. What happened to the population of that school (and others similarly situated) wasn't "gentrification"; it was IB families deciding to send their kids to those schools. I would also note that the demo of Oyster is actually less white than the catchment area.

You seem confused about how and when it makes sense to compare enrollment demos against the city-wide demos. I already explained this to you, but I will try again. IB kids are by design afforded preference to their IB schools. Let me repeat that since you seem not to understand the concept: IB kids are by design afforded preference to their IB schools. The schools you mention (Janney, Hearst, Murch, Lafayette) are in very, very white catchment areas so of course the schools will be whiter than DC as a whole. You show your ignorance of the design of DC's schools and historical demographics by choosing to highlight that the whitest areas of DC have IB schools are are much whiter than the school age population in DC. That's how the system was designed.

What I don't know from your misplaced reference to and reliance on "gentrification" to explain things you don't like is whether you don't understand the DC IB neighborhood school model, or you understand it and just don't like the outcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

So, you agree that low income students were displaced. Your argument is that’s OK because they were OOB and DC favors local residents?

To me, that’s the question. People here tout gentrification — and resulting displacement — as good because it “improves the schools.” It seems really odd to tout changing out the student population by getting rid of the poor kids as an improvement.

I don't agree that anyone was "displaced". No one "got rid of" kids. Anyone who was enrolled stayed. What happened was IB engagement increased and as a consequence fewer OOB (or no OOB) seats were available. That wasn't necessarily because of gentrification, it was in large part increased engagement from IB zoned families.

Sounds like you are advocating for a no-boundary system where every seat is allocated by lottery. San Francisco tried that. You might want to read up on the results before pushing too hard on that lever. Spoiler alert: didn't end well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

So, you agree that low income students were displaced. Your argument is that’s OK because they were OOB and DC favors local residents?

To me, that’s the question. People here tout gentrification — and resulting displacement — as good because it “improves the schools.” It seems really odd to tout changing out the student population by getting rid of the poor kids as an improvement.

Okay, some people who can’t afford the local rent or house in an area improving have to “move”, but others are “displaced”? Can you expand on that? I’m not getting the idea behind displacement.

Ukrainian refugees are “displaced”. Someone who may have a subsidized rent for who knows how long, being asked kindly to leave because a new condo building going up and they have to go to another county seems more along the lines of a “move”. Does anyone have a right to live a specific area in perpetuity if they can’t afford it? I’m not understanding all of this and would appreciate a concrete definition.

Your question is an excellent one, but I would argue it actually let's PPP off the hook too easily by assuming as fact that there was demo change as a consequence of increased rents. I haven't seen evidence of that in JKLM or other areas being focused on here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

So, you agree that low income students were displaced. Your argument is that’s OK because they were OOB and DC favors local residents?

To me, that’s the question. People here tout gentrification — and resulting displacement — as good because it “improves the schools.” It seems really odd to tout changing out the student population by getting rid of the poor kids as an improvement.

I don't agree that anyone was "displaced". No one "got rid of" kids. Anyone who was enrolled stayed. What happened was IB engagement increased and as a consequence fewer OOB (or no OOB) seats were available. That wasn't necessarily because of gentrification, it was in large part increased engagement from IB zoned families.

Sounds like you are advocating for a no-boundary system where every seat is allocated by lottery. San Francisco tried that. You might want to read up on the results before pushing too hard on that lever. Spoiler alert: didn't end well.

That system hasn't gone too well in Boston either. Boston parents lottery into an ES school into in a cluster of 3 or 4, meaning that kids seldom attend the same program as neighborhood pals. Most UMC Boston families bail on public schools if their kids fail to test into Boston Latin or a couple other magnet programs (difficult to do).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

So, you agree that low income students were displaced. Your argument is that’s OK because they were OOB and DC favors local residents?

To me, that’s the question. People here tout gentrification — and resulting displacement — as good because it “improves the schools.” It seems really odd to tout changing out the student population by getting rid of the poor kids as an improvement.

No, it isn't remotely odd. In the DC context, it's logical because DCPS just doesn't handle poor kids well overall. System leaders fight gifted programs and academic tracking tooth and nail, which promotes racial segregation schools. Resources are funneled into one fancy school renovation after another rather than to inputs geared at giving UMC families the confidence to enroll in schools with many poor kids, e.g, small class sizes and designated pull-out groups for advanced learners. Discipline is poor in many DCPS schools with high enrollment of poor kids and admin and teacher turnover high. Poor management of schools incentivizes high SES parents to vote with their feet to well-run charters after ES EotP, and to privates WotP. Much too easy to vilify UMC parents who see displacement of poor kids as appealing in the wake of epic system failures.

You seem absolutely incapable of imagining that schools can function quite well without high SES kids. You literally seems to think that having a certain percentage of high SES kids is essential to an effective school.

I’d much rather see schools focus on helping the kids IN THE SCHOOLS NOW. If the High SES kids want to attend, they are welcome, but there is no reason whatsoever to court them. Instead, focus on schools safety, supporting kids who are struggling, challenging advanced learners, and building community. Tracking MIGHT help with that, it the data is pretty mixed (newer data is more positive). Also, tracking has absolutely been used over and over and over as a tool for segregation. So no, I don’t at all recommend a two pronged strategy of trying to push out the poor kids and trying to segregate them into classes for “dumb kids” which is how many people of color (including current academics who seem to have been tracked based on their skin color) describe it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

So, you agree that low income students were displaced. Your argument is that’s OK because they were OOB and DC favors local residents?

To me, that’s the question. People here tout gentrification — and resulting displacement — as good because it “improves the schools.” It seems really odd to tout changing out the student population by getting rid of the poor kids as an improvement.

No, it isn't remotely odd. In the DC context, it's logical because DCPS just doesn't handle poor kids well overall. System leaders fight gifted programs and academic tracking tooth and nail, which promotes racial segregation schools. Resources are funneled into one fancy school renovation after another rather than to inputs geared at giving UMC families the confidence to enroll in schools with many poor kids, e.g, small class sizes and designated pull-out groups for advanced learners. Discipline is poor in many DCPS schools with high enrollment of poor kids and admin and teacher turnover high. Poor management of schools incentivizes high SES parents to vote with their feet to well-run charters after ES EotP, and to privates WotP. Much too easy to vilify UMC parents who see displacement of poor kids as appealing in the wake of epic system failures.

You seem absolutely incapable of imagining that schools can function quite well without high SES kids. You literally seems to think that having a certain percentage of high SES kids is essential to an effective school.

I’d much rather see schools focus on helping the kids IN THE SCHOOLS NOW. If the High SES kids want to attend, they are welcome, but there is no reason whatsoever to court them. Instead, focus on schools safety, supporting kids who are struggling, challenging advanced learners, and building community. Tracking MIGHT help with that, it the data is pretty mixed (newer data is more positive). Also, tracking has absolutely been used over and over and over as a tool for segregation. So no, I don’t at all recommend a two pronged strategy of trying to push out the poor kids and trying to segregate them into classes for “dumb kids” which is how many people of color (including current academics who seem to have been tracked based on their skin color) describe it.

Uh … Eastern is not “functioning quite well.” It’s standardized test scores / IB scores are abysmal. Let’s not pretend that this principal turned Eastern into some bastion of OOB academic learning. He did not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having lived in both places, yes, the families of school aged kids in ward 3 tend to be much wealthier than on the hill. That said, a much higher percentage of the kids also attend privates. And wilson has its fair share of kids who live out of bounds, although probably not as many as eastern, as a percentage of the population.

I agree that if the Higher SES hill population on the hill sent their kids to eastern at the same rate that the higher SES population in ward 3 send their kids to wilson, the demographics could be much more similar. I understand the hesitance of hill parents who aren’t receiving assurance that eastern would offer the same advanced coursework as wilson, even if kids capable of that work enroll at the school. I also understand the worry of ward 3 parents who hear that he did not try to attract hill parents to eastern, and think that he might also not seek to maintain the higher SES IB population at wilson. That said, ward 3 has status quo on its side.

Very well stated. While I'm not ecstatic to hear the Principal selection, we do have status quo on our side and I think our kids will continue to be just fine at Wilson.

I would be careful. The status quo at Wilson is actually weakening academics, implementing programs like honors for all and generally moving in the wrong direction.

instead of “moving in the wrong direction,” it would be more factual to say “following national public school trends” or “moving in step with the teachers’ unions.” This is a NATIONAL problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what did the wealthy parents at Jackson-Reed do that "made it better?"

Didn't pull out their well prepared kid? Demanded appropriate classes?

This is "made it better?"

I mean... yes. How do you think the majority of schools in DC improved? There's a cycle of buy in leading to more buy in leading to better offerings and more parental funding leading to more buy in leading to higher expectations leading to, etc, etc. Like yes, I genuinely believe that gentrification in DC has improved schools.

Sure, if your unit of measure is the building and not the humans inside the building. The kids who previously attended those schools are now priced out of the neighborhood, and they are being poor and having achievement issues somewhere else. But DCUM doesn’t seem to care about that.

Can you say more about what this means? Unless they were in rentals before they weren't priced out of somewhere they did not live. If what you are suggesting is that they lived OOB and because the IB population started sending their kids there, that's not "being priced out" and in fact that's what the IB preference policy design was design to achieve - neighborhood schools.

So I'm asking seriously, what does the bolded section above mean?

I’m the PP and I really don’t understand this question. PP posted explicit literal praise of gentrification. Do you not know that that word means? It’s the process of a neighborhood that was previously poor and usually minority becoming middle class and then sometimes upper middle class or wealthy. Real estate prices go up, taxes go up as comps increase and rents go way up. I live in Adams Morgan. Twenty five years ago, this was a largely Latine neighborhood. Now, a condo is $1.1 mil and rents have risen accordingly. The extremely desirable in boundary immersion school that used to be able to fill 50% of its Spanish dominant slots with meighborhood kids can’t anymore because those families have been priced out. That’s gentrification. What is not clear?

Couple of things.

First, Adams Morgan was gentrified 20 years ago or so. The fact that you think it is recent tells me you don't actually know anything about the "real" inhabitants about whom you speak.

Second, your position on this ignores one of the realities of gentrification in DC; namely that long term black resident homeowners sold their properties (in some cases to white people) and created generational wealth as a result. There are studies that show a material portion of the wealth in PG County (wealthiest majority black county in the US) was created from real estate sales in DC before they relocated. Your binary and overly simplistic narrative ignores or diminishes the wealth created by black homeowners when they sold.

Third, your reference to long term homeowners being priced out based on increased property taxes leads me to wonder whether you actually live in DC. Surely you don't own property in DC. I conclude this because if you understood DC property taxes you'd know that owner occupant property taxes are capped at a max increase per year. This means that a homeowner who owned, say 30 years ago, would have had property taxes so so low that a max increase would not have resulted in them catching up even today. There is also a homeowners credit and low income credit designed to assist. I am aware of no known data or studies in DC that show meaningful property sales as a consequence of increased property taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, your answer didn't actually respond to the question posed. There is no data of which I am aware showing displacement of renters in Northeast or Southeast DC neighborhoods where gentrification is now creating virtually all IB ES.

What has happened in a lot of NE and SE schools (ES particularly) is that IB families started buying in and sending their kids. This surely displaced 2nd or 3rd generations of students that were ALWAYS OOB but attending LT, Maury, etc. That IB influx surely prevented those OOB kids from attending, but that was how IB preference and creating neighborhood schools was designed to work. If DC had wanted to create priority for kids whose moms or grandmothers attended an ES they could have done so. They didn't.

TL: DR Screaming "GENTRIFICATION" and then providing a definition doesn't remotely explain how it is impacting school enrollments. I'd also note that the schools that are disproportionately white (as compared to DC as a whole) are charters that are pure lottery, so gentrification isn't having a direct impact. And before you argue that somehow DC has been black for 100s of years - don't. The demographics of DC as a black city were created in the 60's and started to abate in the 90s. If you have lived here for as long as you pretend to you'd know that.

So, you agree that low income students were displaced. Your argument is that’s OK because they were OOB and DC favors local residents?

To me, that’s the question. People here tout gentrification — and resulting displacement — as good because it “improves the schools.” It seems really odd to tout changing out the student population by getting rid of the poor kids as an improvement.

No, it isn't remotely odd. In the DC context, it's logical because DCPS just doesn't handle poor kids well overall. System leaders fight gifted programs and academic tracking tooth and nail, which promotes racial segregation schools. Resources are funneled into one fancy school renovation after another rather than to inputs geared at giving UMC families the confidence to enroll in schools with many poor kids, e.g, small class sizes and designated pull-out groups for advanced learners. Discipline is poor in many DCPS schools with high enrollment of poor kids and admin and teacher turnover high. Poor management of schools incentivizes high SES parents to vote with their feet to well-run charters after ES EotP, and to privates WotP. Much too easy to vilify UMC parents who see displacement of poor kids as appealing in the wake of epic system failures.

You seem absolutely incapable of imagining that schools can function quite well without high SES kids. You literally seems to think that having a certain percentage of high SES kids is essential to an effective school.

I’d much rather see schools focus on helping the kids IN THE SCHOOLS NOW. If the High SES kids want to attend, they are welcome, but there is no reason whatsoever to court them. Instead, focus on schools safety, supporting kids who are struggling, challenging advanced learners, and building community. Tracking MIGHT help with that, it the data is pretty mixed (newer data is more positive). Also, tracking has absolutely been used over and over and over as a tool for segregation. So no, I don’t at all recommend a two pronged strategy of trying to push out the poor kids and trying to segregate them into classes for “dumb kids” which is how many people of color (including current academics who seem to have been tracked based on their skin color) describe it.

What DCPS example do you have of a poor SES school being highly successful? I am not aware of any. Perhaps at the elementary level, you might be able to come up with something but higher than that seems unlikely in the DC area