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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Zoning restrictions aren’t creating segregation. Let developers do what they want without zoning and they will build more 1 and 2 bedroom apartments with lots of amenities to attract young people without children. They aren’t going to start building small affordable family friendly home.[/quote]

Agree but what I think matters more in this context is that consultant types have gotten the cause and effect completely opposite.

Housing prices are correlated with the perceived quality of schools.  But it's not high housing costs that create good schools.  It's good schools creating high housing costs.[/quote] Teachers and facilities are roughly the same across the district. Good schools  have good students from solid families. [b]They are created by excluding underperforming students with behavioral issues. [/b]And yes, once you have that in place, people will definitely pay a premium to buy into a neighborhood school that is sufficiently segregated. [/quote]

How does this work in the IB by-right traditional school model that is DCPS?
[/quote]

The schools with the highest test scores and best outcomes in DC are located in places where most lower income families are excluded from the housing market. A lot of the highest achieving elementary schools in DC are in areas with almost no rental housing at all, for instance.

I feel like the PP either has kids at Maury on the Hill or is familiar with that situation, because it's the only school in DCPS that I think had this trajectory, of going from a low achieving school to a high achieving one before housing prices in the zone went way up. But I think this ignores some key factors. Maury has a unique boundary on the Hill with pretty limited multi-family and rental housing. There are both in the broader neighborhood, but they are largely zoned for other schools (Miner, L-T, Watkins, Payne). At the time that Maury improved, housing in zone was relatively inexpensive for DC, as at the time, Hill East and especially the area past Lincoln Park was considered somewhat dangerous, at least by many on the Hill. But it was still mostly SFHs. That made it a good place for dual income feds and other MC or UMC families to buy into the Hill for a bargain. These families then banded together to embrace the IB school rather than send their kids to charters. Part of this was practical -- Maury is not convenient to the vast majority of charters. A handful of families could get into SWS or CHML, but even TR4 is a bit of a hike, especially if you want a neighborhood school. The Brookland charters, LAMB, ITDS, DCB -- the commutes to these places all suck from the Maury catchment, especially if you work at the Capitol or downtown.

So a group of well-educated, upper income families basically made a pact to stick with Maury and not bail out. And it really did transform the school. In the midst of this, the school got a nice new renovation which helped pull in more families who were new to the neighborhood, and those families quickly recognized the committed PTO and community for what it was and stuck around too.

Because most of Maury's at risk population prior to this happening was OOB, students from EOTR or from the Miner and Payne catchment's (Watkins-Peabody at the time was considered one of the better elementaries on the Hill, so few Cluster families were lotterying to Maury at that time), this surge in IB interest had the effect of replacing low income families coming in via the lottery, with higher income families coming in via boundary rights.

A somewhat similar thing is happening at Payne, but again, Payne has more multifamily and low income housing in its catchment. Maury's boundary is unique in the percent of SFHs, so the gentrification of those homes had a much more significant impact on Maury's IB population than at adjacent schools. JO Wilson has, I think, attempted a similar path, but there are is a lot more multi-family housing in that boundary as well.

Most schools can't really do what Maury did because their catchment doesn't have those features. One to maybe watch is Wheatley, in Trinidad, as real estate in Trinidad has gone bonkers and it's mostly SFHs and small apartment buildings, many of which have been converted to 2-3 bedroom condos in recent years. But if Wheatley is on the Maury track, it's probably 15 years behind. If it's going to make that shift, it will depend on the families currently entering PK and K there now.[/quote]

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