Reply to Article about renovations and new construction of DCPS buildings

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A new building is not a panacea, but an old, shitty building is definitely a "Stop" sign to middle class parents. No one on this site would have sent their kid to a rat trap like Roosevelt was even if Maria Montessori herself was the kindergarten teacher.

"Build it and they will come" is not true.

Basically, you need both 1) an acceptable building and 2) a good principal/program. For years, DCPS didn't have either 1 or 2. It has spent a ton of money to get more of 1. It is still working on 2.

[/quote]

100% agreed.  What's frustrating is what appears to be the lack of understanding of this seemingly obvious point.  There doesn't appear to be enough coordination match strong programs with new buildings so that they can be full and useful.  Some of it is just tilting at windmills, even if the ideas are good, like Walker Jones and their Reggio program.  I don't care what that building looks like, the demographics of that neighborhood are so against you in trying to create a good program that they were almost bound to fail.

[b]And once again, all of this planning and spending is being done with little coordination with DCPS on the programming side[/b], and no coordination with charters who now house 44% of public school students.   [/quote]

That's a nice dream, but unfortunately, that's not how most cities work.  You build when you have the money (cash flow and borrowing authority) because that window doesn't last long and only comes around maybe twice in a lifetime. Call it the Robert Moses school of Public Financing: Shovels in the ground as quickly as possible.  If the city had waited until DCPS had a coordinated, city-wide, politically balanced plan, not one of the new buildings/renovations would have been started yet.[/quote]

PP who wrote what you bolded.  Also read all of "The Power Broker" (really!), so I definitely get your Robert Moses references.  And I agree, you have to take the opportunities when they come along- there's a reason there are so many buildings in this country built in that horrible concrete brutalist style- it's what was popular in the late 60s/early 70s when the country was riding high on the massive economic growth from the post-WWII, baby boom era, before it all blew up in 1973 with the oil embargoes.  But that era also saw a lot of investment in important social programs to match the physical building.

It's a good point that we have become hamstrung by all the various rules and bureaucracies that maybe it's impossible to make big changes in an organization as big as DCPS.  I don't think so, but you may be right. [/quote]

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