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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Can someone condense these 20 pages into one or two sentences?

Does it boil down to[b] South Arlington people thinking their schools are crap and wanting to relocate low-income families to North Arlington[/b]? Or is it also North Arlington residents arguing you can be totally liberal, but still oppose any affordable housing if it's not within walking distance of a Metro station or a bus line on Columbia Pike?[/quote]

I can only speak for myself, but no.  It comes down to simply asking our County and their private partners to engage in best practices, as established by the Fair Housing Act and HUD.  Meaning, you don't build new committed affordable housing in areas that are already high poverty (by Arlington standards; we know it's not Baltimore or Detroit).  People are going to be displaced, like it or not, as South Arlington "gentrifies" because we cannot stop property owners from developing by right.  So those who individuals and families who will live in new committed affordable housing are the lucky few who have won the lottery and we should give those kids their best shot at improving their lives.  And that means not sending them to schools that are already very high poverty.  Yes, the "worst" school in Arlington is still better than the "worst" school in SE DC, but why would we spend our treasure to give them a slightly better shot at escaping poverty rather than the best possible shot we could give them?

As to who to vote for, I don't know that electing a "Republican" will achieve geographic distribution, but it might send a message to the ACDC that they need to course correct before they lose the vote of this ultra-liberal individual and others like me who have been following the national conversation about race, housing, and education, and feel that our elected leaders need to lead and make those tough choices because it is the right thing to do.  
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I would add that south Arlington schools are often as good or better than the sought after charters in DC and had been trending up. There is some really disgusting " soft racism" that you hear from the ultra liberal, white,  retirement age,  activists who are involved with VOICE. Many who do in fact own homes in these south Arlington neighborhood school zones. Of course they don't have kids in them and often never sent kids to them. They sent their kids to privates or choice schools. They will argue that concentrating the poor children in these schools is fine and their school performance is ok- since they are poor, they aren't going to achieve as greatly as their wealthy peers anyway. The schools are clearing the lowest bars, so everything is hunky dory. It's unbelievable. There was an email on one of the involved listserves just yesterday saying it was important to build another 100% subsidized high rise on the Pike right now, because we MIGHT lose another market rate complex one day...
But these schools are crowded right now and struggling right now. APS is doing an ok job at the moment, but what are we setting ourselves up for?

This is an important fight and well worth having.
You wanna think Arlington is over? Ok...
But where are you gonna in VA?
Alexandria wishes they had south Arlington's schools. They have accreditation problems! ( of course, with this current policy we are headed right behind them)
Fairfax? Go read some threads about their budget issues. No thanks. 
If you have an extra 200,000 laying around - move to north arl. But if you are solidly middle class and worked hard to afford where you live right now- you should start paying attention and getting involved.
CARD- managed to get some changes made, but it's only a start. Be sure to vote. The county needs a more moderate board that is listening to everyone, not just VOICE.

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