Reply to Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The city will spend astronomical amounts renovating schools, but only if they're DCPS. DC spent $180 million redoing Duke Ellington, which only has 600 or so students. Works out to about $300,000 per student. [/quote]

Banneker got a $130 million renovation (700 students) [/quote]

There's a long list of DCPS high schools that have gotten $100 million+ renovations[/quote]

How long exactly is that long list?

What portion of DCPS schools is it?[/quote]

The city has spent $3 billion and counting remodeling public schools (but not charters!)...[/quote]

Some of the renovations are really over the top. Apparently money is no object for some schools. [/quote]

It's kinda hilarious how the city treats charter school kids like red headed stepchildren. You would not think a government would or could go so far out of its way to be shitty to a group of children. [/quote]

DC is obsessed with the “right” people using city services. It IS racial. It is a low level counter insurgency waged against “transplants.” To turn a phrase, you face twice as much scrutiny and be twice as good. [/quote]

I think the city still resents the charter school system, even though half the kids in the city are now it in, and the way it tries to get back at it is by starving the schools of money. The difference between DCPS facilities and charter facilities is mind blowing. I would not think it is legal to treat an entire class of children like third class citizens. [/quote]

I realize this thread is talking about facilities funding, but I think the other big part of the conversation is that for years, charters were expanding/opening with seemingly little thought as to how many schools would be in a certain neighborhood, how many seats would be open, etc. The birthrate has stopped increasing, we have too many schools/seats, and that is hard to un-do. DCPS closed a lot of their buildings 20ish+ years ago, and they can't close many more bc there needs to be guaranteed/neighborhood/by-right options for all students within a certain distance from their home. Not to mention the budget of the city overall has been hit hard recently, so you end up with less money all around. Many people argue that charter schools opened to respond to a need/demand, which is true -but the lack of big picture planning resulted in a large number of independent charter schools opening, many of them serving the same communities with similar models. 
All that to say, it is a lot more nuanced and complex than just 'give us more money'.[/quote]

Seems a little rich to blame charters when the city routinely spends $100 million to renovate DCPS schools that are already severely under-enrolled. Anacostia High School has 250 students in total. [/quote]

People here are obsessed with poor Black kids getting a school building over a decade ago. It's weird and unhealthy.[/quote]

Here's a list of major school renovations in Washington D.C.:

Duke Ellington -- $180 million
Coolidge -- $160 million
Jackson-Reid -- $130 million
Dunbar -- $125 million
Roosevelt -- $125 million
Woodson -- $100 million
Deal -- $100 million 
Cardozo -- $90 million
Deal -- $90 million
Ballou -- $90 million 
Jefferson -- $90 million
Truesdell -- $80 million 
Janney -- $70 million
Anacostia -- $60 million

Notice anything weird about which schools the city decides get the fancy renovations? [/quote]

Wow.  This is crazy and amount of money spent and wasted.  Incredible the corruption and anise of taxpayers money.

They could have easily halved the amount, even more so and put that money towards more teachers, support staff, tutoring programs, etc…

60-180 million dollar renovations and yet majority of kids in this town can’t read or do math above 3rd grade level.  So sad.

[/quote]

I don’t think the implication that modernizations only favored lower-income neighborhoods really holds up. DC has invested heavily in schools across the city, including some of the highest-income neighborhoods as well as historically underinvested communities.

And these projects couldn’t realistically have been done for “half as much.” Most involved full systems replacement, code upgrades, additions, and major infrastructure work. And not surprisingly, renos for MSs and HSs cost more than elementaries generally.

Finally, while renovated buildings alone don’t create great schools, modern facilities are absolutely necessary if you want to attract and retain a broader socioeconomic mix of families. It’s much harder to build long-term buy-in around schools that feel physically neglected.[/quote]

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