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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
You haven't posted anything inconsistent with what I said. My whole point on the bond thing was that rather than upset voters by pushing for more aggressive growth (which even they theselves couldn't be sure they needed at that point, given the trends), the school board did smaller projects that required smaller bonds that were more likely to be acceptable to voters. That voters approved those bonds is fully consistent with that account.

As for the Yorktown, here are just a few links to articles and letters during that time around the debate, there are many more out there as well:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/group-backs-33-million-school-bond-package?_amp=true
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/10/AR2006071001287.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/07/AR2006060700702.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/25/AR2006102500469.html

This article is from 2004, but it details how overenrollment at the high school level was projected to be resolved by the high school expansions; if you look at what actually happened later, it didnt resolve overenrollment at all because the actual growth rate was much higher than anticipated: http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2004/may/11/school-construction-to-cost-229-million/[/quote]

This all started with this:
[quote=Anonymous] Which is really hard to understand. The DMV probably has more demographers than any area of the country, and they couldn't find an accurate estimate of what their capacity needs would be? Or is it that they got the right advice, but simply disregarded it?[/quote]
You responded by blaming the voters and saying that they resisted the idea of putting too much money into expanding school capacity because history told them enrollment was just going to fall again. While you did say that you think the School Board may not have believed that they needed larger schools, you also say that they were afraid that voters would reject a larger bond. You have presented no evidence to support the second part.

Most of your links don't address voters resistance to larger bonds at all. They do illustrate that the Yorktown "Controversy" was less about the amount of the spending and much more about the North/South divide as the concerns were that the the needs of South Arlington Schools such as Wakefield, Thomas Jefferson Middle School, and the Career Center were being ignored while Yorktown went to the front of the line for funds.

Your last article does show that the enrollment projections were projected to fall, but no one has denied that. The third link also shows that that with this quote "some County Board and School Board members say the school system should slow its building boom, especially since enrollment is projected to decline in the next few years." 
But that just shows that the answer to did the demographers get it wrong, was yes. This was a failure to accurately predict student growth, I am unclear why you felt a need to try to blame the voters.[/quote]

Complex problem often have multiple contributing causes. People’s failure to understand that is often what makes the problems so difficult to solve, especially because it lets them push back on less-palatable parts of the solution by pointing to something else as “the” cause. Voters weren’t the only contributing factor to where we are now, poor projections and school board decisions had their role as well. But the voters shouldn't blame just the school board or just the projections without owning their own role as well.

Our current capacity issue is a big problem with several contributing causes, all of which needs to be addressed. One is the lack of space to create more seats, which means we need to look at a combination of getting more creative with the space we have and finding new pieces of land. Another is the lack of funds to build, which can be addressed by some combination of (but not limited to) cost savings in construction, proffers from developers, a greater share of bonding capacity and increased taxes. Increasing taxes tends to go over really poorly with taxpayers, though, especially if they take too simplistic an approach and assume the problem could be fully resolved by, say, just making better use of the buildings we already have. The county board is reluctant to push a tax increase in part because they are afraid of the voters.[/quote]

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