Anonymous wrote:The school is there to educate the neighborhood kids, their collective affluence as an affront to DCPS notwithstanding. This city uses public schools primarily to promote social justice, with meeting the needs of the kids who live in a particular school district as an ancillay function. The arrangement is tantamount to the US military putting the welfare aspects of its work (providing jobs and training to soldiers) over defense.

It is not DCPS' responsibility to provide neighborhood schools. It is DCPS' responsibility to educate all the children residing in the District. It is not clear to everyone (definitely not to me) that neighborhood schools are the best way to achieve that.

It seems to me the whole concept of neighborhood schools is awfully appealing to those in more affluent neighborhoods, and loses its appeal as the affluence of a neighborhood declines. It's all very well to live IB for LT *now* and beat the drum for neighborhood schools, but 20 years ago you might've been singing a different tune.

I'm a homeowner IB for Payne, and I don't get involved in Payne discussions on DCUM or hassle the Payne principal about getting her school up to speed, because (regardless of whatever effect it may have on my home values) my kid is not at Payne. I'm certainly not going to hold up my high-SES kid as some kind of prize the principal could win if she made changes at her school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really glad I don't live in Capitol Hill... this is ugly.

OK, your property values are pretty good, but holy cow - the discourse is shameful.

Lady, property values do matter - that's life. I'm sure it'll be a major consideration for you once you decide to make the biggest investment of your lif and the issue directly impacts you. Until you invesst in a neighborhood, please hold the tears.

That's the biggest investment of your life? For many people it's not the biggest financial investment. fwiw the biggest investment of my life is my family and kids and our collective health. #Perspective

Anonymous wrote:Property values in Stanton Park are rising despite the lack of certainty about access to a high quality school. There is not certantity, but due to school choice, there is a decent probability, that you can find something you can live with or even be happy with after a few years of trying. Guaranteed access to a high quality school through middle school would probably up my house price 15 to 20 percent.

I'm probably a fellow home owning neighbor of yours and I can honestly tell you I wish you'd get bent. Do you have an unhealthy obsession with Zillow. There's help for you. Really

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Got news for you 09:26: DCPS did this, around the time Cobbs was hired. And they got blowback from families then attending the school, who said, "Hey! We're already here. Why don't you ask us what we would like to see at our school, instead of asking people who don't even send their kids here."

As an OOB LT parent, I strongly object to the idea that the preferences of an IB LT parent should be given greater weight than my preferences. We are all parents at the school, and none of us should be given more or less consideration because of our home address.

That goes double when you're talking about the preferences of people who *aren't even parents* at LT.

If you want to be a stakeholder at LT, enroll your kid in the school.

#1 thing I've learned about school systems, and DCPS in particular, is that they respond willingly to families INSIDE the system and almost not at all to families OUTSIDE of it. PP's laundry list contained some perfectly reasonable items that LT's or any principal would be happy to implement with parent support. But the constant barrage of negativity from outsiders, I think, will continue to fall on deaf ears.

Which is stupid, because this means we're all left playing which-comes-first-chicken-or-egg games open-endedly, rather than focusing on expanding the municipal tax base by attracting, and retaining, high SES parent tax payers to help expand services to the poor. The Mayor Daley dynasty in Chicago focused on drawing upper middle-class families to schools, and made the whole town more liveable as a result. Disatisfaction engenders negativity, which doesn't draw in needed investment. No more to be said.

It isn't stupid at all. A principal should focus more on his or her actual stakeholders vs potential stakeholders. Sure the open houses and information sessions are part of the job but not a major one.

And it's not a chicken or the egg thing. Involved families who care about education create a better school community.

This is absolutely correct. Given the realities of school choice, the principals can't count on inboundary families to be the lone stakeholders. As Donald Rumsfeld said, 'you go to school with the kids you have, not the kids you wish you had.'

Anonymous wrote:I'm the former LT teacher-
I'll be honest...Open houses and classrooms tours MAKE the children very uneasy. Nothing like a bunch of nervous, clingy parents staring at you, disrupting your play and classroom experience.

"Pleading white girl eyes" nonwithstanding- we had children (over 3/4 of our class was Upper SES) that refused to go home at the end of the day. Read into that what you will.

I believe this former teacher isn't a sockpuppet.
I agree that the classroom visits make the kids uneasy.
But the classroom visits are an important way to sell the school to the neighborhood, because parents need to see what's going on inside. If Cobbs started the program, then my hat's off to her and hopefully it continues until the school truely is a neighborhood school.

Anonymous wrote:I am really glad I don't live in Capitol Hill... this is ugly.

OK, your property values are pretty good, but holy cow - the discourse is shameful.

Lady, property values do matter - that's life. I'm sure it'll be a major consideration for you once you decide to make the biggest investment of your lif and the issue directly impacts you. Until you invesst in a neighborhood, please hold the tears.

As far as the "shameful" comments on this thread including "pleading white faces," it's no doubt the work of one or more sockpuppet(s). One sockpuppet even outed itself about 10 or so pages ago as such trying to instigagate racial tensions. Why try to instigate racial tensions? I have no idea except that the sockpuppets don't want the school to become a neighborhood school. But sockpuppets are what they are: frauds. Good riddance to them.

And again, DCPS administrators and teachers monitor this blog and comment profusely. They comment to promote their own agendas, which don't necessarily coincide with that of the neighborhood. You may have an administrator from the Cluster commenting here as a sockpuppet; you just don't know.

All that matters is LT is a REWARD rated school with a strong neighborhood, and you IB people need to take over your school. Disregard the sockpuppets, please.

^ Total BS. Cobbs didn't want to deal with pesky uber educated middle-class parents living around the corner challenging her on this or that, including her refusal to consider pullout groups in the upper grades. She never saw her job as building a true neighborhood school, explaining why so many in-boundary parents have privately cheered her departure. Good riddance.

I'd be surprised if the new principal cares what's posted here. They aren't paid to attract or retain in-boundary families.

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone directed the new principal to look at this thread?
For better or worse it might help her see what she might have to deal with...

If anything it explains why the former principal was "hostile" to the immediate neighbors' desires. Can you imagine a group of people in a room expressing some of these thoughts to a woman who was busting her tail trying to educate the kids under her charge?

Anonymous wrote:I am really glad I don't live in Capitol Hill... this is ugly.

OK, your property values are pretty good, but holy cow - the discourse is shameful.

We aren't all like that. Actually, I pray that these comments aren't from any of my neighbors or people I see at the playground.

I agree it is shameful but I don't think representative of the community at large... at least I hope not.

I am really glad I don't live in Capitol Hill... this is ugly.

OK, your property values are pretty good, but holy cow - the discourse is shameful.

Has anyone directed the new principal to look at this thread?
For better or worse it might help her see what she might have to deal with...

I'm the former LT teacher-
I'll be honest...Open houses and classrooms tours MAKE the children very uneasy. Nothing like a bunch of nervous, clingy parents staring at you, disrupting your play and classroom experience.

"Pleading white girl eyes" nonwithstanding- we had children (over 3/4 of our class was Upper SES) that refused to go home at the end of the day. Read into that what you will.

The school is there to educate the neighborhood kids, their collective affluence as an affront to DCPS notwithstanding. This city uses public schools primarily to promote social justice, with meeting the needs of the kids who live in a particular school district as an ancillay function. The arrangement is tantamount to the US military putting the welfare aspects of its work (providing jobs and training to soldiers) over defense.

The purpose of public schools is not to increase property values; the purpose of public schools is to educate the next generation of citizens, because a better-educated populace is better for the nation as a whole.

If proximity to a particular school increases property values, that's a nice thing for people who own homes nearby, but it's not what the school is there for.

Once you get to Econ 201, you'll know that the question of whether school quality impacts real estate values is complicated and has no clear answer---despite what real estate agents will tell you based on their "experience." For example, if it was as clear cut as you say, then why don't you see this immense difference in price just outside of Brent's boundary?