Requests
- Posted by ryan on June 20th, 2008 filed in Cities
Schools! Can we fix them, and do they matter?
Yes, and yes. Several things to think about. The first is the ongoing demographic transition in the District. Family sizes are declining nationwide, and the nation’s population as a whole is aging. There are going to be more childless households in the future–no getting around it.
Now this could mean that an aging tax base begins to neglect the schools, but it could also mean that it doesn’t, and that the declining enrollment levels therefore mean more resources per child. This should be a good thing. The demographics within the District are also changing to include wealthier and more highly educated households. These are households that often have more time and energy to spend demanding accountability in the schools and more and better curricular and extracurricular options. In any school system, there are benefits generated by the most involved parents off which the rest of the school can free ride.
And I also have confidence in Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty. I think a lot of the institutional factors that worked to gut schools are slowly being undone–especially the money and the oversight. There continue to be missteps and errors (some large), but progress is being made. And the dirty little secret of Washington is that you actually can get a pretty darn good public education.
But another thing to consider is that the nation as a whole needs to change its understanding of educational performance. I am of the opinion that school quality, in general, is not nearly as important a determining factor for educational outcomes as socioeconomic status. A lot of kids come into DCPS with a lot of baggage, which is difficult, though not impossible, to undo. We need more resources, and we need to focus those resources on younger children beginning with pre-K.
D.C. has obviously thrived without a great school system, and it could continue to do so. It should’t, however, and I don’t think it will. But the key thing to remember is that the folks who need a better educational system the most aren’t the middle class families with kids we want to retain, they’re the lower-income households without much mobility, and who may actually find themselves increasingly located in the suburbs rather than the central city.
So just as suburbanization left the poor behind, condemning several generations to subpar educations, the return to cities may end up failing those at the bottom if we aren’t careful.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
But if they’re going to the suburbs, aren’t the mobile? In many cities that never experienced the real estate boom the problem has always been that poor students are *too* mobile.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
But for every WASP DINK that doesn’t breed, you’ve got an immigrant couple with 3-6 kids. Where do they get to go to school in DC?
And the problem is NOT funding. DC spends more per pupil than any other school district in the nation, yet consistently scores last in math and verbal skills. This has been going on for almost forty years! The problem is that Montgomery County has 145 teachers that make more than $100k and DC has zero. Yet DCPS has more than its fair share of mid- and senior-level “managers” clearing six-figures a year. In a system so totally dependent on Federal largess, those Federally funded education programs mandate massive bureaucracy to ensure implementation, and even that isn’t enough. The Feds don’t really get involved at all until their auditors turn up massive fraud, which usually happens every other Tuesday.
DC’s priorities have been to guarantee employment to those with seniority and to protect the status quo. It’s never been about educating children. We’ve been failing them since the 1970s.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Monkey, there aren’t that many Latino households here, and their family size is going to trend smaller, as well.
Just because we’re spending more than everyone else doesn’t mean we’re spending enough. But of course, we also have to spend better. I think Michelle Rhee’s efforts to trim the central office payroll and explore merit pay are a clear step in the right direction.
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Just because we’re spending more than everyone else doesn’t mean we’re spending enough.
Well, how much is enough? Twenty-five cents of every dollar the District budgets goes to education. You want to double that? On a system that has consistently failed its customers for decades? This “we have to do it for the children” claptrap has been peddled year after year after year with zero results. If “accountability” was really the watchword, the DC School Admin building would be razed and the land sown with salt so that nothing ever grows their again.
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Public education has many problems, but people get it wrong when they look at it as a failed enterprise.
Private and suburban schools get far too much credit for producing outcomes that have as much to do with socioeconomic status and cultural capital as anything else.
Schools need to spend more wisely, but they also need an influx of money to attract and retain good leaders and teachers, as well as to upgrade their facilities to be on par with those in higher income areas.
June 26th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
DId anyone see the post article about bonuses in Prince George’s County? The union contract that is about to be released for DC also will supposedly contain more money for teachers who do more. There is a new push for this among many teachers and leaders here. You might want to look at http://www.strongschoolsdc.org