As the debate rages over the Braddock Road Metro plan, development, transit, and public housing the Growler is increasingly suspicious that this neighborhood is being treated as the colonies were once treated by the British Empire: as a source of revenue and raw goods, an entity to be dominated and exploited while the benefits flow elsewhere.
Case in point may be a scenario brought to the Cranky One by a concerned Parker-Gray parent, who is wondering if the Alexandria City Public School system is warehousing special education kids at Jefferson-Houston to attract Title I money that is then distributed around the City.
And does that mean that Jefferson-Houston test scores are being sacrificed in the interest of grant money?
This mom noticed while reviewing various school documents that although there are special education students in elementary schools all around Alexandria, Jefferson-Houston (as well as John Adams) has an unusually high percentage of special education students.
Now this may not be a bad thing in itself. By concentrating many pupils in one or more locations the City may also be better able to concentrate the additional resources they need.
Nevertheless, because these schools have large special ed populations, they give the ACPS the grounds to apply for Title I money to help out these troubled schools.
But that money apparently does not just go directly back to Jefferson-Houston but also to other special education programs in the City. If this theory is correct, it would seem ACPS has strong motivation to keep Jefferson-Houston inundated with special needs kids.
Surely, Growler asks, isn't this contributing to Jefferson-Houston's ongoing academic woes? If you have a large concentration of special ed students isn't it likely their testing scores will be lower, dragging down the whole school?
Ah yes. Some states have enacted waivers to exclude certain populations' test scores from a school's results. A waiver would mean a possible correction to Jefferson-Houston's scores, as it would allow ACPS to throw out the lowest test results.
But according to Concerned Parker Gray Parent, Virginia is apparently not one of the states that has enacted a waiver. So the special education populations' scores are still part of the Jefferson-Houston record.
Paranoia or truth? You be the judge.
At the very least, the fact that this interpretation is being bandied about and researched indicates Parker-Gray residents are waking up to the fact that we are getting the short end of the stick.
11 comments:
Its just unfortunate that this parent is going through what others in PG and other parts of Alexandria go through - what to do when your school system generally is perceived as not up to snuff. She will probably take the route many others do...when they have children they leave Alexandria. And the City sees this, recognizes it, and does.....???????? NOTHING
I was frankly stunned to read that Alexandria has the highest number of children qualifying for free or reduced price lunch (61 percent) of any other jurisdiction in the entire region....while the Mayor gives speeches about "gentrification"
Thats exactly what it seems this town needs -- more commercial, more retail, more middle class families....
Euielle keeps driving away the 30 and 40 year old young professionals who want to raise families in Parker gray with his crap about gentrification and about "quality of life" in the housing projects, and he and the City are going to reap the consequences.
Wow! That's one heck of a segway. Growler, can you now apply your "colonial" argument to public housing? Is it that most of JH's special ed children are located in public housing?
"Is it that most of JH's special ed children are located in public housing?"
BINGO!
Another dark PG secret...special education doesnt always mean "mental retardation" or "autism" or learning disabilities. It also means "kids who act up violently" or "kids who cannot speak English"....
As long as Pepper and Gaines get a place to dump all their areas problems, why would they care about the public housing overconcentration?
The sad thing is most of us are waking up to the fact that beyond education, we are basically being used as a place for the city to run experiments or generate some cash, like the following:
1. run social experiments, like building market rate units right into a huge swath of public housing
2. building a lot of tall dense buildings so the City can use the tax revenue generated to fund goodies for Old Town and Delray
3. run transportation funnels through, so Potomac Yard residents wont have to walk through the nightmare that is North Parker Gray
4. keeping the neighborhood "REAL" so Miller and Dearman and Euielle can all look good in the eyes of the NAACP.
I could go on and on and on....we are being used....
Oh-for-crissakes!! I just read the article in the Gazette entitled "Where are the jobs?" in which City officials were "vexed" as to why 30 and 40 year-olds were leaving the City.
Are you kidding me??? Our schools SUCK, despite the fact that we spend far more per pupil than any other jurisdiction in the region. Um, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that more than two-thirds of the students are disadvantaged?? Um, ya think???
And why do we have so many disadvantaged students? Um, maybe because we have the highest concentration of public housing of any jurisdiction in the region?
Which brings me to the fact that the City is also "vexed" about why job growth is flat here compared to other jurisdictions? COME ON!!!!!
Why would a business move here?? What can Alexandria offer them that the neighboring jurisdictions can't? A business-unfriendly, impenetrable bureaucracy, high taxes, and a City Council which views itself as a social welfare agency above all else.
Just look at the Safe Haven decision. If you were a business owner deciding where to locate and you saw the City of Alexandria, against the wishes of merchants, plop unsupervised housing for addicted psychiatric patients in the middle of a touristy-commercial area, what would you do? That's right. You'd move to Arlington.
But, maybe you're willing to overlook that since it's such a small thing. But then you see the City squander the opportunity of several lifetimes by refusing to intelligently redevelop the area around transit. Rather, they insist on keeping concentrated public housing on that valuable land.
Which means concentrated poverty in its schools, which means high taxes and low test scores. Which means the 30 and 40 years will continue to move out and the rest of the residents will continue to pick up the financial burden for the City's folly, because no business want to locate here...
Vexed?? You want to know who's vexed??? Me.
"Another dark PG secret...special education doesnt always mean "mental retardation" or "autism" or learning disabilities. It also means "kids who act up violently" or "kids who cannot speak English"....
As long as Pepper and Gaines get a place to dump all their areas problems, why would they care about the public housing overconcentration?"
Since I posted the question to which you respond, what is the documented source for the claim. I'd love it if the neighborhood could make a good case Tuesday night another argument for dispersing public housing. But rumor and assumption don't do it for me. What other than bashing do Pepper and Gaines have to do with the school argument?
Right from the Alexandria Times this week:
Since 2005, the city contribution to the school system’s budget has increased an average of 7.625 percent each year. This year, the school board is requesting an increase of 8.4 percent. As the budget has increased, student enrollment has declined by just over seven percent. According to information obtained from the Washington Area Boards of Education web site, the per pupil cost in Alexandria for the 2006-07 school year is $18,232. This compares to Arlington with a per pupil cost of $17,958; Falls Church, $17,700; Fairfax County, $12,853; Loudoun County, $12,023; Prince William County, $10,378; Montgomery County, $13,446, and Prince George’s County, $10,332.
One explanation for the high per pupil cost in Alexandria is student demographics. Alexandria has the highest percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch, 61.6 percent. The public school system with the next highest percentage of such students is Prince George’s County, with 42.1 percent, followed by Arlington with 35.4 percent, Prince William with 25.3 percent and Fairfax County with 19.8 percent. The school system with the lowest percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch is Falls Church with 8.5 percent.
http://www.alextimes.com/article.asp?article=5515&paper=1&cat=155
Maybe someone should ask them why TC Williams test scores are the lowest in the region even with all that spending.
"Although T. C. Williams SAT scores improved significantly last year, they are still the lowest in Northern Virginia with a composite of 1530 on the new 2400 scale. Arlington County students scored 1620; Fairfax County students, 1643, and Falls Church students, 1709."
"But rumor and assumption don't do it for me. What other than bashing do Pepper and Gaines have to do with the school argument?"
Just posted it...but beyond that, arent Pepper and Gaines members of the City Council? We have heard Euielles and Krupicka's views, and seen that Macdonald is clueless as to what goes on around here, but what about the other 4 council members..the focus of everyones wrath seems to be the mayor alone when all 7 of them continue to vote ARHA new loans and have no problems with what goes on at JH
"But Fowler said that city leaders should be prepared to broaden the discussion.
“This idea of cities and counties wanting to attract jobs is really only one side of the picture,” she said. “If you can make Alexandria a more attractive place to live, you’re also going to make Alexandria a more attractive place to locate.”"
Lisa Fowler said that, in the Gazette article you cited....
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=78692&paper=59&cat=104
And that more than anything, sums it all up. City leaders keep thinking that if they just change slogans or keep blaming the feds or Richmond, everything will be all right. They are disconnected from reality and from the problems.
I mean look at this gem when they mentioned National Harbor; I almost fell out of my chair.
"
Some of the slam-dunk ideas were creative, such as making sure that Alexandria was marketed on the cable television channels that hotel guests would be viewing in their rooms. Others ideas have been gaining steam for months, like creating a new marketing slogan that would sell the historic aspects of the city. One idea was controversial, prompting uneasy glances across the first-floor deck of the riverboat: marketing Old Town separately from Alexandria under the theory that National Harbor tourists would not be interested in Del Ray or the west end."
Gee ya think they would not be interested?
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=78698&paper=59&cat=104
"One explanation for the high per pupil cost in Alexandria is student demographics."
We have inherited the discrimination of the past - the policies of segregation - and these policies are now so entrenched that it doesn't matter what color the PG resident. The city's approach is a heavily subsidized, paternal one. The misfits are located here and we are expected to happily live among them.
Please explain this Growler;
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