APS redistricting plans face strong resistance from some affected communities
The first citywide redistricting in Atlanta Public Schools in nearly 10 years is meeting with strong resistance from some affected communities.
More than 600 parents and community members attended a hearing on Monday night, many voicing concerns about the travel time to their children’s possible new schools, racial diversity and split neighborhoods, according to the AJC.
As many Kirkwood parents commented on this blog over the weekend, one of the latest proposals divides their neighborhood. A Kirkwood parent at the meeting said, “I don’t see a lot of other neighborhoods that are split up into thirds, and I think that’s because some neighborhoods get more respect.”
The proposed new scenarios reflect changes made after more than 8,200 comments and 800 e-mails to APS. There are more community meetings planned – tonight at Young Middle, Wednesday at North Atlanta High and Thursday at Price Middle. All meetings begin at 6:30 p.m.
I received this statement from the Old Fourth community of Atlanta, which is unhappy with the proposals:
Old Fourth Ward residents have roundly rejected both new scenarios proposing comprehensive redistricting of Atlanta Public Schools. Alarmed that the most recent plans proposed by APS demographers perpetuate a long pattern of racial and socio-economic segregation of children living in the middle of the Northeast sector, residents are pushing back.
In an official position statement to APS, Fourth Ward Neighbors, Inc. neighborhood civic association outlines its opposition to new maps that carve out a gerrymandered district excluding Old Fourth Ward children from the rest of the Northeast sector. (see official statement attached) Residents are demanding that APS reject the new proposals, and instead fully integrate O4W students into the sector which incorporates Hope-Hill Elementary School, Inman Middle School and Grady High School.
Hailed by the New York Times as “a cradle of culinary and artistic innovation and a symbol of gentrification,” and dubbed “The Best Bet for the Next Hot Hood” in 2010 by Creative Loafing, Old Fourth Ward is one of Atlanta’s fastest growing intown communities. It boasts an eclectic mix of history with the up-and-coming, seniors with hipsters and historic shotgun houses in close proximity to bold, modern homes. People come from near and far to enjoy the trendy restaurants, hot clubs, arts galleries and tourists attractions that make O4W a unique cultural experience.
With a sprawling new park, expansion of the Atlanta Beltline, transformation of the former Sears building to City Ponce Market, and a trolley line connecting it to Centennial Park, Old Fourth Ward is experiencing a renaissance of confidence. Education remains the one element that falls short of the community’s ideal. An influx of young, middle class residents who are starting their families and now considering their children’s educational opportunities, is bringing the community together to resolve the longstanding educational shortcomings.
Along with the OFW position statement, residents offer a number of possible solutions, including the sale of the old Walden Middle School to fund renovation of the David T. Howard to address middle school overcrowding.
And here is the neighborhood association’s letter to APS school chief Erroll B. Davis and the school board:
When first presented with the choices provided by the initial maps released in early December 2011, Old Fourth Ward was elated that it appeared that Atlanta Public Schools finally had the courage to end the racial and economic segregation in the northeast sector (Old Fourth Ward, Inman Park, Candler Park, Lake Claire, Druid Hills, Poncey Highland, Virginia Highland, Morningside, Morningside/Lenox Park, Midtown, Ansley Park and Sherwood Forest). Given the direction of the second set of maps it is clear that you have not demonstrated that courage.
The Old Fourth Ward deserves and requests full inclusion of our community and schools within the Northeast sector at the K-12 levels via Hope-Hill Elementary, Inman Middle, and Grady High School.
The new maps as submitted by the demographers are astonishing in their scope of racial and socio-economic segregation of the Old Fourth Ward population from their immediate northeast neighbors and the extent to which they violate a large majority of the Priority One guiding principles.
Herein are the guiding principles that the latest options violate with respect to the Old Fourth Ward:
1. Attempt to assign students to schools located closer to their homes
● Violation: In Option B, students living in the furthest part of Old Fourth Ward will travel 2.5 miles to Inman Middle School, while students in the furthest part of Kirkwood will travel 7.1 miles to Inman via surface streets. In addition, some students in the Old Fourth Ward would travel less than a mile to Inman via the Beltline or on surface streets.
2. Attempt to maximize/keep the school feeder concept intact. No more split feeders. Clusters only.
● Violation: Both options create a split feeder at the middle school level.
3. Ensure student safety and transportation efficiency by using major highway corridors and geographic features as zone boundaries. Give weight to traffic patterns, energy efficiency, etc.
● Violation: The Old Fourth Ward community attendance of King and Coan Middle School requires the crossing of a major interstate and/or major railway corridor.
4. Minimize impact on areas that have been redistricted within the last three years.
● Violation: C.W. Hill students were redistricted when they were sent to John Hope Elementary in the 2009-2010 school year.
5. Attempt to avoid splitting neighborhoods.
● Violation: Option B currently presents a split Kirkwood neighborhood, choosing to select a whiter portion of Kirkwood to go to Inman Middle School, forcing out the Old Fourth Ward.
6. Retain ES splitting as a planning tool
● Violation: This planning tool was used in 3 of the 4 Round One options and has since been discarded for Hope-Hill, while this planning tool was kept as a valid tool for a Mary Lin/Toomer merger.
7. Consider SPLOST funded school expansion as a planning tool
● Violation: Old Fourth Ward holds a significant portion of dormant APS sites that could be used for expansion for our NE cluster.
If you accept either of the proposed Options, you, as board members:
1. Admit that it is acceptable to racially gerrymander lower income, minority students out of the Northeast sector at the elementary and middle school levels so that their largely more affluent, non-minority counterparts in close proximity may attend schools without them;
2. Accept that it is a preferable objective to racially segregate children from kindergarten to the 8th grade in the northeast sector;
3. Accept that, as educators, you have decided that in the northeast sector, lower income children are the only student population appropriate to send to middle schools that act as split feeders while a body of largely high income, non-minority students are not sent to split feeder schools;
4. Accept that, as educators, it appears that you have only allowed the low-income minority children of the Old Fourth Ward to attend Grady High School for the sole purpose of retaining Grady High School’s Title I money/subsidies;
5. Accept that, as residents of the City of Atlanta, you have chosen to hyper-segregate the population of students surrounding Dr. Martin Luther King’s home in the Old Fourth Ward to an overwhelmingly lower income, minority school population;
6. Admit there is a perception that your demographers have been heavily influenced by the seemingly segregationist arguments of some within the largely more affluent, non-minority neighborhoods in the northeast sector (based on the comparison of round one and round two maps);
7. Accept that busing non-minority students from the far away neighborhoods of Lake Claire, Kirkwood and Candler Park into Inman Middle School is an acceptable practice even though minority students in the Old Fourth Ward reside within a largely walkable distance to Inman Middle School and should rightfully attend that school;
8. Accept that racially gerrymandering the largely more affluent, majority white neighborhood of Inman Park into the Mary Lin Elementary attendance zone is an acceptable practice even though its walking-distance proximity to Hope-Hill Elementary should have demanded that it is part of the Hope-Hill attendance zone;
9. Accept that you as a board and superintendent have been complicit in the historic and systematic discrimination against poor minority students from the Old Fourth Ward for decades by excluding them regularly from attending elementary and middle schools with the student populations from Inman Park, Poncey Highland, Candler Park, Lake Claire, Virginia Highland, Sherwood Forest Morningside/Lenox Park, Midtown, and Ansley Park;
10. Recognize that it appears your demographers were heavily influenced by supporters of Mary Lin Elementary, Springdale Park Elementary and Morningside Elementary to the complete and total exclusion of the Old Fourth Ward interests that were clearly communicated via the same feedback process;
11. Admit that you have chosen to repeatedly and systematically devote financial resources to majority white neighborhoods in the northeast sector through the construction of new schools and additional classroom space that maintain and support historic racial segregation.
12. Accept that you created an academic and social disadvantage for segregated students’ ability to successfully integrate at the high school level.
13. Accept that as a board, the capacity issues in the northeast sector remain unresolved; that you refuse to allow Hope-Hill’s excess capacity to assist in relieving overcrowding at Springdale Park or Mary Lin Elementary schools; and that you did this in order to satisfy non-minority neighborhoods’ desire to exclude Hope-Hill at the elementary and middle school levels; and that you in turn propose new plans/maps to fill Hope-Hill beyond capacity with lower income minority students as an alternative;
14. Accept that Priority One guiding principles were selectively applied to favor certain communities.
We respectfully request that you immediately reject the revised maps as they pertain to the Old Fourth Ward. We look forward to an immediate revision of these maps that better integrate all communities in the Northeast sector.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
310 comments Add your comment
J.G. in EAV
January 31st, 2012
11:38 am
@To JG in EAV from GM 01/31/12 11:21 am – I only grew up in the suburbs; I live in East Atlanta now. I am also not yet a parent. I didn’t pick East Atlanta for its schools, but I’m happy that BPA seems to be decent.
I agree that being big does not guarantee that a high school will be good. However, you claimed that being big guarantees that a high school will be *bad,* which I’ve proven (by counterexample) to be untrue.
JohnK
January 31st, 2012
11:39 am
Maureen – still waiting on the correction to the article. Only one of the two latest proposals divides the Kirkwood neighborhood – Option B. Kirkwood stays together in the Option A proposal. Please correct your article. Thank you.
keepupaps
January 31st, 2012
11:39 am
Most of the angry allegations of racism by APS in the comment section seem to be emanating almost entirely from O4W advocates.
Perhaps it was different in the comments to demographers, who knows, but if you were to judge from this blog … some O4W parents are making serious allegations of racism with very little to back it up.
You can get a good sense of it just from the excerpts of the letter that Maureen posted.
The fact remains, however, that we have cases here of well-mixed schools with diverse populations that do extremely well and adjacent to them are poorly performing schools that nobody wants to attend. So what’s the problem?
It’s not race. The diverse schools are doing great.
It’s not money. The diverse schools get less in many cases.
Could it be…. the parents in the poorly-performing districts? Perhaps the same angry parents who are going on and on about racial segregation to no end and missing the point entirely? How about instead of trying to bring down other schools, you address the poor parent participation in the O4W schools. You obviously care enough to post here, but your efforts are completely misguided.
In the know
January 31st, 2012
11:41 am
Maybe the confusion about the cheating scandal comes from the fact that CW Hill was on the “Severe Concerns” list while the current head of SPARK was in charge at CW Hill. Also, it is common knowledge that the current head of SPARK was the lowest rated final candidate at CW Hill, but in violation of state law, Beverly Hall appointed that candidate principal without advising the School Council as to why. Since the school ended up on the “Severe Concerns” list, many have said that the initial concerns about the principal in question were well founded.
While some parents may be happy with SPARK compared to other APS schools, more than one SPARK parent has commented on the perceived lack of competence from the administrative staff, and seeing APS in transition most likely does not bolster their confidence.
frustrated APS mom
January 31st, 2012
11:43 am
@ wait and see – thanks for the good info about where Sutton and NAPPS stand on this. I was hoping that would happen. All the chatter with my Brandon neighbors seems to be about the group that stands to get pulled out and sent to Garden Hills. The attitude about middle school is “oh well, I guess we really will have to do private by 6th” which is exactly what I expected. I want to shake them and tell them to look at the bigger picture! I am hoping to see lots of fired up parents at the meeting tomorrow, because there sure don’t seem to be any in my neighborhood….
Alex
January 31st, 2012
11:47 am
@In the Know — no, I asked GM about that confusion with Hill. She was not confused, just rather making stuff up. You can check out her comments and my follow up here:
http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2012/01/19/aps-school-chief-attempt-to-assign-students-to-schools-closest-to-their-homes/?cp=all
To Alex from GM
January 31st, 2012
11:49 am
Alex, you are a broken record. I didn’t drage Hope hill anywhere into the cheating scandal. I pointde out Toomer for it (at 21.4%) and correctly reported that hope-hill had 2.8% and was cleared.
I would seriously consider sending my child to Hope Hill if it had a playground and you said you were “working on it.” I’ve repeatedly asked you what that meant. what are your plans for the playground at hope-hill? How are you going to build a playground at hope hill if there is no land to put one? There is only a tiny parking lot connected to the school. You still haven’t addressed that. It is also insulting to Hope-Hill parents that YOU can come along and fix the problem that no one at Hope-Hill, apparently, is smart enough to solve? The school has been there for ages and without a playground — so how are you able to solve that problem, huh?
I don’t believe for a nano-second that the demographer would secretly give you private information about parents at a school and divulge their private email information to you — particularly when you don’t even know the “main guys” name. The demographer is smart enough to know better than to do something like that because it would put his company’s contract in jeopardy. They don’t want to lose their money.
Ivan
January 31st, 2012
11:50 am
To NAHS by GM. See you went from “fubar and snafu” at 10:30 to creatively solving the problem by 11:37. Congratulations – good job.
Don't Feed the Good Mom/Good Mother Troll
January 31st, 2012
11:51 am
GM, why are you entering this debate at all? Still looking for attention? According to what you wrote on the earlier thread on redistricting, you’ve just sent your tuition payment in to a private school, and are moving out of the APS district.
Of course, about a month or so ago you were writing on a thread about the DeKalb SPLOST about how your child was being taught in trailers at a Dekalb school.
JB
January 31st, 2012
11:59 am
@JCB First, you must have missed the young man from Candler Park last who admitted he was not rich –served in the military and now works at the homeless shelter. Neither of us can afford a big new house in CP or LCP, but we found a way to make it work because living in that neighborhood and attending Lin was a top priority (over my career in music). You chose to follow your passion – less money but more fulfilling — good for you! You chose to buy a house in O4W (rather than rent in CP) and work to make the schools better – good for you! There is a big difference between choosing and being forced.
@Alex People only do things that benefit themselves. You work because you get a paycheck – or because it brings you satisfaction. Even people who donate time or money to charity, do it because it makes them feel good. Combining a high-performing school with a low-performing one brings an obvious benefit to the families in the low-performing school, but there is no benefit to parents in the high-performing school. They will have to drive farther to a less safe neighborhood for, according to you, a “no-worse” education (maybe). Not to mention all the hard work to overcome the existing inertia and move the school forward.
Let’s say I have two employees, both ask for a raise. I ask each “Why should I?” Employee-1 says “I need the money.” Well taking money out of my pocket to put in yours has an obvious benefit to you, but zero to me. Employee-2 says “here is a list of everything I do for you and I feel that my experience could make more money elsewhere,” there is a benefit to me and I will give him what he wants. No.1 has a choice. He can come back to me and say “what do I need to do to earn that raise?” or he could say, “you are a racist and a real dumb jerk for not giving me what I want.” Which strategy is more likely to get him his raise?
So instead of name-calling and finger pointing, accept the outcomes of your choices or change what you are doing. If you need help, show some benefit to me – don’t ask me to sacrifice my own children and my own community for the sole benefit of yours.
To JG in eav GM
January 31st, 2012
11:59 am
Being big does not make a school bad. Being big makes it easy for a kid to get lost. It’s hard to feel important, special, unique or “accepted’ when there are literally 600 students in your ninth grade class.
It’s difficult to make friends and to feel as though you belong. It’s that sense of “belonging” that keeps at-risk kids at school and it also prevents kids from withdrawinng into the drug crowds. Drug crowds or even the “smokers” provide a sense of belonging to a group, which kids really need. THey need to feel welcomed and they need to feel they belong.
Being in a huge school makes it difficult for kids to find their sense of belonging. Oftentimes, they feel overwhelmd. I am an extrovert. I make friends and acquaintances easily and everywhere I go people know who I am but my brother isn’t like that and neither are many children. If a 2,400 enrollment is a financial necessity, we as a community have to try harder to make all kids welcome and give them a sense of belonging — perhaps by having the ninth grade and other grades divided into groups of kids with common interests such as music. Many kids will gravitate towards others like them but for many, the discouraged will mentally check out and drop out.
GM
Alex
January 31st, 2012
12:00 pm
keepupaps, any argument along the lines of SPARK or Lin is “diverse enough,” is the one that is misguided. This is Atlanta, after all. If you look at the average student population in APS schools by race and SEC, then SPARK and Lin have some majority diversity work to do. And there’s no argument that can be made that Hope-Hill is diverse because it obviously isn’t.
And it doesn’t matter if it’s the fault of those parents of those Boulevard kids. The focus by APS should be on the education of the kids, not the shortcomings of their parents. All of the research shows that SEC background is the biggest factor in how a child will do in school. The research also shows that lower SEC students do better in schools with higher SEC kids. If there’s a chance those Hope-Hill children will do better at a school SPARK or Lin, then APS needs to redistrict to make that happen. Because the SPARK or Lin kids will be fine if the right balance is struck.
If allegations of institutional racism and SEC segregation make you uncomfortable, well to that I say, “Good. It should.”
Alex
January 31st, 2012
12:03 pm
JB, the benefit to the higher performing school is simple – your school isn’t overcrowded any more, which solves a whole host of problems. I thought that was obvious.
BS aplenty
January 31st, 2012
12:04 pm
@O4Wparent @Intentionally Intown
Thank you for your thoughtful replies to my post. This is not the right forum for further debate, but I appreciate your perspective and I hope the arguments can be the start of some worthwhile discussion, without name-calling.
I think the final comment was “The issue here is to provide a viable middle school for O4W that is geographically logical and the neighborhood will rally around the elementary school.” If that implies that O4W takes responsibility to see Hope-Hill become a high-performing school, then I am in substantial agreement.
Thanks again
To Troll from GM
January 31st, 2012
12:04 pm
Ah, so nice to see you back blogging and calling me a troll. I’ve missed you, you little pipsqueak. Welcome back
GM
Prof
January 31st, 2012
12:09 pm
@ apathetic about school, Jan. 31, 10:43 am: “Digressing from the topic…What do you do about 4th grade males who are defiant, apathetic, and disinterested in school? Yes, they are minorities….Btw, I am Black.”
You need to be aware that this problem with young black male students who act this way around the 4th grade has been noted across the country by educators for at least 15 years. Georgia’s Board of Regents tried to deal with it in 2002 with its African-American Male Initiative, still underway. For more information on the phenomenon and BOR efforts to deal with it, visit: http://www.usg.edu/aami
Wait and see
January 31st, 2012
12:10 pm
@GM, the right student body would be Jackson, Smith, Rivers, Brandon, G Hills, Bolton, and Morningside. That student body would be hard to beat. NAHS would be a great school as 5 of those 7 schools historically have had a very involved group of parents who value their children’s education. Bolton has seen a lot of improvement recently, as well. The secret is parents who care (not really a secret, though, is it?).
ted
January 31st, 2012
12:12 pm
Gotta actually do the work that pays the bills instead of watch the comments pile up here.
To Bob and Frustrated APS Mom- take heart, Option 2, even though it moves kids from Brandon to GHES, will homogenize GHES. That’s because it will toss many/most of the multi-family (i.e. Latin) population on the east side of the district into a new school. Unfortunately, that includes a small proportion of single-family homes (i.e. us) too.
We’re mobilizing as a neighborhood to oppose getting thrown off the bus.
NashvilleO4W can take heart that O4W isn’t the only area being gerrymandered.
Oh, and Bob’s nuts. Even with ~70% ESOL at GHES, there’s differentiated learning that gets the kids with a peer group so that everyone can move at their own pace. You’d know that if you actually had any interaction with the school.
To Toomer Pre K Parent from GM
January 31st, 2012
12:13 pm
I understand your criticism of me. As a Toomer pre-k parent , it must make you want to beat me about the head and face every time I say Toomer has a tumor. It’s not directed at you parents, though, or your children. The beef i have with Toomer is the cheating scandal and APS’ refusal to clean house and get everyone involved in the cheating out of the schools.
carlosgvv
January 31st, 2012
12:16 pm
Maureen – 8:31
This is not New Jersey or Florida. This is Georgia and if you can show any examples of organized resistance having any effect here, I’m betting they are few and far between.
Maureen Downey
January 31st, 2012
12:18 pm
@carlos. I think the parent outcry in DeKalb greatly influenced the board’s decision to dramatically scale back the scope of its school closings and redistricting.
Maureen
skipper
January 31st, 2012
12:21 pm
@ Alex,
So who gets to the “Boulevard” as a substitute for shipping some students out? Agreed, something has to be done, but really; is something missing here?
J.G. in EAV
January 31st, 2012
12:23 pm
@To JG in eav GM 01/31/12 11:59 am – You said: “If a 2,400 enrollment is a financial necessity, we as a community have to try harder to make all kids welcome and give them a sense of belonging — perhaps by having the ninth grade and other grades divided into groups of kids with common interests such as music.”
This pretty much happens naturally at a big school: there are too many things going on for an individual student to do everything, so they all end up becoming friends with the other students doing the same things as them.
At my school there were 4 different academic tracks: technical, college prep, honors and gifted/AP. I hardly ever had to interact with the kids on the other tracks, and I was perfectly happy with that.
Kirkwood - Split
January 31st, 2012
12:29 pm
@JohnK Both options split Kirkwood. The Option A splits the western portion of the neighborhood at Clifton, Option B splits is three ways.
Alex
January 31st, 2012
12:30 pm
@skipper, let me be clear that I am fine with my kids going to school with the kids from Boulevard. I don’t want you to mistake that. But to answer your question, there are a lot of approaches that could be taken. There could be a merger for K-2/3-5 b/n HH and SPARK or Lin as originally proposed. Or some combination of Midtown, Poncey-Hi or Inman Park could get straight out zoned for Hope-Hill. Or we could split up the O4W so that some of the Boulevard kids go to SPARK, some go to Lin and some go to HH. We can use DT Howard in the O4W to build a new middle school. There are a lot of possibilities to deal with the concentration of poverty. But the answer should not be the status quo. And it certainly shouldn’t be to put those poor, black kids on buses south of I-20.
J.G. in EAV
January 31st, 2012
12:40 pm
@Kirkwood – Split 01/31/12 12:29 pm – The “western portion” of the neighborhood you speak of being split in option A is actually Edgewood, not Kirkwood. And even if there is a sliver of Kirkwood in there, at least it’s only a split at the elementary level (rather than a split at elementary, middle and high as in option B).
bu2
January 31st, 2012
12:45 pm
@GM
As has been said, 2400 students is not extraordinarily big. North Gwinnett HS has 2700 students and dozens of national merit scholars. I had a nephew go to an excellent school in Texas with 3000 students and only 11th and 12th grade-so 1500 in his graduating class. And larger schools can offer more than you could in a school of 1000 students, especially when you have diverse SES schools like Atlanta, where you need to meet a lot of different needs.
Prof
January 31st, 2012
12:47 pm
@ apathetic about school. I should have added that the phenomenon of young black males becoming disillusioned with school and dropping out seems to begin around the 4th grade, across the country. You’re working with a critical age group of black male students.
JB
January 31st, 2012
12:48 pm
@ Alex – you are kidding, right? The benefit of going from a 10-rated school to a 1-rated school is fewer students? That’s like saying, “I think your bank account is above the FDIC insurance limit, so I’ll give that money to myself to help you out.” A stranger calling me a racist doesn’t bother me and won’t solve your problem, but have at it.
Wait and see
January 31st, 2012
12:49 pm
@frustrated, tell your friends to read the NAPPS position, and then tell them to get involved! If nothing else, appeal to them by reminding them of their property values. That is not my concern as I have already lived in my home for almost 20 years and don’t plan on moving, but perhaps protecting property values will have appeal to your neighbors. Whatever it takes to get people involved In the process. @Ted, thanks for sharing on G Hills. I am mostly unfamiliar with how it operates, despite living in such close proximity.
The Ideas of Alex from GM
January 31st, 2012
12:50 pm
Alex, you write “There are a lot of possibilities to deal with the concentration of poverty.”
Alex, you advocate splitting apart old fourth ward children so that they go into “richer” neighborhoods to go to school. now what I want to know is how in the world do you think the incomes of those families will be raised by sending poor children out of their neighborhood schools? That won’t increase their income.
Alex, what you are advocating is solving poverty by moving poverty around to different schools — that won’t solve poverty. The way to solve poverty is to provide a good education to all children, right there in their own neighborhood school, which should always be a good school. If you want to solve poverty — make the old fourth ward school a good one by volunteering at your old fourth ward school and yuou can start by bringing that playground to Hope Hill that you’ve been promising. Physical exercise prevents obesity and diabetes and healthy exercise helps the brain. Go for it. GM
Kirkwood - Split
January 31st, 2012
12:51 pm
Kirkwood lies between DeKalb Avenue on the north, Rogers Street/Montgomery Street on the west, Memorial Drive on the south and Mellrich Avenue/Winter Avenue on the east. http://www.atlanta.k12.ga.us/cms/lib/GA01000924/Centricity/Domain/45/Neighborhoods.pdf
skipper
January 31st, 2012
12:52 pm
Alex,
Point taken; point missed. Its not whether you have a problem with your kids going to school w/poor kids…..its WHERE it is done. While a solution must happen, sending kids to the Boulevard to achieve some perceived equality is not a great solution for many. You ain’t walkin’ through by yourself too often either. Safety as well as quality education is what a large part of this is about, and lowering ones standard of living will not improve everything! Sure, some kids levels will be raised by coming out of there, but others will be lowered by going in there. Poverty and crime will always exist in lower socio-economic areas. We all need to convince folks how important a good education is. That being said, the great social experiment of shipping kids down there to “balance” things is not gonna fly with some; like it or not, that is how it is. Therefore, in order to prevent the school-flight (no longer as much white-flight; high achieving blacks as well shun high-crime areas, so there) the “hood” status has to be resolved! All the liberal name-calling and race-baiting in the world will not make folks send their kids to a h*ll-hole!
To JB from GM
January 31st, 2012
12:53 pm
Regarding “That’s like saying, “I think your bank account is above the FDIC insurance limit, so I’ll give that money to myself to help you out.”
mwa ha ha. oh my that is rich.
I love it.
You get my vote for funniest comment of the day.
Keep up the good work.
GM
Y'all are pathetic
January 31st, 2012
12:53 pm
The issue in Atlanta schools is NOT, I REPEAT *NOT* the locations…IT’S THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION!!! DID YOU PEOPLE HEAR THIS? You all need to be fighting for better educated teachers, principals, admin. and spending a huge amount of time looking for and interviewing them. Spending much more time in making sure the quality of your childs learning could be the same, no matter what APS school they could attend. Put a grid over a map and whatever school is in that box is where your kid goes. Every school should be honorable…btw, Mary Lin is NOT all that and Inman is druggie capital of APS, with a bunch of “not my kid” parents. I live in that district and wouldn’t send my kids there. If parents think they need to send their babies to private schools to save them from the blacks and Mexicans, then let them! Get the white flight out of the way…AND I’M WHITE! ALL THIS RACIST CRAP IS SOOOOO 1960’s LEAVE BEFORE YOU CAUSE ANOTHER CIVIL WAE. Go back to your suburbs because you DON’T have what it take to live intercity!
To bu2 from GM
January 31st, 2012
1:00 pm
How big was your own high school, bu2?
Mine had 1,200 and it felt enormous. It was hard for me, even as an extovert, to find my way in the crowd, to get a sense of belonging. On my first day of high school I felt overwhelmed, was literally “lost” often and it was stressful. For my brother, it was particularly hard.
skipper
January 31st, 2012
1:04 pm
@ Ya’ll are pathetic,
Thanks for reminding folks that its opinions/rants like yours that folks want to stay away from…………..
To Y'all are pathetic from GM
January 31st, 2012
1:08 pm
Pathetic me hears you loud and clear. You say “You all need to be fighting for better educated teachers, principals, admin. and spending a huge amount of time looking for and interviewing them.”
I would really like to recruit, interview and hire my children’s teachers. I have absolutely no right to even choose which teacher my child has though, much less pick them ones to be hired but if you know a way please let me know.
Now, I want to know when is the last time (for real) that you looked for and interviewed a teacher, principal or admin. Are you working in a position that allows you this privilege? If you do, then please allow me to volunteer to help you with this process because I would love to do it. Please post your contact information and I will come over and work for free with a smile on my face because there is almost nothing I would like better than to choose a teacher that can actually speak and write common English correctly.
However, if you are exaggerating and you really mean “work with the school you are zoned for” to make it a better school, I hear you and agree with you. I already do that.
Not all of we parents are pathetic. If we were all pathetic parents, there would be no good students and we do have many of those.
just sayin…(because I’m not working at all today and I feel passionately about education)
GM
Double Zero Eight
January 31st, 2012
1:10 pm
@ Former APS Teacher (8:08 a.m.post)
Your assessment is 100% accurate.
Intown Educational Disparity
January 31st, 2012
1:12 pm
@ya’ll are pathetic. I agree with you. You need to add the Grady statistic because it is less than Inman. The redistricting mirrors what happens in the school. A majority of white and/or more socio-economically affluent students are in the former Communications Magnet program. The adventorous among the rest of that groupare in the Technology program. The rest of the kids, primarily the black and lower socio-economic are just shuffled into the other two programs, so within Grady there is racial & socio-economic segregation going on right under one roof with “glass walls” called academies separating the students!
Let’s drop the neighborhood bull and realize that APS mirrored how this community’s parents have always told them too. How were they to know that finally the schools in the Grady cluster have parents who care about the quality of education of all kids? How refreshing. Maybe Grady will become a school of equality and quality.
@keepupaps & @gm – if you don’t want your kids in school with kids of lower-socio economic backgrounds, then hope you are lining up options for high school. Grady is full of students like those in Hope/Hill. I don’t care what the lady said last night about dogging out illegally zoned students, Grady is an urban high school with a majority black and Title I students. Her gestapo tactics aren’t going to change that reality.
Her comments were irresponsible when she says that everyone can stay at Grady. She must be running for a school board seat because with an idiotic comment like that she’ll fit right in. She likely set the inequitable system up at Grady since she is some kind of officer there.
Alex
January 31st, 2012
1:14 pm
@skipper and JB, I didn’t call either of you racist (or classist), but clearly you are uncomfortable with the concept. But you make my points better than I do, so thanks!
skipper
January 31st, 2012
1:21 pm
Alex,
So high-acheiving kids need to be forced to the ‘vard? In an area they cannot walk safely at night, especially? Thats reality, not racism/classism. Please explain how this will improve the lives of those sent there? Again, I agree SOMETHING has to be done, but when folks ain’t gonna do it PERIOD then you gotta keep it real…. Contrary as to how I’ve been portrayed, pick any “group” or race, including the lilly-white Swedes, and if their neighborhood is a crime ridden unsafe area with terrible schools, and folks still won’t want to send their kids there!!!!!!!!!!!!
JohnK
January 31st, 2012
1:21 pm
No, Option A does not split Kirkwood in the west. There is no Clifton in Kirkwood, Rogers is the western boundary.
keepupaps
January 31st, 2012
1:36 pm
@Alex APS job for this restricting effort is to solve over/under capacity problems and to solve budget imbalances. The job is not to solve socio-economic and racial distribution imbalances. That’s why the demographers are specifically not factoring in that data.
If schools are given equal access to resources, quality teachers, etc… that, to me, qualifies as setting students off on an equal footing. In fact, many of the poorer performing schools get extra resources and still fail to perform. That is largely due to poor parent involvement and a culture among many, but not all, low-income parents that does not fully value education.
You can provide those students of low-income families with all the resources in the world and it cannot bridge the gap that’s caused by parents that don’t care. The only solution is to raise incomes and try to make parents take more responsibility for their children.
Again, APS needs to provide all schools with equal resources, but it does not have an obligation to try and fix the broad societal problems of income and race distribution. APS cannot tell people where to live. APS cannot force people to bus all over town. Nor should they. It is the responsibility of parents and quality teachers to make those schools work.
To Intown education disparity from GM
January 31st, 2012
1:41 pm
You write “@gm – if you don’t want your kids in school with kids of lower-socio economic backgrounds, then hope you are lining up options for high school. Grady is full of students like those in Hope/Hill.”
I am not afraid of lower income / socio students. As a child, I sometimes lived in poverty. that doesn’t scare me. I would send my lin kid to Hope if Hope had a playground. Where I won’t send my kid — is to any school with liars and theives on their staffs. those teachers who cheated and lied on the CRCT tests and then took bonus money for the “improved” scores. Those teachers are still at Coan and Toomer. I wouldn’t send my child there.
I have already made back up plans. My kids are alraedy registered at a private school and the 2012-13 tuition is already paid. I wouldn’t risk their futures waiting for APS to make a rezoning decision. They (APS) have shown they cannot be trusted to honor the commitments they made with my SPLOST money and of course, they can’t be trusted at all to do the right thing as they have proven.
So, no, of course I won’t wait around and expect APS to have good schools for my children. I have already made arrangements and am guaranteed a spot for all my children in private schools.
I still own property here though and I want to get whatever I can for it and that means voting for option A, to keep Lin at Lin. I’ll move into my other home in another district if I need to later and my ultimate goal is to find employment in a state with a reputable school system. Enough of this bottom of the barrel 48 out of 50 garbage. I hate snow but MA may be the place for me.
Even if I didn’t have kids, I still feel passionately about public schools. If it were not for public schools, I would live in poverty. Public schools and a couple of lovely human beings who were my teaches helped me become an educated, tax-paying, empathetic adult and I am raising my children to be the same.
GM
SPARKY
January 31st, 2012
1:43 pm
The two common desires expressed on this thread are almost impossible to reconcile with each other.
1. “My kid should go to the school(s) closest to him”
2. “The school system shouldn’t be racially or socioeconomically segregated”
If you achieve #1, then you mostly have wealthy kids with wealthy kids, poorer kids with poorer kids, etc.
To achieve #2, you need to bus kids a long distance or gerrymander to make schools more diverse.
It’s a tough nut to crack.
I would like to see schools like MES, Lin and SPARK *expand* into more diverse areas. But even if you did that, you are going to have some population living on the wrong side of a school boundary.
I don’t envy the demographers.
Intown Educational Disparity
January 31st, 2012
1:47 pm
@keepupaps. You need to take another look at Brown v. Board of Education. APS can be forced by the federal government to bus children all over town if they deem that APS’ practices are not equal.
You are assuming a lot of APS and their ability to equally provide for all of the children of Atlanta.
As other parents have pointed out, the squeaky wheel gets the grease the grease is going to those who likely have plenty of what they need from among the limited resources offered under public education.
But if it makes you sleep well at night, go ahead and tell yourself whatever you need to tell yourself to justify your beliefs.
Maureen Downey
January 31st, 2012
2:04 pm
@john, Noted and fixed. Maureen
Y'all are pathetic
January 31st, 2012
2:07 pm
No, I mean fight APS to change the way they recruit, interview and hire teachers. My oldest went through Lin from pre-k to 5th and that was all we could take of that “good” school. I’d never send another of my 3, especially now that all those stepford wives are there. It’s the most bigoted, racist neighborhood, ever! Old families are leaving by the dozens. It use to be such a fantastic place, now it’s just plastic. It wont be long until it all falls apart. And btw, this neighborhood is overflowing with crime. It’s just pretty enough that makes it easy to pretend.
To Intown education disparity from GM
January 31st, 2012
2:12 pm
IED you say “@keepupaps. You need to take another look at Brown v. Board of Education. APS can be forced by the federal government to bus children all over town if they deem that APS’ practices are not equal.”
APS cannot force children to be bussed if the children no longer live in APS.
How long have you lived intown? InmanPark/Candler Park/ and Lake Claire was a slum in the 1970s. Mary Lin elementary was nearly closed for its undercapacity status.
Now, what was all the reason for the slum? It was “white flight.” Nowadays, it would be more accurately called “Income Evacuation” because even black parents don’t want to send their kids to what many consider “slum” schools.
Last night a black, male parent stood before a crowd of 600 people and said he didn’t want to be rezoned to go to that “ghetto” school.
So, you can wave around Board v Education and drive that school bus down the street but you cannot force the kids to get on the bus and go across town to go to school. They will attend private schools or the families will leave ATL altogther….income evacuation is also known as “brain drain” because parents with high incomes are also parents with higher educations. People with money and educations will leave APS in droves if you start bussing kids around the city.
GM