I Just Couldn't Sacrifice My Son
By David Nicholson
Sunday, October 21, 2007; B01When a high school friend told me several years ago that he and his wife were leaving Washington's Mount Pleasant neighborhood for Montgomery County, I snickered and murmured something about white flight. Progressives who traveled regularly to Cuba and Brazil, they wanted better schools for their children. I saw their decision as one more example of liberal hypocrisy.
I was childless then, but I have a 6-year-old now. And I know better. So to all the friends -- most but not all of them white -- whom I've chastised over the years for abandoning the District once their children reached school age:
I'm sorry. You were right. I was wrong.
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I'm not from Washington, but I have to ask this:
Are there NO good public schools in Washington, D.C.?
I Have Lived In Washington, D.C. And The Only Public School...
..I know of that is generally considered to be a top notch school is Stoddert Elementary. The schools in D.C. range from mediocre to terrible.
I have to admit, I find that shocking.
I mean, there are good public schools here - you have to finesse like crazy to get into one of them, but they exist. A city the size of DC and you're naming ONE school?
It's why there's so much
It's why there's so much support for chartere schools in DC But even...maybe especially...the charters are screwed.
DC, because it's actually run be some guy in the House of Representatives, has been the victim of every Federal social experiment every created.
I grew up in D.C....
... and attended school there during the 60s-70s-80s and for a long while it was common knowledge and widely accepted that the vast majority public schools were unacceptable for all but the poorest families. The one acceptable public high school, Woodrow Wilson, was of couse located in the rich, mostly white section of upper Northwest D.C.
As for now, some would argue that things have improved, but many would say it's as bad as always.
D.C Schools
Those micro-managing ideologically driven dolts in the House of Representatives should share some of the blame for the sorry state of the District's schools but you know that I tend to take a hard line on these issues. I place most of the blame on the black urban poliitical regimes that inherited these broken public services systems when they came to power. They chose to continue viewing and using the schools as part of the corrupt and racist spoils systems they had inherited instead of making the needed changes that were required. Their utter and complete failure to address this and other related issues is nothing short of criminal in my jaundiced view.