DCPS middle schools in black wards, "positive deviance" and the pull of the attractiveness of schools in the upper income wards west

For a longer term project and blog entry*, I have two books that I am trying to read, Marketing Schools, Marketing Cities and How to Walk to School: Blueprint for a Neighborhood School Renaissance.  

The first book is critical of efforts to create urban schools that are especially attractive to high income (read "white") households who are attracted to urban living, but repelled by poor quality schools.  It's a study of a school created with the support of the University of Pennsylvania and the Center City Business Improvement District.

The second describes the efforts of parents and principal to revive and make more attractive a Chicago elementary school located in a neighborhood that was attracting in-migration of high income households.

I happened to write a couple entries in the past couple months about middle schools: 

-- "A positive deviance failure in Boston: Timilty Middle School"
-- "DC schools capital planning: a legacy of waste"

The piece about the decline, rise, fall and dissolution of Timilty School in Boston made me realize that despite how attractive I find "positive deviance theory" ("Your Company's Secret Change Agents," Harvard Business Review, Positive Deviance Collaborative) the forces favoring inertia are supra powerful.  

Timilty could have been used as a fulcrum for transforming the city's schools, which today are facing state takeover ("Boston community members voice concern over possible state takeover of schools," Boston Globe).  Instead it was shunned, ignored, and avoided.

Cass Tech vacant and before demolition.

In the piece on capital planning, in the comments I realized that while charlie is right that the decision to expand Banneker High School by moving it to the former Shaw Junior High site was the right move, they could have built a taller, bigger building, with the middle school on the bottom, and Banneker on top.

After all, the original and renowned Cass Technical High School in Detroit was seven stories!

And made it a supra duper magnet school combination.  "Stronger together."  

But without robust planning processes, and the schools master planning hasn't been particularly exemplary, the likelihood of creative ideas bubbling to the surface and leading to visionary outcomes is pretty remote.

After I wrote those pieces, the Post ran another story, "Bowser’s vow of better middle schools falls short in poorest D.C. wards," about how despite the push to have middle schools in lower income areas of the city, comparable to the push to add middle schools in Ward 4, and to continue to invest in other middle schools, those schools suffer from minimal enrollment, and instead families prefer to have their children go to schools in what we might call "white wards."

That's very interesting.  

Is it out of the idea that "white schools" are better as a matter of course, that they get more resources despite claims of equity and the areas are safer, or that because of the under-enrollment, the local middle schools have limited offerings, combined with crime and other problems in the neighborhoods around the schools and sometimes within the school itself?

I was also thinking about positive deviance within the DC Public School system, which I've written about a lot, but I was wondering if other than demographics and donations by wealthier parents, is there something that can be learned from the operation of schools in the areas "west of Rock Creek Park" that can be codified and replicated and transferred to the operation of schools east of Rock Creek Park? 

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* When we first moved to Salt Lake, I came across an article that said that demographic projections were such that the school system would be losing enrollment.  It turns out this is because households with large numbers of children (Mormons...) are leaving the city, and that the people attracted to urban living have fewer or no children.

Now, especially as a result of covid, the system is looking at closing schools ("Here are the 14 Salt Lake City schools proposed for possible boundary changes or closures," Salt Lake Tribune).  

I am not super familiar with where all the schools are located, but basically the schools under the greatest threat of closure are in the center and western parts of the city. 

I'm a bit surprised so many west side schools are under threat of closure because that is higher minority population demographically with a tendency to larger families. 

The southeastern part of the city is the highest income and no schools are proposed to be closed there.  (Two schools are under threat in the high end Avenues neighborhood, which is northeast.)

The center city is more dense, but tends to have households with few or no children. (In an odd instance, where we live there are 18 kids within a few houses of us, but that is atypical, although we are on the east side.)

I find it interesting that the center city areas are children-light, but it isn't surprising.  Although as I have written before ("Rethinking community planning around maintaining neighborhood civic assets and anchors"), for neighborhood revitalization purposes, I argue that it can be important to keep some neighborhood schools open, despite low enrollments for reasons of place and community values.

Anyway, while the various schools will have to fight to stay open, either by repositioning their curriculum and offerings to attract more students (albeit at the expense of other schools) or by being chosen to stay open at the expense of other schools, it turns out that the school system invests very little in developing the capacity of schools to market and develop their program and "brand."  If they think about it at all, they expect the schools to do it on their own.

A friend teaches at one of the schools under threat and asked me to talk with them about repositioning, marketing, etc.

When I lived in the H Street NE neighborhood, by Wilson Elementary School, I argued that all schools should do the equivalent of the Project for Public Spaces "How to Turn A Place Around" workshop as a way to build stronger connections with the neighborhood around the school, which is increasingly important as fewer households have children.

When we first moved to Manor Park in Ward 4, a charter school had recently opened a couple blocks away, and for the first couple years, they were very outreach focused, inviting community members to events and presentations, building a playground in the front of the school open to the neighborhood, etc.

But over time, they stopped reaching out.  And frankly, maybe most people rebuffed their efforts.

In any case, like I wrote in this piece in 2006 ("Main Street and getting schooled in politics, constituency building, and building support for your program"), organizations have to be constantly outwardly focused and engaged in order to remain relevant and supported.