Crain's article:

Textbook Lesson in Gentrification

Brooklyn housing boom causes clash as new arrivals reject city schools

By Erik Engquist, Crain's New York Business

Published: October 7, 2007

The city's ballyhooed rezoning of Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn is supposed to create a vibrant, integrated community with whites and minorities, rich and poor living together. A proverbial melting pot.

But in local public schools, it is fanning a cauldron. Incoming parents--largely white and well-educated--are rejecting neighborhood public schools en masse. Parents seeking progressive reforms are meeting fierce resistance from an entrenched school bureaucracy. Classrooms are emptying out as newcomers decline to fill the seats vacated by minorities priced out of the area.

"When parents come in and say a school's not good enough for their children, it's a very sensitive issue," says Kate Yourke, an activist parent who moved to Williamsburg from the Upper West Side in 1985. "Parents were quite naive about the implications."

The May 2005 rezoning of northern Brooklyn by the Bloomberg administration and the City Council has triggered a boom of luxury apartment projects. In the next few years, tens of thousands of affluent residents will plunk themselves down in what has long been a poor, heavily ethnic area.

The schoolyard fights of the last two years point to uglier times ahead for the administration's most ambitious experiment with accelerated gentrification.

Consider what happened to Brooke Parker, who led an effort to increase arts education at P.S. 84 in Williamsburg. "I was running for the school leadership team, and I got heckled by faculty at a meeting," she says. "The faculty was trying to push out parents they didn't want."

It worked: Ms. Parker and the others pulled their kids from the school.

It's a common scenario in District 14, where many schools feature tightly controlled classrooms in which test preparation, handwriting drills and homework are emphasized. Some schools have no recess, and children are rarely allowed to speak to each other, even at lunch. Students might have just one gym class a week but spend two hours a day on penmanship. Exams begin in kindergarten.

The rigid approach, which produces admirable test scores in some District 14 schools, is typical of conservative, immigrant-dominated communities.

"From when you drop your children off to when you pick them up, they're not allowed to have fun," says one white mother who expects to transfer her child to a private elementary school next year.

With few exceptions, the neighborhood's new arrivals are sending their kids anywhere but their zoned schools. Many use false addresses to enroll them in schools in lower Manhattan. Others opt for a charter school in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, or private or magnet schools as far as an hour away. As a result, enrollment fell 12% over two years in the district's 20 elementary schools; 13 were left at less than 80% of capacity and seven at less than 60%. The five conventional middle schools are now just 56% full on average.

Developers are worried

The problem is not lost on the developers marketing new apartments to white professionals from Manhattan who demand schools with parental involvement, field trips, hands-on projects and the like.

"We have thought about it," says Ron Moelis, who is building hundreds of luxury units in Williamsburg. "I don't have an answer for you. There's talk of a charter school, a new magnet school or maybe even a new private school. It would be great if that occurs."

No new schools, says city

With so many vacant desks, the Department of Education says it won't build new schools. Instead, District 14 Superintendent James Quail says he will try to accommodate parents who seek "more opportunities for children to think and develop their own learning styles in classrooms, and more opportunities for parents to engage."

But the department has given principals great autonomy, and many resist change.

"[Former Deputy Chancellor] Carmen Farina said that all you need is 10 families to move in and help turn a school around," says Pamela Wheaton, the director of InsideSchools.org, which gives District 14 schools mixed reviews. "But if you have a principal who's diametrically opposed. ..."

Some parents are plotting to start self-contained boutique schools within existing district buildings. Ms. Yourke, whose 7-year-old son attends public school in East Williamsburg, opposes that move. She is leading a small group of parents who are trying to move District 14 out of the 1950s. They aired their grievances at a powwow in June, but little has happened since.

"Our last chance to integrate these communities is by raising our children together, and I don't think the Department of Education has a mind-set or a plan for how that can happen," Ms. Yourke says. "They have been completely negligent in dealing with this."


Sidebar:
NO HELP FOR THE GIFTED

Programs for the gifted, used by many districts to attract middle-class parents, don't exist in District 14.

Officials tried to launch a program last year, but they promoted it poorly and located it at P.S. 297--a 99% black and Latino school in an area so dangerous that students are forbidden from using the playground.

Only three students accepted spots in the gifted program, so it was canceled.

Infographic:
SCHOOL DISTRICT 14
Includes Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and part of Bedford-Stuyvesant

Enrollment, October 2006 19,652

Two-year change in K-5 enrollment -12%

ETHNIC BREAKDOWN
Hispanic 62%
Black 25%
White 9%
Asian/other 4%

Students with Limited English proficiency 15%

Sources: NYC and NYS departments of education


Comments? EEngquist@crain.com

Posted by: kateyourke at October 10, 2007 8:53 AM in response to School's Out in Williamsburg

It seems to me that among the demographic moving to W'burg, there is a lot of anxiety over consumer choices, especially those that lock you into a particular social community like choosing a school. Way beyond other choices like which stroller, breast or bottle, even nanny, day care or stay-at-home. These choices affect how we sense who we are, and in a time when parenting is disassembling our old identities, we are trying to put ourselves back together in a way which doesn't shout "loser!" Maybe the passion in these posts has to do with wanting an edge for ourselves, having lost it to the continual demands and sleep deprivation or parenthood. There are plenty of successful young adults who received classic public education, and plenty of burned out young adults who were given every educational opportunity only to be unable to assimilate them into a useful foundation for a successful life. I think the answer to "what's best for our children" can't really be known before they are engaging with a school and you can see the dynamics in action. As long as it doesn't have toxic mold or violence or a completely corrupt administration, your kids might thrive in surprising and healthy ways. Taking the pressure down a notch and prioritizing a sense of connection to their neighborhood might prove to be a healthy and wholesome choice for the kids, and for the whole family. Stressing about making the best possible choice and having to manage commuting and distant playdates on top of afterschool activities and homework might just be counterproductive. I do understand why families choose not to send their kids to local schools, though I didn't realize that some of them thought so poorly of the "locals", that's pretty sad. I think it comes down to personal style, some find value in being involved and connected to our geographic community, in seeing what our engagement can encourage, while others prioritize being very discerning in our choices and see this kind of effort as frustrating, uncomfortable and ultimately compromised beyond any value. Building community across such vast diversity as exists here in Williamsburg is a huge challenge, and certainly is not everyone's priority. But the hostility and defensive tone in so many of these posts is astonishing, to me it shows that many people are not entirely comfortable with how their choices reflect their values, with how they imagine those values to be perceived. So interesting that these school choices have become such fuel for judgement. I am at once entertained, horrified, and inspired that this seems to be such a powerful issue for this place in this time.

For those of you interested or curious about issues in school District 14, there are many avenues for involvement and participation within and outsde of the school system. You can contact me at kate@yourke.com and I can try to help you connect with an appropriate application for your interest. (No nasty comments to my inbox please!)

non-anonymously,
Kate Yourke

Posted by: kateyourke at October 12, 2007 12:18 AM in response to School's Out in Williamsburg

From my perspective, sending your kid to a school outside of the neighborhood does distance your family from their geographic community. I sent my daughter to school in lower Manhattan for 2 years, during which time we lost touch with our friends and neighbors, and we are still working to pick up that continuity. It also drew momentum away from local organizing efforts I had been involved with here in Williamsburg. I believe schools are a powerful force for community-building, a valuable social role aside from their fundamental role of academic instruction. This is one of the main motivations of the school organizing work, though with such vast diversity it is tough for everyone to feel recognized and understood, to find a sense of familiarity. Within the school, kids view each other as individuals not as representations of demographics, and they bond with each other based on their personalities and their interests. That's where I see a lot of hope.

The situation at PS 84 was a mess, but that particularly hostile dynamic is not present in the other schools in the District. There were a series of failures by the school administration, the DoE, and community leadership which allowed these parents’ involvement with PS 84 to become a symbol of the displacement suffered by the school community, and for those families to reap the hostility that gentrification inspired. I am sure that more of the newer residents will feel comfortable sending their kids to local schools in the coming years, but for their involvement to be successful they will need the support of the community and a structured approach towards their integration and participation. The Town Hall meeting (see http://parents11211.com/article.php?story=20070624112635578) was organized with this goal, as a forum in which elected officials and other community stakeholders could demonstrate appropriate authority over this matter and assume a partnership with the DoE to address these complex issues. Some of the frustration with the wave of parents sending their kids out of District comes from the absence of their voices in this discussion. I hope that District 14 parents considering their school choices will continue to engage with each other and with community leadership to develop a process for District 14 to successfully serve all its diverse families. We have a great deal of support from our elected officials and community based organizations, several proposals to improve the District, and many engaged families who are investing in the potential of their involvement. This is a time of tremendous change for our neighborhood and I feel this issue goes to the core of our survival as a multidimensional community in this complex city. As a citizen of this wounded neighborhood I refuse to leave it to the forces of gentrification to sort out.

Posted by: kateyourke at October 13, 2007 12:55 AM in response to School's Out in Williamsburg

The School District 14 (Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick) CEC meeting this Thursday should feature a 1-hour session with Martine Guerrier, "the City’s first ever Chief Family Engagement Officer."

This session should offer an opportunity to air some issues to a parent advocate whose responsibility includes many of the points raised on this thread; relationship between parents and school administration, evaluation of schools by parents and how those evaluations are factored into the school's "report card," How schools adapt to a new student body, etc.

DoE likely has a different description, but as I understand it, the CEC is a parent-and-stakeholder advisory board with certain review responsibilities over DoE policy and practices in the District. It was mandated by the State as part of the transfer of control away from Community School Boards and to the Mayor's Office. It is a problematic entity which can be discussed in its own thread.

Please support the District 14 CEC. The members of the Council are not in control of any decisions and are grappling with their role without adequate training or guidelines. There is no incentive for the DoE to better empower the CECs, so they are left over-burdened, under-supported and confused. There is potential for good to happen through our CEC, but it needs the support of all who have a stake in this issue.

COMMUNITY EDUCATION COUNCIL FOR DISTRICT 14

Time: 7: 00 pm

Thursday October 18, 2007

215 Heyward Street Auditorium

For more information, please call CEC14 office @ (718) 302-7624 or

E-mail us at cec14@schools.nyc.gov

Anyone wishing to speak during the Open Discussion period must sign the Speakers' Sheet, prior to the start of the meeting. You will be allowed up 3 minutes

Community Education Council District 14 -
215 Heyward Street (Room 233 B)
Brooklyn, New York 11206
718.302.7624 Office
718.302.7606 Fax
CEC14@schools.nyc.gov

Posted by: kateyourke at October 14, 2007 11:30 PM in response to School's Out in Williamsburg

TransGas wants to build a 1000 MW power plant on (or under) the Bayside site. Brodsky (CitiStorage) outbid the Trust for Public Land who was in negotiations for the 4 block parcel way back when, then sold the 2 blocks to the Trust for just shy of what he (& Silverman) paid for all 4- meaning that he got his waterfront parcel practically FREE while ripping off the community- we should have had a 4-block State Park but TPL let the deal get past them. And the Monitor Museum has a commitment from Parks Dept. for the Museum to be located at the Inlet. Considering they have no $$ to build their museum, they might want to reconsider accepting the deal the Parks Dept. wants to offer, but I'm not getting into that discussion.

Brodsky should never have gotten ahold of that parcel, it belongs to the community for a park (as does the other side, which now rises in luxury residential splendor.) The 197(a) plan sited a park there, no luxury high-rise development. Williamsburg/Greenpoint has near the lowest ratio of parks:population in the State. The rezoning could bring 40,000 new residents in the next 10 years. For that property to be a park for the citizens of North Brooklyn is appropriate and fair. Where were you when the TPL deal went south? All's fair in capitalism and real estate? I don't want to live in that world. We need more parks, and the market ain't going to give them to us. Bring on eminent domain.

Posted by: kateyourke at October 23, 2007 10:02 PM in response to Eminent Domain Spreads to Williamsburg Waterfront