Condo Growth Imperils Schools
The Gotham Gazette reports on an unforeseen downside to the condo boom: too many students suddenly flooding a fragile system. “The influx of students threatens to undermine the quality of nearby schools — often the very thing that helped attract young families in the first place,” they write. Schools are overcrowded, and the more attractive…
The Gotham Gazette reports on an unforeseen downside to the condo boom: too many students suddenly flooding a fragile system. “The influx of students threatens to undermine the quality of nearby schools — often the very thing that helped attract young families in the first place,” they write. Schools are overcrowded, and the more attractive an area becomes, the more its land values increase, creating even more of a school-building quagmire. Brooklyn neighborhoods where population growth is expected to exceed school growth include DUMBO, Downtown Brooklyn and Sunset Park. They write, “Some 3,000 new apartments are being planned for an area around one school in DUMBO — PS 287 — but the department has no plans for any new schools in the area, according to the comptroller.”
The Three C’s: Condos, Classrooms and Crowding [Gotham Gazette]
school bus lot. Photo by limonada.
fsrq- You’re completely wrong as to my age and my memory. I have a much much older brother and I was a late age “surprise” for my parents so your math is way off base (but really intelligent ageism comment on your part. You must be proud). and I stand by what I said. Just because it wasn’t huge, loud and have a web page don’t think it didn’t exist.
“It seems to me that you are justifying the incompetence of the DOE bureauacracy, which is the root of this problem, not the new development.”
This is not at all the case. I absolutely lay most of the blame for the overcrowding issues on the incompetence of the DOE. I don’t blame developers for building and I don’t blame parents for moving their families into the areas. As I said, I think that’s a wonderful sign for a neighborhood. Once again, sorry if I am being unclear but my point is that the reality, BECAUSE of the DOE incompetency, is that these schools are overcrowded and I have an issue with suggesting that one particular point is up for debate.
fsrg, certainly BH has had very little condo development, but PS8 is hugely impacted by the increasing population of families in DUMBO. Again, I don’t blame the developers or the new residents. I blame the DOE for not being able to react and accomodate these trends ever or until years after the fact.
Bxgrl;
I’m floored. Yesterday I received an endorsement from Montrose, and today, from you. WOW!!!! Stop the presses again!! This deserves a two-part write up!
Have a nice day (no more headaches)!
BxGrl – notwithstanding your Mother – I think your memory may be failing you somewhat (understandable since you are at least close to 70yrs old) but large scale ‘parental involvement’ was a non-factor in Public Schools until the mid-60s at the earliest.
i don’t think sibling preference policies for gen ed (as opposed to G&T) exist any longer at overcrowded schools if you moved out of zone. or maybe it’s if you moved out of the district – either way, the DOE is trying to shut this down.
I should have been clearer with respect to my reference to the “problem” not being a good one. I would rather have an overcrowded, high performing school than an underutilized, low performing school. And I feel having many young families migrate to a particular area in a short time is a very positive thing for a community. I simply meant to point out that the overcrowding issue is hardly overblown and the unfortunate reality is that there is no fast, easy fix.
Pole, fair enough. We’re more on the same page here than I initially thought. I wasn’t saying expansion of PS 321 is impossible. But I am extremely skeptical that it would happen anytime soon. And bulldozing and rebuilding it would take forever and likely cause a riot involving all the PS parents who moved to the area primarily to send their kids there. We also agree on the incompetence and complacency of the New York School Construction Authority.
And Biff – Brooklyn Heights has had virtually no new condo construction….
The “problem” at PS 8 is that it went from horrible to good(to people who value education) overnight. This is totally different from what is being discussed her (new construction), it is also unfortunately rare – and it is also a “problem” that hardly should result in criticism for the Mayor or DOE.
The point is that while overcrowding in certain localities can be an issue – the city should be thrilled (and paraised) that the “problem” is that upper middle class (and even some rich) people are moving to/stayin in NYC and want to send their kids to NYC public schools – rather than critiqing the mayor or calling for less development – (if people actually cared about schools) they’d be calling for an intelligent study of the issue and more schools IF and where necessary.
Biff;
It seems to me that you are justifying the incompetence of the DOE bureauacracy, which is the root of this problem, not the new development. As I mentioned in my previous post, folks pay hefty local taxes when these new units are closed (specifically, a real property transfer tax, and a mortgage recording tax). The fact that the local authorities cannot quickly utilize this money to upgrade the infrastructure is an indictment of the bureacracy. Why should it take so long for the DOE to add on capacity? Let’s benchmark their capabilities against other entities both private and public.
Polemecist is correct: at one time this City had the ability to accommodate huge increases in population, and it no longer has it. I might add that that past upsurge in population was primarily driven by immigration, not a middle-class influx. As FSRQ pointed out, funding was even more of an issue back then.
twototos: i’ve looked a little bit into this “improve your school” theory, and the level of success at middling or poorly performing schools seems to be dependent on the school’s administration and willingness to bring in new teachers. even setting aside the obvious budgetary issues this brings up, the DOE controls the appointments of principals, and the DOE allows principals to control what the parents can and cannot do. as i understand it, the progress at PS8 can be linked, in part, to the fact that they inherited ps321’s old principal, and the parents’ groups had near unanimity of purpose (which some attribute to the economic demographics in brooklyn heights – not sure about that but unanimous strength has got to be relatively rare to achieve in such a short time period).