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.
“At one time NYC public schools were the envy of the world (pre-60’s) – and parents were rarely involved in “volunteering”, raising money or what-have-you. And the schools were even more poorly funded then.”
Not so- public schools had very active PTAs and parents did volunteer for many activities to support the local schools. My mother was only one of many.
Don’t forget to consider the people who move into these areas at the time their kid is ready for school to establish residency and get their kid in the school. Then after a year they move away to somewhere where they can afford a bigger space but keep their kid at the school. Add to that the sibling preference policy and you can easily have more kids enrolled in a school than the number of kids that actually live within its zone.
“If there is a lack of school facilities in the area, you can’t blame these developments. The city took quite a bite out of their wallet when they moved in, and now they should upgrade the surrounding infrastructure.”
I have a headache as I write this, but I agree with benson. It’s not the people buying the coops and condos who are the problem. It’s the City that hasn’t kept pace.
Not only by neglecting existing infrastructure, but also by poor pre planning.
Biff:
I do think you can put another floor on that particular school. Certainly, this can’t be done with all schools – but PS 321 is perfect for such an expansion. If that can’t be done, bulldoze it and replace it with a larger school. It really is an inefficient design.
Also, I do agree that such an expansion or replacement would take years. Having worked for the New York School Construction Authority, I can say their incompetence and complacency makes any response to a growing student population slow.
2 Toilets you repeat a common beleif that has ZERO empirical evidence:
“a school becomes excellent because people with resources (e.g. money to donate, time to work within the school, the ability to write a grant and negotiate paperwork, the ability to organize fundraising, talent to plant a garden pr paint a wall, connections to others with resources who can widen the circle of interest about the school, etc) send their ids to that school and then get involved in it.”
A School becomes excellent because the people who send their kids to that school prepare their children from the earliest age to learn and then continue to value education and demand (from their children) that they dedicate themselves to learning.
At one time NYC public schools were the envy of the world (pre-60’s) – and parents were rarely involved in “volunteering”, raising money or what-have-you. And the schools were even more poorly funded then.
Pole, do you really think you can slap another floor or two on an existing school? It would be nice if it was that simple, but there’s the inconvenient matter of having to obtain funds from the DOE (who do you think pays for this?), working around building codes/standards, dealing with the fact the DOE likely won’t approve expansion when there are other schools in the zone that are under capacity (as i disagree noted), administrative delays (you think these things get built overnight? The recently approved PS8 annex in BH will be done by 2011, at the earliest) etc.
fsrg, I also disagree with your statement that the problem is overblown and a good one to have. In Brooklyn Heights, there has been an incredible turnaround at PS8, which has gone from being undercapacity at the lower grades to bursting at the seams in a matter of a mere few years.
Folks, this is an EXCELLENT problem to have. Heres’ the thing — a school becomes excellent because people with resources (e.g. money to donate, time to work within the school, the ability to write a grant and negotiate paperwork, the ability to organize fundraising, talent to plant a garden pr paint a wall, connections to others with resources who can widen the circle of interest about the school, etc) send their ids to that school and then get involved in it. I know PS 321 is supposed to be the Holy Grail of public school, and I mean no disrespect to that school, but there are other schools that are excellent, and more importantly, there are schools that need help that you can make a difference in. Then, not only do YOUR kids get a great education that you were instrumental in creating, but other kids whose families have fewer resources also benefit. This is an opportunity of riches! I just finished reading Sandra Tsing-Loh’s book “Mother On Fire” which recounts her experience with the LA Public School system (and private schools in LA) and I really recommend it. It lit a fire under me for sure.
Cobblehook:
There is nothing luxurious about these condos. The only thing that is luxurious about them is they are newly constructed in a city where the vast majority of the people live in apartments built a long time ago.
Shortages result in higher prices. If and when we have massive crop failures and the price of food increases ten-fold, are you going to start calling basic staples luxury goods simply because they are expensive? What if the price of gasoline jumps to $10 a gallon after Bush decides to bomb Iran? Will gasoline become a luxury good?
it wasn’t unpredictable at all – the DOE won’t build more schools because other schools in some of the areas not just because of shortsightedness but because of an explicit plan that the overflow from popular, overcrowded schools (e.g., 321) will have no choice but to send their kids to less popular (or outright unpopular) schools in the same district. didn’t klein say as much in the interview b’stoner posted a while back?