The Hidden Costs of Gentrification and Rising Rents on Educational Opportunity
It is tempting to think with the crack epidemic having passed and violence levels down in most, but not all, inner city and poor communities, we have a precious moment of opportunity to rebuild public schools in those areas, but there is another kind of destabilization taking place, less dramatic, but almost as devastating, in the form of gentrification and rising rents, As investors have discovered neighborhoods they once avoided, hundreds of thousands of families are finding themselves priced out of rental units, forced to double and triple up with other families, take in boarders, or move out of the city entirely. Children living in communities where rent rises far exceed incomes not only have to move on multiple occasions, they are often tense, sleep deprived, and/or fearful of physical or sexual violence that can come from living in crowded conditions with strangers.
The impact on schools is enormous. Not only are there thousands of students who move from school to school or have irregular attendance, there are countless others who come to school tense, fearful, needy and unable to concentrate.
So widespread is this problem that one group of school leaders- largely, but not entirely concentrated in charter schools- has decided that mass suspensions and expulsions of students who create problems is the only way to create a positive atmosphere for learning. But that approach only destabilizes schools which With A Brooklyn Accent: The Hidden Costs of Gentrification and Rising Rents on Educational Opportunity:
This is the cold reality every public school parent must face.
You love your children. They- and I mean those shaping education policy- don't
They see your children as profit centers, subjects of experiments with software and technology, providers of data points necessary to shape national policy, malleable objects for the pursuit of political ambitions and the shaping of careers in educational consulting and school management..
And that is only now.
In the future, they see your children as the labor force necessary to assure that their children, who almost all attend private school, will not find their elite status challenged or management prerogatives challenged.
Find me a policy maker who loves and cares about your children the way you do.
That is why you are in a war to create and in some cases to defend schools that will treat your children the way you would want them to be treated.
