School Mashup

The Story:
--- Can DC schools be saved, the WaPo asks? The story is gloomy and reeks of a suburban perspective. True DC shools are abysmal, but there are some bright spots that are ignored.
--- DC spends $12,979 per pupil each year, ranking it third-highest among the 100 largest districts in the nation. True DC schools must perform many state functions, but $13k/year?

View from the Bubble:
--- Only with good schools can DC truly become a great city. Unless there is more than a handful, the old pattern I-got-pregnant-and-moved-away will continue. Furthremore, DC's underclass will remain as such with a professional class with kids to school to look up to.
---Mayor Fenty I must do something about the excessive admin costs incurred by DC.

Links: WaPo Mashup here.

Library, Condo, School Mash-Up in the Works

Horse-trading is going on up in Tenleytown, says the WashExam. Maybe.

Roadside Development, which developed the CityLine condo, is looking to rebuild the Tenley-Friendship public library with a six-story condominium complex on the grounds of Janney Elementary School, which would get new classrooms and parking. Roadside wants to build about 100 condo units roughly 90 ft. from the school, taking a piece of the soccer field in the process — which could be recovered by resodding the existing surface parking lot.

“Conceptually I like the idea,” Ward 3 D.C. Council Member Mary Cheh said. “There’s a lot of advantages that could come out of a combined project." Naysayers abound though. “My initial reaction to it is, I’m wary of it,” said Martha Saccocio, president of Friends of Tenley-Friendship. “I would imagine there are ways it could work. I would also imagine there are ways it could be moderately disastrous.”

We need better schools and libraries, but don't have the money. So why not make a few deals and improve our lives. The anti-development crowd along upper Wisconsin surely will try to stir the pot on this, but development across the street from a Metro station only makes sense to us.