Greater Greater Washington

Weekend links: Densification

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:02:00 EDT

Photo by mikeygibran on Flickr.

Glenmont Sector Plan unveiled: Montgomery County has released at last its Glenmont Sector Plan. Officials envision a high-density, transit-oriented hub, but the land is split between many owners, making change difficult. (DCMud)

BRAC for the civies: A bill to create a civilian BRAC process is moving forward in the House. A commission identify which civilian properties can be sold or consolidated. (WBJ)

Big Chair relaunches, reopens: Historic Anacostia has its coffee shop back: Big Chair Café has reopened under new management. The café wants to become the neighborhood's gathering place. (WAMU)

A timid plan for the Mall: NPS's conceptual plan for the Mall mostly tweaks around the edges and neglects its place as a park for residents, or so says the director of the National Building Museum. (City Paper)

What to call gentrification by non-whites: Gentrification is largely class-based, but are the outcomes the same when gentrifiers aren't white? (DCentric)

Fight for your right to cycle: Cyclists in Baltimore went ballistic when word leaked out that two college presidents may have quietly put the kibosh on a planned bike lane. Yet the lane isn't dead yet, and activists are fighting to keep it alive. (Baltimore Brew)

On the polycentric metro region: Regions with more than one major city are more productive, likely due to shared load between governments. But advantages of large cities, like cultural richness, get lost when the population is divided. (Per Square Mile)

Towards healthier transportation: Designing a city around the car is a recipe for poor health, and a bill in the Washington State House would factor in public health effects when planning transportation. (Seattle Times)

And...: There are some tricks to getting the light to change as a cyclist. (Patch) ... More details emerge on the I-395 air rights development, including LEED Platinum status. (CityBiz )... An interactive map of vacant buildings in Shaw. (EastShawDC)

Have a tip for the links? Submit it here.

1 comment

Georgetown ANC ignores democracy to fight campus plan (Nov 17, 2011)
Pennsylvania Avenue cycle track slated for May (Mar 10, 2010)
Letter: DC already adequately represented on NCPC (Dec 15, 2010)
NCPC Chair Bryant asks FTA to deny streetcar grant to DC (Jun 25, 2010)
Ideas for a "3rd Century" National Mall (Nov 20, 2009)

Parade goers by the Flickr pool

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:01:00 EDT

by Laura DeSantis

Here are our favorite new images from the Greater and Lesser Washington Flickr pool, showcasing the best and worst of the Washington region.

Chinese New Year parade. Photo by ekelly80.

Rhode Island Avenue. Photo by rachelg-dc.

National Capital Trolley Museum. Photo by Marc Tomik.

Glover Park. Photo by Michael T. Ruhl.

Silver Spring. Photo by Andrew-Benson.

Got a picture that depicts the best or worst of Washington? Make sure to join our Flickr pool and submit your own photos!

Comment

Turning the corner in the Flickr pool (Mar 11, 2011)
A new year in the Flickr Pool (Jan 7, 2011)
Signs of the Flickr pool (Mar 4, 2011)
Grazing beside the Flickr pool (Sep 9, 2011)
Sitting around the Flickr pool (Jun 24, 2011)

More details could improve Metro's trip planner itineraries

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:15:00 EDT

by Matt Johnson

Programs like Metro's trip planner can make riding transit easier for new riders and seasoned commuters alike. But the way that trips are shown has a huge impact on the effectiveness of the data.

A few weekends ago, I needed to travel downtown for Transportation Camp. Since I don't often make the trip, I decided to use Metro's trip planner to see when I would need to leave in order to get to the event for its 10 am start. The result was not very helpful.

I chose the option to plan a trip arriving by 9:30 to account for trackwork scheduled for the Orange Line and also for the walk to the venue. As you can see, the trip planner told me to expect a travel time of 1 hour and 36 minutes. That's a long time. A lot longer than it should be, in fact.

The problem lies in the way Metro's trip planner deals with "arrive by" queries. When users try using the "arrive by" tool, the planner tool gives riders the trip arriving closest to (but not after) the time specified. That sounds good on the surface, but let's consider my trip.

If you look at the results closely, you'll see that the trip planner has me wait 40 minutes at New Carrollton station. If I transferred directly from the bus to the Orange Line, I would arrive at Foggy Bottom station at 8:55, which is 35 minutes too early. Instead of telling me this, the planner just makes it look like I have no option but to wait 40 minutes at New Carrollton.

That kind of information can turn riders off. Why take a trip that will take over an hour and half when you could probably drive it in a half hour?

What would be particularly helpful would be to show each possible permutation of a trip, especially when connections are involved. Metro's trip planner deals with this by returning each as a separate itinerary. For example:

Board a bus at 9:10. Exit at the Metro stop at 9:25. Take a Green train at 9:30.
Board a bus at 9:10. Exit at the Metro stop at 9:25. Take a Green train at 9:36.
Board a bus at 9:10. Exit at the Metro stop at 9:25. Take a Green train at 9:42.

Those aren't different itineraries. They're just different waits at the Metro station.

I think a format like this would be more helpful. The trip Metro actually planned for me is outlined in red.

I've also included (in yellow highlighting) one arrival after the "arrive by" time. This allows for trips that arrive within a reasonable time. For example, if I want to arrive by 9:30, and there's a train that gets me there at 9:31, that's probably okay, and a trip I might want to know about.

Other itineraries should be substantially different from the first (since it's showing all options). In this example, there's really only one other feasible option, and that's to travel by way of the Green Line.

An itinerary like this would allow riders to better plan their trips. Perhaps arriving early isn't a good option. In that case, they know they have time to stop off for coffee, or perhaps that they could wait for a later bus and still arrive within a reasonable time.

WMATA's arrive by function used to return all sorts of gibberish to achieve "alternate" itineraries, including trips that went past where you wanted to go and then had you change vehicles and return. These days, Metro has modified their planner so it does better, though it still leaves a lit to be desired.

Metro's trip planner and other trip planning applications could be better by showing more options. I know my graphics leave a little to be desired, but it's the principle I'm trying to illustrate.

Do you have thoughts for ways to improve trip planning?

16 comments

Metro trip planner suggests riding a bus in a loop (Aug 27, 2009)
Metro's trip planner should offer service alerts (Jan 14, 2011)
Track work will disrupt Metro rides this weekend (Feb 18, 2011)
Do you know about Metro's "Service Nearby" tool? (May 3, 2011)
Metro responds to Google Transit posts (Aug 6, 2009)

Do-it-yourself culture makes our community stronger

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:37:00 EDT

by Dan Reed

Great communities come from the shared local culture of its residents. But as the City Paper notes this week in an article on local rock schools, we don't always make it easy for kids to participate.

The School of Rock in downtown Silver Spring. Photo by the author.

In the story, a teenage band from Bethesda called The Black Sparks are thwarted in their attempt to organize a concert series in a local community center:

Erickson helped Ray set up the series Bethesda Youth Shows, but from a distance; the project is almost entirely Ray's baby. However, the series—set to premiere last week at the Bethesda Chevy Chase Regional Services Center—quickly ran into municipal resistance. Montgomery County officials wanted Ray to do an online presale, and not sell tickets at the door. Maybe that wouldn't be a big deal to adults, but for Ray's purposes it sucked: "You have to be 19 to have a PayPal account."

Whether because of its lefty residents or proximity to the District, Montgomery County has long had a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) culture, from Silver Spring's past as a skating mecca to our small punk scene. These things set our community apart, give us a common identity, and overall make this a much cooler place to live.

But no matter where you are in Montgomery County, kids can't do or make anything when they don't have places for to go and community leaders who are either disinterested or openly hostile towards their needs. The difficulty that the underage Black Sparks had in securing a venue for their shows is just one part of a bigger problem.

I was particularly drawn to quotes from Kevin Erickson, director of the All Ages Movement Project, a nationwide organization that encourages the creation of spaces where young people can make music. He certainly gets the connection between giving kids something to do and having a more interesting community:

"If a city is interested in making their community more livable and interesting and creatively vibrant for young people," says Erickson. "One thing they can do is get out of the way and eliminate some of the regulatory barriers that can hinder young people from participating in culture or running a space . . . Once we start to recognize young people's creative contributions, it can be a step toward treating them as humans in the rest of civic life."

None of this says that Montgomery County is such a terrible place to be as a young artist. We've got organizations like the Gandhi Brigade that teaches young people to make films and other media, along with places like Bach to Rock and the School of Rock, which are discussed in the City Paper article. And next door in the District there are groups like Positive Force that push for youth empowerment and expression through events like the yearly Positive Youth Fest.

The Corpse Fortress, a punk house in downtown Silver Spring that was condemned last summer.

That said, we could do more to promote DIY culture. The best place to start is by providing venues where kids can hang out, from organized events like Councilmember Nancy Navarro's "youth caf�s," to unprogrammed spaces like Veterans' Plaza in downtown Silver Spring. We could also make it easier to reserve space in public buildings for concerts and other events, particularly the Fillmore, which is supposed to be available for community use.

And it would've helped if the county hadn't just condemned the Corpse Fortress, a Silver Spring punk house that's existed under various names over the past decade, and instead given its residents a chance to bring the building up to code first.

Kids making music they're passionate about isn't just good for them. It makes our community a better and more unique place, and we should encourage it whenever possible.

16 comments

MoCo makes "public-private partnership" with skaters in Kensington (Mar 20, 2009)
More and varied nightlife can make Silver Spring safer (Jul 26, 2011)
Wheaton town square should belong to the public (Mar 7, 2011)
Teens need things to do, not a curfew (Jul 13, 2011)
The quotable Rollin Stanley (Jun 10, 2010)

Breakfast links: Timeliness

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:05:00 EDT

by David Edmondson

Photo by wfyurasko on Flickr.

Silver Line back on schedule: The Silver Line's first phase will open only 11 days late rather than the 6 months late originally projected. Contractors accelerated work on some parts of line, making up for lost time. (Examiner)

Red Line will be bad for 3 years: Repairs on the Red Line will continue for at least 3 years. Single-tracking and escalator repair will continue to 2015, at which time on-time performance should rise from 88.9% to 92-93%. (Examiner)

Metrobus driver mitigated crash: The fatal December Rockville Pike Metrobus crash could have been much worse if not for the quick reactions of Metro driver Lennitta Bryant who turned at the last moment to deflect some of the impact of an on coming pickup truck. Bryant is still recovering from the crash at home. (NBC4)

Revise, resubmit, repeat: The Adams Morgan hotel project has resubmitted their design with changes requested by the historic preservation board, including a two-foot height reduction, a red-brick exterior, and setbacks along Chaplain. (WBJ)

Catching school bus violators: School bus stop signs will get cameras in Montgomery County. Drivers routinely flout a law requiring them to stop when a school bus lets kids on or off. Tickets are $250. (WAMU)

Cash cows get a lean diet: Montgomery and Fairfax Counties account for huge portions of their states' budgets, but receive less than a quarter of it back. (Examiner)

Prince George's considers bag fee: Prince George's state legislators are considering a bag fee, following DC and Montgomery County. The state legislature must give the county permission first; a bill to do that failed last session. (Baltimore Sun)

And...: Why do more escalators go up than down? It's all about the traffic flow. (Post) ... Los Angeles considers plan B in case they can't get federal funding for their transit plans. (Streetsblog) ... NCPC approves designs for a Bethesda intelligence campus. (WBJ)

Have a tip for the links? Submit it here.

34 comments

Maryland moves slightly on operating funds, but plans more bus cuts for Prince George's (Apr 26, 2010)
Commemorate the crash victims with a moment of silence (Jun 22, 2010)
On Tuesday, Montgomery Council can avoid "ICC 2.0" (Jul 16, 2009)
MPD unsuccessfully pursued charges in October 2008 death (Mar 25, 2010)
Montgomery considers many ways to fund bike sharing (Oct 20, 2011)

House GOP moves to decimate transit funding

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:17:00 EDT

by Ben Goldman

In a move that should dispel any remaining thoughts that the House transportation bill will ever be signed into law, the Ways and Means Committee announced today that they will try to forbid gas tax revenue from funding transit.

Photo by Jim Nix / Nomadic Pursuits on Flickr.

The Ways & Means bill (PDF) would funnel all gas tax revenue toward road programs, redirecting billions of dollars per year away from transit, which for decades has received about 20% of fuel tax receipts.

Instead, the House GOP wants transit funding to come entirely from the general fund, pitting transit against all other government spending. To offset that spending, $40 billion would have to be cut from the rest of the federal budget.

Essentially, the House GOP is holding transit hostage to achieve budget cuts elsewhere—and they don't seem to care if the hostage dies. They will also be tossing aside a precedent set during the Reagan administration, one that has enjoyed bipartisan support through several transportation bills, including the 2005 law, known as SAFETEA-LU, which was passed by a Republican president and Republican Congress.

Dan Smith of USPIRG put it like this:

The House Ways and Means Bill stops just short of defunding America's public transit system. Instead it says that the real money with a funding source will all go to highways, while the tooth fairy will pay for transit. For Big Oil and the highway lobby, this is a dream, but it's a nightmare for America's transportation future.

In keeping with the secretive nature of the current House's transportation reauthorization process, the announcement comes just one day before Ways and Means will mark up the bill. There is even less time to protect transit funding in the House bill than there was to protect bike/ped programs in today's T&I markup.

Cross-posted at Streetsblog DC.

16 comments

GOP transportation bill's new direction is the same old one (Jul 11, 2011)
House transportation bill is "a march of horribles" (Jan 30, 2012)
LaHood vows to avert federal transportation bankruptcy (Jun 4, 2009)
STAA tuned: Transportation bill leaves funding question hanging (Jun 23, 2009)
Transportation in Congress roundup: Leaders agree on extension, GOP would kill Amtrak, & Obama proposal (Sep 12, 2011)

Details matter when judging Biddle and Shapiro's fundraising

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:04:00 EDT

by Dena Iverson

Yesterday, Dave Stroup called on Sekou Biddle to resign and support Peter Shapiro as the at-large candidate. His theory is that if there are two people who claim to be progressives in the at-large democratic primary, they will split the vote and Vincent Orange will win.

Photo by Michael Lokner on Flickr.

Dave's concern about splitting the vote may or may not be valid—though no polling has been done to back it up—but I understand his concern after last year's special election. What I do not understand is his strong conviction that Sekou Biddle be the one to drop out of the race.

Dave argued yesterday that Biddle defer to Shapiro in the race due to his strong fundraising advantage. So let's look at that advantage up close.

First, we need to be honest about the difference between fundraising versus cash-on-hand, because in this race these are two very different things. Sekou Biddle has raised more money from donors, $47,286 to be exact, than Peter Shapiro who has raised $38,215.

However, Stroup was concerned with the fact that Peter Shapiro has more cash on hand with $73,652.94. How is this possible? Peter Shapiro has loaned his campaign $50,000. So if we are really talking about a fundraising advantage and gathering support, it is clear that Sekou Biddle is the one who has it.

Sekou Biddle also has more support in the District of Columbia. Donors from the District means votes in the District. 83% of Biddle's donors are from the District. Only 51% of Shapiro's donors are. Biddle also significantly outpaces Shapiro in the raw number of people who have donated to his campaign, in the District and overall. More than twice the number of District residents, 196 compared to 71, have donated to Biddle. Sekou also simply has more donors, 237 over 138.

So what does this mean? It means that Sekou has broader support in the District of Columbia. Many of the individual contributions are small, but that is because regular, hard working DC residents, not moneyed interests, are supporting his campaign. It also means his name recognition is higher and that people like what they hear enough to give. Sekou has also successfully won a seat for the State Board of Education in Wards 3 and 4, wards known for being rich in progressive votes.

Shapiro may have a history of public service in Prince George's County, and I applaud him for that. But in the District he has an almost complete lack of name recognition, financial support, record of service or record of voter participation to run on. That is not a situation that lends itself to a successful district-wide campaign in just under two months.

I am not asking Shapiro to drop out of the race and support Biddle. I am confident that our campaign organization and fundraising has us on the right track to win. But Stroup and others who think that we need to have only one progressive in this race might want to look at asking the candidate without grassroots support, name recognition, or a District record if he wouldn't mind stopping his efforts to buy an at-large council seat with his checkbook.

26 comments

Sekou Biddle should withdraw and support Peter Shapiro (Feb 1, 2012)
Crowded at-large Council race could help Orange win (Jan 4, 2012)
Would Biddle have been better off losing in January? (Apr 27, 2011)
Biddle is best of candidates for at-large appointment (Jan 5, 2011)
Biddle's next challenge: Showing independence (Jan 7, 2011)

O'Malley's sales tax on gas is the right way to fund transport

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:43:00 EDT

by Ben Ross

In his Wednesday state-of-the-state speech, Governor Martin O'Malley proposed ending the exemption of gasoline from Maryland's 6% sales tax. This is the best way for the state to get more money for transportation.

Gov. O'Malley speaking yesterday. Photo from the State of Maryland.

Ending the sales tax exemption, rather than increasing the gas tax beyond the current 23½¢ per gallon, accomplishes two things. First, sales tax revenue keeps pace with inflation. With the current structure of the gas tax, politically difficult tax increases are needed just to keep transit operations and road maintenance constant.

Second, we now have an opportunity to refute a widely believed myth about transportation funding. Once upon a time, drivers paid for roads through the gas tax. Most people think that's still true, but it's not.

Maryland's gas tax goes into the state's Transportation Trust Fund, along with the sales tax on car sales, fares paid on MARC trains and MTA buses, and revenues from BWI Marshall Airport and the Port of Baltimore. When the gas tax was last raised in 1992, the 23½¢ state tax was 33% of the pretax price of gasoline. The sales tax on other purchases was 5%. The heavy tax on gas could be described as a user fee paid by drivers.

Today, though, the state gas tax is a little more than 7% of the price of gasoline. When drivers buy gas, they pay 7% into the transportation trust fund and get 6% back from the state's general fund through the exemption of gasoline from the sales tax.

Ending the exemption would convert the gas tax back into a true user fee. Drivers would then pay a share of the cost of maintaining roads, just as transit riders pay a share of the cost of transit operations through their fares.

Many myths surround the subject of transportation funding, in Maryland as in other states. Transit advocates need to be vigilant as the legislature debates this issue to make sure that new funding builds transit lines and walkable grid streets rather than repeating the mistakes of the past. The better the public understands the realities of the state budget, the easier this will be.

23 comments

Maryland transportation "lockbox" has a big hole (Feb 8, 2011)
What will we fund if Maryland increases the gas tax? (Jan 11, 2011)
Expand MARC through higher state gas taxes (Sep 7, 2011)
SHA avoids the T word in 270 reply (Oct 28, 2009)
Maryland broke, can't meet WMATA capital commitments (Apr 2, 2010)

Breakfast links: Groundhog Day

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:45:00 EDT

by Steven Yates

Image by @KevDC on Yfrog.

6 more weeks of... winter?: Puxutawney Phil's "long-lost cousin," Potomac Phil, had his own Groundhog Day celebration in Dupont Circle this morning. Organizers couldn't find a live groundhog (the Zoo has none), so they had to use a stuffed one, at least this year. (Post)

House transpo bill to markup: The House's bad transportation bill goes through markup today, and a few amendments could help. Advocacy groups are asking people to contact their representatives to support restoring bike and pedestrian funding. (Streetsblog, Bike League)

Metro finds more cracks: Metro has found cracked rails at an increasing rate over the past three years. Part of the reason is the age of the system, but they also have gotten better at finding them. (Examiner)

Not terribly deliberate speed: In DC and nationwide, segregation is in decline. But DC is desegregating slower than other cities, with large tracts that are entirely black or entirely white not seeing much integration. (City Paper)

Main drag a drag: College Park has the density to support many establishments but Route 1's lack of walkability severely limits businesses. Traffic calming and wider sidewalks could help make Route 1 a real main street. (Rethink College Park)

Food deserts not a huge issue?: A new survey shows that most urban families are satisfied with their access to food, but grocery prices and having time to cook were more pressing concerns. (WAMU)

Public safety and history collide: The Palisades firehouse needs larger vehicle doors, but that would significantly change the historic structure, which HPRB probably can't allow under preservation laws. The Mayor's Agent can. (Georgetown Dish)

Preservation group didn't stall Met Branch: Owners of the Silver Spring B&O Station were initially blamed for blocking the Metropolitan Branch Trail, but their executive director insists they support the trail. So what happened? (Silver Spring Trails)

And...: Competition may encourage embassies to go green. (City Paper) ... Walter Reed won't be the new home for the FBI. (City Paper) ... It's time for TIGER IV. (Streetsblog) ... The Bethesda Metro tunnel will get some art. (Patch)

Have a tip for the links? Submit it here.

29 comments

Racial politics kept College Park Metro far from campus (Dec 4, 2007)
Silver Spring bike station gets planning money (Nov 3, 2010)
Sidewalk Assurance Act going to markup tomorrow (Apr 13, 2010)
Food trucks enhance brick-and-mortar restaurants (Mar 16, 2011)
A timeline of the Metropolitan Branch Trail (Aug 27, 2010)

Flawed study mis-rates potential DC school closings

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:55:00 EDT

by Steven Glazerman

DC would likely close some successful schools while expanding failing schools if it relies upon a study released last week. The much-anticipated study, which the Deputy Mayor for Education commissioned to help plan school closures and charter school policies, is highly flawed.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen on Flickr.

The goal of the study was to help DCPS balance out near-empty buildings in some locations with overcrowded ones in others, taking into account the quality of the schools.

For all its colorful charts and maps, the report uses a faulty measure of school quality and does not make any serious attempt to predict how families and schools might react to the changes it proposes. With such important decisions at stake, the Deputy Mayor should insist upon more rigorous analysis.

The report authors crunched a lot of numbers in an admirably short period of time and produced some very interesting descriptive statistics, like the percentage of students below 185 percent of the poverty line in charters (75) versus DCPS (67).

The study counts, within each of 39 neighborhood clusters in the city, the number of "performance," or high quality, seats in schools and compares that to the number of school-age students living in that cluster. The difference is called a service gap.

It recommends schools for closure, or in some cases investment, to reduce these service gaps. But it doesn't justify the type of investment. Is it facilities? More teachers? Better teachers?

The authors define a "performance seat" as a seat in a school in the top tier of a 4-tier rating system they devised. Each school's tier comes from estimated percentages of its students who were judged "proficient" on the state assessment test in recent years, projected 4 years into the future assuming a straight line trend.

This study raises a lot of questions for most researchers and even lay readers. Two big flaws stand out, which are so basic and could do significant damage if city leaders overlook the problems.

It uses a flawed measure of school performance. At the heart of this paper is a 4-tier rating of school quality that relies on the percent of students who are proficient on the state test (called the DC-CAS). Never mind the fact that a proficiency rate throws away information by focusing only on whether a score was above or below a fixed cut point instead of how high or low it was.

Student proficiency rates have long been discredited as a school performance measure because proficiency rates capture student achievement at a point in time, but say little about how much the school or its teachers contributed to its current students' performance.

For example, a middle school could have declining proficiency rates if a feeder school begins sending more at-risk students to it, even if the teachers are especially skilled at working with a challenging population.

At a bare minimum, a sensible measure accounts for what a student knew before enrolling in the school (for example, using the student's score from the prior year). This is why more and more states, including DC, have adopted student achievement growth measures instead of proficiency rates for their teacher and school performance indicators.

Using a trend in proficiency rates doesn't help, and only creates a false sense of "gains" which is more likely to measure demographic change and other differences between successive cohorts of students cycling through a school than the performance of the schools' educators. That's because it compares students in one year to different students, instead of students in one year to the same students in the prior year.

By relying on flawed measures of school performance, policymakers risk closing down schools that are best equipped to work with challenging populations and replacing them with ones that would fail miserably if they started working with a different student body.

It ignores human behavior. There is a big difference between bean-counting and behavioral analysis. The latter recognizes that families make choices (within budget constraints) about where they live and where they send their kids to school.

School leaders make decisions too—over what programs to offer and how to allocate scarce resources to produce successful educational outcomes or whatever else they may value. In the case of charter schools, administrators choose whether to open a charter, where to locate, and what to offer.

In modeling supply and demand, however, the report ignored all of these factors. The report makes no attempt to model the behavior of these actors to predict the effect of different policies on outcomes. It is a bean-counting exercise.

For example, this study would say that a neighborhood has no service gap if it had a successful but highly specialized charter school, such as a Spanish immersion school. Obviously such a school could draw students from all over the city and residents of the immediate neighborhood may either not want to attend such a program or not be able to rely on being admitted because the pool of students in the lottery is so large.

Acting on this flawed study could end up making service gaps worse. For example, an affluent neighborhood may have far too many seats for its own students and yet its schools can be overcrowded because families from far flung neighborhoods want affluent peers or a school in a neighborhood with better housing stock.

Building more schools in the less affluent neighborhoods will not necessarily solve that problem. It might just create more under-utilized space. Yet that's exactly what this study recommends.

A smarter policy would strategically locate new schools partway between the current over-enrolled schools and the under-enrolled ones and design curricular offerings to induce the optimal mixing of students. Or better yet, the policy could rely more on information and transportation than simply construction and demolition.

In other words, knowing that a school is under-enrolled is less important than knowing why it is under-enrolled. It's important to know why parents make the choices that they make, not to just tally up their choices at a moment in time like an accountant.

It is possible to model the supply and demand of schooling without making na�ve assumptions about schools and families. For example, there is work in progress by economists at Carnegie Mellon University demonstrating how it can be done.

In my own research I have simulated parental choice outcomes using behavioral parameters estimated from school choice data. This analysis illustrated how family preferences over the racial composition of the student body as well as commute distance and other factors such as school program offerings can influence sorting outcomes.

Planners can also consider trends in demographics, housing construction, and transit. They can simulate the results of a wide range of charter school and DCPS policies including not only facilities siting and improvements but varied attendance zones and expanded access to information about and transportation to schools beyond the immediate neighborhood.

The District needs sophisticated guidance to begin comprehensive, city-wide planning of school closures and investments and to help coordinate land use policy with charter school expansion. Unfortunately, this report doesn't provide enough of this guidance.

11 comments

Mayor Gray should keep promises on education funding (Jan 17, 2012)
DC needs school choice, not vouchers (Feb 25, 2011)
DCPS cancels promised arts magnet middle school (Dec 8, 2011)
DC charter schools should centralize admissions (Oct 25, 2010)
Leadership needed to extend DC school day (Dec 20, 2011)