蜜桃影视

When February 16 that D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Antwan Wilson had been caught leveraging the power of his position to secure his daughter privileged access to Woodrow Wilson High School, D.C. parents already had their response cycles down to a drill.

This was just the latest in a series of local struggles in the district鈥檚 public education system. Since November, the community has been sorting through a graduation rate scandal that began with and turned out to be . And just last spring, DCPS had been roiled by 鈥� prominent D.C. residents were allowed to (secretly) bypass the city鈥檚 lottery system and enroll their children directly in highly desirable schools with long waiting lists.

By the time Wilson鈥檚 choices came to light, the district鈥檚 anxious parents had everything but a bat signal to spread their outrage. Texts ricocheted across neighborhoods and through offices. Then Twitter exploded, inboxes flooded, and community listservs boiled with intemperate rage.

Folks were almost universally incredulous. Wilson broke a rule he created to benefit his own family. It鈥檚 easy to see why. Many district parents see the school enrollment lottery not as a source of opportunity, but of anxiety and disappointment.

And yet, : if Antwan Wilson had simply put a chunk of his nearly $300,000 annual salary toward a house within the district boundaries for Wilson High School, would there have been any significant public pushback? Almost certainly not. In D.C. (and beyond), we allow 鈥� we expect 鈥� privileged families to game the school enrollment system 鈥� we simply prefer they do it by purchasing houses.

Why is this? Why is money 鈥� specifically, money spent in the real estate market 鈥� the only form of privilege we allow free rein when it comes to accessing high-quality schools?

Partly, it鈥檚 because the real estate market provides a patina of respectability on privilege. Presumably the wealthy have 鈥渆arned鈥� their resources through their diligence and hard work and 鈥渄eserve鈥� the rewards 鈥� including automatic access to great schools. Real estate in expensive neighborhoods with guaranteed entry to good schools is just another of the benefits of bootstrapping your way up the American socioeconomic ladder.

But jeez, it wounds my soul to even type such nonsense in 2018. It should hurt your eyes to read it, given what we know about intergenerational wealth and social mobility, no? In America, most of the of the wealthy and well educated stay that way.

Our socioeconomic classes are calcifying through the untrammeled inheritance of social, educational, and material privileges. Nevertheless, ridiculous as it is, wealth-based access to quality public education is a central part of the U.S. meritocracy game. It鈥檚 too ubiquitous to question. It鈥檚 the air we breathe.

We ought to consider what it says about us as a community (and as a country). If, like Wilson, you鈥檙e a powerful man or woman who uses your connections and position to access higher-quality educational options for your kids, that鈥檚 a fireable offense. If you鈥檙e a rich man or woman who uses your accumulated assets to purchase higher-quality educational options for your kids, that鈥檚 as American as apple pie, and you can rage with a secure reputation when folks get caught trying to get into your kids鈥� schools some other way.

Is it really so natural and good that access to Wilson High School be preserved for students whose families have purchased homes near the school (the median home value in Tenleytown is nearly $1 million) 鈥� and so conversely heinous and terrible that a prominent education official should leverage his place in the schools system to secure a seat?

Please note: None of this means that Chancellor Wilson was right to act as he did. He鈥檚 a public official who violated the public鈥檚 trust. Specifically, he鈥檚 the public official who set the school lottery rules for families applying to enroll their children in schools outside their neighborhoods. That out-of-boundary lottery system is supposed to provide families with alternatives if they鈥檙e unhappy with the neighborhood public school they can afford in the real estate market.

Unwilling to send his child to his neighborhood school, unhappy with how things were going at the school his family found through the lottery, Wilson simply bypassed the whole system. In essence, he abused the escape hatch for families who felt ill-served by the inequitable neighborhood-based schools system (even if his reasons for doing so 鈥� protecting his daughter 鈥� were noble).

As I recently noted in an article in , privileged families will use essentially all options available to them to secure quality educational options for their children. D.C. is no different. In a decade here in D.C., I鈥檝e heard numerous stories of families renting an extra apartment within the boundaries of an in-demand DCPS neighborhood school and then summarily subleasing it out to relatives or friends to keep up the ruse.

I鈥檝e heard (unsubstantiated) stories of families already enrolled at coveted schools signing up as legal guardians for their friends鈥� children 鈥� so that those new 鈥渂rothers鈥� and 鈥渟isters鈥� can use their newfound 鈥渟ibling鈥� preference to enroll through the lottery. Wilson鈥檚 fall is a reminder that the privileged will also work outside established systems if they think that will advantage their children.

That鈥檚 the lesson folks should keep top of mind as DCPS tries to chart a path beyond its recent struggles. Some locals are calling for an end to unified mayoral control of the city鈥檚 public education system. This seems an odd response to D.C.鈥檚 under mayoral control, but it would also exacerbate DCPS鈥檚 current troubles.

If the city has a problem with officials getting unequal treatment in the public school鈥檚 enrollment system, should we really be eager to return to a school board model and a significantly larger coterie of local public education leaders? It seems this would make it harder to track around school enrollment 鈥� those seeking to evade the lottery would have more officials to pressure.

Even more critically, a return to school board governance would almost certainly shift the city鈥檚 attention to the concerns of wealthy families. Under the current system, DCPS leaders answer to the mayor, who answers to voters across the city. A restored school board would likely shift political power to school board members elected from each of D.C.鈥檚 wealthy and rapidly gentrifying wards. If DCPS鈥檚 recent scandals have taught us anything, it鈥檚 that these elected officials would face intense pressure from their influential constituents to preserve inequitable education policies that benefit their children (often at the expense of historically underserved children).

To the contrary, D.C.鈥檚 most urgent need is to find ways to rethink school enrollment policies. If the problem is well-connected families abusing their power, the district should establish even more aggressive policies to guard against it.

And, hey, while we鈥檙e at it, perhaps we should think a little harder about policies that allow the wealthy to purchase segregated, privileged schools through the real estate market.

Conor P. Williams is a senior researcher in New America鈥檚 Education Policy Program and founder of its Dual Language Learners National Work Group. Williams is a former first-grade teacher who holds a Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University, a master鈥檚 in science for teachers from Pace University, and a B.A. in government and Spanish from Bowdoin College. He has two young children and an extremely patient wife. His children attend a D.C. public charter school.

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