Outlook: Family Flees District's Broken Schools

Recent Optimism Can't Keep Parent From Changing View, Moving to Suburbs for Son's Education

"With a second-grader who has already read the first two Harry Potter books, I can't wait the four or five years it will take to begin to undo decades of neglect and mismanagement of District schools, much less the additional time needed to create programs for the gifted and talented. What Reinoso and his team have done so far -- making sure that students have textbooks on time and that long-needed school repairs are made -- was comparatively easy. Ridding the schools of unproductive workers who've stymied previous attempts at reform will be harder"

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David Nicholson, a former assistant editor with The Washington Post's Book World was online Monday, Oct. 22 at 12 p.m. ET to discuss his Outlook article about the problems and negativity he's encountered in D.C. schools, and his reasons behind moving to the suburbs for the sake of his son's education.

The transcript follows.

Archive: Transcripts of discussions with Outlook article authors

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David Nicholson: Greetings. Thanks for coming. I look forward to answering your questions and I hope we can have an interesting and productive discussion.

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The Other Side of Rock Creek Park, D.C.: Are you less bothered by moving to the suburbs than you would be by moving to "The Other Side of Rock Creek Park" or sending your child to a school there? Either way, you're probably reducing the "diversity" around your kid while simultaneously improving his education. (Or maybe even Upper Northwest D.C. schools are wretched ... I don't know.) I appreciate what you've written in your piece, but I was confused by that particular statement. Seems like a gratuitous swipe at us in Chevy Chase, D.C., which I understand if you're a die-hard city dweller but not if you've given up and gone suburban.

David Nicholson: Thanks for your comment.

It seems to me that there aren't really any perfect solutions. My son's new school seems pretty diverse, as does Northern Virginia -- more diverse, in fact than, the District. My son goes to school with black and biracial kids, Asian kids, Latino kids.

One of our issues with sending him west of the park was commuting time. Another was having his friends live outside his neighborhood.

Many of the boys in his new class are in his Cub Scout troop, and it's great to see children from his class as we walk to school.

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Washington: Hi -- I completely understand your decision, but I am wondering why you didn't want to apply to elementary schools west of the Park, some of which rival schools in neighboring suburban counties but offer richly diverse communities. Were you aware of the out-of-boundary enrollment process?

David Nicholson: Yes, we were aware of the out-of-boundary enrollment process. In fact, we did apply to one school, but our son was not accepted.

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Washington: Thank you for such a well-written (though heartbreaking) essay. But I (once again) applaud you and your wife for doing the right thing where your son was concerned.

David Nicholson: Thank you for your kind words.

One of the things I've discovered about being a parent -- and I waited till I was nearly 50 to have a child! -- is that it ain't about you any more. So even though we had to uproot ourselves, we think we did the right thing for our child.

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Washington: Hi. What were your particular concerns with the D.C. school your son attended before moving? Which school did he attend?

David Nicholson: As I said in the piece, we loved the school for the first three years. But it became clear when he entered first grade that teachers and staff weren't doing everything they could to give my son the best possible experience.

In two or three years, once the primary teachers gain some experience -- and when they hire more experienced teachers -- I have every reason to believe it will be a great school.

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Southwest Washington: Great story, David. One question: I never knew Fenty's kids go to private school. Has he ever explained why?

David Nicholson: I don't know if he has.

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Washington: Okay, as a college professor without any children, I am not really qualified to comment on your piece -- but I will say, gee you want a lot of the time of the instructor and principal, time that otherwise could be spent actually preparing a course or researching how to deal with a particular problem. Thank God that by the time the kids reach college, the family has better things to do than talk to me.

David Nicholson: When you go to buy a car or a television, don't you expect the salesman to spend some time answering questions? Of course you need to research the particular car or TV you're interested in, but I still think the salesperson should be there if you need or want to talk to him.

A child's future is so much more important that I don't think it is at all unreasonable to ask a principal -- or vice principal -- to spend half an hour talking about his or her school.

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Virginia: Thank you so much for your honesty in this piece. I am considering (strongly) sending my children to private school, and some of the comments I have received from friends have been truly outrageous. Apparently in certain circles, the best interest of individual children is not as important as toeing the line of someone else's ideology.

David Nicholson: Thanks for your comment.

At one point, I suppose I might have been one of those people who would have been critical of someone who opted to send his child to private school. But I think that parents know best.

It would be great if we could all send our children to public school but in the District my experience has been that teachers and staff aren't always interested in working with parents.

Years ago, when I wrote about the Black Student Fund -- an organization that recruits black students for D.C.-area private schools and provides scholarships -- the late John Walker, Episcopal bishop of Washington made an interesting point: D.C.-area private schools are more integrated than the city's public schools.

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Washington: Do you feel that the education provided during the primary years at LAMB were adequate? Would you advise to move the child after they graduate from kindergarten? What issues could the black teachers address if they stayed?

David Nicholson: As I said in the piece, we were very happy the first three years at the charter school my son attended. Whether or not a parent should move a child after kindergarten is up to the parent. I'd certainly advise talking to the teachers -- and if your child had any special needs, I'd be extra vigilant about making sure his needs could be met.

When you have a school where so many of the teachers are not U.S.-born, those teachers aren't always aware of the complexities of the American experience. I would like to think that black teachers would have better understood my concerns -- and the concerns other parents raised -- and that black teachers could have helped Latino staff and teachers understand the validity of those concerns.

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Leaving the District: I don't have children yet, but I had this conversation recently with some people who made the decision you did and I -- the child of a public school teacher and spouse of a DCPS teacher -- argued that if we didn't put our kids in the schools, we were doing a disservice to those left behind who don't have parents engaged enough to make sure they get what they need. The response was: I can teach in the schools and do my part to try and get those kids to the next level, but I can't make my kids warriors in the fight for better public school education in the District.

David Nicholson: I agree with the parents who don't want to make their kids warriors in the fight to make the schools better, but if you think you can stay and have your child get a decent education, then my hat is off to you. As I said in my piece I am hopeful that Fenty, Rhee and Reinoso will be able to make the schools better.

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Annandale, Va.: Your article seemed to focus on a charter school. Did you compare other schools in the District before deciding to move? I think public schools are the way to go for most folks, but the schools need to be okay. I know some schools in Washington are very good. Why do you think it has been so hard to upgrade schools, especially with added competition of charters?

David Nicholson: I don't think the public schools really have responded to the competition from charters. In fact, instead of responding by making the schools better, DCPS simply has complained about how the charters are draining money from the regular public schools.

Basically our choices were our neighborhood school, a school elsewhere in Washington, another charter ... or moving to the suburbs.

Also, don't forget that while my biological child went to a charter school, my godson (who lived with us for several years) went to public school. And we'd had lots of experience advocating for him.

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Washington, DC: I found you experience with the DCPS principal interesting. Data and personal experience tend to show that schools with parental involvement perform better than those without. However, your experience and other articles in The Post show that principals in many low-performing schools go out of their way to prevent parent involvement. What is their motivation? Is it a "control" issue?

David Nicholson: Yes, I suspect is is a control issue. Which is sad because you're right -- when parents are involved, schools get better.

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Washington: I am having a heck of a hard time determining what my son should be learning in pre-kindergarten. The main thing he's learning is Spanish. His teacher said that is tough, but he is the best writer, the best artist and uses the best grammar of any of the kids in his class. The teacher is young and energetic and takes the kids on a field trip every few weeks (zoo, fire station, grocery store, bakery, library) but then I talk to a parent and their kid got to art museums or a TV station or everyone in their kid's class can write simple words at age 4. Because I didn't write until I was six and didn't speak Spanish until age 11, I thought writing at age four was great. How can a parent judge what is good or bad for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten?

David Nicholson: I'm not an educational expert, so I don't know if I can really answer your question. Sometimes I think we pay too much attention to what our kids do in preschool. Yes, it is the foundation for what kids learn later, but if you're taking your child to museums and providing other enriching experiences, then perhaps that's just as important.

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Reston, Va.: I was an "advanced" reader in elementary school who eventually fell into the regular classes, even though I read more than almost any other classmates. I don't think schools encourage independent learning, and I think that handicaps most children, especially ones that need it the most. I also think that teachers are overworked, with parents expecting to be able to get in touch with them after hours, and the bulk of their grading and planning being done after contract hours. I know your personal solution was to move your child, but what do you have to say to the D.C. educational system?

David Nicholson: What would I say to the city's educational system? So much I'd take the rest of our chat time in responding to that.

But I'd say several things: Create a credentialing system so that teachers are qualified to teach the subjects they teach. Create a merit pay system for teachers who excel. Give poorly performing teachers the tools they need to get better. If they don't get better, make them leave.

Hire more teachers to decrease the student-teacher ratio. Make principals' community involvement part of their performance evaluations.

Create centers for "wrap-around" services, where parents who don't have high school diplomas could go to get their GEDs. These centers also would provide before- and after-care, a safe place for kids to do their homework, and a professional staff that would provide parenting classes, etc.

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Washington: A questions and a comment: Did you consider out-of-boundary before charter schools? Our Local School Restructuring Team had the "non-progressive" teachers elected to it, and because the teachers could select a site representative we have the pleasure of the WTU general vice president as our union rep. (Yes, the one who is on record in The Post that he would take every action to frustrate the personnel performance improvement.) Not to be cynical, but I will be -- I think we're about to have our three steps back after two steps forward to start the year. Right now we're staying in the city because of a few good teachers and the promise of our school being a great school. They break the toy, and like you, we're gone!

David Nicholson: Our son didn't get into the out-of-boundary school we applied to.

Your comment points to perhaps the greatest problem in improving the schools: Changing school culture. Rhee, Reinoso and Fenty have to get it across to DCPS staff and teachers that they work for the parents and the students, not the other way around.

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Southeast Washington: Thank you for a truthful expression -- not just on DCPS and the Charters, but life in the District as a whole. I used to work for DCPS, and always was amazed by councilmembers, and not Board of Education members, calling to assist residents, teachers, principals, etc. Reinoso was your neighbor -- why did you not enlist his help?

David Nicholson: You know, I can't think why we didn't talk to Reinoso. Perhaps we were just dealing with so many different things the idea never occurred to us.

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Chevy Chase, D.C.: Thanks for clarifying that "west of the park" comment ... what you said makes perfect sense, and I no longer think you sound like a holier-than-thou Mount Pleasant hipster jerk.

David Nicholson: You're welcome!

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Northwest Washington: Did you ever go to DCPS and ask for an individualized education program to be drawn up for extremely gifted and talented students? If so, how does DCPS handle gifted/talented students. I know they have Banneker for high schoolers, but I never hear about programs in lower grades. Did DCPS offer you any options?

David Nicholson: I don't think that, apart from Banneker, DCPS has any programs for gifted students.

Federal law mandates that schools make provisions for students with learning disabilities, but there are no mandates that schools make provisions for students who are gifted.

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Anonymous: Do you think in the diversity you speak, you miss some aspects of other challenges?

David Nicholson: I'm not sure what you mean by "some aspects of other challenges."

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Washington: Did you consider private schools?

David Nicholson: Yes, we did. Our child didn't get into any of the schools we applied to. (Private schools have only a few slots for first- and second-graders, as most kids are admitted as preschoolers.) Given the expense, we might not have been able to afford it anyway.

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Mount Pleasant, D.C.: I appreciate your article. However, the message sounds strangely familiar: the self-consoling need to justify an obviously difficult personal decision. We have all heard this multiple times from our friends who have fled to the suburbs. What is most heartening from your article, though, is the fact that after three to four years in a D.C. public charter school, your first-grade son read at the level of a sixth grader (with potential literacy in another language -- a likely result of his dual-language program). This is great news for those of us who support the charter schools, and I'm a bit surprised that you don't acknowledge your child's school with any credit for this achievement.

David Nicholson: I didn't give credit to the school because I don't think our child learned to read in school. Yes, he learned Spanish at school, but he somehow bypassed phonics and sounding out words and was just reading. I suspect he simply taught himself.

Self-consoling? Perhaps. But it was a hard decision. In many ways, I wish I hadn't had to leave the city. On the other hand, I like not having to pick up beer bottles from the gutter in the morning.

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Re: Washington Professor's views: As the grown son of a professor and a Louisiana public school teacher, I never have met a teacher or principal who wouldn't take time to work with, talk to and even mentor parents. And this was in public schools in one of the two bottom-tier education states in the nation (Mississippi was the other at the time). So I don't know where that idea comes from, but it's not in any educational model I'm familiar with. That said, how do D.C. schools improve so they don't lose more parents like you? And how do you advocate for changing a system you no longer have as vested an interest in?

David Nicholson: I don't understand why some principals won't spend time with parents. It's short-sighted because, as someone else pointed out, when parents get involved schools get better.

The short answer as to what DCPS needs to do is improve the product. By that I don't just mean test scores, but making teachers and staff accountable.

I'm not sure I understand your final question. I probably won't advocate for changing DCPS, but I have an investment in the sense that I want to see the children whose parents can't do what we've done have the chance to get a first-class education.

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Takoma Park, Md.: Why now? The city is going to be very diverse in about five years, and there never have been as many tax dollars as now to fix the years of neglect?

David Nicholson: Because, as I said in the piece, it will take several years to improve the schools. In the end, my wife and I concluded that we just couldn't wait.

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Virginia: To Leaving the District, there was a poll in which the NEA refused to admit that most public school teachers will send their own kids to private schools and not the school systems in which they work and teach.

David Nicholson: One of The Post's columnists cited an interesting statistic a few weeks ago: Apparently most D.C. public school teachers and staff live in the suburbs, which means they don't send their children to DC public schools.

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Washington: Fenty has said he will enroll his kids in a DCPS school when they finish their Montessori school (third grade, I think). Were you aware that both Reinoso and Rhee have enrolled their kids in DCPS schools? If so, I wondered why you didn't mention it.

David Nicholson: Lots of things get changed in the editing of a piece because there isn't an unlimited amount of space.

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Washington: Amen to your statements about merit pay for the best and showing the door to the worst teachers. The job protection for incompetent teachers by the D.C. teachers union is outrageous. Teachers claim they need protection from "arbitrary" principals. Two responses: First, the rest of the country works "at will" -- that is, we can be fired for any reason that is not discriminatory -- and I'll bet most of us do a better job because of it. Second, with No Child Left Behind most principals, whether they like a particular teacher or not, will not fire a teacher who is getting results! The principal, now more than ever, is responsible for the bottom line, and teachers never will be treated like professionals until they agree to dump the outrageous seniority system and protection for merit pay.

David Nicholson: I hope you're right about principals not firing teachers who get results.

One anecdote I didn't put in my piece was about a math teacher who was so good he had my godson getting As and Bs. The teacher was a strong black man and my son respected him. But he didn't get along with the principal, so the principal had him moved.

His replacement was a woman who'd retired from teaching a few years before. She wasn't nearly as conscientious, and my son's grades slipped to Cs.

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Washington: Hi. My boyfriend and I read your piece in The Post with interest yesterday. While we do not have children yet, we hope to in the not-so-distant future. We love the District but, as we look for a home to buy, are thinking about leaving the city precisely because of the education issue. It saddens us, but we keep hearing stories like yours. We were curious as to why you chose to move to Virginia over Maryland when you were living so close to Montgomery County. Was the decision based on your understanding as to the relative qualities of the the counties' schools? Thanks!

David Nicholson: One thing we were looking for was the opportunity for our child to enroll in a gifted and talented program if his test scores and teacher evaluations supported it. Fairfax County's gifted and talented program seemed better and more extensive than Montgomery County's.

Perhaps by the time you have children, you won't face the same choices we did because D.C. schools will be better.

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Washington: Does your new school in the 'burbs offer an language immersion program of any kind?

David Nicholson: Our son's current school does not, but there are schools that do.

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Woodberry Forest, Va : Thanks for taking my question and having this discussion. I would like to respond to one sentence in the article, "private schools were too expensive." I recommend that parents never dismiss a school based on its sticker price. Independent and parochial schools offer need-based financial aid. Assume the school's comprehensive fee is $27,000; in the D.C. area a family of four with $50,000 in assets and one child attending a tuition-charging school will qualify for full tuition assistance with incomes up to about $60,000, and will qualify for their last dollar of need-based aid with a family income up to about $225,000. Also, parents who are considering private school can live wherever they like, not just in the areas with the best school system. The savings on the price of their home plus annual real estate tax savings will help close the gap between need-based aid and the parents' contribution.

David Nicholson: Actually, we never got that far. Our child wasn't accepted at the private schools we applied to.

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Maryland: Years ago, I worked at a law firm in Washington. We hired an equal number of kids from the District and Prince George's County. The kids from PG were well-behaved and worked hard, unlike the kids from the District, who claimed racism for/at/from everything they did at work.

David Nicholson: I think your observation points to one of the more difficult issues when we talk about improving D.C. public schools: A third of D.C. students come to kindergarten without having seen books at home -- and a third of D.C. adults are illiterate. Not only do we need to make schools accountable, but parents and children need to take responsibility for their own lives.

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Takoma Park, Md.: Why Fairfax County, not Montgomery County?

David Nicholson: We felt Fairfax County had a more extensive gifted and talented program. We're hopeful our son will quality for GT services.

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Anonymous: Whoa! I got the impression, you and your wife worked with him to read at this level. Your son did not learn to read on his own. I am not a fan of DCPS schools, nor Rhee or Fenty, but if you did not teach him, your school darn sure did.

David Nicholson: I was an editor in The Post's Book World section for about 12 years, so reading is very important to me. (When we moved, the hardest thing was getting rid of about 15 boxes of books!)

Yes, I think school helped our son learn to read, but I think he would have been an early reader even if he'd never gone to school.

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Riggs Park, D.C.: Obviously, your article might be the last wake-up call for those in denial. It is difficult to see how bad a hurricane is when you are in the middle of it. Imagine if your schools -- in a fairly decent area -- were inadequate, what most children in the city are receiving? East of the river is must be really bad, not to mention areas of northeast, southeast and southwest. But with tax revenue up, and with many more whites entering the city, don't you think that things will get better in, say, five years?

David Nicholson: I think schools will get better in four or five years because we finally have a mayor, and an education team, willing to do what it will take to make the schools better.

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Washington: Thank you for your honesty, as disheartening as it is. My husband and I love the District but we are struggling with where to send our 2-year-old when it's time for her to go to school. Do you know of any resources for finding out about D.C. schools? Is the best thing to visit with the principal for 30 minutes and observe a class or two? Thanks.

David Nicholson: Good question. The Post's Web site has a page with information about city schools -- number of teachers, number of children below the poverty level, etc. But I also think there's no substitute for visiting the school and spending time with the principal and teachers.

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Takoma Park, Md.: It seems as though you had three pretty good years at your child's old school, and a rocky/spotty first-grade year. Was that one year really that bad, so bad that you had to abandon everything for Virginia? My children also have had off years, where the teachers were less experienced, and so on. Mediocre folks are part of life -- bosses, volunteer leaders, neighbors/acquaintances, civil employees, etc. You just have to learn to deal, a life-lesson that's as valuable for a 50-plus-year-old man as for a 6-year-old. What about staying and trying to help fix the diversity issues?

David Nicholson: You make a good point, and we agonized over this for many, many weeks before we finally decided to move. An off-year is one thing, but we also weren't convinced that the school had the infrastructure it needed to to make things better.

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David Nicholson: Thanks for your questions. I enjoyed chatting with everyone, but now it's time to go get my child at school.

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