What is the future of suburban Atlanta's successful and diverse public schools? (Sandy Springs: real estate, apartment complexes)

[jeoff]

A child in Gwinnett county's Parkview High School K-12 cluster is attending a school in which there is no ethnic majority, and has well-above average test scores (or better). Just this one cluster is more than three times the size of the entire Decatur City Schools system with a lot of affordable housing, but not many apartments. And there are several other clusters similar to this in the county (with even better scores). This is not to say that every diverse school in the county is doing well, but many are, and there are other areas that are seeing similar changes.
The reason why I ask is that I have lived in the Atlanta area pretty much my whole life. And pretty much people would always use the word "transitional" (or something like that) to describe a neighborhood/school that was changing its demographics (like Gwinnett), but for the most part it was not used in a flattering way --pretty much all of Dekalb County has been called "transitional" at some point, and it has not really worked all that well (disharmony, falling test scores and scandals).
There are reasons why what happened in Dekalb may be different--mostly they were under forced integration for 30 years or so, and pretty much race was part of every decision that was made in the county in that time, and since--just not the best way to run a school system. Maybe it was necessary (there was a reason why DeKalb was forced to integrate)--a lot of kids got opportunities that they would not have gotten otherwise, and it may have paved the way for more successful changes in other counties, but it has left a wound on the county that it never recovered from.
Still, even as Dekalb's Schools fell from their peak, they always pointed to their successes. And while high, Parkview's test score are not what they were when it was a predominantly white school. So,where are we with our successful and diverse public schools? Is this the future, or just a transition?

[AtlJan]

Historically, it seems like the schools go the way of the neighborhoods and it tends to hurt schools when the housing inventory ages. When a subdivision starts to look dated or falls out of favor style-wise, new young families start going elsewhere. . .and ten years or so later, you start to see the school change. An example would be Campbell. The school's heyday was in the 70s and 80s when the children of the families who bought new houses in the sixties and seventies were coming of high school age. Then those sixties & seventies ranches fell out of fashion and the school sunk. Now it is improving again b/c of new construction in the area. Will be interesting to watch East Cobb on this trajectory, if it happens there.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by AtlJan

Historically, it seems like the schools go the way of the neighborhoods and it tends to hurt schools when the housing inventory ages. When a subdivision starts to look dated or falls out of favor style-wise, new young families start going elsewhere. . .and ten years or so later, you start to see the school change. An example would be Campbell. The school's heyday was in the 70s and 80s when the children of the families who bought new houses in the sixties and seventies were coming of high school age. Then those sixties & seventies ranches fell out of fashion and the school sunk. Now it is improving again b/c of new construction in the area. Will be interesting to watch East Cobb on this trajectory, if it happens there.

Good comments, though an area like East Cobb seems to be different than most other suburban areas that usually go through the trajectory from hot suburban area to declining post-suburban area.

One thing that seems to be different about East Cobb is that the quality (and reputation) of the schools has been so high that they have kept the area from going into the type of post-suburban slide that has been experienced in many other closer-in suburban areas in Metro Atlanta.

The quality of the schools in East Cobb has been so consistently good (and have seemingly even improved from how good they already were) that they have caused East Cobb to remain as an extremely-hot suburban enclave for the most part (with high real estate prices, infill development, and new homes being constructed in the place of torn-down mature homes), despite the advanced age of the area, which is an age when many suburban areas are in a stage of noticeable decline or transition to something that is more urban in nature.

Another reason why a mature suburban area like East Cobb has stayed really strong in very high-demand while other suburban areas of the same age have gone into decline and transitioned to post-suburban and urban is because of the almost complete lack of multi-family housing in the area (with the exception of the Wheeler High School feeder zone which has a very-large cluster of multi-family housing).

Another reason why East Cobb has remained very strong and very high-demand is because of the relatively very-high per-capita and average household income in the area.

The combination of an almost total lack of multi-family housing throughout most of East Cobb (except for the Wheeler High School feeder zone) and high average incomes (per-capita and per-household) has helped East Cobb to remain strong as a suburban area despite its relatively advanced age as an established suburban area.

Though, it should be noted that the schools of the Wheeler High School feeder zone have done an excellent job at providing students with a very high-quality public school education despite the very-large amount of multi-family housing in the area, something that likely has been aided with a relatively high per-capita and relatively high average household income in the areas of the Wheeler feeder zone with detached single-family homes.

The Wheeler High School feeder zone is one of those unique places that has both a very-large cluster of lower-priced housing (multi-family housing...aging apartments, townhome complexes, etc) and a high average household income in its areas with detached single-family homes (...the Norcross High School feeder zone of Gwinnett County is another area that has both a very-large cluster of relatively cheap multi-family housing units and a relatively very-high average household income in its areas with detached single-family housing).

If an area like East Cobb had more multi-family housing (aging and neglected apartment complexes) and a lower per-capita and lower average household income, it might very-well be in some sort of stage of decline or transition (like nearby Smyrna and Sandy Springs, two areas chocked full of multi-family housing complexes, have gone through over the past couple of decades).

[AtlJan]

Gosh, If you were a stock analyst and East Cobb were a stock, I would sell right now. Sounds a little too frothy.

[ATLTJL]

I think a lot of it depends on what is meant by "diversity."

When I think of diversity, I think of schools like Gwinnett county....a melting pot of cultures and ideas. For this, I think diversity can really help a school and not hurt it much.

But in Atlanta, when some people say "diversity," what they really mean is 95% poor and black. Not that this definition would necessarily hurt a school, but it's not exactly diversity. It's just a euphemism.

Looking at Gwinnett county, truly diverse schools can be great depending on the quality of people the diversity represents. People from all backgrounds come in all shapes and sizes as well as values. If it's a good area, the ethnic minorities that populate it probably have the same values anyone would associate with good schools: parental involvement, intact families, a stress on education.

Good schools are really more about the quality of people who attend them, not so much their racial profile. DeKalb is probably having more problems because its minorities consist more of impoverished minorities who don't have the time or life experiences to make education a top priority.

[arjay57]

East Cobb is bulletproof.

[lastminutemom]

A couple of quick thoughts. There is diversity and then there is diversity More and more, it is becoming clear that the real challenges in education is class/income vs race/ethnicity.

The real question about Gwinnett is what will happen when Wilbanks retires and the Board of Ed more accurately reflects the diversity and relative youthfulness of the county. Right now, most of the Gwinnett Board of Ed (which is only 5 members) have served for decades, at least one as long as 25 years. The truth is that Wilbanks is a dictator, perhaps a benevolent one, who controls that system with a iron hand.

The reality is, on a national level, that there are very few large school systems that are successful. Add a diverse population to that and there are even fewer. It is going to be interesting to watch...

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by lastminutemom

A couple of quick thoughts. There is diversity and then there is diversity More and more, it is becoming clear that the real challenges in education is class/income vs race/ethnicity.

The real question about Gwinnett is what will happen when Wilbanks retires and the Board of Ed more accurately reflects the diversity and relative youthfulness of the county. Right now, most of the Gwinnett Board of Ed (which is only 5 members) have served for decades, at least one as long as 25 years. The truth is that Wilbanks is a dictator, perhaps a benevolent one, who controls that system with a iron hand.

The reality is, on a national level, that there are very few large school systems that are successful. Add a diverse population to that and there are even fewer. It is going to be interesting to watch...

Good comments that are something to ponder.

Hopefully, Gwinnett will not go the way of DeKalb which at one time like Gwinnett had a good reputation and was considered to be one of the best suburban school districts in the entire country.

Hopefully, Gwinnett will go the way of a Fairfax County, Virginia which is a large urban-suburban school district that has done a good job of managing the transition from being an overwhelmingly predominantly white and high-income exurban-outer suburban area with only a few hundred-thousand residents to being an increasingly urban post-suburban county with a population of more than 1 million people (...which is where Gwinnett seems to be headed population-wise).

Though, a really big difference is that Gwinnett County, Georgia has a poverty rate (12.4%) that is more than twice as high as the poverty rate in Fairfax County, Virginia (5.5%), which is something that is very-concerning as Gwinnett County and other Metro Atlanta suburbs continue their transition from outer-suburban to urban.

[aries4118]

Montgomery County, Maryland is also an example of a successful large urban/suburban school district. So they say.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Montgomery County, Maryland is also an example of a successful large urban/suburban school district. So they say.

Montgomery County, MD is another good example.

But Montgomery County, MD is also another example of a large urban/suburban county with a poverty rate (6.3%) that is about half that of Gwinnett County, GA (12.4%) and substantially lower than Cobb County, GA (11.4%).