Loved the headline, above, which was on my latest op-ed in Wednesday’s paper. Readers of this blog may recognize some of the content as having been from this earlier blog post. It was this Wall Street Journal article that prompted me to dust it off and update it for the op-ed. The stats I used came from Norfolk’s most recent budget.
14 thoughts on “The classroom as prime real estate”
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VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Wish you had said “some real estate agents”, because the good ones don’t steer, for all sorts of reasons.
As big an issue, in my experience, is people moving to the area talking to friends who say Beach and Chesapeake schools are good and Portsmouth and Norfolk aren’t.
These are comments from folks without any real knowledge of the good or bad in the systems they feel are inferior, some with the same lack of knowledge about the systems they are encouraging.
But the overall message was good and appreciated.
Yes, I know “steering” has negative connotations to it. But it was the best word I could come up with.
Good point on the friends.
The good ones steer buyers to the best value. Value to the buyer includes school systems, crime rates, tax rates, etc.
The crime indexes are 505.5 for Norfolk and 504.4 for Portsmouth, compared to 211.7 and 240.3 for Virginia Beach and Suffolk, respectively.
Real Estate tax rates are 1.11% and 1.24% for Norfolk and Portsmouth, respectively; and 0.89% and 0.91% for Virginia Beach and Suffolk.
As for the schools, Virginia Beach high schools students, on average, beat the State in 58 of 77 tests, while Portsmouth did so on only 13 tests, and Norfolk did on 29. (Suffolk was WAY down — only on 7 tests did they beat the State average.)
Good real estate agents give their clients that information. If that is “steering,” so be it.
Vivian, just yesterday, I took a young couple out looking for homes in the Cox and First Colonial High School districts of Virginia Beach. They own a beautiful home in Larchmont but feel they must move to Virginia Beach to receive the best public education for their two young children. I have tried to keep them here in Norfolk by giving them alternatives such as out of district schools for their kids. Sadly, they have their minds made up. The result Norfolk is losing two graduate school educated individuals and their gifted children to Virginia Beach.
Tell them to look at Glen Nye’s alma mater.
Warren, And which school is Glenn Nye’s alma mater?
Think Glenn grew up in Norfolk, so Maury or one of the privates
Norfolk Academy
And that’s not a public school, which is what Louis was referring to.
I don’t want to lose people like your clients, Louis. I’m hoping that others will recognize that good schools attract good people.
Vivian, I too was dreading opening the newspaper because I didn’t want to see another negative article about Norfolk Public Schools and see my real estate drop like it did this year. It will be interesting to see how the next round of testing scores will be in Chesapeake since we now know that Special Education students test scores were not included in their test results since they were not allowed to take the SOL tests in Science or Social Studies per instruction of the
Special Education Department. Too bad that article in the paper was not in the large headlines that Norfolk received. Given the past year, Norfolk Public Schools can only have a more successful school year with a new Superintendent and new members on the School Board. Hopefully they learned lessons about the value of hiring persons who will be ethical in their decisions and make decisions that benefit students and teachers. I would like to speak with pride that I once worked for a successful school division and not what I saw last year.
I know NA is not a public school — I was just looking for a way to keep them in Norfolk.
It will take some digging to find the research again, but schools are NOT the primary driving factor in kids’ scholastic achievement. PARENTS are. Parental involvement in their children’s education overwhelms every other factor.
Private schools do very well with much less money because the parents care enough to send their children to private schools.
Until Norfolk embraces economic and racial integration in its housing and schooling (and policy making), the schools (and neighborhoods) will suffer. We need to broaden and deepen the quality of our neighborhoods and schools not continue to steer people to a select few.
There are good schools in Norfolk. And there are excellent teachers in all schools in Norfolk.
The “stem white flight” school policy of the past 30 years has failed. Not only did it not stem white flight but it hastened Black middle class flight.
We need to embrace a school system that provides success for all… same for the city.
It has nothing to do with White and Black, rich and poor. If you expect and demand quality from your children, you will get it from their teachers. If you fight every attempt the teachers make to discipline your children, and demand that your children receive good grades whether they earn them or not, then your children will learn that lesson well, too.
Regarding expectations from teachers and children, you are correct. Regarding classrooms as prime real estate and school systems, the factors I mentioned do matter. And one reason these challenges linger is because of our unwillingness to discuss EVERYTHING.
Kingston, Lynnhaven, First Colonial Alumnus