Michelle Rhee's Influence on DC Real Estate: The Director's Cut

• August 26th 2010

by Mark Wellborn

In a post on the City Paper’s real estate blog last week, Lydia DePillis put forth the idea that DC public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee is the most powerful person in DC real estate. In her column for the paper this week, she takes a closer look at this assumption.

In short, the thesis for the article is fairly simple: DC public schools have long been a reason that families move out of the District when their children reach a certain age, but if schools get better, particularly in areas where they have performed poorly for decades, then the migration out of DC might slow or stop altogether.

The column is a very interesting read from start to finish, but one section is worth special mention as it provides insight about the progress of neighborhoods outpacing the progress of schools:

Take Bloomingdale and Brookland, for example, which are in the middle of a baby boom. Local realtor and incoming WDCAR president Suzanne Des Marais has seen more families moving into her home turf of Bloomingdale in the last couple of years than ever before—but it’s in spite of the schools, not because of them.

“I don’t know anybody who sends their kids to school in my neighborhood, which is a little crazy,” says Des Marais, whose 12-year-old goes to a private school in Takoma Park.

Full disclosure: This post was written by someone who went to DC public schools from Pre-K to 12th grade.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/michelle_rhees_influence_on_dc_real_estate_the_directors_cut/2425.