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Probably true, but I have data that shows that a great schools 5 school is actually higher performing than a 10 in many cases once you control for SES. One could easily argue that a school that can outperform the top school in the district while having half of the students disadvantaged is a better school than the one full of wealthy kids.
Which shows you can "prove" anything if you finagle the statistics enough.
The School District of Philadelphia isn’t the best district, but it does have quite a few stellar schools. Julia R. Masterman HS is ranked #1 in PA and among the top 50 in the nation. Central, Tacony Academy Charter, and Franklin Towne are among some of the other high-performing high schools. Additionally, Roxborough, Northeast, and George Washington are solid HS choices. Elementary schools such as Meredith, McCall, Adaire, and Penn Alexander are highly sought after and represent quality choices for young families.
Our SD has issues (mainly due to a lack of state funding, which is a huge problem with urban and rural SDs in PA), but I would feel comfortable sending my future kid to certain schools in the city! It’s one of the many reasons why I plan on staying and raising a kid here.
Not that whites are needed to lift scores, Minorities overall have to leap over massive hurdles just to have a decent education, so seeing a minority majority school doing great shows something special considering the barriers minorities still face in this country. I would say Asians lift the scores of school more than any other race, and they are a minority. Whites haven't had to face nearly as many hurdles as minority so it would only make sense that white schools be somewhat good. It's called white privilege. Those that are privilege have a hard time understanding the privilege so I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't understand.
Low income white communities tend to have lower education as well.
My parents are immigrants, came here not knowing a word of English - And English is not my first language. I grew up in a relatively poor NYC neighborhood, and I some how did ok. I think you are overplaying the hurdles minorities have to leap over.
The truth is, there are certain cultures in the US that don't put an emphasis on education, it's flat out bad parenting. Some of my best friends are from China, India, and Pakistan, and they all come from humble backgrounds, but they all went to U of Michigan, Stanford, U of Illinois....Their cultures place an importance on education.
The African Americans in my high school (my school was ~40% Black) had across the board lower test scores and a much lower graduation rate. We lived in same neighborhoods, same income (Poor!), and had the same hurdles. Now, I have AA friends from High School who did well, but the African American culture in the NYC and Chicago (the two cities i'm most familiar with) places less importance on Education.
My parents are immigrants, came here not knowing a word of English - And English is not my first language. I grew up in a relatively poor NYC neighborhood, and I some how did ok. I think you are overplaying the hurdles minorities have to leap over.
The truth is, there are certain cultures in the US that don't put an emphasis on education, it's flat out bad parenting. Some of my best friends are from China, India, and Pakistan, and they all come from humble backgrounds, but they all went to U of Michigan, Stanford, U of Illinois....Their cultures place an importance on education.
The African Americans in my high school (my school was ~40% Black) had across the board lower test scores and a much lower graduation rate. We lived in same neighborhoods, same income (Poor!), and had the same hurdles. Now, I have AA friends from High School who did well, but the African American culture in the NYC and Chicago (the two cities i'm most familiar with) places less importance on Education.
It's the hard truth nobody wants to discuss.
We have to be careful about this too, as some Asian groups have similar economic and social issues as some African American(i.e.-SE Asians) and you also have schools with high African American percentages and poverty rates that do well too.
You also may even have schools where the Black graduation rate in a diverse HS is actually higher than say the white and even Asian rate, with all having high rates as well. A couple of examples that come to mind: https://data.nysed.gov/gradrate.php?...d=800000039478 (look at 2016)
So, this is more complicated than people want to make it out to be, without getting into other factors that are personal and socio-historical, as well.
My parents are immigrants, came here not knowing a word of English - And English is not my first language. I grew up in a relatively poor NYC neighborhood, and I some how did ok. I think you are overplaying the hurdles minorities have to leap over.
The truth is, there are certain cultures in the US that don't put an emphasis on education, it's flat out bad parenting. Some of my best friends are from China, India, and Pakistan, and they all come from humble backgrounds, but they all went to U of Michigan, Stanford, U of Illinois....Their cultures place an importance on education.
The African Americans in my high school (my school was ~40% Black) had across the board lower test scores and a much lower graduation rate. We lived in same neighborhoods, same income (Poor!), and had the same hurdles. Now, I have AA friends from High School who did well, but the African American culture in the NYC and Chicago (the two cities i'm most familiar with) places less importance on Education.
It's the hard truth nobody wants to discuss.
This is the racism I predicted.
You want to know the hard truth:
You can not reasonably compare the most motivated and resourceful people from one group with the WHOLE of a long-oppressed minority. It’s hard to immigrate to the US, so immigrants are a self-selected population of motivated, capable people. There’s a lot of nuance here, but it’s easier to assign deficiency to Af-Ams...especially when you’ve bought into your own superiority.
You can not reasonably compare the most motivated and resourceful people from one group with the WHOLE of a long-oppressed minority. It’s hard to immigrate to the US, so immigrants are a self-selected population of motivated, capable people. There’s a lot of nuance here, but it’s easier to assign deficiency to Af-Ams...especially when you’ve bought into your own superiority.
Oh please with the Racism...If you want to disagree fine, but I was addressing the poster who said minorities have different hurdles than everyone else - if by minorities it was implied only African Americans, then fine, but Indians, Asians, etc are minorities in this country, and they seem to do fine.
Chicago example - I live around the corner from one of the best performing K-8 schools in the city, it is not the best performing because the teachers are somehow superior to the teachers in Englewood or Austin or South Shore - it's because the vast majority of the parents give a damn. If you picked up the worst performing school in Chicago and dropped it at the intersection of Southport and Grace, with the same faculty, it would become one of the best schools in the city...Overnight.
There are obviously other factors, but how can you deny, that across the boardm in urban areas, African American Families place less emphasis on education than White or Asian families? I just don't see it.
Which shows you can "prove" anything if you finagle the statistics enough.
Controlling for socio-economic status is the opposite of finagling the data, it's the only way to subjectively compare schools since SES is what correlated with student achievement, not the school itself.
No no no no. The schools have recent begun to decline again and have never been good. Cambridge Somerville, sure. Brookline is a tiny mostly suburban area with a small urban area to the north devoid of urban issues. It’s an urban village/hamlet.
Boston? Probably never. Boston Latin and Boston Latin Acdemy are excellent though. But in a district where 60% of the schools are over 78 years old?? And only 2 new schools have been built since 2002 and 14% of students are homeless. And 40% of schools are in need of serious improvement according to the state? 75% of students are low income and only 14% of students earn a college degree after 6 years? Declining enrollment since 2000? Next ear will be out 4th superintendent in 6 years... Boston does not have good public schools and hasn’t since at least the 1940s. Bussing ruined an already weak school system and it will probably never fully recover. In the early 70s through the 80s dropout rates in the systems floated around 30-40% that’s down to about 5% now and a 70% graduation rate so the schools are somewhat decent but when you take out the three exam schools HS graduation rate in Boston is about 65% and was 55% only 10 years ago.
Last edited by BostonBornMassMade; 11-14-2018 at 08:48 AM..
-people are going to name “urban” areas with tiny, affluent school districts; e.g. Brookline, MA.
-people are going name mid-sized cities that aren’t particularly urban, e.g. Raleigh.
Both discussions will be racially tinged.
In terms of big cities, New York and Boston both have pretty good schools. Minneapolis as another solid choice. The truth is any school district with mostly affluent students is going to look like a “good“ district. I’m more impressed by school districts that perform well with strong racial and Socio economic diversity.
Post of the year! I'm so sick of hearing how the "best" schools are ranked. An mostly white, affluent, suburbanish district will look good on paper and it probably should. But to achieve solid results in a more urban, diverse (socially, racially, economically) is a whole different ballgame and far more impressive to me personally.
-people are going to name “urban” areas with tiny, affluent school districts; e.g. Brookline, MA.
-people are going name mid-sized cities that aren’t particularly urban, e.g. Raleigh.
Both discussions will be racially tinged.
In terms of big cities, New York and Boston both have pretty good schools. Minneapolis as another solid choice. The truth is any school district with mostly affluent students is going to look like a “good“ district. I’m more impressed by school districts that perform well with strong racial and Socio economic diversity.
Great Post
New York and Boston have a few decent achooos and a handful of excellent exams schools. But are dominated by low quality schools. Minneapolis and Seattle probably have the best truly urban districts. No one of means is sending their kid to an average BPS or NYCPS middle/high school
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