America's 75 Worst Commutes MPLS-St Paul #17 (St. Paul, Anoka: high school, college, wages)

[AVguy]

Originally Posted by Ben Around

graduated *** laude last month

Another byproduct of living in an urban environment--you don't even realize that your writing includes offensive sexual terms!

As funny as that is, the forum filters will probably allow me to reference the bedroom community of Cumming, Iowa.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by Ben Around

Whatever. My daughter is a product of the St Paul public schools. She took IB classes and graduated with honors. Some of her IB classes counted as college credit. She got into a "highly selective" private college with a generous financial aid package and just graduated *** laude last month, a semester early. Her teachers in the St Paul public school system were great. The quality of the computers, buses, gym and sports programs didn't seem to have any influence on her outcome. (Your results may vary) .

This gives a VERY narrow viewpoint of the school, however. Let's talk about the rest of the school that is NOT in the IB program. Yes, the IB program is good, but not the rest of the school and that is supposed to be the "best" St. Paul high school .

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Isn't that the case for pretty much every school though? I took honors classes whenever possible in high school because I realized very quickly the types of students who would be in my class if I took the non-honors class or a cake elective like Horticulture or Food and Nutrition. It isn't like you're going to find a school with 100% angels that could do no wrong. Importance should be placed on the quality of staff, the programs offered and to a smaller extent, the quality of the facility.

[uptown_urbanist]

That's true of every school. As far as fights between parents, let's not try to make that into an urban issue; it seems like every single year we read about some fight between parents in some suburban area at the hockey game or wherever.

As far as the horrors of having to rub shoulders with kids who aren't in IB: heaven forbid your kid have to take gym with an immigrant kid who doesn't speak much English! Or someone who is failing Geometry! Or talk to a kid who is maybe on welfare! (I would say talk to kids who use drugs or drink excessively, but that could be even a greater risk in the suburbs..) Those are all learning experiences, too, and given the high level of academic tracking that goes on in urban public schools (they really are schools within schools, so assuming your kid is in the IB program than the other stuff is pretty much irrelevant), it's especially essential that in the non-academic courses the kids get a chance to interact with students not only in their own little bubble. That's all part of living in modern America, and I certainly want my child to learn to work with and respect those kids who don't come from the families with the same socio-economic and education level as ours. The tracking sometimes bothers me, but at least better to have kids altogether in one school and sharing some experiences rather than segregated totally without ever encountering one another.

Obviously it's unfortunate that not every kid in every school in every district (and that DEFINITELY goes for the suburban districts, too; they're not exactly producing National Merit Scholars out of every single one of their students, either...); the key is making sure that your kid has access to the education that he or she needs. If I had an at-risk kid who needed a lot of extra attention at school and wasn't going to be qualified to get on the college-bound track, then maybe I'd be happier with some of the suburban districts but the average to gifted kid with a caring family and a stable home is going to do absolutely fine in a school like Central in St. Paul or Southwest, South, or Henry in Minneapolis. I wouldn't be comfortable putting my kid in a school where he was one of only a few "smart" (or just as likely, lucky to be from a middle class family with educated, stable parents) kids, but I'd be equally uncomfortable putting him in a school where all the kids were from the same privileged background. The best city schools do a great job of finding that balance. I think that's good for individual kids and good for society as a whole, with the students getting full access to a top-notch education while also being firmly part of the real world.

[golfgal]

It has nothing to do with rubbing shoulders with kids that don't speak English and everything to do with the daily fights that break out in non IB classes she has or the fact she can't wear certain clothing to school for fear of being accosted by a rival gang--no matter that she isn't in a gang to begin with. Yes, they track in the IB program but they still share the building with some not so nice kids and there are many, many, many problems there that you DO NOT see in the suburban schools whether you like to think so or not.

I manage to get through weeks and weeks at a time without encountering any gang activity so is is NOT life.

There is also some false assumption that all the kids in the suburbs are from a "privileged" background. There is a wide, wide range of income levels in the suburbs too. The difference is that the kids from the lower income families do BETTER in the suburban schools then they do in the inner city schools and they actually GRADUATE from high school, unlike 52% of the kids from the Minneapolis schools. If you want your kid surrounded by kids that don't give a rip about getting an education, more power to you. Not what we want for our kids.

[StilltheSame]

Minneapolis schools are amazing - regardless of their location - Im grateful for the choices and that even the worst is pretty good.

[Ben Around]

Originally Posted by AVguy

Another byproduct of living in an urban environment--you don't even realize that your writing includes offensive sexual terms!

As funny as that is, the forum filters will probably allow me to reference the bedroom community of Cumming, Iowa.

Yeah, I shoulda said she graduated come loud.

[Ben Around]

Um, no, she didn't go to the "best" one, that would be Central. She went to Highland. She had no trouble staying out of trouble there.

[knke0204]

Originally Posted by Ben Around

Whatever. My daughter is a product of the St Paul public schools. She took IB classes and graduated with honors. Some of her IB classes counted as college credit. She got into a "highly selective" private college with a generous financial aid package and just graduated *** laude last month, a semester early. Her teachers in the St Paul public school system were great. The quality of the computers, buses, gym and sports programs didn't seem to have any influence on her outcome. (Your results may vary) .

I would have gone to Park Center had I not moved. Thank god, I'd probably be slangin crack rock or something by now.

[uptown_urbanist]

I find it offensive to suggest that parents who actively CHOOSE to send their kids to an urban public school somehow care less about their children's education than those who choose differently.

I'll get back to this later, but I have a hard time believing that a kid in the IB program in St. Paul is afraid to wear certain colors for fear of gangs. That certainly has never been my experience.

The idea that somehow one steps over the border into the city and gangs come out of the woodwork and gunshots start flying, which is how some of this seems to read, is ridiculous. Do you honestly believe that kids in, say, Linden Hills are dodging gang members every day?

I don't care if my kid takes a gym class with kids who don't care about school. That's a learning lesson, too: not all kids are lucky in life, some people come from unfortunate situations, and sometimes people make bad decisions. (And the kids that really don't care about school aren't around in high school anyway - they drop out. Sad, but that says more about their own personal situation, not their school or where they happen to live). The classes that really matter (no offense to PE teachers...) include only the kids who do care about school, and there's ample evidence to prove that they can hold their own against the kids in the suburban districts.

And of course there are kids from less privileged backgrounds in the suburbs, too, but some schools and districts are far more diverse than others. Those kids are disproportionately being failed by their districts, too (or I should say society, since I don't think think it's fair to put the blame for bigger problems solely on the schools). Remember last year when the study came out that showed that the participants in the Choice is Yours program (which sends poor city kids to suburban districts) showed that the students in the suburban schools did no better than their peers who remained in the city schools? Obviously suburban schools, even the good ones, are no magic bullet solution for these bigger problems.

I wouldn't send my kid to a school that didn't offer ample opportunities to be around kids who also were high achievers who cared about school, but luckily for Twin Cities residents, the urban public schools are able to provide that. To constantly suggest that kids in the city schools do not have access to quality educations is misleading and unfair. Obviously not all kids are getting what they need, but take a look at the numbers in the suburbs and its equally obvious that not all kids are succeeding there, either. The demographic of kids who are most at-risk of not graduating are not the typical audience on this forum. If a parent cares enough about school to ask a question on this forum then it's a fairly safe bet that they'll be able to find a school, in either city or suburb, that will give their kid a great education.

And for what it's worth, obviously the top colleges in the United States seem to think the city public schools do a decent job preparing their college-bound graduates, as their recruiters regularly visit the city's schools.