How can cities improve if...

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

Why don't we suggest that newcomers move to the city's? One word - schools. Our city schools all over the state are always worse than the ones in the small towns/suburbs that surround them. Many of the towns surrounding city's have their own rich history - they are not all suburban sprawl and the schools are good. I've never lived in a city and have no desire to do so. I can see the appeal when you are young and car less in a city with good public transportation but I can't in good conscience recommend a city if a poster says their number one priority is good schools.

First, that's really not true. Pittsburgh Public Schools don't score great (456 out of 499) but still score better than eight school districts in the county (some of which are undoubtedly suburban). Scranton scores a little better than Pittsburgh (although worse than any other district in its county) and Bethlehem is actually a pretty average school district (though it shares a district with two boroughs and two townships). Still, it is true that all urban school districts, as a whole, are below average.

But more broadly, ask yourself the following. How could every urban school district be bad? Seriously. Schools try all sorts of different things involving pedagogy, teacher pay structures, curriculum, etc. Why hasn't one urban district broken the mold? Conversely, what could all the suburban districts possibly be doing right, given there's even more of them - some should have had colossal screw ups and ended up "bad" like city schools, right?

I've long since come to the conclusion, based upon all studies I have seen, that the vast majority of the gap between school performance has nothing to do with how "good" a school is at teaching. It's about who a school is teaching. Schools which are lower income, or have a lot of black and/or Latino students, essentially always do worse than wealthy school districts with a lot of whites (or whites leavened with Asians). I don't care if you claim it's due to genetics or family environment. But when it comes down to it, study after study has found that in-school interventions don't do much to alleviate gaps in performance. Some students are just harder to teach than others, and teachers can't do much of anything about this. They can teach these students to the fullness of their capacity, but most will never achieve what students at the suburban district twenty miles away will.

As a parent, the conclusion I draw from this is simple. I am smart. My wife is smart. MY daughter is four now, and seems pretty intelligent to me. I presume my six-month old son is too. I wouldn't send my children to the worst public schools in the city, for safety concerns if nothing else. But I see no reason not to send them to an "average" city school over a "good" suburban one. An average school won't make my kids average, any more than going to cruddy public schools hurt my parents or grandparents. I'm just going to live where I feel happy, and my kids will deal.

[pman]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

I have my own prejudices against charter schools sucking the money and the best students from struggling public schools. How are our public schools going to improve if the best students leave AND the schools pay for them to be schooled elsewhere? Publics have a mandate to take ALL students.

Also, in PA, our smaller cities are not always surrounded by vast suburbs. Outside of Allentown and Bethlehem are many small towns, which are also struggling with downtowns that need revitalizing.

the graduation rate is notably higher in Philadelphia than before charter schools. charter schools cant just take the best students. In fact, if there's any school guilty of that its Masterman which is a magnet. They're highly selective which is something charters are banned from doing.

[toobusytoday]

I agree with both of you eschaton and pman. I agree that the teachers in city schools are trying just as hard as their non-city counterparts. I also agree that if you raise your kids well that it shouldn't matter where they go to school, they will rise to the top anyway. However, teens have a huge influence on their peers and if you go to a HS where the majority don't have plans for life after HS, or where academic plans are lower, I think it's a harder row for a teen to hoe. In fact, everything is harder - getting involved parents to participate is a real problem with many city schools. Besides that, I've never lived in a city and never wanted to live in a city so the point has been moot for us and for many people. For many, many people, we've never lived in a city so when it's time to move it's not so much that we're giving up on city living, it's that we've never lived in one.

BTW, thanks for the clarification about magnets and charters pman. We don't have any magnet schools in the Lehigh Valley, just charters.

[trackstar13]

Originally Posted by pman

the graduation rate is notably higher in Philadelphia than before charter schools. charter schools cant just take the best students. In fact, if there's any school guilty of that its Masterman which is a magnet. They're highly selective which is something charters are banned from doing.

Yes this is true and Northwest Collegiate Academy in Erie would definitely be considered a magnet by definition. Magnets are more of the culprit when it comes to taking the brightest out of the struggling public schools and it is important to differentiate between the charter and magnet schools. However, many people are unaware of the definition and usually refer magnet schools as charters. For instance, if you look at the Wikipedia page for Northwest PA collegiate Academy it is mentioned as a public, charter, but if you go to their website they list it as a magnet. Also, as a side note after looking at the Collegiate Academy website it is interesting to point out that they boast a 100% college acceptance rate for their students. There are not many if any suburban schools anywhere in PA that can make the same claim.

Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy / Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy

[eschaton]

In Pittsburgh, the magnet schools operate on a lottery basis, which makes them fundamentally no different from the charter schools. However, by the time you get to the high school level, there are ways you can get kicked out of the magnet system (truancy, GPA below a 2.5, too many suspensions, etc) which means the bad kids start getting knocked back to the neighborhood schools. CAPA (the arts middle/high school) does have an audition system, which arguably makes it more merit based.

Still, with either magnets or charters, the most important filtration system is parents have to elect to send their kids there. This automatically filters out parents who are ignorant about educational options, too lazy to fill out paperwork, or so blase about their kids education they don't care about alternatives. Parents who have those attitudes will have the hardest children to educate. The absence of these kids from the school alone can make a big difference.

[pman]

the entire Philadelphia educational system revolves around Masterman magnet school. While a few private school kids get into masterman from outside the system, over 99% of students attend the middle school which starts in fifth grade. the result is that there is a huge shuffle within the educational system where kids leave private, local publics, and even good charters schools if they get accepted into masterman middle. the middle school is much larger than the high school but it is a prerequisite.

Admission Guidelines for Masterman School:

A local percentile of 88 on the PSSA test in both Reading and Math are the minimum requirement.
Public school families should contact the child’s present school for score conversion information. The national percentile on a nationally recognized standardized test will be considered when it is available, for non-public school students. Independent school students may submit ERB scores.
In addition to test scores, a recent individual psychological test with a score of 130 or above may be submitted but will not necessarily guarantee admission.
A lower reading score may be considered for students who have lived in the U.S. for three years or less.
All A’s and B’s are the minimum grades required to apply. Most of the students who are admitted have nearly all A’s. The highest levels of other marking systems are also expected.
A full year of French or Spanish and algebra are required prior to grade nine.
The behavior/citizenship grades in all areas should be B or higher.
Good attendance and punctuality are required.

Admissions - The School District of Philadelphia

there really is no comparison in Philadelphia between the magnet program and the charter program. in fact, the magnet has a far more destabilizing effect because in the case of masterman is skims the best kids (not just the kids whose parents care a little bit) leaving even K-8 schools with scores that trail off...and schools with trailing test scores have trouble attracting more students. think about your average suburban district, now imagine if the top kids get skimmed every year for a school as prestigious as a private but free.

as for as "special kids" it seems that neither the charters nor the locals are ready to handle them and you often have to please parents even if it means doing things that are neither good for the school or the kid.central is another magnet, it too has minimum standards, but it is more inclusive. in the end, charters aren't destroying districts but they aren't a panacea either. in my experience they allow families that otherwise would have left the city to stay within city limits with a school they are happy with.