How to fix Philadelphia Public Schools? (I'm trying to fix some of the local Philadelphia "bad" things with plans) (Harrisburg: 2015, how much)

[rotodome]

Originally Posted by Kukla65th

Categorizing schools...upping the funding...on and on...most everyone on this forum would not use the schools anyway and they won't talk about why. It's not nice and it's not the way that modern, liberal, secular America thinks...even though they think that way.

Five high schools could have 100% of their students get perfect SAT scores and no school violence when data are collected...they'd still not use those schools. I refer to my other post about race and culture and the silence about it.

I went to Philadelphia public schools, and my race is (clearly) not something that you know. Please don't strawman me, or discredit my statement based upon false assumptions, and I will try not to do the same. Thanks.

[FKD19124]

Easier said the done. Until you remove disruptive students and stop giving the excuse that they have to be in a classroom too nothing will change.

[pman]

Originally Posted by FKD19124

Easier said the done. Until you remove disruptive students and stop giving the excuse that they have to be in a classroom too nothing will change.

bingo

[rotodome]

Seems like an awfully simplistic formula for 'success' doesn't it?
Where do you remove them to? Are they ever allowed to come back? Or is it one and done for life once they're tagged as "disruptive"? Should schools have no obligation to those kids? What is their mission?

[BR Valentine]

Originally Posted by rotodome

Seems like an awfully simplistic formula for 'success' doesn't it?
Where do you remove them to? Are they ever allowed to come back? Or is it one and done for life once they're tagged as "disruptive"? Should schools have no obligation to those kids? What is their mission?

Exactly. The "throw tens of thousands of kids into alternative schools" plan is a prima facie violation of federal law. What are perceived as disparate impacts on black and latino children with regard to discipline and placement in special ed have been the source of multiple law suits against urban districts. The Obama administration just within the past few weeks has called for greater federal scrutiny of school disciplinary actions WRT black and latino children. While it is possible to partly implement this strategy by opening charters which are allowed to have high expulsion rates with impunity (not something I condone), it's not a viable district-wide option. In the end, there will have to be a more nuanced strategy than removing all the "bad" kids from the general student population.

[Aimewitue]

Originally Posted by Kukla65th

Everyone does really realize, right, that what ails the city's schools is largely related to the people sitting around worrying about them choosing to bypass using them, thus leaving them void of kids from households of higher incomes and more active parents (though we underestimate the involvement of many many city student parents). People speak in test data jargon and safety concerns. What they really fear is the lack of white kids in the schools and thus, the lack of "normal" culture in their minds in those schools. I'll be excoriated for posting this; people don't like admitting any of this or acknowledging it. But I don't know why we pretend this isn't a major factor in the "save the schools" equation. Does anyone really think that if basically everyone with kids in say, Chestnut Hill put there kids in Jenks, or in Mount Airy put there kids in Houston, that the schools' test scores would not go up vastly? Sure they would - they would be kids that came from homes with college educated parents for the most part, who got read to as little kids, and had some kind of stability despite how many would come from divorced parents. Fill a school with kids from a culture that parents want their kids in, and suddenly the schools are "good" whether they really perform highly or not. The ongoing debate about "saving the schools" is really largely a debate among well-paid, well-educated white parents and other whites about how to make the schools behave the way they find normal and acceptable. That cannot happen if they won't participate in the actual system itself, and continue to worry about their kid being "the only one" in a school.

Let's stop pretending.

WOW finally someone gets it!!

[Angus215]

Originally Posted by Kukla65th

Everyone does really realize, right, that what ails the city's schools is largely related to the people sitting around worrying about them choosing to bypass using them, thus leaving them void of kids from households of higher incomes and more active parents (though we underestimate the involvement of many many city student parents). People speak in test data jargon and safety concerns. What they really fear is the lack of white kids in the schools and thus, the lack of "normal" culture in their minds in those schools. I'll be excoriated for posting this; people don't like admitting any of this or acknowledging it. But I don't know why we pretend this isn't a major factor in the "save the schools" equation. Does anyone really think that if basically everyone with kids in say, Chestnut Hill put there kids in Jenks, or in Mount Airy put there kids in Houston, that the schools' test scores would not go up vastly? Sure they would - they would be kids that came from homes with college educated parents for the most part, who got read to as little kids, and had some kind of stability despite how many would come from divorced parents. Fill a school with kids from a culture that parents want their kids in, and suddenly the schools are "good" whether they really perform highly or not. The ongoing debate about "saving the schools" is really largely a debate among well-paid, well-educated white parents and other whites about how to make the schools behave the way they find normal and acceptable. That cannot happen if they won't participate in the actual system itself, and continue to worry about their kid being "the only one" in a school.

Let's stop pretending.

Of course this is true. Middle to upper income families (whether they are white or otherwise) don't want their kids to go to school with lower-income thugs from bad families. Plain and simple. If everyone went to the school in their local neighborhood, this would not be a problem. Kids would generally go to school with other kids of a similar socio-economic background. Due to liberal fantasy social engineering, however, schools were intermingled and the results were devastating. As a result, those who could afford to do so either sent their kids to private school or left the city altogether.

[Padugan]

Originally Posted by Angus215

Of course this is true. Middle to upper income families (whether they are white or otherwise) don't want their kids to go to school with lower-income thugs from bad families. Plain and simple. If everyone went to the school in their local neighborhood, this would not be a problem. Kids would generally go to school with other kids of a similar socio-economic background. Due to liberal fantasy social engineering, however, schools were intermingled and the results were devastating. As a result, those who could afford to do so either sent their kids to private school or left the city altogether.

Exactly!

[chrischung110]

It's all about mindset. Kids feel forced to go to school. Instead, they should just be compelled and motivated to go to school.

Solutions are: 1) pay to go to school so kids don't take education for granted; 2) make them wear uniforms to take out egos and self-centeredness; 3) make it requirement so that kids join atleast one club; and 4) add social responsibility by making them clean their own homerooms.

Asian countries do this, and they all graduate.

[MB1562]

Originally Posted by chrischung110

It's all about mindset. Kids feel forced to go to school. Instead, they should just be compelled and motivated to go to school.

Solutions are: 1) pay to go to school so kids don't take education for granted; 2) make them wear uniforms to take out egos and self-centeredness; 3) make it requirement so that kids join atleast one club; and 4) add social responsibility by making them clean their own homerooms.

Asian countries do this, and they all graduate.

This is beyond stupid. I work in education at a school in a rough neighborhood of Philadelphia and I can tell you clearly have no grasp on the reality of the current situation.

1.) How do you expect all those poor families who make up the vast majority of Philadelphia Public Schools to afford tuition for school? Also, do you really think most kids are able to understand the importance of paying for something and not taking it for granted? A lot of rich, white college kids can't even grasp that concept.

2.) Pretty much every school in Philadelphia (public, private, charter, etc.) already requires uniforms and that is a good thing. It creates much less of a "haves/have nots" divide.

3.) Many of the older brothers and sisters are responsible for picking the younger ones up after school and taking care of them, either because mom works or the parent is absent for whatever reason. Again, a good idea in theory but not practical given the current economic situation of most of PPS's students.

4.) Cleaning homerooms doesn't teach social responsibility. That has to be taught by parents and the community at large. When you have a clean homeroom but walk out onto the dirty, trash-strewen streets of your neighborhood, and see decay, drugs, addicts and criminals walking all around, that lesson won't stick no matter how hard teachers try.

As someone in education, I just hate it when people with no clue try to simply a very difficult, complicated, and long-running problem. The only way to improve the situation in the schools is to improve the economic and social situations of those in the bad neighborhoods who are left with no option but the local public school. White people also need to stop being afraid of sending their kids to schools with non-white kids. It was white flight through the latter half of the 20th century that was the biggest cause of decline to urban public schools everywhere, not just in Philadelphia. It also doesn't help that more advantaged families horde their kids into only a few, select public schools and drive up real estate prices by competing to get into the catachment area.

Improving socio-economic standing and letting go of lingering racism is what will solve this problem. Proper funding would help too.

I know this is an old thread, but I was reading through it and was appalled by the ignorance of so many of the posts.