"There are no good schools in the city."

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by AJNEOA

What public schools would you list as top notch? And how do they line up next to the suburban schools?

I'm not asking to be snarky, I really just don't know. I'm in the NW part of the city now, and I've yet to find a reasonably close public school that could serve as a real option.

The public schools in our part of the city generally get mediocre ratings at best from the rating sites. Your best choices would likely be the charters, of which only one - Wissahickon - is located within Mt. Airy's borders, and then just barely.

The best grade schools in the city, reputationally speaking, are Penn Alexander in Spruce Hill, William M. Meredith in Queen Village, George W. McCall in Society Hill and Albert M. Greenfield in Rittenhouse. The first two also get high scores on both of the major rating sites, and McCall gets them on Niche too. George Nebinger in Queen Village/Southwark, Chester A. Arthur in Graduate Hospital, and Samuel Powel (K-4) in Powelton Village also get high marks from parents.

Greenfield might be useful to consider in this argument: The high-social-capital kids who attend that school all get into college, and many get into top-tier ones. And the parents of those high-social-capital kids love it. Yet it gets middle-of-the-pack grades from the rating sites. This is what many of us who are advancing the "rankings aren't everything" argument are talking about.

So I'd like to ask you back: What did you think of the arguments made by the IntegratedSchools.org founder on her website and in that CityLab article? She is, in point of fact, asking (upper-)middle-class white liberals to do something they are very reluctant to do: put their kids in a school where kids like them (of any race) will be in the minority and use what they do have to offer to get their children a good education.

I think this is also the (unspoken) point of the real estate agent tours of the public schools Mt. Airy USA offers. (Does it still? I know these were going on when Anuj Gupta ran it, but he's now at the Reading Terminal Market. Maybe I should give Brad Maule a call, as he's over there now, though not at its head, IIRC.)

kyb01: I've come to the conclusion that 1ondoner is incapable of understanding nuance, or if he is, acknowledging its existence doesn't serve his purposes. But I don't think I wasted my breath starting this discussion, for it seems to have gotten a bunch of people in the city and the 'burbs discussing the state and purposes of public education in some form. I'm reading an article in the current print issue of The Atlantic right now that describes another phenomenon that the argument over "good schools" actually fits into. Going into it and its implications, however, is not appropriate here. Maybe I'll do that elsewhere.

[MarketStEl]

One more thing: Niche also gives high grades to two schools in the Northeast, Greenberg and Anne Frank, and one in Whitman, A.S. Jenks.

[PHLondoner]

Why start this thread and feed this obvious Troll? Why even give this individual the dignity of responses to their ignorant and seemingly racist takes on the city?