Pittsburgh School District (Wilkinsburg, Fox Chapel, Sharpsburg: low income, crime, subsidized)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 1.5 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Brian and Curtis don't get along. In short they think differently. One is an optimist and the other is a realist. Brian favors an urban lifestyle and all of the benefits that go with it. He will make do with his public school/ charter school options. When his child begins school he will have to make the tough call about where he will go to school. Charter, private or public? He might even flea to burbs when his child gets older....
BTH is a bit more of a realist than you give him credit for. Despite favoring the urban lifestyle, he choose to buy a house outside of the city limits (in part to avoid the city wage tax) rather than live downtown. as as result of that, I'm under the impression he'll either go charter or private, not public. we'll know soon enough...
oh and congrats to soon-to-be Dr. subdivisions! its a good feeling to get it done.
I know if there are more than about 10% disadvantaged, the school is sunk and caring parents move or send kids to privates schools VERY FAST.
Again, about 34% of students in the Pittsburgh Metro are disadvantaged. If you believe that more than 10% in a given school is intolerable, then mathematically you are saying a large majority of disadvantaged students are going to be screwed: 66% advantaged plus at most about 7% of the disadvantaged gets you your 10% schools, and that leaves at least about 27% of the kids in the Pittsburgh Metro with schools that are 100% disadvantaged.
Is it tolerable to write off 27% of the kids in the Pittsburgh Metro simply because they were unlucky in their parents? h_curtis says yes, I say no.
Fortunately, h_curtis is completely wrong. You can have way higher than 10% disadvantaged and have successful and popular schools. In fact, it is already happening here in the Pittsburgh area--in fact, it is already happening where h_curtis actually lives: Fox Chapel is about 17% disadvantaged.
I feel people need to pick themselves up. I have more confidence in humans of all kinds than you do. You have no confidence in disadvantaged and just want to throw enough money at them to have them survive and get by.
Of course this is nonsense. We are talking here about giving kids a decent education. Saying all kids deserve a decent education isn't at all saying I don't have no confidence in those kids--just the opposite.
It is you who are willing to simply write off at least 27% of the kids in the Pittsburgh Metro. THAT is having no confidence in "humans of all kinds".
Quote:
Why continue on the same path that has failed for decades? I have no idea, but I am against it.
Ironically, if anyone here is defending the status quo when it comes to Western PA education, it is you.
If that illustrious authority, the USA Today, is to be believed, during the last decade, there has been a huge population shift in this country of African-Americans leaving urban areas and moving to the suburbs, for all the obvious reasons.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that an awful lot of those folks are people who are doing well for themselves through a combination of public resources, community support, good families, luck, and, importantly, their own ambition and hard work (just like happened to all the assorted ethnics who became white a generation or two before, and just like we can only hope and pray will happen for our new massive throngs of very young Hispanic citizens).
If that's been the case, wouldn't it stand to reason that, even if social programs are working amazingly well, they mostly won't improve our actual local disadvantaged neighborhoods (and schools, and property values), because in so far as they work, they'll provide people with the resources to leave behind neighborhoods that are falling apart or are actively dangerous - which is great for them, and good for the country at large, but not really encouraging if you're waiting to watch those neighborhoods improve...
Fortunately, h_curtis is completely wrong. You can have way higher than 10% disadvantaged and have successful and popular schools. In fact, it is already happening here in the Pittsburgh area--in fact, it is already happening where h_curtis actually lives: Fox Chapel is about 17% disadvantaged.
Then why are you sending your kid to private school. Why don't you do what you say and send your kid to public school?
If that illustrious authority, the USA Today, is to be believed, during the last decade, there has been a huge population shift in this country of African-Americans leaving urban areas and moving to the suburbs, for all the obvious reasons.
It has more to do with wealthy people wanting to take back the cities from the people who don't want to work and the ones that feel we all owe them something because we have given them welfare for so long.
That might have been a plausible dynamic at one point, but not any more. Pittsburgh is just on the cusp of this, but demand for centrally-located, walkable neighborhoods with good public transit is rising. Disinvested neighborhoods have been rapidly redeveloping in many cities provided they can meet those criteria. But the supply of such neighborhoods is artificially limited, and so prices are rising in those neighborhoods to the point poorer people are often being forced out. So the contemporary issue is not upwardly mobile people fleeing these neighborhoods, but rather poor people being driven out of these neighborhoods. And if that just recreates concentrated poverty, but now in farther out, autocentric suburbs, that will make these problems even worse.
There are things we can do to help more existing residents participate in redeveloping neighborhoods. But we also just have to develop more such neighborhoods, such that pricing for the existing neighborhoods doesn't get out of control. And that will require adopting some different policies in a variety of areas--a process which is already ongoing, but not necessarily quickly enough.
Then why are you sending your kid to private school. Why don't you do what you say and send your kid to public school?
As I noted previously, I don't think any school should be more than 49% disadvantaged, and I don't think anyone should find such a situation acceptable.
Our home school district, Wilkinsburg, is about 81% disadvantaged, with regrettably predictable results. Consistent with what I have previously said, I don't think that Wilkinsburg schools are acceptable--not for our child, and not for any other child.
As always, the difference between us is that even though we can personally afford to do better for our child, I still care about the other kids too.
..., but I can see where is coming from. When you have a real exposure to the underbelly of poverty, it changes you. I think Curtis has had more exposure to poverty than many others on here, and that is why he has a different opinion than those that haven't seen it as closely.
This does say it all. Brain is living in Regent Square and is new to Pittsburgh. I have lived next to Federal Street in its worst days, Stanton Ave on the border of East Lib and Lincoln L and Sharpsburg on 5th Ave. On top of that I worked in Security in North Miami and lived there on 142nd St. Hardly some sheltered life. Brian lives in Regent Square and sends his only kid to private school.
Of course we have different perspectives. Brian has the perspective of that politician that merged schools into Woodland Hills because they lived sheltered lives and cannot relate to real life. I lived in the hood a long time and in all kinds of crazy areas and know better. It is simple. Politicians don't understand what it is really like in the tougher areas either. That is why they make poor decisions over and over again. We have been there and done that. Time to let people figure it out on their own, so they can have some pride. Giving everything to everyone all the time has never worked, but how would Brian and the politician know? They are not exposed to all that. I have been.
Sorry to chip in again from Charlotte, but you don't know how lucky your situation could be if you had consolidated schools. Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools have a 50% poverty rate overall! We used to have racially mandated busing but the courts struck it down a few years ago. Now our schools are more uneven and more racially segregated (though not all).
My son's school has a 22% poverty rate, yet is rated one of the better high schools in the whole country with top students routinely attending ivy league schools. Some of the schools with a 30% poverty rate are fine schools as well (all this is determined by eligibility for free or reduced lunch). Schools with higher than 30% are more problematics - so with 50% overall, it's almost an impossible situation here. Allegheny county does not have this problem and has a great opportunity I hope can be seized.
By the way, my son got a full tuition scholarship to Pitt and will head there this fall (having chosen it over Chapel Hill)
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $53,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 1.5 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
