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I think, perhaps, you're using the wrong measuring stick. the school bureaucracy is very inefficient when measuring outcome rather than dollars spent. How is it some central bureacrat knows better than the teachers what the needs of their students are? easy, they don't. standardizing curriculum usually means dumbing it down. in the case of bureacracy, it is best used to measure outcomes rather than control processes. I'd also point out that the state's other large district has seen gains in the lower grades but it's becoming clear they are not translating to the upper grades.
you could say urban districts in general. the bureaucrats at the teachers unions aren't any better in most cases. teachers who care and do a good job are often drowned out by these two bureacracies.
First, I want to thank everyone for indulging in this with me. I've been in Pittsburgh for a while now but admittedly, haven't thought very much about the PPS before relatively recently.
I would note that I think it's not just the school bureaucracies which have difficulty measuring the outcome. Inherently, it's a difficult and somewhat nebulous outcome to measure, the educational attainment of our children. By definition, the job is never complete and I'm of the belief that the nostalgia of their own school days leads people to believe that schools were always better than they are now, but I digress.
I'm not sure that the teacher in the classroom always has the superior sense as to what the needs of the student are. The teachers are dealing with their own issues and perhaps are too close to the situation to make a proper evaluation. Perhaps the bureaucrat, with the distance that their position provides them, is better able to consider the needs of all of the students in totality. It's too easy to suggest that the Teacher is always or even mostly in the right and the Bureaucrat is always or even mostly obstructionist and out of touch.
I would note that I think it's not just the school bureaucracies which have difficulty measuring the outcome. Inherently, it's a difficult and somewhat nebulous outcome to measure, the educational attainment of our children. By definition, the job is never complete and I'm of the belief that the nostalgia of their own school days leads people to believe that schools were always better than they are now, but I digress.
it's possible but I'm not sure it's true. A lot of urban problems began, or worsened, during the Great Society (erstwhile known as the War on Prosperity) and intensified with the launch of the War on Drugs (in the 70's). In addition to industrial decline, failed social policies led to large increases in violence. In many urban districts, even student safety isn't guaranteed, much less learning. you are correct, that measuring outcome is difficult...and standardized tests have their own set of problems.
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Originally Posted by Lobick
I'm not sure that the teacher in the classroom always has the superior sense as to what the needs of the student are. The teachers are dealing with their own issues and perhaps are too close to the situation to make a proper evaluation. Perhaps the bureaucrat, with the distance that their position provides them, is better able to consider the needs of all of the students in totality. It's too easy to suggest that the Teacher is always or even mostly in the right and the Bureaucrat is always or even mostly obstructionist and out of touch.
that seems like a neat logical argument. it's no harder to suggest bureaucrats are more efficient and more likely to have the good of the students in mind..but it doesn't make it any more true. if the teacher isn't usually more aware of what the student knows and doesn't know then nothing the bureaucrat can do will improve the situation because it's really up to the teacher to know that. the real difference between charters, privates, and many publics is bureaucrats aren't more efficient, centralized curriculum robs teachers of control (not just teachers but also principles), and even robs schools of tailoring policies for their particular situation. charters do not have this issue and teachers are free to try different things...and really, children don't all learn the same. I'd argue that in this digitial age, a centralized bureaucracy is less important or useful than its ever been. eliminate it and replace it with a regulatory body that disburses funds to schools,checks for fraud, offers procurement deals like a coop (buy through us and get a volume discount, etc). if one really believes its parents that need to help turn schools around, then the more the local principal can work with parents, the better chance they have.
the most important thing is good teachers and principals, then its parents and students.
A lot of urban problems began, or worsened, during the Great Society (erstwhile known as the War on Prosperity)
I personally would trace this issue (and quite a few other lingering problems in Pgh and similar cities) to the legacy of the reform wave of the 1900s-10s, not that of the 1960s - it's a problem we inherited from the Progressive era, not the Great Society. Whether the social programs of the 1960s-70s exacerbated the problem is debatable, but probably grossly off-topic.
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if one really believes its parents that need to help turn schools around, then the more the local principal can work with parents, the better chance they have. the most important thing is good teachers and principals, then its parents and students.
I agree - my only qualification is that this can hardly be a matter of belief, since the evidence is resoundingly clear.
I'd also add that the way charter schools operate in PA, with local boards of trustees indirectly but nonetheless in a real sense answerable to their "stakeholder" parents, is a model of social capital generation. Expanding the model more generally would have the additional advantage of encouraging the sort of "micro-communities within a framework of rights and responsibilities [for which] the state...acting only as an enabler, facilitates the local ownership of social capital"*
The Great Society programs did much to achieve their purposes, such as significantly reducing poverty rates, particularly among children and the elderly; expanding access to quality education and health care (again particularly among poor children and the elderly); and greatly increasing the civil rights of disfavored minorities. It also did things like create the Urban Mass Transit Administration (now the Federal Transit Administration), consumer protections such as the Truth-in-Lending Act and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, and so on.
Meanwhile, the decline of central cities began well before the 1960s, and many other things were going on during the 1960s, so mere correlation between the Great Society programs and continuing decline of many central cities does not prove causation. In truth, most of the Great Society programs were either neutral or positive for central cities.
The one thing I think it is fair to say is that the huge decline in African-American poverty during this period and the reduction of employment, education, and other forms of discrimination against African-Americans increased their mobility, most notably from the rural South to Northern cities, which in turn helped fuel White Flight from those cities. But I think it is an unacceptable notion that for the good of central cities, we should have kept African-Americans poor, lawfully oppressed, and stuck in the rural parts of the South.
Incidentally, here is a short summary of what the Great Society meant for African-Americans:
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During the 1960s, median black family income rose 53 percent; black employment in professional, technical, and clerical occupations doubled; and average black educational attainment increased by four years. The proportion of blacks below the poverty line fell from 55 percent in 1960 to 27 percent in 1968. The black unemployment rate fell 34 percent.
Source: Digital History (http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=372 - broken link)
African-Americans were far from the only beneficiaries (there is more at that link), but the fact they were among the beneficiaries is what helped fuel White Flight.
Edit: Sorry, I shouldn't have said "the one thing" above (I more meant "one thing" without the "the"), because I think it is also fair to critique the way some of the housing policies of the Great Society were implemented. Generally, there are many details of various programs subject to fair criticism, but nonetheless the overall results in many areas represented very significant achievements, achievements I personally think no one should wish to undo.
Probably an oddball place to park this link, but it does actually address decentralization, public education, charter schools, Great Society, the welfare state - in fact, pretty much everything in this thread so far except to explicitly mention Pittsburgh by name:
Lots of great society fans here but its misplaced credit since obvly access to.good.education was not achieved. Poverty is still very much prevalent. It is worth noting that housing projects were in fact older than the great society if in fact the great societygave birth to good many more. Its also worth noting white flight and black movement to the north also predate the great society. I think its fair to say that many programs were negative for cities...not to mention the generational welfare it created...but not all reforms were negative. The same can be said for the new deal...lots of hits and lots of misses. I think blaming the earlier progressive era has some merit but is a little misguided considering the time elapsed. its no coincidence that cities began improving after the welfare reform act helped free people from welfare enslavement. Sure its grossly off topic but the issue comes back to.schools i guess. Add earlier progressive education ideals to great society welfare and integration and it equals failing schools. I don't think anyone is implying we reduce the number of African Americans in the middle class or roll back the civil rights act as Brian seems to imply but to say the impact of housing policies, drugs, and mental health didn't have a substantial impact in cities is false. Anyway i guess it is off topic since none of its relevant to fixing schools today except if there's bussing.
Poverty wasn't eliminated but the poverty rate went from over 22% in 1963 to under 13% in 1970. Similarly, universal access to equally good education wasn't achieved, but Americans age 25-29 with 4-year college degrees went from about 13% in 1962 to about 22% in 1975. Life expectancies for the elderly went up, and infant mortality went down, particularly among the poorer elderly and children. As I documented above, African-Americans saw huge gains in many areas. And so on. By many, many measures, massive progress was made, even though the problems in question weren't solved entirely.
And then there is the whole civil rights component. Do people want to return to widespread racial discrimination in employment and housing? Denial of voting rights to minorities? That was all a part of the Great Society too.
To sum up, there are some strange critiques of the Great Society that are popular in certain circles which basically require ignoring just how sucky a lot of things were circa 1960 for significant portions of the U.S. population, and how much better things had gotten by the 1970s. Again, those programs didn't perfect our society, but they sure helped a lot of people, and the legacy programs are still helping a lot of people today.
Incidentally, many central cities had started redeveloping long before the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. In general correlation isn't necessarily causation, and in this case there really isn't any particular correlation anyway.
Edit: I don't know how on topic this is either. But I do think it is important to have an accurate understanding of history.
anyone care to comment on this finding from the article?
"Pittsburgh continues, however, to lack any influx of younger children. The 40,983 individuals age 14 and under in 2010 represented a 26.2 percent drop." (from 2000)
so we aren't yet trending towards natural and sustainable population growth....local college growth is definitely skewing things. we need college-age people (with degrees in hand) to stay (and reproduce) to see any long lasting reversal of the above stat. so we're not out of the woods yet...improving pps is a must.
i think it's sorta crazy for city residents to pay a school tax for a school system that is broken to such a degree that it's residents pay for private school for their children. that is a big deterrent for a lot of people.
"Pittsburgh continues, however, to lack any influx of younger children. The 40,983 individuals age 14 and under in 2010 represented a 26.2 percent drop." (from 2000)
That is also an expected legacy of the Steel Bust. The Steel Bust diaspora was concentrated among younger adults. They de facto took their future children and grandchildren with them. So we have this negative-image of a baby boom (aka baby bust) still moving through the population numbers.
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so we're not out of the woods yet...improving pps is a must. i think it's sorta crazy for city residents to pay a school tax for a school system that is broken to such a degree that it's residents pay for private school for their children. that is a big deterrent for a lot of people.
There is a real chicken-and-egg problem here because it is hard to improve the rankings of public school districts--particular in a world where a lot of people rely on raw test scores to rank districts--without the children of higher socioeconomic status parents attending the relevant schools. So even once the population of potential students becomes more favorable, it can be tough to actually get them into the local public school district if it has previously fallen into disfavor.
There are ways of getting there from here, but they are complicated and take time. One general theme is to create "new" schools which can attract the necessary students. This can be done with charters, new magnet schools, and so forth. And in fact a lot of that sort of things is happening in the PPS--but again, it isn't likely to work overnight.
so we aren't yet trending towards natural and sustainable population growth....local college growth is definitely skewing things. we need college-age people (with degrees in hand) to stay (and reproduce) to see any long lasting reversal of the above stat. so we're not out of the woods yet...improving pps is a must.
i think it's sorta crazy for city residents to pay a school tax for a school system that is broken to such a degree that it's residents pay for private school for their children. that is a big deterrent for a lot of people.
exactly.
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
Poverty wasn't eliminated but the poverty rate went from over 22% in 1963 to under 13% in 1970. Similarly, universal access to equally good education wasn't achieved, but Americans age 25-29 with 4-year college degrees went from about 13% in 1962 to about 22% in 1975. Life expectancies for the elderly went up, and infant mortality went down, particularly among the poorer elderly and children. As I documented above, African-Americans saw huge gains in many areas. And so on. By many, many measures, massive progress was made, even though the problems in question weren't solved entirely.
And then there is the whole civil rights component. Do people want to return to widespread racial discrimination in employment and housing? Denial of voting rights to minorities? That was all a part of the Great Society too.
Yes, civil rights was a good thing but that's not what we're talking about here. I'd also say that you're citation of poverty facts is specious at best. poverty rates were declining prior to the passing of the Great Society calling into question your basic assumption that it was the laws that produced those improvements. it was economic forces that caused the dip in poverty rates. specifically, a growing economy with good jobs where rising incomes was more evenly disbursed among classes. obviously claims that the great society rather than the civil rights movement was solely responsible for gains for african americans is also specious. you cannot completely overlook the devastating impact generational welfare had on urban neighborhoods (and it's urban neighborhoods we're talking about rather than rural).
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Incidentally, many central cities had started redeveloping long before the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. In general correlation isn't necessarily causation, and in this case there really isn't any particular correlation anyway
In reality, it wasn't the ONLY cause for urban revival but suffice it to say, a large chunk of the urban renaissance did, in fact, come after 1996. it's nice to say correlation isn't causation, and it's true, but it's equally true of the facts you cited above. simply because poverty rates declined in the 1960's doesn't mean the laws passed by the great society caused it. the flip side of that is that rising poverty will not be solved by more welfare but by structural changes in our economic competitiveness that allows value creating jobs, not just the employment of capital, to compete.
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Originally Posted by BriantTH
There are ways of getting there from here, but they are complicated and take time. One general theme is to create "new" schools which can attract the necessary students. This can be done with charters, new magnet schools, and so forth. And in fact a lot of that sort of things is happening in the PPS--but again, it isn't likely to work overnight
it's actually a financial benefit to have those parents pay taxes and not use the resources though. I think what we've learned over the past decade is the a good charter can take many of the same low income students and teach them successfully...but also just because a school is a charter, doesn't mean it's a good school (though in some cases, parents aren't even getting basic safety at their local ps much less education)
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