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Parental motivation doesn't really matter that much in school performance. It seems like it does because of genetics. Parents who are above-average and personally driven tend to have above-average and driven kids. When you compare parental involvement and results for adopted children, you find that parents spend more time pushing their adopted kids to succeed, but they have outcomes no better than any random child off the street.
lol. Well, ok, for the small number of parents with adopted kids, it doesn't matter. For anyone with biological kids, it does. This is such a bizarre argument, I'd think you were joking, but then again, I've seen liberals make these kinds of statements with a serious face.
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I'm actually not a fan of busing, except maybe at the elementary level.
lol again. You'll find lots of parents willing to bus their 6 and 7 year olds to bad schools in order to further your desire for social engineering. There's another excellent reason to form a county-wide school system with ideas like this floating around.
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I don't think Detroit declined due to any misguided policy, unless you maybe suggest it focused to heavily on the automotive industry to the exclusion of all else. I think the levels of white flight reached a tipping point in the 1970s, after which point it's been essentially impossible for the city to change course.
To the degree a city can change course, it's largely not a matter of local government. In 1980, DC was 70% Black, and 27% white. It's now 51% black, and 39% white. It was not known for particularly innovative governance during this time period, or dynamic school reforms. It just gentrified due to high local demand, which was a private sector affair.
OMG. 'White flight' happened entirely because of government policies in Detroit. High property taxes, bad schools, corrupt politicians, and a critical mass of welfare cases that increased yearly and voted in their favorite corrupt pols created modern Detroit. White flight was a response to all this.
Those gentrifiers in DC don't send their children to local schools. They're either single, gay or have enough money for private schools.
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Mount Lebanon and Fox Chapel would still likely retain their old schools, even with merged administration, and city kids wouldn't be bussed in. Regardless, people pick those places for reasons other than the schools, and they'd still retain cache the same way parts of Squirrel Hill and Shadyside do.
Right.....People like paying ungodly high school taxes in Mt. Lebanon because of the ambience. I graduated from Mt. Lebanon HS. Trust me, people move there for the schools. And I personally know many people who live in Fox Chapel for the same reason.
County schools suck, unless you're a school union member or administration bureaucrat with social engineering ideas or one of those members of the FreeStuffArmy salivating for FreeStuff cost-shifted to you.
regarding elementary, I think I was unclear. I meant by running magnets you could concentrate on improving elemtary schools not that you should run elementary magnets.
Agreed. While the elementary magnets do offer a good education in Pittsburgh, I think the majority of this comes from self-selection, as only motivated parents would jump through the hoops of applying to a magnet instead of enrolling in a neighborhood school (or moving).
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Originally Posted by pman
while I don't disagree, there isn't much merit in not holding kids to standards and simply moving them onto the next grade. that's how kids get into high school without being able to read or bothering to show up for much class. one problem I see is that most schools aren't teaching things you won't need working in a shop.
I don't think standardized testing is a good system in general, at least in terms of how it exists in the U.S. It assumes the capacity to achieve satisfactory scores is essentially equal in terms of all students, and that if a school has low scores, it is because a school is "bad." In truth there are a lot of variables besides teaching quality, including genetics, possible exposure to environmental contaminants like lead, peer group dynamics, and family dynamics.
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
I think one basic answer to your concern is that it is a possibility but by no means a certainty that a given disadvantaged kid will specifically seek out a "niche" made up only of other disadvantaged kids. Even if there is some correlation along those lines, as long as it isn't a perfect correlation what you should find is that as the percentage of non-disadvantaged kids in the school goes up, the average number of non-disadvantaged kids in a given disadvantaged kid's "niche" increases.
I'm also not sure it is true that peer effects are really limited to some particular "niche". Again, we can assume there may be some sort of disproportionate effect from those within the "niche" without assuming there is no effect from those without the "niche".
Finally, I think we could very likely improve these dynamics precisely by starting early and remaining consistent. It isn't hard to imagine, for example, that if you go to schools with are 80% disadvantaged from K-8, then a school which is 40% disadvantaged 9-12, you will get less benefit during 9-12 than if your K-8 had also only been 40% disadvantaged.
We may have been talking past each other a bit. I do think it's plausible that lower-SES kids put into a higher-SES school will not fall under the sway of the natural born sociopaths, both because the general school culture will be more "genteel" (fighting may be frowned upon - it was in my high school), and the actual thuggish kids will get booted back to their home district if possible.
That said, the last time I looked at the research, cross-racial friendships become vanishingly rare at the high school level (admittedly, as much hasn't been done in the last decade, and my perception is things have improved somewhat, but not enough). Cross-racial friendships are common in elementary school in mixed areas, but something happens at adolescence. Black kids are often ejected from white social networks. So it's not just a matter of whether the "disadvantaged" will seek out the "disadvantaged" niche, but if the "advantaged" will let them in.
I'm not sure its racism so much as just adolescent group dynamics - social cliques form which describe themselves as "not ___" and black kids are an easily seen other sadly. The only exceptions I've known personally have been black kids who grew up in schools with only a few other black families - so there weren't enough to be labeled a "clique" even if they liked each other.
Still, the problem remains. If the disproportionately low scores of African-Americans are more due to peer factors (studying just not seen as cool in youth culture) rather than teaching quality, then functionally you wouldn't expect performance in a 20% black school to be much better than a 90% black one as long as most black kids are either shunned or ignored by white social circles.
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
I think you need to consider at least three categories, and even this is a gross oversimplification. In the first category, you would have actual sociopaths, and I agree that is a low percentage. In the second category you would have non-sociopaths with good behavioral habits. The third category would be non-sociopaths with not-so-good behavioral habits.
We can agree one goal is to properly identify the actual sociopaths, and figure out how to deal with them. That might well mean some sort of segregation, medical treatment, or so on.
But another very important goal would be to end up with as many non-sociopaths as possible in the second category rather than the third category. In other words, we should be trying to help as many of the non-sociopaths as possible develop good behavioral habits.
What I am proposing is most directly aimed at that second goal. But it actually has some relevance to the first goal as well, because it may not always be so easy to tell the difference between the first and third categories. So the more people you can move from the third category to the second category, the less possibility of misplacing someone into the first category, and in fact the more attention and resources you can devote to the problem of properly making that assessment.
I remember when I read the Stephen Pinker book The Nature of Our Better Angels, he made the point that the violence in African-American culture is not alien. The basic philosophy of an inner-city thug - that a man needs to take care of his own business, and take vengeance on those which do wrong to him and his kin and kith - is identical to the code of honor of most societies, from hunter-gatherers, to medieval knights, to genteel dueling colonial gentlemen. The problem is while the rest of America got less violent, as Americans began to trust the law to adjudicate disputes, black culture (for obvious reasons) continued to distrust both the police and the courts even after the formal end of segregation. There used to be only a tiny black-white murder gap, but it ballooned in the 20th century, both due to black culture becoming more violent, and white culture far less violent.
I think this is important, because it explains the otherwise normal inner city kids who behave badly. They aren't monsters - they just have an honor-based moral code which is antiquated and maladjusted to the modern world. Re-engineering social norms is a delicate process however, and I can't even fathom where to begin.
Pittsburgh is ranked 60 in Wikipedia's US Cities by Population article. However, it feels a lot bigger than 60, and it's metro area is 22. What a big difference! I think a big part of this is due to the fact that the City of Pittsburgh has such a small land area of 55.5 sq mi. By comparison, 33 of the top 35 cities have more land area than Pittsburgh, excepting Boston and San Fran. Oftentimes this is due to annexation-which is really difficult to do in Pennsylvania. But imagine that Pittsburgh were allowed to annex some places near the city limits, what would our city population be then? I'm not trying to cheat Oklahoma City/Los Angeles style by gobbling up areas such as Plum, so only places that were at least somewhat dense and close to city limits were considered. I got a total population of 458,411, total land area of 107.97 square miles, and density of 4245.73 people per square mile. That would put us as the new 38 spot in US population, below Kansas City (pop 463,202, 315 sq mi) and above Mesa (pop 446,518, 136.5 sq mi). And to top it all off, Pittsburgh would still be fairly small compared to many other top cities!
Place population land area density
Pittsburgh 305704 55.6 5498.273381295
Penn Hills 44614 19 2348.1052631579
Wilkinsburg 15930 2.3 6926.0869565217
Swissvale 8983 1.2 7485.8333333333
Monroeville 27973 19.8 1412.7777777778
Dormont 8593 0.74 11612.1621621622 wow that's packed!
Mt Lebanon 31469 6.05 5201.4876033058
Millvale 3744 0.65 5760
Blawnox 1432 0.32 4475
Forest Hills 6518 1.56 4178.2051282051
Etna 3451 0.75 4601.3333333333
What do you think about this? Are there any on this list that shouldn't be here-I imagine Monroeville's inclusion might be somewhat controversial. Also, are there any places around here I omitted that should be included?
Actually, this Wikipedia article ranks Pittsburgh 61 in population.
If you look at cities within 10% of Pittsburgh in population (~270,000 to 333,000), you find a lot of cities around the same geographic size as Pitttsburgh, or smaller.
Santa Ana . . . . . . . . 27.3 sq. mi
St. Louis. . . . . . . . . .61.9 sm
Stockton, CA. . . . . . .61.7 sm
St. Paul. . . . . . . . . . 52.0 sm
Newark, NJ. . . . . . . . 24.2 sm
6 (including Pittsburgh) out of 14, with two much, much smaller. I would not call Pittsburgh "artificially small".
Keep in mind too, that some cities are independent cities, ie, not in any county. That includes Baltimore and St. Louis. Some other cities have a consolidated city-county government like San Francisco and Denver. Their county boundaries are identical to their city boundaries.
Location: The Flagship City and Vacation in the Paris of Appalachia
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How much of Pittsburgh is buildable vs. other cities? Also, Pittsburgh was at one point much bigger in terms of population than some of the cities listed above.
How much of Pittsburgh is buildable vs. other cities? Also, Pittsburgh was at one point much bigger in terms of population than some of the cities listed above.
Every city is different! Pittsburgh builds on its hills, except on the steepest slopes.
lol. Well, ok, for the small number of parents with adopted kids, it doesn't matter. For anyone with biological kids, it does. This is such a bizarre argument, I'd think you were joking, but then again, I've seen liberals make these kinds of statements with a serious face.
I'll explain this again.
Let's say you and your spouse are above-average, upper-middle class people. You have a child that excels in school, goes to a good college, and also becomes upper-middle class. You might want to attribute their success to your personal involvement, but adoption studies suggest intelligence alone is 80% heritable. Hence even if they were raised by foster parents who were dumb as rocks, they'd probably turn out bright. In addition, you choose to send you kid to a school with a lot of other above-average, upper-middle class people. Thus they're pretty likely to find a social group who reinforces their smartness, and is studious, making it more likely yet your offspring will be a success. Again, except for your choice of school, you did little to cause this to happen however. That the intelligence, and ultimate earning power, of adoptive children doesn't track with their adoptive parents shows how little impact "nurture" actually has on a child's adult income. Obviously locking your kid in a closet will screw them up, but there's really no evidence that "super nurture" has any positive effects.
Also, I find it funny just because I'm a left winger, you're attributing my stance on heredity of intelligence and personality traits to being a liberal thing. To the extent it's seen as political, it's more associated with certain people on the right in the U.S., like Charles Murray and Stephen Sailer. Both of them are borderline racists, who use findings on heredity and intelligence to argue that IQ gaps between the races represent real biological differences in intelligence - hence affirmative action programs should be repealed. Left wingers thus unfortunately often ignore the entire field because they assume to accept it is to accept racism. I have a more nuanced view on all of this - data is data, regardless of the implications, and I cannot ignore it. That said, there are still enough unclear variables in racial IQ gaps which make me think (or perhaps hope) that the actual variation will be minor or nonexistent.
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Originally Posted by Goinback2011
lol again. You'll find lots of parents willing to bus their 6 and 7 year olds to bad schools in order to further your desire for social engineering. There's another excellent reason to form a county-wide school system with ideas like this floating around.
Dude, I essentially agreed with you and you concentrate on one "maybe"? I think busing was a horrible mistake, all in all. It didn't reduce racism - that happened on its own later (it's not like most white liberals have many black friends, they just learned racism was bad socially). It didn't work to integrate schools, as parents moved their kids into private schools or suburbs, and the white kids and the black kids were even worse at socializing then compared to now. To the extent real racial integration has happened, it's because the end of restrictive covenants and similar housing discrimination allowed black families to move into the suburbs.
My only point was that at the elementary level, disruptions affecting safety of children are rare, and racial consciousness is pretty low. Past elementary school I'd advocate for extensive school choice in the form of regional magnets with different focuses, but I think elementary school is better served by setting up a common playing field for the magnets, which is why if you want to consider busing at all, that's where you'd want to do it.
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Originally Posted by Goinback2011
OMG. 'White flight' happened entirely because of government policies in Detroit. High property taxes, bad schools, corrupt politicians, and a critical mass of welfare cases that increased yearly and voted in their favorite corrupt pols created modern Detroit. White flight was a response to all this.
White flight was a nationwide process over several decades. It had two different causes.
First, post World War 2, once mass sub-urbanization began, blacks were initially excluded entirely through racist policies like redlining and restrictive covenants. Formal discrimination against blacks in housing ended by 1980, but it ensured during the early period very few African-Americans could move into the new suburbs.
Of course, the first few decades, whites were not fleeing the city, they were running too the suburbs. More active white flight happened with the race riots of the 1960s and 1970s, as a reaction to bussing, and often due to blockbusting.
I don't know enough about the history of Detroit to make further comment about your claims, but in the absence of evidence, I'll assume it's an ideologically-based statement.
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Originally Posted by Goinback2011
Those gentrifiers in DC don't send their children to local schools. They're either single, gay or have enough money for private schools.
Of course. My point is DC has generally been perceived to have corrupt, terrible local governance similar to Detroit, and yet it turned around in the 1980s and is a totally different place now. If DC succeeded in spite of having local governance similar to Detroit over the last 30 years, than governance matters little in terms of Detroit's continued decline.
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Originally Posted by Goinback2011
Right.....People like paying ungodly high school taxes in Mt. Lebanon because of the ambience. I graduated from Mt. Lebanon HS. Trust me, people move there for the schools. And I personally know many people who live in Fox Chapel for the same reason.
I know plenty of childless people who live in Mount Lebanon (admittedly wealthy). Some people like it because it's suburban but has a semi-urban feel with the older construction and walkable commercial area. Some people like the T access. Obviously the schools have an appeal, but that's not the only thing. Look at how places like Edgewood, despite cruddy local schools, retain pretty high housing costs. So even if you assumed Mount Lebanon declined to Woodland Hills levels (which is kind of preposterous, as it would still maintain its own schools even if there was common county-wide administration), it would still be an upper-middle class area.
As for Fox Chapel, it's legendary as one of the centers for old money in the Pittsburgh area. If all you were concerned about was the schools, you could just move to Blawnox or O'Hara Township and get an identical education. People pay a higher premium to live in Fox Chapel, however, because of the cache of the name.
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Originally Posted by Goinback2011
County schools suck, unless you're a school union member or administration bureaucrat with social engineering ideas or one of those members of the FreeStuffArmy salivating for FreeStuff cost-shifted to you.
There is no other city forum that I visit that these type of threads pop up. No other city has a bunch of people saying, "We'd have more people if you included suburb X, Y, and Z", etc. I don't really understand the issue.
I hear you. Your argument is stupid. Somehow you imagine that attributing success of students to the genes they inherit from their parents rather than from their parent's behavioral influence supports your contention that peers are more important than parents in edcuational outcomes. That you can't see how ridiculous this train of thought is supports the contention that liberalism is a genuine cognitive disorder in its own right. It would also account for your inability to understand a point of view opposed to the one you've been brainwashed for.
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More active white flight happened with the race riots of the 1960s and 1970s, as a reaction to bussing, and often due to blockbusting.
I don't know enough about the history of Detroit to make further comment about your claims, but in the absence of evidence, I'll assume it's an ideologically-based statement.
I lived during the white flight eras in Pittsburgh, though it was more of an urban flight than a racial fllight here.
In some areas it was related to black migration into neighborhoods that had been traditionally white. Belzhoover was one example which became predominantly black by the mid 1960's. White people left early in the process to avoid the further erosion of their property value and to escape higher crime rates, some of which was directed at them for being white. I had a few elderly relatives in this situation in Belzhoover in the early 1960's.
More often, it was a desire by people to have bigger lots and more modern homes, plus better schools for their kids. Again, the parents wanted to be around other parents who influenced their children to achieve.
As for Detroit, the race riots of 1967 and 68 certainly motivated white people to leave the cities. But the process of depopulation wasn't really complete until the last 10 years. The more recent flight has been due to high crime and taxes for anyone working, ridiculously bad schools, corrupt public officials and laws making rental investment impossible. 'Working the system' is an art form among the underclass in Detroit and is aided and abetted by the local government.
Detroit is instructive as an example of what will happen to a city run by social engineers and the underclass for a long period of time.
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I know plenty of childless people who live in Mount Lebanon (admittedly wealthy). Some people like it because it's suburban but has a semi-urban feel with the older construction and walkable commercial area. Some people like the T access. Obviously the schools have an appeal, but that's not the only thing. Look at how places like Edgewood, despite cruddy local schools, retain pretty high housing costs. So even if you assumed Mount Lebanon declined to Woodland Hills levels (which is kind of preposterous, as it would still maintain its own schools even if there was common county-wide administration), it would still be an upper-middle class area.
My parents moved to Mt. Lebanon for the schools when I was a kid. They continued to live there after we graduated and moved away, but that didn't last forever. When my Dad retired, they moved away to a place with far lower taxes. I suppose there are dummies around who don't take their own financial self-interest into consideration, but I don't know any of them.
The only reason I'm not living in Mt. Lebanon now is - I don't want to pay high taxes for schools for other people's kids. Were my kids of school age today, I'd be there.
Last edited by Goinback2011; 08-03-2012 at 10:05 PM..
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