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I think Charter Schools are more of a threat to PPS than Catholic Schools. For example, the Environmental Charter School (ECS) has drawn alot of families on the east end that used to go to PPS. The advantage of charters is that they appear to have smaller and more localized administrative structure and because you have to apply to get in a charter you are more likely to have involved parents.
PPS will come up with something to compete with charters as they get too competitive. It's already doing so with cyber-charters after all. After all, unlike private school (where the taxes which could have been spent on a student go back into the pot), they have to cut a check for the charter school, which is a big impetus to try and get the money back.
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
Being a resident of Wilkinsburg, I'm inclined to expand these notions beyond the City and also include all the suburban districts which are suffering under the status quo for similar reasons.
Of course.
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
Incidentally, as I have noted many times before, if all the big suburban schools districts were handling at least as large a share of disadvantaged students as Fox Chapel, a lot of these issues would be far less pressing. So I agree Fox Chapel isn't so much the problem when it comes to suburban districts--it is the existence of suburban districts like Wilkinsburg, whereas at the same time there are suburban districts that unlike Fox Chapel are not doing their share.
Allegheny County has 16 districts which have less than 2,000 students in total. Some of them are excellent to okay, but many are not. I'd say Duquense City, Cornell, and Clairton are the three which clearly have to go - all have less than 1,000 students, and only around 5,000 to 6,000 students in total.
Where is this evidence coming from? PA has had one merger (Center and Monaca in 2009) since the the federal court ordered merger of Woodland Hills in the 1970s, and the legislatively mandated consolidations of the 1960s.
PA has many opportunities for cost savings and performance improvements. Mergers don't have to mean the immediate closing of schools. Newly merged districts can study space and facility requirements over time to determine what makes sense. PA currently has fragmented districts with school busses traveling through other districts. Look at Johnstown, Uniontown and Greensburg to see examples of this inefficiency. This state has very small rural school districts that are forced to hire a superintendent to manage the district. That function could be spread across multiple small districts.
The last study that was done in PA to analyze consolidating Pennsylvania school districts was done in 2007 by Standard & Poors. That analysis showed a relationship between per-pupil spending and size of enrollment. At that time, PA had 57 districts with enrollment under 1,000 students and a total of 145 districts with enrollment under 1500 students. Another study done in 2009 forecast that about 90 percent of secondary schools in the western part of the state and more than 80 percent of secondary schools in the central region are more likely to be underenrolled over the next ten years. This study forecast an enrollment decline in western Pennsylvania of 16 percent.
This is an excellent post. I find the stats in bold shocking. Those districts are just too small for efficient use of taxpayers funds. I'm not a big fan of huge districts, e.g. Jefferson County, Colorado with 85,000 students, but under 1500 is nuts! Even though there are a lot of rural areas in PA, in general, there are not huge distances involved between these areas. Certainly some of these districts could be consolidated and at least the high school students could be bused 10 miles or so. And this: "Allegheny County has 16 districts which have less than 2,000 students in total. Some of them are excellent to okay, but many are not. I'd say Duquense City, Cornell, and Clairton are the three which clearly have to go - all have less than 1,000 students, and only around 5,000 to 6,000 students in total." is totally amazing. There is no reason for such small districts in Allegheny County. I don't have a solution, however, but hopefully there is some impetus for change from somebody.
Re: the city vs suburb issue, I think PA would benefit from mandatory statewide open enrollment policies. I see PA is on the voluntary interdistrict list.
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Originally Posted by nana053
Here is a summary of states that have open enrollment. I like it better than vouchers certainly. I am not sure though about the costs.
Voluntary Interdistrict:
9 States - Kansas, Maine, New Jersey, North
Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island,
South Carolina, Vermont
Both Intradistrict/
Interdistrict
Mandatory Intradistrict/Interdistrict:
12 States - Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado,
Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Washington
Voluntary
Intradistrict/Interdistrict:
1 State - New Hampshire
Mandatory Intradistrict and Voluntary
Interdistrict:
11 States - California, Florida, Indiana,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New
Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas,
West Virginia
Mandatory Interdistrict and Voluntary
Intradistrict:
2 States - Connecticut, Wisconsin
Mandatory interdistrict would be great for a lot of parents/kids. However, it would also very likely kill off some of these nonfunctional districts (not that this would be a bad thing).
I actually believe ECS is drawing from all over the City, and it has been criticized locally for not being as much of a neighborhood school as people hoped it would be (although their charter doesn't give them any say in that).
I realize that people from all over the city send their kids to school there but it is my understanding that the majority of the kids from the East End.
What other charter schools do wealthy parents send their kids to?
I sort of think that ECS is unique in that wealthy parents have been open to sending their kids to school there. The reason for this in my opinion is location. The city could have opened a small magnet school there and it would have been a big success.
I wonder where ECS primarily draws from. My bet is it is mostly local, Regent Square, Sq. Hill, Shadyside and Point Breeze with only a small minority from other city neighborhoods. Would you want to send your 5 there on a bus from Brookline, for example? That would be a long bus ride.
I agree that ECS is unique in that regard, and I think you are right about what areas that it draws from. Also, I think the environmental theme resonates with the kinds of folks who live in the east end better than some of the other charter themes I've seen. Given that there is no cost to attend ECS, it has become kind of automatic in my area to enter the ECS lottery when you start looking for schools.
I suppose it all depends upon the suburb. I would expect even in the toniest of suburbs around here, if the school board offered to set up a special school for gifted children only, a fair number of parents would jump at the opportunity. Similarly, I would expect in the suburbs with fairly cruddy school districts parents would jump at a chance to get their child into anything better.
I have wondered before if certain elementary schools were not consolidated if things would be different, especially in the East End. For example, if Highland Park and Morningside had their own K-5/K-8, or of Shadyside/Friendship had their own.
I agree with both points. A gifted school would be easy to sell to parents. Practically speaking it would never happen in the city. There is no way the PPS would allow all of its top students to attend one school. I think historically Allderdice has been a hit with educated affluent parents mainly because of its gifted programs.
I would think that if the city had smaller neighborhood schools the middle to upper class neighborhoods would be more attractive to parents. I think this would increase property values because these parents would no longer have to pay tuition on top of their mortgage. So, you wouldn't have to make as much money to live there which in turn makes the neighborhood attractive to a greater number of buyers. For the most part you have to makie a ton of money to live North of Forbes because a lot of these parents are sending their kids to the Independent Private Schools on top of paying for a 700,000 houses. Not many people are making 300,000 a year.
PPS will come up with something to compete with charters as they get too competitive. It's already doing so with cyber-charters after all. After all, unlike private school (where the taxes which could have been spent on a student go back into the pot), they have to cut a check for the charter school, which is a big impetus to try and get the money back.
You've got more confidence in the PPS leadership's ability to execute than I do. We've been in the district 5 years and I'm not overly impressed with the central office's planning. I agree they've got the motivation to do something about charters (due to the money), but if they've got a plan it sure isn't clear to me.
I realize that people from all over the city send their kids to school there but it is my understanding that the majority of the kids from the East End.
That sounds plausible, but I think it would be from all over the East End, with a substantial minority also coming from outside the East End.
I realize that people from all over the city send their kids to school there but it is my understanding that the majority of the kids from the East End.
That's more because demand is in the East End than anything.
Look at the magnet system's K-5 schools. Partial programs in italics, whole schools underlined.
The eastern part of the city has four full magnets, and one partial. The north has only one magnet (the partial Spanish at Northview is closing this year), although only around 50,000 people live there. The south of the city has a roughly similar population to the east though, and only has 1 1/2 magnet schools.
This pattern doesn't continue into middle school and high school, but at that point kids are more willing to travel.
Still, it seems clear the city set it up this way for a reason. I think it was twofold. One, the eastern part of the city has always been wealthier, and had greater demand for educational alternatives. Two, the neighborhood schools in the southern parts of the city are mostly acceptable, if not great, on the K-5 level. Even though they're integrated, you didn't see a flight of white parents from the public school system the way you did in Arsenal, Woolslair, and Sunnyside - three schools with feeder patterns from majority-white neighborhoods with 70%+ black student bodies.
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Originally Posted by robrobrob
I agree with both points. A gifted school would be easy to sell to parents. Practically speaking it would never happen in the city. There is no way the PPS would allow all of its top students to attend one school. I think historically Allderdice has been a hit with educated affluent parents mainly because of its gifted programs.
No, I know there is no way. I actually think gifted only schools are bad ideas, as studiousness seems contagious among students, so taking all the smart kids out, while it might be good for the smart kids, wouldn't help anyone else. That said, if we were talking about a countywide system, all sorts of specializations could arise which even parents currently in top districts might not be opposed to.
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Originally Posted by robrobrob
I would think that if the city had smaller neighborhood schools the middle to upper class neighborhoods would be more attractive to parents. I think this would increase property values because these parents would no longer have to pay tuition on top of their mortgage. So, you wouldn't have to make as much money to live there which in turn makes the neighborhood attractive to a greater number of buyers. For the most part you have to make a ton of money to live North of Forbes because a lot of these parents are sending their kids to the Independent Private Schools on top of paying for a 700,000 houses. Not many people are making 300,000 a year.
I know we've been through this before, but I can't see why anyone would find Colfax disagreeable based upon what I've seen of the test scores. I think what happens is people who can afford to buy into "North of Forbes" feel peer pressure to send their kid to private school because their whole social network is doing the same thing. But the school itself is by far the best neighborhood elementary school in Pittsburgh.
I'm in agreement with your general point however. I do wonder though about the internal politics of setting up schools meant to be "white" within the PPS school board, as well as if it would violate the Civil Rights act in some way if we effectively tried to semi-resegregate the school district.
Still, personally speaking, I was sort of let down to see as part of the school realignment what they did to Lawrenceville. As I stated above, Arsenal (the traditional K-5 for Upper and Central Lawrenceville) was overwhelmingly black despite having a historically very white feeder pattern. As part of the realignment they shunted Upper Lawrenceville into Sunnyside, and added Garfield to Arsenal. It's sad to say, but this almost ensures that no matter how much the neighborhood gentrifies, the neighborhood school will not be considered an option unless/until Garfield itself is more racially mixed.
I think it is worth noting that households with high enough incomes will often send their kids to private schools even when the local public schools have very good reputations. So, for example, we know of people living in places like Fox Chapel or Sewickley who send their kids to private schools. That's basically because if you have enough extra money, you might spend some of it on your kids' education, even if there is no strict sense in which doing so is necessary. Social pressure may play a role, but I don't think that has to be the main factor--once you have all the basics covered and still have money left, you are spending your money on luxuries in one way or another. As luxury spending goes, spending it on your kids' schools is not terribly irrational or otherwise inexplicable.
Anyway, I am quite sure there is a decent amount of that going on in the East End. And there is really very little you can do about attracting those specific kids back into the public school system (even something like Promise just changes the "price" of the luxury a bit). Your target instead is the households for whom private school tuition would be much more of a burden, as opposed to just a preferred luxury.
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