What pieces of the puzzle does Pittsburgh lack to be a great city? (Beaver Falls: upper-class, lawyers)

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by Devout Urbanist

Plenty of public schools have entrance exams (not that I endorse them).

I never saw one during my K-12 years. Wherever you live, there is a public school that has to take your kid. Frustrating though to have to pay public school taxes but your kid can't go the really good one. But really, it's not so much the school that's good, but the kids.

[Devout Urbanist]

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

I never saw one during my K-12 years.

You've never heard of magnet programs? They've been around for a while.

[Devout Urbanist]

Originally Posted by Katiana

How about the rest of the NYC city schools? And frankly, it's not educators who are coming up with national ratings for K-12 schools. It's outfits like US News and Newsweek which use dubious metrics. Not that I don't think Bronx Science is a good school, mind you. There's a big trend these days in city schools to set up these charter/magnet schools for the kids of the gentrifiers; everyone else gets to go to neighborhood schools which range from good to awful. It's funny how these "lottery" schools manage to admit all these gentry kids, huh?

I'm not defending the current system. I'm disputing your premise. The problems with these schools stem primarily from the poverty of the students, not the size of the school districts.

[bannedintheusa1]

Originally Posted by Devout Urbanist

I'm not defending the current system. I'm disputing your premise. The problems with these schools stem primarily from the poverty of the students, not the size of the school districts.

except that the poverty of the Philadelphia school district is a function of the way its run. there are nice neighborhoods in the city but they're all subject to the same awful centralized bureaucracy so families leave or choose other options...that leaves the district with higher poverty numbers. Plenty of people intelligently believe that downsizing the PSD would lead to better results. you couldn't rob a successful schools budget to keep a dead one alive for political reasons. then there were the attempts to force students from certain neighborhoods into stable neighborhoods that ultimately resulted in neighborhood schools where most of the students come from other parts of the city. There is no evidence larger districts equate better schools so smaller districts would have to be insane to agree to larger districts.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by bannedintheusa1

There is no evidence larger districts equate better schools so smaller districts would have to be insane to agree to larger districts.

A larger district might be able to offer more programs for its pupils than smaller districts, and there is certainly a possibility of an economy of scale.

However, with charter schools proliferating, as well as cooperation between districts, this is less profound than it might have been in the past.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Devout Urbanist

I'm not defending the current system. I'm disputing your premise. The problems with these schools stem primarily from the poverty of the students, not the size of the school districts.

I'm going to take these two together. While I generally agree with Devout, it's not entirely true that the problems stem totally from poverty. Discipline, etc has nothing to do with poverty. But some of these inner city schools, especially the high schools, have become mere "holding tanks" for the kids. In past eras, the public schools were the great equalizer. Growing up as I did in Beaver Falls, a lot of my friends' parents were born in the US to poor foreign-born immigrants shortly after immigration to the US; you heard the story many times over that their parents didn't speak English until they went to school. To put it in some perspective, these are people who were born in the early years of the 20th century. Most of them graduated from high school themselves, though their parents may not have had more than a few years (if that) of education.

@banned-yes, bigger school districts are run differently, whether urban or suburban. (The largest district in Colorado is a suburban district.) Each district needs a superintendent, but larger districts then need "deputy" or "assistant" sups. Sometimes there are superintendents for various geographical areas in large suburban districts. The head honcho expects to be paid more for being a sup of an 80,000 student district, than does a sup of a 1000 student district. Big districts naturally become more bureaucratic and administratively top heavy.

I do think some school consolidation would be a good thing in the Pgh area. There are far too many tiny districts. I think numbers can be found that say how small is too small. For example, I once read that a high school needs to have at least 1000 students to be able to offer a wide range of courses for all students. I do not support a county-wide district for Allegheny County.

[goofy328]

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

Often a topic on the Atlanta board is their dream for Atlanta to be a top tier World Class city. And Atlanta is pretty close. When my family moved to Atlanta in the 1970s, Pittsburgh and Atlanta were roughly the same size. Their paths have definitely diverged since. I thought it funny then when Atlanta declared that it wanted to be a World Class city. But since, in light of their growth, international ties through its airport, companies and business it attracts, and even landed the Olympics...I'm not laughing anymore.

So what is a reasonable aspiration for Pittsburgh? What does it lack that otherwise drove the growth of other cities? What pieces of the puzzle are needed to achieve an envisioned city and metro? Pittsburgh already has a symphony, opera, and ballet, so those are in place. World class universities are there. Three of the four major American sports are there. So what big or even small pieces are missing, or are needed to improve upon?

Pittsburgh is a great city. It does not need to be a world class city. There are only going to be but so many world class cities anyway.

[bannedintheusa1]

of course there is no evidence that a high school needs 1000 students to offer a good education. an arbitrary "wide range" is far less important. the optimal size is probably dependent on a lot of things. it sounds like there might be a minimim and maximum with an enormous range. plenty of small districts do well. revoming the pension law and outsourcing services would go a long way.

[nei]

Originally Posted by Katiana

How about the rest of the NYC city schools? And frankly, it's not educators who are coming up with national ratings for K-12 schools. It's outfits like US News and Newsweek which use dubious metrics. Not that I don't think Bronx Science is a good school, mind you. There's a big trend these days in city schools to set up these charter/magnet schools for the kids of the gentrifiers; everyone else gets to go to neighborhood schools which range from good to awful. It's funny how these "lottery" schools manage to admit all these gentry kids, huh?

The NYC magnet schools are majority (or close to majority) Asian, children of immigrant parents, many poor. Probably at least another quarter are immigrant children as well.Previously they were majority Jewish, were non-transplants. They never were or are mostly for gentrfiers.

Of the rest of the system, school performance correlates strongly with ethnicity and to a lesser extent, income of the students. If you could find a school with similar demographics to a suburban school, I don't think the difference in performance would big, though the suburban school would probably have less crowding issues

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by bannedintheusa1

of course there is no evidence that a high school needs 1000 students to offer a good education. an arbitrary "wide range" is far less important. the optimal size is probably dependent on a lot of things. it sounds like there might be a minimim and maximum with an enormous range. plenty of small districts do well. revoming the pension law and outsourcing services would go a long way.

Yes, there is evidence of this. How do you offer both AP classes and Vo-Tech classes when you have maybe 50 kids per grade level? You can't. You offer what the "middle" needs and the needs of the others go unfulifilled.

Originally Posted by nei

The NYC magnet schools are majority (or close to majority) Asian, children of immigrant parents, many poor. Probably at least another quarter are immigrant children as well.Previously they were majority Jewish, were non-transplants. They never were or are mostly for gentrfiers.

Of the rest of the system, school performance correlates strongly with ethnicity and to a lesser extent, income of the students. If you could find a school with similar demographics to a suburban school, I don't think the difference in performance would big, though the suburban school would probably have less crowding issues

I'm willing to take your word for the first para, but I'd like to see some stats, e.g. "trust but verify". You know NYC very well.

School performance correlates well with SES. In that respect your second paragraph is correct. I'm not so sure ethnicity has as much to do with it, when SES is not a factor, e.g. a wealthy white, black, Asian, or Hispanic child will do equally as well (with individual differences, of course).

As you know from the Urban Planning forum, many gentrifiers on there push for charter schools, magnet schools, etc where they can send their own kids; the h*ll with the other schools. You hear a lot of that on this forum too. The only good thing about that is it keeps the parents involved with the public schools, which might eventually improve.