Pittsburgh Public Schools failing (York, California: low income, homes, neighborhood)

[gg]

Still flunking after all these years | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[WhoIsStanwix?]

Originally Posted by gg

Still flunking after all these years | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This is effectively a blog post of an outside organization leader endorsed by the PPG. I read the report linked to the PPG blog/opinion piece. It made statements such as:

In PPS, black students have substantially less access to and participa-
tion in rigorous coursework. For example, enrollment of black students in calculus is very low compared to their white counterparts.

This quote has no data to back up the claim that access to courses is a barrier. Instead, using calculus as the example, one might also conclude that achievement is the barrier. The report itself is full of facts that are well known in these parts, but it is short on actionable solutions other than three vague paragraphs at the end which amount to "get high quality leaders" and/or "approve more charter schools".

In addition, the report places 100% of the focus on poor schooling while completely absolving families of responsibility. I fully agree that PPS could be doing more to serve low income and black students, but any report which completely clears parental responsibility as having anything to do with achievement gaps is not well thought out in my opinion. The only way to really close gaps and provide equal educational opportunity is to reform both home and school, and I don't know what the appetite or potential for either of them are or how school reform can be used to enforce reforms at home.

[eschaton]

I had several issues with this editorial.

The first, and perhaps most important one, is that it presents a national problem as being a local one. I'm not aware of a single urban school district in the country which doesn't underperform its suburban peers. I'm also not aware of a single school district in the country which has statistically significant black and/or Latino populations which doesn't show a big gap in performance between these students and the white/asian population.

Also, as I've repeatedly said, there is a false paradigm (which this op-ed plays into) that every kid comes to school as a blank slate, with essentially the same capacity to learn. Looking up the writer's bio, she attended Princeton for undergrad, and got a J.D. for Fordham. I presume her husband has a similarly stellar resume. Her kids were not going to underperform going to Colfax K-8, even if they are half-black. By choosing not to enroll her biracial sons at Colfax K-8 - sons who were predisposed, given her academic background, to thrive - it meant the school would be incrementally more low performing.

None of that matters though, because she never had any intention of sending her kids to a neighborhood school. Lemme quote her bio.

Born and raised in Northern California, Rachel migrated east to attend Princeton University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in History. After college, she moved to New York City and had a brief stint as a teacher at a Catholic girls school in Harlem before she ventured into the world of documentary filmmaking. Her work on a film about the first charter high school in Silicon Valley changed her career trajectory and inspired her commitment to education advocacy. Motivated in part by witnessing the legal hurdles and political battles that the film’s charter school had to overcome just to open its doors, Rachel decided to head to law school.

She earned her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law. After practicing as a litigator for several years in the private sector, Rachel found her way back to education when she became Assistant General Counsel for Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City.

Rachel lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their two sons.

She was already a paid staffer for the charter school "movement" before she even came to Pittsburgh. I wouldn't be surprised if she moved here for the job. There was virtually no chance she was going to be happy with sending her kids to a neighborhood school.

There have been repeated studies nationally that show once you correct for selection bias and directly compare students of the same race, socio-economic status, and parental educational background that there is absolutely no evidence that charter schools perform better than public schools.

We have 13,506 public school districts in the U.S., and 6,800 charter schools. if someone discovered the "magic bullet" for dealing with inequality of educational outcome, it would have been widely copied by now.

[RogersParkTransplant]

Yes, I agree with pretty much everything Stanwix and Eschaton are saying. Firing administrators, focusing on test scores, and interviewing unhappy high school kids doesn't accomplish much beyond scaring more people away from PPS. About half of my family teaches high school, and they all agree that what goes on at home is the #1 indicator of how a kid will do in school.

[PghYinzer]

This article is just part of their long game. You continuously hammer away at the idea that public schools are bad, offering “data” and “statistics” until the general populous begins to believe that the school is 100% to blame for the problem. You do this via thinly veiled advocacy groups and “experts” who must know what they are talking about. Then you send in the next scammer, the voucher advocate to offer up a solution. The public is so convinced by experts that they become desperate for a solution so they run towards the shiny object, in this case charter schools and vouchers.

In this day and age you could do this with anything. Spend a decade and millions of dollars convincing people that the air inside their homes is dangerous then turn around and sell them $100 plastic bags to wear on their heads while they sleep.

[WhoIsStanwix?]

Originally Posted by PghYinzer

This article is just part of their long game. You continuously hammer away at the idea that public schools are bad, offering “data” and “statistics” until the general populous begins to believe that the school is 100% to blame for the problem. You do this via thinly veiled advocacy groups and “experts” who must know what they are talking about. Then you send in the next scammer, the voucher advocate to offer up a solution. The public is so convinced by experts that they become desperate for a solution so they run towards the shiny object, in this case charter schools and vouchers.

In this day and age you could do this with anything. Spend a decade and millions of dollars convincing people that the air inside their homes is dangerous then turn around and sell them $100 plastic bags to wear on their heads while they sleep.

This is my fear. The fact that the PPG would even run this editorial is beyond me. It undermines the very goals it is trying to accomplish, by scaring away would-be Pittsburgh residents from sending their kids to PPS.

Beyond managing the macro issues that face nearly every major urban school district in the US, one of the best things we can do is attract and retain residents who will focus on the home-aspect of education for their children and their neighbors. When the flight outpaces the progress, there is nothing one can do. Stabilizing the population of strong parents of all races, especially in the working and middle class, is one of the few things that can be done in the near term. Instead, we have "reformers" trying to scare people away from the public schools to help solve our issues. It is very disheartening.

[RogersParkTransplant]

I'm also tired of measuring the success of public schools in terms of the percentage of students who go on to college. I'm thinking of friends and neighbors on the Northside, both black and white, who have encouraged their kids to get jobs after high school and take some classes at CCAC while learning a trade. Are their kids functional young people who add to our local economy and succeed in life? The ones I know personally, yes. Are they going to inflate statistics about PPS and college? No. After all the depressing trends in higher education -- tuitions go up, job prospects go down -- can I blame any parent who encourages their kid to learn a trade instead of going straight to college? No. We have to look at schools as part of a much bigger, more complicated picture of the city, and that's not going to happen with articles like this.

Also: coming from *NYC* and crying about the problems in PPS? Please.

[sealie]

Originally Posted by WhoIsStanwix?

This is my fear. The fact that the PPG would even run this editorial is beyond me. It undermines the very goals it is trying to accomplish, by scaring away would-be Pittsburgh residents from sending their kids to PPS.

Beyond managing the macro issues that face nearly every major urban school district in the US, one of the best things we can do is attract and retain residents who will focus on the home-aspect of education for their children and their neighbors. When the flight outpaces the progress, there is nothing one can do. Stabilizing the population of strong parents of all races, especially in the working and middle class, is one of the few things that can be done in the near term. Instead, we have "reformers" trying to scare people away from the public schools to help solve our issues. It is very disheartening.

I never say this, but read the comments on the editorial. She's part of a (named) organization with an agenda.

[xdv8]

This is red meat for the suburbs. Plain and simple. The Post Gazette is a joke.

[WhoIsStanwix?]

Originally Posted by sealie

I never say this, but read the comments on the editorial. She's part of a (named) organization with an agenda.

I did just that. For once, some informed comments and not the endless flame war.