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Wrong. Your “good” schools are only good because they’re de facto private schools for small affluent communities. County-wide or regional school districts are more equitable.
That is something I like about Shaler School District - its fairly diverse, at least socio-economically. Etna, Millvale, Shaler, and Reserve.
You're proposing an Allegheny County School District? Why, do you own a lot of land in Butler and Washington Counties that you're trying to develop?
AFAIK, four states in the country have essentially only county-wide school districts: Florida, Nevada, Maryland, and West Virginia. Many other states - mostly in the south - have a mixture of county-wide and city school districts (meaning any area not incorporated into a city is part of the county-wide system). Hawaii actually just has one school district which is run as a branch of the state government.
We can debate whether this leads to higher or lower educational outcomes, though there's a lot of confounds due to the socio-economic status of the states in question. They absolutely do seem to be associated with lower educational spending overall however. In addition, they don't seem to cause white flight across county lines. Even in consolidated county-wide school districts, there are feeder zones, which tend to lead to segregated schools - sort of similar to how "favored quarters" develop in public school systems of major U.S. cities. That said, at least there is some greater equalization of funding across the county-wide systems.
Wrong. Your “good” schools are only good because they’re de facto private schools for small affluent communities. County-wide or regional school districts are more equitable.
Nope you are wrong and I have proof. The Edgewood school was very competitive. They were forced to merge by some dope judge and now look at them. Stuck in a horrible school called Woodland Hills. People think the affluent kids will keep a school good. It has NEVER worked here ever. Merge? They fail. Every time.
Merge them all. It’s patently absurd that we have 43 school districts in Allegheny County.
Do you really feel the parents of great schools want them to be brought to the knees like we saw with Woodland Hills? Look at this school digger list. We are talking about great schools with caring parents that know how to teach their kids to work hard. Hard work equals good grades on a statewide level. That equates to good colleges and top performance in life. It all starts at home with strong parenting and VERY hard work ethic.
Look at these great schools right here in Pittsburgh. Fox Chapel is VERY well represented and I suspect with Sharpsburg moving in a great direction, FC will keep ranking higher and higher. North Allegheny and Mt. Lebo do great of course as one would expect. No one wants to go lower in our districts. We want to keep improving! Merging makes better areas demand private schools or people move. One or the other.
Wrong. Your “good” schools are only good because they’re de facto private schools for small affluent communities. County-wide or regional school districts are more equitable.
don't you send your kids to actual private schools? north allegheny is and mt lebo are very large. i agree regional probably makes sense.
don't you send your kids to actual private schools? north allegheny is and mt lebo are very large. i agree regional probably makes sense.
I have one child in private school, the other will start public school in the fall.
No school district with a single high school can be said to be "very large". The entire Mount Lebanon School District is about 80% larger than the high school I attended.
North Allegheny effectively has two high schools, but they chose to split into lower and upper schools, instead of two named 9-12 schools.
Nope you are wrong and I have proof. The Edgewood school was very competitive. They were forced to merge by some dope judge and now look at them. Stuck in a horrible school called Woodland Hills. People think the affluent kids will keep a school good. It has NEVER worked here ever. Merge? They fail. Every time.
The entire Edgewood school district served 700 kids. That's a de facto private school that receives state money. Tiny school districts make sense in sparsely populated areas, but in major metros, they're borderline unethical.
The complaint shouldn't be that the amount of money spent per pupil is less in some districts. Cause a lot of poorer districts spend plenty. And Pennsylvania as a whole spends more than most states per pupil.
I really think that the only way to turn around some districts is to go to lengthen the school day (and feed the kids breakfast and lunch and send them home with dinner) and have school go year round.
I really think that the only way to turn around some districts is to go to lengthen the school day (and feed the kids breakfast and lunch and send them home with dinner) and have school go year round.
There's been ample studies showing that lengthening the school day/year doesn't really accomplish much. If kids aren't motivated to learn, they're not going to learn no matter how long you keep them cooped up.
Really, the most effective way of improving the educational outcomes of individual kids from failing schools is to send them to schools full of high achievers, They tend to succumb to the local (positive) peer pressure towards being studious, and academics improve dramatically. However, this only works when they are in the distinct minority, because once a critical mass of "bussed" students forms at a school, they end up socially segregating (both due to being spurned by the student body at large and due to their own preferences) which erases any academic gain. Not to mention if they rise to a high enough proportion in the school district it triggers white flight. So really in terms of the best educational and policy outcome, the goal should be to spread around poor minority students as widely and thinly as possible across high-achieving districts.
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