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You've offered no tasks for planners to do for education. I thought that might be a good one?
1. You're lying. I"ve offered a number of suggestions. They all get dismissed. Done playing your game, you set me up to knock me down. You are not debating in good faith.
2. I am not the thread starter. I am not the only one who feels perhaps urban planners SHOULD concern themselves with childhood education more than they do now, which is just about nil.
I think planners should be cognizant of what's going on in the public schools in their jurisdiction. I think planners, or someone from city govt., should represent the city at school board meetings. You may think these meetings are just a bunch of hooey about schools and whether students should be allowed to wear "gang colors" or not and the like, but what if the school comes up with a plan to discontinue transportation services? That has an impact on traffic patterns. JUST ONE EXAMPLE!!! Don't get carried away with the example. I think planners have a huge interest in the quality of the schools b/c they are not going to entice people to live in the city for their entire adulthood if the schools are crap. What benefits a city to get young adults and empty nesters only? I think the more planners know about the schools, the more they'd want to know. And I think they should be concerned about ALL the schools, not just about a few charters/magnets for special snowflake students.
I'm going to cross-post this from the other thread, as it seems more relevant here...
About the only element of traditional school board policy I think urban planning would have a big impact on is designing school feeder zones, although in practice, the results might be limited.
Let's consider a hypothetical city, which is majority white, but has a majority black public school enrollment, and has a strong black component (if not majority) on the local Board of Education.
Due to declining enrollment, two schools need to be closed. The African-American reps on the school board feel strongly that at least one of these schools should be racially mixed or majority-white, as this would be more fair. They are okay with two being closed, however, provided at least some of the students get to go to neighborhood schools in the more affluent, mixed and white areas of the city.
From an urban planning standpoint, these are bad ideas. Whatever white neighborhoods lose their local school will likely see an outflow of residents from the public school system entirely. Furthermore, taking a substantial chunk of lower income black students and putting them into borderline, or even good, neighborhood schools in white or mixed areas increases the likelihood that white parents will begin leaving the school system in larger numbers, and the decline will continue.
From a planning standpoint, the best thing to do is.
1. Identify gentrifying areas with "bad" local schools, as well as stable areas with good bones and a somewhat mixed population of residents (if not public school students).
2. Adjust feeder patterns so as many of these areas as possible are within the "good" or "borderline" schools, and not the "bad" ones.
3. Hope the adjustment leads to further middle-class buy in into the public school system, and further growth of the tax base in these neighborhoods, which over time will strengthen the district.
The problem is, while this might be sensible from an urban planning standpoint, it may be considered racial gerrymandering and segregation by the Department of Justice. Not the sort of national press you want about your district.
The problem is, while this might be sensible from an urban planning standpoint, it may be considered racial gerrymandering and segregation by the Department of Justice. Not the sort of national press you want about your district.
^ of the utmost importance.
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