R.I.P. Peabody High School.......... (Pittsburgh, Taylor: apartment, neighborhoods, magnet schools)

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Uptown kid

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It's hard to explain from an outsider's perceptive though know: a SQ Hill/Shadyside/Point Breeze/Regent Sq perception of Dice isn't the same from a Hazelwood/East Hills/Lincoln/Homewood perspective... If your low income from a PPS lower school to highschool, the odds are truly stacked aginst you, and part of that is PPS fault, and that's even true in "good schools"

If I understand what you're saying, it's basically this:

1. Allderdice has an honors/regular/remedial tracking system for core academics.
2. The tracking system has a tendency to sort the school out, so rich whites end up in honors classes, poor whites end up in the regular classes, and black (or at least black and from the ghetto) students end up in the remedial classes.

The first is not surprising, because tracking is used to some degree in every school of size. The latter is more a product of the extreme diversity of the feeder pattern, which probably has some kids whose parents are millionaires, and certainly has many kids whose parents are chronically unemployed/on SSI. In addition, if special efforts aren't made to integrate classrooms, it's pretty much a given that any racially diverse school which stratifies kids by grades/test scores will end up with most black students in the middle and lower rungs.

The whys of black under-performance in school are complicated, but as was intimated, schooling has little to do with it by itself. I also don't think parenting has as much to do with it - it's that people (of all races) who aren't concerned with their children's education happen to have kids who don't like learning either.

Instead, I think socially it comes down to two factors.

One is something called "stereotype threat." Blacks have internalized in the U.S. that they cannot perform well in school. Studies have shown making a black student check off their race before taking a test actually makes them do worse. The biracial children of black U.S. servicemen in Germany don't do any worse than white German kids. This isn't just unique to blacks - women tend to do the same thing regarding math.

The other is peer pressure. Most parents, of all races, want their kids to do well. But often other kids don't. This can be most poisonous in mixed-race settings, where smart black students can be attacked by underachievers for "acting white" if they actually try in school. Interestingly, black students who have another identity, like Afro-Caribbean kids in NYC, don't show this dynamic, because they hang out with each other, and don't care what the African-American students say about studying. Still, the social dynamic is troublesome, and suggests that perhaps in certain circumstances a well-run all-black school is actually better for black students than an integrated one.

[wpipkins]

Originally Posted by Uptown kid

True, except Alderdice isn't exactly a good school if your from Greenfield/Lincoln Place/Homewood/Hazelwood/Lincoln/East Hills, for the fist to it's average, for the rest it's bad. According to everybody I know who went there Dice is the most institutionally segregated (by class) PPS school of em all.
1st Class Citizens of the school: Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Point Breeze, Regent Square, Swisshelm Park & low income kids from the CAS Program
2nd Class Citizens: Greenfield, Lincoln Place, (probably the Enright section now though historically the went to Peabody last year they went to U-Prep)
3rd Class Citizens: Hazelwood/Glenwood, Glen Hazel, Homewood South, Lincoln & East Hills
Rarely are the average 3rd Class mixed in with the average 1st class in their core classes (so I've been told). Though Alderdice is still a better option than Westinghouse... Simply because its safer and even at it's worst Dice is still better Westinghouse non CAS.
A fair percentage of the kids who are from the 3rd class still fail, though 50% of the failing student is the individual kid (plus parents or the lack their of) fault, 50% of it is the institutional segregation that doesn't give them the resources that their upper-middle class counterparts have. So when non CAS kids from lower income neighborhoods graduate Dice they often go Job Core or CCAC opposed to the SQ Hill kids going to where ever their achievements take them, and that is partially (key word partially because the students will to learn/home environment are also apart of it) Alderdice's fault.

It's hard to explain from an outsider's perceptive though know: a SQ Hill/Shadyside/Point Breeze/Regent Sq perception of Dice isn't the same from a Hazelwood/East Hills/Lincoln/Homewood perspective... If your low income from a PPS lower school to highschool, the odds are truly stacked aginst you, and part of that is PPS fault, and that's even true in "good schools"

I grew up in East Hills and attended Taylor Allderdice in the 90's. The classes are segregated by GPA and advanced courses. Kids who do poorly in middle school will most likely do poorly in high school at best. There are many low income students that performed or out performed their higher income counterparts. East Hills high school student performance was and is tied to the street in which you lived.... Wilner and East Hills Drive (public housing) had the highest drop out rate. Bracey(co-op) was a little better. Parkhill Drive (market rate rent / home owners) and Calistoga, Remmington, Fairlawn, Sonny, Sunrise, and Frankella (Mostly middle class home owners) did the best.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by wpipkins

I grew up in East Hills and attended Taylor Allderdice in the 90's. The classes are segregated by GPA and advanced courses. Kids who do poorly in middle school will most likely do poorly in high school at best. There are many low income students that performed or out performed their higher income counterparts. East Hills high school student performance was and is tied to the street in which you lived.... Wilner and East Hills Drive (public housing) had the highest drop out rate. Bracey(co-op) was a little better. Parkhill Drive (market rate rent / home owners) and Calistoga, Remmington, Fairlawn, Sonny, Sunrise, and Frankella (Mostly middle class home owners) did the best.

I wonder what changed, because it sounds like they took the nice sections out of Allderdice, and gave them to Westinghouse. Wilner and Bracey are now the only streets which don't go to Allderdice. You'd think the middle-class black residents would care more (and have more pull) to keep their blocks in the proper feeder than those in the projects.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by Uptown kid

True, except Alderdice isn't exactly a good school if your from Greenfield/Lincoln Place/Homewood/Hazelwood/Lincoln/East Hills, for the fist to it's average, for the rest it's bad. According to everybody I know who went there Dice is the most institutionally segregated (by class) PPS school of em all.
1st Class Citizens of the school: Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Point Breeze, Regent Square, Swisshelm Park & low income kids from the CAS Program

Nothing terribly new about that, BTW. I was speaking to a young lady who attended Alderdice in the 60's, and there was a real division of class between the Squirrel kids and the Greenfield kids even then. Of course back then, Gladstone was still in operation for Hazelwood kids, so all of those areas weren't in the Allderdice feeder pattern then.

[wpipkins]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I wonder what changed, because it sounds like they took the nice sections out of Allderdice, and gave them to Westinghouse. Wilner and Bracey are now the only streets which don't go to Allderdice. You'd think the middle-class black residents would care more (and have more pull) to keep their blocks in the proper feeder than those in the projects.

Nothing has changed that I am aware of. Taylor allderdice is the feeder high school for the entire east hills neighborhood. Many of the children in the "better" parts of east hills attend magnets like capa and obama anyway. There is an allderdice bus stop on my street........ Middle class black parents in east hills would never send their children to westinghouse. Never!

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

Nothing terribly new about that, BTW. I was speaking to a young lady who attended Alderdice in the 60's, and there was a real division of class between the Squirrel kids and the Greenfield kids even then. Of course back then, Gladstone was still in operation for Hazelwood kids, so all of those areas weren't in the Allderdice feeder pattern then.

My mother-in-law grew up in Lincoln Place, and went to Allderdice around the same time, and talked about the same dynamic. She was one of the only non-Jewish kids in her classes.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by wpipkins

Nothing has changed that I am aware of. Taylor allderdice is the feeder high school for the entire east hills neighborhood. Many of the children in the "better" parts of east hills attend magnets like capa and obama anyway. There is an allderdice bus stop on my street........ Middle class black parents in east hills would never send their children to westinghouse. Never!

These are the latest feeder maps that PPS has published. Only a fraction of East Hills is in the Colfax/Allderdice area. It appears it's been like this for awhile too, because none of the neighborhood is marked in the yellow which signifies areas which changed schools for 12/13.

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

I was speaking to a young lady who attended Allderdice in the 60's, and there was a real division of class between the Squirrel Hill kids and the Greenfield kids even then.

I was in a long-term relationship with someone like your young lady during the following decade, and my mind still hoists an "Are you se-e-e-rious?" thought balloon whenever someone here recommends looking for a house in Greenfield. I had always thought it was the worst place on earth--well, in Pgh., anyway.

[Copanut]

Originally Posted by jay5835

I was in a long-term relationship with someone like your young lady during the following decade, and my mind still hoists an "Are you se-e-e-rious?" thought balloon whenever someone here recommends looking for a house in Greenfield. I had always thought it was the worst place on earth--well, in Pgh., anyway.

I have quite a few friends from the Greenfield area, I think it's a great place to live. Affordable housing, to be sure.

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by Copanut

I have quite a few friends from the Greenfield area, I think it's a great place to live. Affordable housing, to be sure.

I do too, now. I guess I mostly laugh at the silliness of it all when I hear the name, but I still have a reaction.