Pittsburgh School District (Wilkinsburg, Liberty: taxes, to live, airplanes)

[scrapp]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I already answered this. By my stated standards, Wilkinsburg schools are unacceptable. The difference between you and me is that I don't believe Wilkinsburg schools are unacceptable just for my child, but I also believe they are unacceptable for any child, and I think we should do something about that.

What are you going to do about it? Seems to me you are disowning the problem by ignoring your community school and going private.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by scrapp

What are you going to do about it? Seems to me you are disowning the problem by ignoring your community school and going private.

I disagree with that theory. One individual child isn't going to make any difference in the quality of the Wilkinsburg schools, and I don't think parents are under any obligation to use their children to make empty symbolic gestures. I feel the same way about the Wilkinsburg parents taking their children to charter schools, Catholic schools, home-schooling them, and so on: in my view, none of them has an individual obligation to send their child to an unacceptable school.

So any effective remedy has to take the form of broad reform. In the immediate future, I am going to support candidates for the Wilkinsburg School Board that I think will at least try to do better. I don't know if they all individually support consolidation, but I don't think that would be inconsistent with their broad commitments, and I hope they will at least seriously explore the idea.

In the long run, to address this issue throughout the Pittsburgh Metro, we will need to elect state officials who are willing to do something about these issues, or at least put them up to referendum. Unfortunately, it seems we are very, very far away from that being possible in Pennsylvania, but you never know--political conditions sometimes change more rapidly than we expect.

[stburr91]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

Do impoverished children do better in schools where they are a smaller minority?

But it doesn't say how it affects the performance of individual students, for example, has the Woodland Hills SD had a positive effect on Rankin pupils?

These are two key questions.

Do impoverished children do better in schools where they are a smaller minority? I think test scores may go up marginally, but does it yield much higher numbers of impoverished students pursuing higher education? Does it greatly increase the number of people breaking out of poverty? Using the Woodland Hills district as an example, I would say the answer to the above questions would be, no.

Woodland Hills was well below the 50% threshold for most of it's existence, so why did a much improved school district (compared to the General Braddock school district) not lead to much larger numbers of the impoverished children in Braddock and Rankin breaking out of poverty?

With that said, I'm not against county wide school districts, but I don't believe that it's going to lead to substantial improvements in the lives of impoverished children.

Poverty isn't going away, in fact, the gap between the haves and have nots, is only going to widen as the job market requires more and more specialized educations.

I think this discussion is moot, as there is no interest (from the majority of the people, politicians, or teachers unions) in going to a county wide district.

[squarian]

Originally Posted by scrapp

What are you going to do about it? Seems to me you are disowning the problem by ignoring your community school and going private.

I'll tell you what I (a Wilkinsburg resident) am doing it about it.

1) I'm sending my child to a public charter school.
2) I'm writing my state delegation urging passage of S.B. 1 (the "voucher bill").
3) I'm voting and campaigning for the NUW-endorsed candidates for Wilks School Board.
4) Generally and wherever possible (such as on this board) I'm making the case for school choice, public education reform and district consolidation in PA.

Your turn.

[squarian]

Originally Posted by stburr91

I think this discussion is moot, as there is no interest (from the majority of the people, politicians, or teachers unions) in going to a county wide district.

Wozniak and Mahoney would disagree:

Pennsylvania legislators push plans for school consolidation - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

[robrobrob]

Honestly, the Wilksburg School District would get better results if Squarian and Brian both sends their kids to Wilkinsburg schools. A school district needs involved parents. Squarian and Brian each have one child. That makes two kids with involved parents who could be going to Wilkinsburg schools. Two kids could start a snowball effect.

So, the NUW endorsed candidates get elected. What next? As Brian has pointed out, this isn't gonig to make a bit a difference unless some money starts flowing into Wilkinsburg. And the people with money have to start sending their kids to the local public schools.

The voucher bill and public charter schools just make it easier to live in districts with lousy schools. It does nothing for the lousy district.

I don't blame you for not sending your kids to Wilkinsburg Schools but you really aren't doing anything about it.

[stburr91]

Originally Posted by squarian

Wozniak and Mahoney would disagree:

Pennsylvania legislators push plans for school consolidation - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Here's an interesting part in the article.

A study this year by the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators compared Pennsylvania with six states that have countywide school systems. The group found that Pennsylvania spends less on central office staff and gets better standardized tests results than most of the other states.

A 2009 Pennsylvania School Boards Association analysis found that economically disadvantaged students tend to do better in smaller school districts, but this was related to smaller school size, not district administration. The same study found that personnel costs can increase in a consolidated district, since teachers tend to negotiate for salaries that match the highest-paying district in the merger

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by stburr91

Woodland Hills was well below the 50% threshold for most of it's existence, so why did a much improved school district (compared to the General Braddock school district) not lead to much larger numbers of the impoverished children in Braddock and Rankin breaking out of poverty?

Of course schools alone can't fix all the problems of concentrated poverty. So that can't be our measure (whether or not the school in question has completely eliminated all those problems for the relevant kids).

Otherwise--what makes you think things wouldn't have been worse for the relevant kids in General Braddock? We have a similar real-world test case, Wilkinsburg. For most of its existence, Woodland Hills has outperformed Wilkinsburg as one would expect, and in fact despite the problems in Woodland Hills today, it is still outperforming Wilkinsburg. In that sense, I think the notion that all those kids would have been no worse off in General Braddock requires a dramatic failure of imagination.

With that said, I'm not against county wide school districts, but I don't believe that it's going to lead to substantial improvements in the lives of impoverished children.

Again, I agree that better schools alone won't fix all the problems associated with concentrated poverty. But I don't think that is an excuse for not providing better schools. Rather, it is a reason to not stop at providing better schools, but rather to also do all the other things we can to address concentrated poverty.

Poverty isn't going away, in fact, the gap between the haves and have nots, is only going to widen as the job market requires more and more specialized educations.

Poverty is unlikely to go away completely, but we know that it is possible to do better, because other developed countries are in fact doing better. Again, not being able to completely eliminate a problem isn't a reason to do nothing at all.

I think this discussion is moot, as there is no interest (from the majority of the people, politicians, or teachers unions) in going to a county wide district.

I'd be kinda interested to see what would happen if this was put up for referendum in Allegheny County, with a rigorous public debate beforehand. It might do better than you are suggesting.

But anyway, I agree the political conditions at the moment are not conducive. However, creating those political conditions is a long-term process, and among many other things, such a process includes citizens talking amongst themselves.

[gg]

Originally Posted by scrapp

What are you going to do about it? Seems to me you are disowning the problem by ignoring your community school and going private.

Lucky for Brian and his child that he can afford private school. Seems most people in that area can't, so he can enjoy looking at all the problems with a nice built in fence. Brian's decision is obviously a logical one if you have that kind of money. Another option is moving out of the city for a good district. That is probably cheaper than going to private route. If I had that kind of money, I would love to live in Point Breeze and send my son to a private school, but not Central. It would have to be Shadyside or Kiski Prep.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by robrobrob

Honestly, the Wilksburg School District would get better results if Squarian and Brian both sends their kids to Wilkinsburg schools. A school district needs involved parents. Squarian and Brian each have one child. That makes two kids with involved parents who could be going to Wilkinsburg schools. Two kids could start a snowball effect.

Again, the same data and studies I am relying on says this is not true. Wilkinsburg is at about 81% disadvantaged. It needs to be under 50%. One or two students isn't going to achieve that.

So, the NUW endorsed candidates get elected. What next? As Brian has pointed out, this isn't gonig to make a bit a difference unless some money starts flowing into Wilkinsburg. And the people with money have to start sending their kids to the local public schools.

I personally see no future for an independent Wilkinsburg School District, so I believe the "What next?" ultimately has to be a merger. Again, a handful of parents using their kids for symbolic gestures won't make a real difference, and barring a radical transformation of the overall student population in the near future, I don't think it is possible to achieve acceptable schools in an independent Wilkinsburg.

Incidentally, while I don't have a problem with people who use charters, I should note that since we are using a private school, we are not taking a dime out of the Wilkinsburg schools.

I don't blame you for not sending your kids to Wilkinsburg Schools but you really aren't doing anything about it.

Again, it is a fundamental mistake to treat this as a problem that can or should be addressed on an individual basis. Public education is a collective responsibility of a civil society, and quality public education can only be achieved through collective efforts. For that reason, what each individual citizen should be doing is promoting better policies and voting for better officials, because that is what actually matters in the long run.