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When people outside ones city/borough wants to take away their high performing school districts, expect them to fight back.
Certainly, those who have can be expected to fight to keep what they have. But don't suppose the converse isn't true. The regional cost of uprising, riot and armed suppression will affect those who have.
Even if only on a purely self-interested level, it's good sense to champion enough reform and/or social justice to keep the canaille pacified - just ask Marie Antoinette.
Although I grew up in Churchill, I now live in Montgomery County, MD. I graduated just before the Woodland Hills merger.
In MD and VA, school districts are run at the county level. There is still income disparity between high-school clusters, and the schools in a neighborhood are still a determining factor for housing prices, but at least there is not the problem of cash-starved school districts like Wilkinsburg. So, even the schools in the poorer areas are adequately staffed and funded. It seems like a win-win: people still get to choose where to live and where to send their kids to school, yet all kids have access to decent K-12 education.
Is any consideration being given to an Allegheny County school district?
In MD and VA, school districts are run at the county level.
IIRC, Baltimore is it's own county and of course the main concentration of poverty in Md - what's your sense on Baltimore schools?
Quote:
Is any consideration being given to an Allegheny County school district?
None. At least not in "official circles" - I can't recall a single official at any level in PA even alluding to the possibility of school district consolidation on a state-wide scale, much less county or Intermediate Unit sized districts. Only a handful of people in PA have even considered the idea, much less agree with it.
Basket-case districts like Wilkinsburg, Duquesne or Sto-Rox are clearly a drag on the regional economy, distort property values and development generally, waste human resources, perpetuate poverty and crime, and are simply unjust. But nothing will be done about them - until the roof falls in.
Or else just plain evaporate. I suspect that's the preferred option for most officials: hoping these disaster-movie districts will just go away.
And they might at that - according to state Dept of Ed figures, Wilkinsburg's (projected) enrollment for the current 2010-11 year is 1237 students, down 20% from just five years ago. Another 12% decline is projected five years on, by 2015-16. Assuming Wilkinsburg's drop-out rate remains steady, the class of 2016 will consist of 48 students, 30% of whom will have finished their senior year under an IEP.
(edit: correction on double-checking some figures)
IIRC, Baltimore is it's own county and of course the main concentration of poverty in Md - what's your sense on Baltimore schools?
Oh, that's a good point. Baltimore city schools are certainly distressed, and you are right that Baltimore city is its own county. There is also a suburban county called Baltimore Country but that has its own school district. So, yes, the county school district system also has its flaws, as there can be poorer counties. Nonetheless, I would argue that Allegheny County could have a viable county-wide school district (with or without the City of Pittsburgh being in the district).
So, yes, the county school district system also has its flaws, as there can be poorer counties. Nonetheless, I would argue that Allegheny County could have a viable county-wide school district (with or without the City of Pittsburgh being in the district).
Philadelphia is another example where city, county and school district are coterminous, though on a different scale altogether. But I agree wholeheartedly that county-wide districts would be preferable to the present mess (though I'd prefer the Intermediate Units, actually).
Apart from the social equity arising from pooling tax revenues, a single authority would make planning and decision-making much easier than the byzantine mass of jurisdictions here in Allegheny Co.
I suspect that it's your default emotion when it comes to political questions or proposed change and thus needs no rational basis. Fear is the defining emotion of the American right.
No, don't think so. Issues with socialism multiplied by totalitarianism would be a better guess.
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