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This is the most depressing thing I have ever seen. In no way do I interpret your data as evidence that the city schools "aren't that bad". This is terrible!
As I've posted before, I'm looking for a home and a big decision is where I will send my 2 year old daughter to school in the future. Let's assume that you guys have no idea if I am black/white/hispanic. This data is telling me:
1) If my daughter is white and goes to a Pittsburgh Public School, she has a chance at doing fairly well. She will, however, spend her time in classes where teachers are dealing with the 50% of the class that can't read! Worse, at a young age, she is exposed to the terrible stereotype that the black kids are stupid and I don't want her growing up thinking that one race is below another.
2) If my daughter is black, then she basically has not chance at all of being able to read.
This is not a good endorsement for the Pittsburgh Public Schools....
Sorry that is overly dramatic. If you have a stable home and teach your children the value of education then they will have a pretty good chance---white,black, hispanic. Be involved in their education. It starts at home. It's not just the school's responsibility to teach children. It's the parents as well.
This is the most depressing thing I have ever seen. In no way do I interpret your data as evidence that the city schools "aren't that bad". This is terrible!
As I've posted before, I'm looking for a home and a big decision is where I will send my 2 year old daughter to school in the future. Let's assume that you guys have no idea if I am black/white/hispanic. This data is telling me:
1) If my daughter is white and goes to a Pittsburgh Public School, she has a chance at doing fairly well. She will, however, spend her time in classes where teachers are dealing with the 50% of the class that can't read! Worse, at a young age, she is exposed to the terrible stereotype that the black kids are stupid and I don't want her growing up thinking that one race is below another.
2) If my daughter is black, then she basically has not chance at all of being able to read.
That's not how I look at it. From what I've seen of the elementary school data, I can say this:
If your daughter is white:
1. She'll perform really well if she went to a magnet school.
2. If she went to a neighborhood school, she'd do fairly well, provided you avoided the Allegheny valley neighborhood schools (Sunnyside, Arsenal, and Woolslair). You'd also probably want to avoid 90%+ black schools, but this isn't a sure thing, given there's too few white students for a statistically meaningful sample.
If your daughter is black:
1. Her education would be improved by leaps and bounds by most magnets. Oddly, Pittsburgh Montessori is the exception - white kids score great there but black kids do not. Everywhere else, the "test score gap" would be greatly shrunk.
2. Otherwise, provided you located in a racially mixed area (or Manchester) you could provide a better chance for your daughter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by luabear
This is not a good endorsement for the Pittsburgh Public Schools....
You'd run into much the same issues virtually anywhere there was a non-trivial minority population.
Let's be clear here - suburban schools have not solved the "test gap problem" - they deal with it largely by not having black kids to begin with. In most of the schools which actually have enough of a racially mixed population to compare, if the test score gap is low, it's more due to white test scores being unusually low than black scores being high. Pittsburgh is really the only place in the region where you have a few schools where both the white and the black population can both overachieve.
This is the most depressing thing I have ever seen. In no way do I interpret your data as evidence that the city schools "aren't that bad". This is terrible!
As I've posted before, I'm looking for a home and a big decision is where I will send my 2 year old daughter to school in the future. Let's assume that you guys have no idea if I am black/white/hispanic. This data is telling me:
1) If my daughter is white and goes to a Pittsburgh Public School, she has a chance at doing fairly well. She will, however, spend her time in classes where teachers are dealing with the 50% of the class that can't read! Worse, at a young age, she is exposed to the terrible stereotype that the black kids are stupid and I don't want her growing up thinking that one race is below another.
2) If my daughter is black, then she basically has not chance at all of being able to read.
This is not a good endorsement for the Pittsburgh Public Schools....
Quote:
Originally Posted by heartchya
Sorry that is overly dramatic. If you have a stable home and teach your children the value of education then they will have a pretty good chance---white,black, hispanic. Be involved in their education. It starts at home. It's not just the school's responsibility to teach children. It's the parents as well.
Exactly. It blows my mind that people think the school makes a huge difference. The reality is that putting a child in a "good" school doesn't necessarily equate to a successful student. The student/family has to bring something to the table. The school alone isn't what makes students successful.
Exactly. It blows my mind that people think the school makes a huge difference. The reality is that putting a child in a "good" school doesn't necessarily equate to a successful student. The student/family has to bring something to the table. The school alone isn't what makes students successful.
I totally agree with everyone. I don't think it's a black/white problem. We've talked about this on the forum before. There are schools in the area that are all white and test scores are low because parents aren't involved (I think someone mentioned Kerr). Parent involvement is critical and (of course) education begins at home in our family.
But, all that was given to me in this post to judge the public schools was a white/black score breakdown. Whether it's a lack of family involvement in black families, low income families, or purple families does not matter. The data provided shows that over 50% of the kids in my child's school fall into this group and that's not a good environment for any child to learn.
But, all that was given to me in this post to judge the public schools was a white/black score breakdown. Whether it's a lack of family involvement in black families, low income families, or purple families does not matter. The data provided shows that over 50% of the kids in my child's school fall into this group and that's not a good environment for any child to learn.
Part of the reason I did that was because good data is available. The PSSA test offers a breakdown of the scores of "economically disadvantaged" kids, but they don't offer the aggregate scores of non-economically disadvantaged kids. Thus while we can say on the whole Pittsburgh schools don't do a good job educating poor people, we cannot disentangle race and class
I will list the percentage for each however, as the results are interesting:
Significantly higher black than poor population:
Peabody (97% black, 75% poor)
Westinghouse (97% black, 74% poor)
Oliver (94% black, 79% poor)
U Prep (94% black, 79% poor
Oliver (82% black, 69% poor)
Obama IBU (67% black, 50% poor)
Some of the things are not surprising. Obama HS, for example, apparently has a draw on the black middle class, while Brashear and Carrick, which draw from poor white areas of the city, really do seem to have a fairly large poor white population. If it were possible to segregate out the poor white population, I wonder if test scores at Brashear and Carrick would be similar to the three high-performing schools.
However, I have to say even I'm surprised that the four worst high schools still do seem to have a fairly large black middle class student body - on the order of 20%. You'd think that someone whose parents are not impoverished, regardless of race, would have found alternate means of education for their child.
I'm surprised that the four worst high schools still do seem to have a fairly large black middle class student body - on the order of 20%. You'd think that someone whose parents are not impoverished, regardless of race, would have found alternate means of education for their child.
Maybe "black middle class" is just too slippery a concept? I think that in the US we use it as shorthand for any black people who aren't simply poor (by whatever measure), so that it includes large numbers of people who have middling incomes, enough say for home-ownership in Stanton Heights but nowhere near enough for Winchester-Thurston tuition.
Now if the PSSA and other statistics isolated for college-educated black and/or mixed-race professionals (buppies, bougies, bourgeoisie-africaine, oreos, pick a term), then we'd have an interesting set of comparisons.
However, I have to say even I'm surprised that the four worst high schools still do seem to have a fairly large black middle class student body - on the order of 20%. You'd think that someone whose parents are not impoverished, regardless of race, would have found alternate means of education for their child.
Quote:
Originally Posted by squarian
Maybe "black middle class" is just too slippery a concept? I think that in the US we use it as shorthand for any black people who aren't simply poor (by whatever measure), so that it includes large numbers of people who have middling incomes, enough say for home-ownership in Stanton Heights but nowhere near enough for Winchester-Thurston tuition.
Now if the PSSA and other statistics isolated for college-educated black and/or mixed-race professionals (buppies, bougies, bourgeoisie-africaine, oreos, pick a term), then we'd have an interesting set of comparisons.
Agreed. For any middle-income family (regardless of race), it's difficult to find affordable alternate education at the high school level. The catholic schools are affordable from K-8, but Catholic high schools become out of reach for most working class and lower middle class families.
There are scholarships, but most students don't perform well enough to land the full scholarship at the elite private schools (Winchester-Thurston, Shadyside, etc.) And the scholarships are the Catholic schools are laughable because they barely cover anything---just a few hundred dollars.
If the parents are homeowners, it's not easy to pick up and move to the suburbs, especially if their credit is lacking. Then there is the whole dynamic of needing to live near the support network of relatives and friends.
I should also note that not only is Peabody now closed, but in reaction to Corbett's massive cuts to the education budget, Oliver and Langley are both being closed, with the former going to Perry (which will now be only a partial magnet) and the latter going into Brashear. So basically two "very bad" schools are being closed, with the students shifted to somewhat better but not great schools.
I have to say I'm not sure about the wisdom of these mergers. Oliver to Perry makes sense logistically, but the magnet was already middling compared to the others in the district at a high school level. When coupled with the loss of the Science & Technology magnet to a new location, I think this will inevitably lead to either the loss of the magnet, or its relocation somewhere else in the city.
Brashear and Langley being merged makes a lot more sense. However, given racial attitudes are, in my experience, far less progressive in the south of the city, I wonder if the merger will cause a lot more white families to flee the city, or at least the public school system.
That said, one of these two probably had to go. I just don't know why they didn't consider merging U-Prep and Westinghouse.
Exactly. It blows my mind that people think the school makes a huge difference. The reality is that putting a child in a "good" school doesn't necessarily equate to a successful student. The student/family has to bring something to the table. The school alone isn't what makes students successful.
This is true. I'd add that none of these statistics tell you how any one student will do in any one school. You can send your kid to the most highly ranked school and they can still do poorly, and vice versa.
It would be interesting to compare the performance of the very top students among these schools. Not sure how one would go about it - number accepted to Ivy League schools, Sat scores perhaps.
Yep. More generally, while I think it's interesting data that eschaton pulled together and appreciate the effort, I guess it's a question of who you're trying to market city schools to. For many parents, "ranking proficient on the PSSA" isn't much more impressive than "can fog up a mirror".
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