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There’s a joke I’ve heard various neighbors make somewhat self-consciously since we moved into our house five years ago that our “neighborhood schools” are all located in other neighborhoods. And while I haven’t actually done any sort of scientific survey, that does kind of seem to be the case. What I mean is that I don’t personally know one single person who has moved into our neighborhood in order to do the whole live-in-the-cool-urban-neighborhood-in-a-cool-old-house thing who sends his or herchildren to the public schools for which we are actually zoned. Instead, their kids attend various private schools in our community, or the parents have managed to get transfers so their kinds can attend public schools in “nicer” parts of town. I do know several people who have children who were accepted in to the public elementary magnet school that’s not too far away from our neighborhood, but even then, that’s not the same as attending OUR neighborhood’s public schools.
From: Public Schools In Gentrifying 'Hoods: Who Wants To Go First?
Yeah, I guess it's awesome to live in a "diverse" urban neighborhood with lots of local culture ... until your kids get to be school-aged.
20 comments:
"But on the other hand, how can my neighborhood’s schools ever get any better if those of us who keep moving into this zip code because we say want to stake our roots here, and raise our kids here keep outsourcing the educational part of our adopted neighborhood’s appeal? Isn’t that a little like saying, “we like you city people, with your funky old houses, and your sidewalks, and your diversity and all, but we just don’t want our children to sit next to yours at school. I’m sure you understand, mmmmkay?”"
No, not necessarily. It could be a racial issue (but that doesn't seem to be the case for the first people who move into these areas), or it could be simply that the schools stink.
"... how can my neighborhood’s schools ever get any better ..."
Urban schools will only get better if high SES white kids go there? If their parents demand more? Well, that's racist.
More likely, the new students will just make the school look better. Gentrification will continue, rents will disappear, and the low end will be pushed somewhere else.
Perhaps they heard about the big brouhaha in Brooklyn where the white yuppies tried to improve their local school and it turned very ugly.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't...
"Urban schools will only get better if high SES white kids go there? If their parents demand more? Well, that's racist."
Lets start with how most people define a "good school." They define it as "has high test scores" and/or "the kids get into good colleges." They don't look at curriculum. They don't look at value-add (do the kids do *better* than expected given their SES, etc.). They just look at raw test scores and college admits.
Given this, the most reliable way to "improve" a school in these two ways is, yep, to get lots of high SES white (and Asian) kids to go there. Other ways may work for the occasional school, but the most reliable way is to improve the kids.
The parents demanding more, I suspect, has a very small effect.
Is this racist? Well, okay. Sometimes the truth works out that way.
"More likely, the new students will just make the school look better."
Given how "good school" is usually defined, pushing out the low end of the students and replacing them with high SES kids *does* make the school better.
What kgranju does *NOT* mention, but is probably concerned with, is that she doesn't want the current kids in that school to make up her child's peer group.
-Mark Roulo
"Urban schools will only get better if high SES white kids go there? If their parents demand more? Well, that's racist."
Comment #2.
The issue for the author seems to be SES, not race. The school is, in her words, "overwhelmingly white." So I think it is better to call her "elitist" rather than "racist." :-)
http://blogs.babble.com/babble-voices/home-work/2011/08/15/public-schools-in-gentrifying-hoods-who-wants-to-go-first/#comment-1656
-Mark Roulo
Whether is issue is SES, race or ethnic status, peer group matters.
This is the argument those championing socioeconomic integration use; apparently (I don't have the data link) low SES kids do better when schooled with higher-SES kids, as long as the percentage of disadvantaged kids is not too great (can't remember the specific fraction). Montgomery County, MD is very proud of its decades-old requirement that a certain percentage of any development has to be subsidized housing. Having seen the policy in action, I can say that it is not all rosy; negative attitudes and behaviors are also brought into suburban schools. The effect on the advantaged black and Hispanic kids can be especially significant; their lower-SES peers may see them as sellouts and pressure them to conform to urban cultural norms. I've known some (very unhappy) families who have had to send their kids to private schools to remove them from poisonous attitudes toward academic success and appropriate behavior.
My kids also had many Asian friends whose out-of-school accessibility was severely limited, both because of the required study time and of fear that too much contact with non-Asians (even the ones from their AP classes)would distract them from their academic mission.
I think it is more than the parents being white, educated and relatively well off. Though as Mark said, that helps make a school look a lot better when it comes to test scores.
It is what the parents bring with them. Their time, money and connections. This can make a big difference in terms of raising money for extra programs, field trips, corporate grants, etc.
My daughter goes to what used to be her neighborhood school (we moved and it is closer to go to her old school than the school that she is zoned for). It is one of the wealthier schools in the city, though still at about 40-50 % free/reduced lunch depending on the year. However the other 50-60% include many upper middle class professionals.
I don't think the demographics improve curriculum. I also don't think that the demographic hurt curriculum (almost everyone uses TERC or Everyday Math, not a lot of Core Knowledge type curriculum anywhere). However, I do see a difference in school culture and discipline compared to other, higher poverty schools. The average level of instruction is also higher and more comparable to suburban schools I have been in.
Each classroom has one or more head volunteers. There is an active and involved PTA. Parents bring in a meal for staff each day of conferences, and at other times throughout the year. PTA gives each teacher money for the classroom. PTA raises money for field trips.
In other schools, teachers have to do many things that parents do at my daughter's school. They spend their own money on supplies. They don't get meals provided during conferences.
My daughter's school has a very stable staff with experienced teachers. I would guess that this is because it is a relatively pleasant place to work. A teacher can work where they are supported while still feeling like they are helping out children with significant needs (this school serves many of the children of refugees in our area).
My observations and reading have led me to the conclusion that almost all schools, public and private, tend to use the same, flawed curricula, particularly at the ES-MS levels - like balanced literacy programs and spiral math curricula. At the upper end, more kids will learn in spite of weak programs and parents are likely to supplement, either on their own or using tutors, Kumon etc. Schools where these kids dominate have a better school climate and instruction can be at a higher level because the kids arrive with more intellectual capital. Level aside, I've never heard of a good school where constant disruptions and chaos were the norm. Avoiding that situation has been cited as one of the driving forces to charters; even if the kids' level is the same, the climate is much better.
I think the question is whether a few parents can transform an existing school and if so how many parents it takes. Then there is also the question of whether the increased resources these parents is enough of a benefit to focus on this as a strategy to improve schools.
I think it is extremely difficult if not impossible in schools were the existing school is extremely high poverty (probably a range of about 80-100% of students qualifying for free/reduced lunch). However in the middle range, I could see a few more involved families tipping the balance and improving school climate and resources. It is also easier to take a school from 60% free/reduced lunch down to 40% vs. 100% down to 40%.
However, it seems as though most resources are targeted at the highest poverty schools. The middle poverty schools are in a tough place. They don't have enough poverty (in a high poverty school district) to be title one schools. However, their families often aren't able to raise large amounts of money for schools and most parents work at jobs that aren't flexible (makes it harder for parents to volunteer).
I think curricular and disciple reforms probably have more promise overall in changing schools.
However, I think it is important to not forget the extra resources that higher income parents bring to schools.
"race" is a god-damned lie.
burn, baby, burn.
Just for context, Granju lives in Knoxville, TN, a city that is 80% white. While she refers to her neighborhood as "the inner city" it appears to be a leafy neighborhood near downtown. While they do have a homeless problem, the houses and yards are big and she has a creek in her backyard. It may be urban, but it isn't what a New Yorker or Oakland, CA resident means by "inner city."
I think the unstated concern is that her child will be in class with Baptists/Republicans/rednecks who may not even be planning on college, much less a college she'd find acceptable for her child.
'
What I find interesting is how not a single comment asked about curriculum, and how many said that since she valued education, her kid would be fine wherever they went. A few commenters did have their own experiences with performing well in weak districts only to find they weren't competitive in college, but that was it.
"While she refers to her neighborhood as "the inner city" it appears to be a leafy neighborhood near downtown. While they do have a homeless problem, the houses and yards are big and she has a creek in her backyard. It may be urban, but it isn't what a New Yorker or Oakland, CA resident means by "inner city.""
Oh my goodness. I was assuming it was the usual situation in a place like Washington, DC. That's totally different. Based on that description, I may be buying a house in "the inner city" myself soon.
Here's a link to a clearer description of the neighborhood, with pictures.
http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/homework/archive/2008/11/24/who-are-the-people-in-your-neighborhood.aspx
Thanks for the link with the photos. Looks like a lovely neighborhood, not at all what I was picturing when she went on about "inner city" and "gentrifying", yadda, yadda, yadda. I grew up in the Northeast and was thinking of some of the "gentrifying" neighborhoods that are truly half borderline-ghetto and half yuppie.
almost all schools, public and private, tend to use the same, flawed curricula, particularly at the ES-MS levels - like balanced literacy programs and spiral math curricula
I think Catholic schools are still using phonics -- or is that changing now, too?
When we looked at private/parochial high schools, we found that humanities & history often had teachers who held Ph.D.s in the subject (or who would be going back to grad school to earn a Ph.D.), while math departments had lots of M.Eds.
Steinberg found that peers were just about the only reason to send your child to a high-SES high school.
Peers are fantastically powerful in high school, much more powerful than parents at that point.
Chemprof, given that Granju's oldest son fell in with the wrong crowd and died of a combination of assault & drug overdose, she probably has a few more worries than Republicanism on her mind.
Yes, peers are so important that I keep wondering how I could go about engineering a peer group for each of my kids. The peers who had such an influence on me weren't the good students in our high SES school, but the small handful of extreme technophiles whose constant involvement with dangerous voltages, high-altitude experiments, volatile chemicals, ham radio, settling disputes via computer modeling, and so on, had little to do with our high SES school or its curriculum. It was just who we were and, for the most part, it wasn't who our parents or our high SES classmates were.
Putting my kids in the right school is not enough to engineer such a peer group. I don't know if it can be done deliberately, even here in Silicon Valley.
Glen- have you looked into the Tinkering School or the TechShop? My DS isn't yet old enough to participate, but I know those will be right up his alley when he's a 'tween.
Thanks, CW. I've never heard of Tinkering School (but now I'll have to check it out), but my boys can't wait until they're old enough to use TechShop. It's only 15-20 minutes away, and we're imagining using it for all sorts of amazing projects. Thanks for reminding me of it. It's probably too expensive to serve as a geek club house, but it could be a good place to meet other interesting kids. Thanks for another great suggestion. (Your previous suggestion of Vocabulary Workshop was right on.)
Yes, thanks CW! Mine are also too young, but I'm definitely starting to collect resources.
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