People don't understand that it isn't the schools or the teachers that...

[WCGreen]

are causing the problems in large metro area such as Kansas City and Cleveland...

It is the flight to the Suburbs which, in and of itself, is the last tangible result of the highway system and therefore, the denuding of vast tracks of urban residential areas. These highways that criss crossed willy nilly throughout the cities destroyed the natural flow of neighborhoods so that all that was left was to move. Parishes were destroyed, schools were cut off from their student base, shopping areas were isolated from their customers...

All of it pushed even more people to the burbs.

What was left; the poor and the racial minorities. And since these are the groups in our society with the least amount of political power, they were forced to deal with the after effects of white flight and destroyed urban living patterns.

So yea, lets blame the teachers and the parents left in the urban areas for 50 years of suburbanization. It's the white thing to do...

On edit. This doesn't mean that the people left are absolved for what they do to perpetuate the situation, it just goes to point out that the cards they were left to deal with were and continue to be stacked against them...



I posted this in another thread and though that it might stand as a thread on it's own...

[rfranklin]

1. There's always a racial subtext to the attacks on public schools...

And so many of these "charter schools" are just a way to evade the problems by excluding certain types of people.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. The powers that be were going to put a freeway right through

the neighborhood that I grew up in.

My parents and many others organized a huge group to fight it, and they won. The freeway went someplace else.

Our neighborhood stayed intact, with its schools and shopping centers too.

But ours was an upper-middle class neighborhood. Poorer areas are disadvantaged when it comes to this sort of thing. They don't have the tools or the know-how to know how to proceed. Often they are renters too, so their stakes in this sort of thing are fewer.

[LWolf]

3. +1

[anonymous171]

4. NO! It's because those dirty poor people do not respect education enough!

:sarcasm:

[Mike 03]

5. You have written a very interesting but complex post. My family moved from the inner city to

the burbs, in a sense. When I was in fifth grade, my family moved from a largely black neighborhood in New Jersey to a sort of "enclave" in Northern California, and it was jarring to say the least, but... The quality of education I got was WORSE, not BETTER from what I received at that wonderful public school in New Jersey.

So, just making these remarks to see if anyone else had the same experience, of having a much better urban education than more expensive suburban education.

EDIT:

Kick and Rec, and I cried like a sonofabitch when my parents told me we were leaving urban New Jersey for suburban California.

[FarCenter]

6. It is unclear whether there ever was a glorious past of urban education

Were the schools of white urban slums in the first half of the 20th Century any better than the urban schools of today? The schools were probably highly variable in quality, with public schools in upper socioeconomic neighborhoods much better than those in the poor areas. Of course, in some neighborhoods, parochial schools provided better education under the stern discipline of the nuns and brothers.

The populating of the suburbs was from two directions: white flight from the core cities and migration from the rural and small town areas.

Prior to WW II, a large percentage of the population lived on farms and in small towns. This is no longer true, and that part of the population migrated to the suburbs as farms became much larger and many small towns stagnated or shrank. The suburbs offered this population a life style that sort of approximated the small town but still allowed them to commute to jobs in the city.

Lastly, poor families aren't necessarily unstable, and poor families in many cases place a high value on education. The disregard for education and the lack of child-rearing skills on the part of parents is more related to culture than to income.

[WCGreen]

9. Look at all the intellectuals and fine minds that came out of the

schools of New York. The newest Justice of the Supreme Court is a good example to start with...

[FarCenter]

10. Sonia Sotomayor is a product of the New York parochial school system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor

"For grammar school, Sotomayor attended the parochial Blessed Sacrament School in Soundview,<25> where she was valedictorian and had a near-perfect attendance record. ... Sotomayor passed the entrance tests for, then commuted to, the academically rigorous parochial Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx."

[WCGreen]

12. I was under the impression that she was a product of the public system...

I apologies for not double checking before posting.

But the whole intellectual movement of the 50's and 60's was spawned in urban school systems. It was the middle class that pushed hard for excellence on the part of their children that kept the schools on guard. With the middle class suddenly moving to the burbs, well, that just goes to my original point.

Here in Cleveland, St. Ignatius High school is smack in the middle of an urban area that has been in slow decline for decades. It is an excellent school and draws students from the suburbs because of its strive to prepare their students to be the best. It also reaches out to those around and has a lot of slots open for the kids in the neighborhood.

[FarCenter]

25. Not sure about Cleveland, but New York was a patchwork of ethnic neighborhoods

The quality of public school education in the neighborhood schools would have depended on the ethnic group's emphasis on education and on whether they focused that emphasis on public versus parochial education.

Plus, New York had, and still has, quite a number of high schools that students apply to and are admitted to based on merit. For example, the Bronx High School of Science. http://www.usnews.com/listings/high-schools/new_york/bronx_high_school_of_science
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronx_High_School_of_Science lists 7 Nobel prize winners and 7 Pulitzer prize winners among its graduates.

Many of the more illustrious products of the New York public school system came from these selective schools.

[patrice]

7. It would help if everyone would be honest about how we enslave one another,

because we do.

[county worker]

8. There is well known idea that cities have rings. The center gets old and decays

The next ring out is the next to decay and so on. People who can, move to the outer rings. Only the poor remain in the center. People move to the outer most ring, the suburbs. Then there is urban renewal. The poor are moved out to the next decaying ring, while the center is torn down and rebuilt or old buildings are remodeled.
Then there is movement back to the center by those who can afford to.

This cycle goes on and on. The blight moves to the next outer ring while the ring next to the center is rebuilt. Nothing new.

[WCGreen]

11. That is a relatively new phenomenon.

in prior times, the elite forced the poorer to the rings...

the highway system destroyed urban patterns that had, in many cases, been in place for centuries.

[county worker]

17. I don't think so. The highways were built to connect the cities to the suburbs.

You are wrong but it sounds good.

Iron Law of Urban Decay = Even successful cities will eventually decline. As suburbs
mature, incomes rise, workers move to suburbia – middle class flee – resist paying taxes
to support the metro core – increases decline deterioration.
· Poverty concentrates those left behind – they become disconnected from role models
and labor markets… Darker, poorer people become trapped, are deprived opportunity
and become isolated from their “neighbors.”
· Wealthy take refuge in luxury urban high- rises, cloistered condos and communities
that deliberately exclude racial diversity.

American public policy has a long-standing bias
against cities and favors suburbs.
· Biased government policies – tax code, economic development programs, government
purchasing, housing policies – subsidies spend trillions on roads, while neglecting
urban infrastructure and mass transit development. è Nor do we require non-metro
regions to pay costs of maintaining the poor and disposed left behind by biased
policies that favor the suburbs.

[WCGreen]

27. You have got to be kidding me...

Sure inner ring suburbs may have developed on their own but the outer ring suburbs would never have developed without highway access to the cities they surround.

Beside that, the highways displaced about 10-15% of the people when the highway systems dissected the cities.

The suburban and exurban developments were made viable because of the highway system.

[county worker]

40. Which came first the chicken or the egg?

Roads and highways are built because of a need by the area not the other way around. New communities spring up along the highway but the first reason to build it was to link communities that already existed. Railroads were the first to link them then when the internal combustion engine was developed railroads were replaced by highways. The first big highways were the interstate freeways build by Eisenhower for national defense in 1952. Then others followed but the communities they linked were there first.


By the way, I am 63 yrs old and I studied this in high school civics class in 1964.

[Arugula Latte]

21. Many cities have bucked this pattern.

I live in Portland, Ore. Housing within city limits tends to be expensive and there is cheaper housing available in the suburbs (many exceptions, of course.) The city is not decaying thanks to foresight from people decades ago who invested in keeping it vibrant.

[FarCenter]

26. Cities fare better when the people who own the major businesses live in the city

One of the other factors since WW II is that the owners of most business are no longer residents of the city, or even the metro area.

They have moved to various global neighborhoods of the rich and famous and delegated the running of the business to local managers. Air travel and telecommunications makes it easy for them to keep tabs on the businesses through their investment bankers.

[jsmithsen]

13. Property Taxes

Schools are supported by property taxes. Districts with higher property values have better schools. Tiny suburbs are created for this very purpose. People complain about "big government" and the taxes this requires. In the case of local property taxes this is largely what they have demanded. Big government is the aggregation of many tiny governments.

[anonymous171]

15. THIS. More evidence of class inequalities in our education system. nt

[FarCenter]

20. Alocating state aid preferentially to urban schools just results in very expensive, very bad schools

"sbury Park once again topped the list of highest-spending school districts in Monmouth and Ocean counties for the 2008-09 year, with a per-pupil cost of $24,428, more than $10,000 higher than the average $13,601 for K-12 districts around the state."

http://www.app.com/article/20100209/NEWS03/2090320/Asbury-has-top-per-pupil-spending

However, Asbury Park is the second worst performing school in the state of New Jersey.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. Kids who come to school unprepared to learn are more expensive to teach

It's lots less expensive to teach kids from middle and upper income homes who know a bit about culture, have parents who value education and a wealth of experience before they come to kindergarten.

[Happy Hippy]

14. Hmmmm. I dunno Willis.

Little Johnny can't pass basic math so therefore it is the fault of the highways? Where the hell has accountability gone in this nation?

[WCGreen]

18. Well, Mr. Drummond, if you would have read and taken in the

whole thread instead of focusing on one part of the post you would notice that I do mention accountability as part of the problem.

I tell you what. Let's plop you or your children into the Hough area of Cleveland and go on over to the schools in the area and let's just see how well you or your children do...

[Happy Hippy]

28. Why wouldn't they do well?

Are children of the poor somehow unable to learn? Is this what you are getting at? Unlike a lot of people, I would be involved in my child's education - I wouldn't expect the teachers to raise and single-handedly educate my child. If your saying that these schools are full of gangs and violence then that is another thing all together.

[WCGreen]

31. good for you....

extrapolate your personal experience to the whole human race, Bravo,

[Happy Hippy]

32. Yes.

How dare I suggest other people be accountable for their child's academic success. Do you not agree with that? Do you think education should stop when a child leaves school for the day? Should education of our youth be solely the responsibility of our teachers? I consider myself an ally of the teachers.

I grew up dirt poor, but you better believe my mother did everything in her power to see that I not only received an education, but got the most out of it.

Shame on me! How dare I expect accountability in parents! :sarcasm:

[Igel]

36. No.

But they lack opportunity and exposure. So, all other things being equal, they start school at a disadvantage in knowledge and ability and goals, don't progress during the school year as quickly, and during the summer tend to backslide instead of progress.

"I would be involved in my child's education" goes a long way. How you'd be involved would matter a lot.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. That is part of the answer (property taxes)

but not the full answer.

There are some suburban districts that have much worst education than inner cities.

If you are in a state where education is valued (see per pupil spending for an idea of this) you will fare much better than if you are in one that does not. And it does not matter where you are.

[harkadog]

19. If that were true DC would have the best schools.

http://www.epodunk.com/top10/per_pupil/index.html But they have among the nation's worst.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Does DC truly value education?

Or just education for some members of the city?

By the way this is why I said it is PART of the answer... not the full answer.

Tax rates,

Local attitudes

and other factors play a role in this.

[harkadog]

34. What are you saying?

That DC does not value education? Why do they spend so much on it if that is true? What is the meaning of "some members of the city"? Are most of the city's schools being starved for money and just an elite few get it? Why would the people allow such a situation?

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. I will give you an example from my city

San Diego Unified spends x ammount per student, but the kids at La Jolla High get far more resources than the kids in South East San Diego.

And yes, the people allow that to happen.

And yes that is the SAME school district.

It happens...

[harkadog]

39. Well the demographics of the DC public schools are not the same as San Diego.

There are no "elite" public schools in the DC system. Yet they are number 1 in the country for pupil spending.

[Mithreal]

22. Excellent contribution.

[AngryOldDem]

24. In Dayton, OH, it was forced desegregation that killed the schools.

It began in earnest in 1975, but the flight to the 'burbs began in the early 1970s, when it became clear that the courts were going to force Dayton to break up its neighborhood school districts in favor of cross-town busing. It killed the sense of community and strong connection to their schools that many people had -- black and white, on either side of town -- and led to the general, eventual disintegration of Dayton's inner core.

It wasn't as bad as Boston at that time, but an federally appointed overseer of the program was shot and killed in his office shortly after the '75-'76 school year began, and an ultra-conservative (read: racist) talk station was always fanning the flames, almost as soon as the rumors started that the feds were looking to desegregate. I am amazed things didn't get worse, but I credit teachers and administrators for keeping the peace. It was a very ugly period. My folks wanted to move but could not afford to; I missed being bused by one year.

Many things have played into Dayton's demise, but forced desegregation kick-started it all. Highways -- at least in this case -- had nothing to do with it.

[Happy Hippy]

30. To add:

DC public schools spend nearly more than anyone else in the country on education - yet they are still a crap hole. Why is that? Everyone says that when the white folks leave, then so does all the money. Yet, these large cities often lead the country in spending per pupil and the school districts are often the worst.

Why? Oh, it's because of the highways - that's logical. :sarcasm:

[democrat2thecore]

33. Excuse me??????

"It's the white thing to do..."

Explicit racism is wrong. Period. Turn that around and make a crack and stereotyping all black Americans and see how fast you would be banned. Shame on you. Can't we get past this kind of thing?

[WCGreen]

35. I just didn't want to say White Flight one more time...

[Igel]

37. There were crappy schools before "white flight."

Many of them were occupied by whites.

What you're noticing is a combination of two things. First, with the children of prosperous, educated and educable parents gone, those left were educationally disadvantaged. You can find correlations with race, but much larger ones with income. In other words, the urban schools became a bit less heterogenous in educational achievement. In other words, the geography of underperforming schools became more obvious. Second, with the higher achieving kids gone the lower achieving kids remained. It became more obvious that some groups were underachieving; some schools went from performing well to performing badly.

It's convenient to blame the problem on money. The amount of money spent on a school correlates fairly well with educational outcomes for very low levels of funding. Above that the correlation becomes smaller and smaller. It's like subsidized food: If a kid's hungry, feed him; but after a rather early cutoff point any remaining problem isn't hunger-related.