Re: [UC] Whither West Philly's schools? (Was: Re: Penn's sadly myopic "Vision
of the Anointed") If they get kicked from one high school that considers them
hopeless to another, what can be the harm, other than a longer commute?
Kimm,
I think this is precisely what is happening with these new schools. I agree
with your belief about expectations. I'm a strong supporter for all public
schools to have funding to offer both "gifted" and accelerated possibilities
for students at all ages at all schools! But they must also have guidance
counselors and mental health interventions to give good opportunities and
really open pathways.
That is the way to allow the possibility for high achieving and gifted kids an
opportunity to rise up despite being surrounded by poverty. That funding can go
in to reforming all public schools. The funding gap is the root cause of low
expectations and our societal refusal to recognize that keeps the system
unreformed.
I think these new Penn/Drexel schools will cost Phila. a large share of public
school resources (hurting the other city kids) yet not serve the vast majority
of current local residents who will be kicked out to other schools.
Look at West's statistics:
"In 2006, University City High School notched an attendance rate of 71%.
In the 11th grade PSSA tests, 78% of 11th graders scored "Below Basic"
in Math and 58% were "Below Basic" in Reading. I have seen its
graduation rates published also, and they are nothing for the people of
Philadelphia to cling to either."
If these problems are not addressed within the primary schools in the catchment
area for UC High, the vast majority of kids won't be admitted to smaller high
schools with rigorous entrance requirements. It's not low expectations about
the kids but unfair expectations about preparation, which can be very damaging.
The few high achievers about to enter UC High can apply to any magnet school
currently and probably do! I want school reform and none of this makes any
sense!
We really are talking about donating a building and funds for a school designed
to support the Penn/Drexel master redevelopment plan for real estate and it's
being cloaked as school reform.
I want good schools for all kids. I, a childless adult, am quite willing to pay
taxes for a good education for all kids and I want corporations and rich folks
to pay a fair share as well.
These Penn/Drexel schools will continue to allow a separation in the
educational standards and outcomes. I think it becomes easy for politically
powerful neighborhoods to forget about the education of all. Schools were a
principal motivator for people with resources moving to suburbs for decades.
That is what the developers know and that is why this is proposed.
This new urban renewal doesn't want reform. It wants to move rich folks into
small areas concentrating resources and poor ones out, not improve the
communities as a whole. I don't see gentrification as separate from the lack of
parity in school funding. It is the same ideology.
It's not the people sometimes poorly wording a recognition of the achievement
gap and barriers to poor kids that don't want the best for all kids. Those that
pretend, that this separation of rich and poor kids and unequal resources is
charity, are the one's wishing to maintain the unfair system.
Look at the normal technique coming out to silence dissent to the Penn agenda;
West writes:
"I bet West Philadelphian Blacks will
resoundingly reject the argument their children should avoid learning
about the world, solely because some people want them to live in a
ghetto and know nothing else."
Is this really the way the local people reported at the forum think about
themselves? Is this why they are opposing the design? Who the hell said
anything like West is claiming? Or is this another straw man meant to attack
the character of those not swallowing the Penn/Drexel agenda? In fact, I
believe that this is a very ugly straw man.
Glenn
----- Original Message -----
From: Kimm Tynan
To: Anthony West ; UnivCity listserv
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 10:50 PM
Subject: Re: [UC] Whither West Philly's schools? (Was: Re: Penn's sadly
myopic "Vision of the Anointed")
Low expectations are crucial to any explanation of the poor academic and
economic performance of urban Black kids in this generation.There is no
proven medicine for this -- no one set of "high expectations" that will
fill all these youths' problems and set them on their way. Clearly,
though, naysayers who keep drumming in that Black kids can't possibly
comprehend International Relations, are no friends to Black kids. Global
trade and international social contacts are the certain anchors of the
world they will grow old and die in. Why not teach them to be tomorrow's
winners instead of yesterday's losers?
I'm a big believer that kids - even desperately poor, disadvantaged,
inner-city kids - will rise to the expectations set for them, and I believe it
because there is really powerful evidence to support the theory. And I believe
that, next to the criminal underfunding of urban public schools, criminally low
expectations of the kids in those schools by the systems are the two biggest
reasons for the failure of kids in urban schools. This teacher has already
decided these kids won't get Ph.Ds. I'm all for recognizing that not every
person is academically inclined, and therefore there should be nonacademic
options like trade schools and art schools for kids, and I think nonacademic
work like precision manufacturing or cooking or policing or providing
high-quality child care or dance should be respected and valued as much as
sitting in an ivory tower scratching your butt contemplating the meaning of
life. But this teacher is basically condemning every kid in UC's catchment to
making babies and changing oil. And I think that that is the very attitude
that is dooming these kids. And that is at least as bad if not worse than any
Penn/Drexel/fill-in-the blank-driven gentrification. If they get kicked from
one high school that considers them hopeless to another, what can be the harm,
other than a longer commute?
Sorry. I was biting my tongue. ;-) You provoked me, dammit, Tony. :-)
Kimm
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