Pretty straight summary of the issues, Karen. A few side notes, though.
While most of Penn's staff aren't poor, for every truly wealthy Wharton
prof Penn has probably 10 employees in support positions. Typically,
their pay isn't that great; the compensation is more in bennies. A lot
of grad students and entry-level professors and other staffers aren't
getting paid that much ... exactly when they're at family-starting age.
Used to be, these families might stick in University City until their
kids turned five; then they'd move to the suburbs if they couldn't
afford private school. This wasn't healthy for Penn and it wasn't
healthy for the neighborhood, either, to have a constant exodus of
middle-class young families. It didn't make for a normal community.
We shouldn't take for granted that if a parent wants anything beyond
physical survival for their elementary-school kid, they must pony up
independent-school tuition. In most other university neighborhoods
around the country, that's not a choice young academics are forced to make.
Also, it's not clear that PAS is "causing gentrification". Makes
intuitive sense ... except that the same degree of housing-price rise is
going on in most other "inner ring" neighborhoods that are equidistant
from Center City -- yet they have no Penn and no PAS to blame. So if
housing values were going to soar anyway, which is better -- high prices
and a good free neighborhood school, or high prices and no good free
neighborhood school?
The new Penn-assisted HS will give preference to its feeder schools but
it will not draw only from them. Not all their kids will want to attend
and a special-themed high school has to cast a wider net anyway.
If Penn can improve the educations of disadvantaged children, its chief
labs are now at Wilson and Lea Schools, where gentrification hasn't
budged pupil demographics yet.
Finally -- since the poor need more middle-class people to live in the
city, to provide a tax base for the services poor people need -- there's
no way around the fact middle-class families will not settle in
jurisdictions that offer no attractive education for their young. The
only way the City can get more long-term middle-class revenue is by
creating more middle-class public schooling options. Disadvantaged kids
need non-disadvantaged kids in their system with them.
If the inner city can figure out how to do this, we just might start
kicking the suburbs' butts for the next 50 years, like they've kicked
ours for the last 50 years.
-- Tony West
KAREN ALLEN wrote:
> Don't you think that Penn is mainly interested in getting free
schooling for their professors and well paid staff in the neighborhood
who normally would send their children to private school?
> Sharon
Yes.
And also to make Penn's graduate education program more competitive by
offering its own student teachers internships in a highly acclaimed
"urban" elementary school [Penn Alexander], populated by a
well-behaved, highly motivated, upper middle class student body. If
UC High becomes a Penn partnership school, then Penn can offer its
grad students teaching opportunities in a similar "urban" high school,
and Penn Alexander grads will have a top-notch neighborhood high school.
Although Penn's website mentions working with Philadelphia public
schools other than Penn Alexander, having what amounts to its own
elementary and high school gives Penn's Graduate School of Education
(GSE) its own "lab". This arrangement accomplishes two goals
simultaneously: both the GSE student teachers and the Penn Alexander
students receive a stellar education. And the GSE has the advantage
of not having to waste precious educational time dealing with the
social ills that other public schools have do deal with.
The existance of Penn Alexander is causing its catchment
area to undergo gentrification, and that would be increased if UC High
became "Penn-Assisted High". Penn employees and young people with
children will want to send their children to a top-notch public
school, and will move to the catchment areas, in turn creating a more
upscale neighborhood, in turn reversing the public perception of the
neighborhood being dangerous, in turn making it easier for Penn to
market the University. Rising property values would eventually force
those deemed undesirable out of the area.
While Penn is saying that 70% of a new UC High's students would come
from the neighborhood, the gentrification that Penn-Assisted High
would very likely cause would mean that the "neighborhood"
would probably not consist of the same people who live there now.
Having top-notch public schools is the obvious ideal, and if Penn
Alexander and possibly UC High are such schools, that is wonderful.
But these schools have to exist across the board, not just in select
neighborhoods for select demographics. The key is creating Penn
Alexanders in all of the city neighborhoods.
Motivated, advantaged kids are going to do well in any event, because
their parents have the ability and resources to see that they do. The
really hard job is in creating strategies that will reach
disadvantaged kids and their families and in doing whatever it takes
to make sure that those kids can also take full advantage of the
opportunities those schools present. THAT would be world-changing!
Penn, are you up to THAT job?
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