[lbo-talk] the petro-thusians/Schools

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Sep 23 14:04:01 PDT 2004


Justin:
> Y'all are missing THE key factor in suburbanization, I
> believe. Schools.
>
> I'm in the burbs (Evanston) because the Chicago Public
> Schools are terrible. Otherwise I'd been the city in a
> flash. This isn't a matter of racism -- we chose E'ton
> because it's more integrated than Chicago -- about
> 60w/40b, as opposed to 10w/90b&h -- and I don't think
> it is a matter of racism in most people's cases.
> Rather, they don't want to send their kids to schools
> that are even more underfunded than suburban schools
> and might be dangerous. Every single parent I know who
> moved from the city to burbs did so when they had a
> kid or when their kids reached school age.
>

Maybe, may be not. I sent my kid to a public high school in Baltimore which has arguably one of the worst school systems in the nation. The first school he attended, a regular "zoned" HS, was indeed terrible - they considered it a "success" is a day ended without any major act of violence. My kid lasted there for about 2 weeks, after which I transferred his to another public college prep HS called "Baltimore City College" http://baltimorecitycollege.org/.

The ethnic composition of BCC resembled that of Baltimore (65% Black) but academic standards were much better than most schools I know, including a suburban HS in PA my wife's kids attend.

As far as I know, Baltimore has two other public college prop high schools, one offering specialized curriculum in the sciences, and the other one in the arts. Yet, despite that, Baltimore keeps loosing population.

My suspicion is that schools are a mere excuse - a cover up for racism, xenophobia, cocoon-seeking behavior, etc. I am sure you, and perhaps a few others are an exception, but I do not think that is true of the majority.

PS. Local school funding is yet another idiocy of the American political system. From the economic point of view, local funding makes no economic sense. Education is the so-called public good i.e. one with substantial externalities, as graduates tend to leave the community in which they were educated- so the local education benefits the nation as a whole. That calls for federal funding, but that will not happen because various religious cooks, racists, xenophobes, and fiscal conservatives - in a word, populist fascism - will not let it. Yet it is the local school funding that is the main cause of poor conditions of urban schools.

Wojtek



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