Imagine, we spend more than almost any school district in the state, have the worst student achievement in Pennsylvania and are near bankruptcy.
Read the recent Post-Gazette article "For at least 20 years, interlocking problems have plagued Wilkinsburg schools". Frankly, anyone who has lived in a rust-belt city in America knows this story.
However,there is one quote from the article that brings me to the point of this post.
The president of the teacher union and 37-year veteran of the district, Mike Evans is -- perhaps more than most -- acutely aware of the district's problems. His voice might sound raspy at first, but it fills with a deep sense of conviction for public education when asked about the district's future. He acknowledges that the number of programs are dwindling, that aides and support staff in classrooms have been furloughed and archery, tennis and swimming are no longer offered.
He'll tell you the tax base is eroding and that there is a perception that 1990s-era gang violence is still a problem. When he started, the schools were racially integrated. Now, about 95 percent of students are African-American and the vast majority are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. When asked why all of these things are true, he said it is because the state has failed in its responsibility to adequately fund districts like Wilkinsburg.
"Teaching in Wilkinsburg under the conditions the governor and the Legislature puts us in makes it extremely depressing," Mr. Evans said. "Pennsylvania doesn't seem to have a problem at all when they need to build a new prison. But when it's time to help children so maybe they won't wind up there, there isn't enough money."
The Board passed a 2013-14 budget for $28,000,000. There are 1,600 school age children in Wilkinsburg. 350 attend private or parochial schools. These students cost the district nothing. Another 250 students attend charter schools at a tuition rate of about $12,000 per student or $32,000 per special education student. This costs the district $3 million. That leaves a budget of $25 million for 1000 students or $25,000 per student. That is a higher per student cost than nearly every school in America.
Recent scandals pertaining to costly administrative retreats, hiring suspect consultants, hiring a superintendent that had been recently fired by another district all contribute to a community belief that the problem is not fixable. The past Board President and various other board members have been on the board for decades. It has gotten so bad, that at the 2012 high school graduation ceremonies, the valedictorian threw her prepared speech out and called out the district and the board stating the students have been provided with a "substandard education".
The problem with the Wilkinsburg schools is not hard to figure out, if one is willing to discuss the elephant in the room. For decades (from the 1930s through the 1960s) Wilkinsburg was a middle class, white, religious borough (it is called "the town of churches") that had quality schools. Frankly, it was not a welcoming place for blacks, Jews or poor people. In the 1960s when urban renewal downtown created a black migration from the Hill District, through East Liberty, Lincoln, Larimer and Homewood, residents in Wilkinsburg began to experience that classic American fear that their neighborhood would change, crime would go up, and the value of their houses would go down. Many residents began moving further east to Forest Hills, Penn Hills, Edgewood, Churchill, Monroeville and Murrysville. Instead of selling their homes after their parents passed away, many converted them to 3 apartment units, often Section 8 rentals. In an extremely short period of time, the district went from being all white and middle class, to mixed race and lower income. Many residents who stayed sent their children to private or parochial schools. A large number of students faked addresses in the city or Penn Hills to attend public schools outside of Wilkinsburg. Thus the Wilkinsburg schools were teaching a transient, poorer population that existing staff could not relate to.
From an educational perspective, school district personnel did not have a clue what to do. They continued to teach in a manner that ignored student deficiencies that were a result of growing up in poverty. They blamed the students and their families for the poor achievement. I don't blame the middle class white teachers for not having a clue as to how to succeed with a new demographic. Nothing in their education or life experience had prepared them to work with a more needy population. And school leadership did not have an idea as to how to succeed as well. 40 years later we are left with the shell of an educational program.
Sometimes our borough feels like a bombed out city must feel after a war.
Take a drive down Rebecca Ave. if you don't believe me.
So on the one hand Mike Evan's statement above makes sense. The veteran teacher and local union president is beaten and is not sure what to do. He externalizes his anger. He blames the state. It is not part of human nature to take a look inward and look for fault. Seldom does it occur to anyone that our Wilkinsburg youth can be educated and achieve at high levels given a safe, supportive and caring environment. It is too easy to blame their poverty than to seriously build a system designed to overcome it.
I would suggest that the schools are dead and our children have been abandoned. I would suggest the same is true for the borough itself. And yet we are spending $25,000 per student. I do not believe we can fix the existing Wilkinsburg schools - too much baggage, too many cynics, too little hope. I do believe that there are options the district could take. But we have to think outside of the box. I will talk about what I think we should do with our school system in my second Wilkinsburg post.
