Confronting Suburban Poverty in America
Elizabeth Kneebone, Alan Berube
As described above, Penn Hills was once a thriving, middle class suburb. In 1970 the school district served over 14,000 students: almost exclusively white with little or no poverty. In 2013 the school district served 3908 students: 60% African American and 60% Economically Disadvantaged. There are few, if any, examples of communities in America that have successfully managed such a dramatic change in demographics in such a short period of time.
Recent reports suggest that the Penn Hills School District, as a reflection of its changing community, is having great difficulty culturally and academically. And they are bankrupt.
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| Confronting Suburban Poverty in America Elizabeth Kneebone, Alan Berube |
As described above, Penn Hills was once a thriving, middle class suburb. In 1970 the school district served over 14,000 students: almost exclusively white with little or no poverty. In 2013 the school district served 3908 students: 60% African American and 60% Economically Disadvantaged. There are few, if any, examples of communities in America that have successfully managed such a dramatic change in demographics in such a short period of time.
Recent reports suggest that the Penn Hills School District, as a reflection of its changing community, is having great difficulty culturally and academically. And they are bankrupt.
Penn Hills schools making changes… Superintendent retiring, vice principal under fire (2010)
Toward the end of last school year, the Penn Hills School District was jolted by a series of incidents involving weapons in the schools—and Superintendent Joseph Carroll had to explain the district’s actions. As the end of this school year approaches, the district is laying off teachers, has suspended an assistant principal for a racial slur, and has to answer a federal lawsuit filed by a former student who, as a senior, was suspended last year—and again, Carroll is fielding complaints. (May 19, 2010, Pittsburgh Courier)
The project is being done as part of a total $140 million facilities upgrade that includes building an elementary center, furnishing the high school and upgrading athletic facilities.Designed by Architectural Innovations LLC in Ross, the two-story building features a 1,000-seat auditorium with state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems; skylights in the main corridors and automated drop-down gates that can be used to isolate parts of the building, said Dennis Russo, owner of Russo Construction. (Dec. 26, 2012, Tribune Review)Penn Hills School District's $18M plea for help a 'last resort' (2015)
Weapons, racial slurs, retirements, layoffs, lawsuits... a serious financial crisis and the suspension of the current business affairs director (as well as the superintendent.) All this while building a new high school (with drop down gates to isolate parts of the building), a new elementary school, upgraded athletic facilities....
This community, Penn Hills, has lost its way...
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| Penn Hills - US Census |
Here are the numbers for Penn Hills.
The racial makeup of the Municipality has changed significantly, from 12 percent nonwhite in 1980, to 16 percent nonwhite in 1990, and 26% nonwhite in 2000. Black persons make up over 90 percent of the nonwhite population. Numerically, the white population dropped from 50,791 persons to 43,180 and now 34,544 persons in the last two decades while the black population has increased from 6,485 persons to 7,946 persons and 11,190 in the same period. (Penn Hills Five Year Consolidated Plan, pg. 44, 2010)The 2010 Census showed a continued drop in the white population to 25,990 (61.4%) and a continued increase in the black population to 14,646 (34.6%).
This phenomenon of black families moving out of urban ghettos and relocating in ring suburbs, followed (or preceded) by white flight from those suburbs is well documented in Massey and Denton's seminal book, American Apartheid (Harvard University Press, 1993).
"The probabilities of white loss, however, suggest that whites still avoid areas that are threatened by significant black settlement. Although results we have published elsewhere suggest that the mere presence of blacks no longer incites flight by whites, the estimates in Table 3.5 reveal that whites are nonetheless highly cognizant of an area's location relative to the ghetto and are highly sensitive to the relative number of blacks that a neighborhood contains. Among neighborhoods located within five miles of an established black area, white population loss is extremely likely, and it becomes virtually certain as the percentage of blacks increases; this pattern holds for suburbs as well as for central cities." (American Apartheid, pg. 80)
Massey and Denton's research is particularly relevant to the over 50 year Pittsburgh migration of African American families from the Hill District starting in 1958 and continuing through the city in East Liberty, Homewood, Lincoln, Larimer and into the ring suburbs of Wilkinsburg and Penn Hills.
It should be noted that when African American families move into ring suburbs, they do not live in integrated neighborhoods.
The suburbs, which were nearly 90% white in 1980, have become much more racially and ethnically diverse. In fact suburbia is as diverse in 2010 as central cities were 30 years before. But suburban residents are divided by racial/ethnic boundaries. As is true in cities, blacks and Hispanics live in the least desirable neighborhoods, even when they can afford better. And their children attend the lowest performing schools. This is a familiar story in older central cities. Because moving to the suburbs was once believed to mean making it into the mainstream, these disparities are especially poignant, and they puncture the image of a post racial America. (Separate and Unequal in Suburbia, John R. Logan, Brown University, December 1, 2014)This certainly is true for Penn Hills. When a community, such as a small home rule suburb like Penn Hills, begins to integrate, it only appears integrated in the aggregate. It is actually segregated by neighborhood.
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| PENN HILLS Five Year Consolidated Plan - Map of Penn Hills, 2010 |
The most graphic effect of Penn Hills changing community demographic occurs in the public schools. The 2010 Penn Hills 5 Year Consolidated Plan paid cursory attention to the public schools. Here is what they said:
School Districts are an important consideration when families are seeking a new location. Penn Hills is its own school district and it currently has five elementary schools (K-5), one middle school (6-9), and one high school (10-12). The District is going through a transition and reorganization of its facilities. The district is in the process of seeking approval and design for the construction of a new high school. In addition, they plan to have one middle school (6-9) and one elementary school K-5. We are not aware of an official policy on racial balance, but several schools that were closed in the 1970's helped to achieve desegregation. Overall, the district has experienced a decline in the number of school-age children, which is a direct result of an aging municipal population and the decrease in family size. Despite the closing of several elementary schools and a declining enrollment, Penn Hills School District is still quite large and is considered better than good. The Penn Hills High School rates as an accredited high school by the Middle Atlantic States Evaluation. The high school no longer offers vocational programs. Students interested vocational education programs are bussed to Forbes Road Career and Technical Center in Monroeville for VO-tech programs, which serves nine local school districts.Unfortunately, the report's description of how the district was doing academically and attributing the decline in population to "an aging municipal population and a decline in the number of school-age children" is naive at best. No mention is made of the large number of families who have moved out of Penn Hills. Nor is attention paid to the large number of Penn Hills residents who are attending private or charter schools. And contrary to the report, student achievement in Penn Hills is quite low.
The graph below shows all the high schools in Allegheny County. The graph visualizes each high school's combined 2012 Math and Reading PSSA results versus the districts level of poverty. The first and most obvious conclusion from the graph is the direct correlation between academic achievement and socioeconomic status. Schools that serve poorer students have lower achievement (far right and bottom); schools that serve wealthier students have the highest achievement (far left and top.) The line of best fit drawn in the graph shows the average performance by poverty level. Those schools above the line of best fit are doing a better job than expected for their demographic. Those schools below the line of best fit are doing a worse job than others with a similar demographic.
Penn Hills High School is the second lowest achieving school (in terms of PSSA scores) in the county for schools with a poverty level between 40% and 65%. Note that two Pittsburgh Public Magnet Schools and one Pittsburgh Charter School with the same level of poverty are far above the mean (i.e. are achieving at high levels... almost eliminating the effect of poverty.)
Penn Hills School District's downward spiral (in terms of number of students and their achievement) started in 1980 and continues to the present time. Higher poverty and an influx of African-Americans presented a challenge for Penn Hills. The same could be said for Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg.
So what does a school district do when it begins to experience a dramatic change in their demographics... especially when that change is accompanied by a decrease in tax revenue and an increase in poverty levels? My experience in Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg suggests that school districts follow one of two courses of action.
I. Blame the Newcomers - the Poor, the African American Students and their Parents.
In this scenario, the belief/strategy is to externalize blame. "If we had students who were better prepared for school, our achievement results would be fine." A case study for this strategy is Wilkinsburg since the 1970's. Wilkinsburg's demographics changed at a faster pace than most urban districts. As per Massey and Denton, close proximity of African American families in East Liberty, Homewood, Lincoln and Larimar began to influence real estate decisions in Wilkinsburg. Thousands of homes were converted to rentals and Section 8 housing began to appear. The size of Wilkinsburg's graduating class shrank by a factor of 20 over 50 years (from close to 600 in the mid 1960's to 29 in 2015.) The culture shock that occurred during the 1970's and 80's was dramatic. And all anyone could talk about were the good old days when Wilkinsburg was white and thriving.
The teachers were at a loss as to what to do. School leadership at the building and board level were clueless as well. School staff lived in all white middle class suburbs far removed from the community. There was a complete disconnect between school staff and the public they served. No one knew how to handle the current fiscal situation, nor how to address the needs of the current student body. The teachers union was the strongest and most organized entity within the district. In lieu of any clear direction from the district, they hunkered down and protected their teachers in terms of working conditions, salaries and benefits. Academic achievement went from extremely high in the mid 1960s to the lowest in Allegheny County (where it remains today.)
The teachers were at a loss as to what to do. School leadership at the building and board level were clueless as well. School staff lived in all white middle class suburbs far removed from the community. There was a complete disconnect between school staff and the public they served. No one knew how to handle the current fiscal situation, nor how to address the needs of the current student body. The teachers union was the strongest and most organized entity within the district. In lieu of any clear direction from the district, they hunkered down and protected their teachers in terms of working conditions, salaries and benefits. Academic achievement went from extremely high in the mid 1960s to the lowest in Allegheny County (where it remains today.)
From a financial perspective, the effects were devastating as well. The tax base dropped, the property tax millage went through the roof and abandoned homes were the norm. From a public school perspective, this led to the current state of affairs with Wilkinsburg currently educating less than half of the youth in the community. This means that the per student expenditure is quite high, even though achievement is abysmal. This also means that over 50% of Wilkinsburg families take advantage of private or charter schools. The school district has become dysfunctional, antiquated and inflexible. Currently Wilkinsburg is considering whether to close the middle/high school, merge the district or pay other districts to educate their grade 7-12 students.
II. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
As the Pittsburgh School District went from 72,000 students in the early 1960's to 24,000 students in 2014, the district closed over 2/3 of its schools. Each time they closed schools, students were moved around, feeder patterns were adjusted and local communities lost their schools. School principals were transferred from school to school with little explanation. School leadership was consistently inconsistent.
During this contentious time, the District invested large sums of money in capital improvements - either retrofitting schools or building new ones. For example, the district closed Fifth Avenue HS, Gladstone HS and South Hills HS and consolidated the neighborhood populations in a single isolated high school - Brashear (1976.)
During the consolidation in the late 1990's, the district invested over $100 million renovating Carrick HS and Westinghouse HS and building a new CAPA HS. They went on to renovate Reizenstein (which was subsequently closed and sold) and Peabody (which was closed and then reopened with Schenley's IB program). In some sense the Board renovated or created new schools in order to make the closing of many neighborhood schools more palatable to the public.
In the recent past (2006), the district closed nearly all the Homewood elementary schools and built a single elementary for all Homewood students to attend - Pittsburgh Faison Elementary School. The bottom line is that school closings, consolidations and leadership changes cut the connections between communities and schools, setting families adrift and forcing children to fend for themselves.
Penn Hills has done the exact same thing. Note the articles at the beginning of this blog post. They have eliminated all the neighborhood elementary schools, consolidating into a single isolated large elementary school. They have made huge investments in a brand new high school (what are they going to doing the original high school?). They renovated their athletic facilities (note: athletic prowess has been a hallmark of the Penn Hills School District.) There has been a large turnover in building principals and superintendents. They are out of money and are petitioning the state to float an $18 million bond to pay for operating costs. And student achievement is consistently decreasing.
In both Pittsburgh and Penn Hills, it's as if they don't know what to do organizationally, educationally, culturally, or from a community perspective. They only know what they know... buildings, budgets and real estate. They don't know what to do about the humans. So they rearrange the deck chairs. They have buried their heads in the sand.There are a few communities in America that have chosen a third course of action. This course of action focuses on the needs of the community, the needs of the students and the needs of the educators. What does that look like?
III. Learning from the schools and communities who are succeeding with a similar demographic.
1. Take a Community Approach - Most people consider the local elementary, middle and/or high school to be a centerpiece of their community. Along with libraries, community centers, athletic organizations and churches/synagogues, these organizations provide communities with a common experience, a place that everyone is vested in and a tangible asset that represents the end result of each person's investment via their property and wage taxes. And since it involves the future of our children, it is close to our heart. Districts that are struggling due to loss of population, a changing of the demographics of the community and lower revenue are at risk of losing their local schools due to school district cutbacks. There is an argument to be made that it is important to keep schools in our communities and neighborhoods due to their role in community cohesion and a shared purpose.
"A community school is both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community resources. Its integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development and community engagement leads to improved student learning, stronger families and healthier communities. Community schools offer a personalized curriculum that emphasizes real-world learning and community problem-solving. Schools become centers of the community and are open to everyone – all day, every day, evenings and weekends."Community schools are a great idea, particularly when you are working with communities that are in transition, dealing with high unemployment, poverty and disenfranchised youth. The Great Public Schools - Pittsburgh Vision and Strategic Overview builds on a variety of best practices.
- Re-imagining Schools at the Center of Our Communities
- Rich, Culturally Relevant Curriculum and Programs
- Focus on Student Learning
- Early Childhood Education
- School Climate (Culture)
2. Take a Student Centered Approach - There are three schools in the graph above that are racially integrated, work with relatively low socioeconomic populations, yet are extremely high achieving - Pittsburgh Obama HS, Pittsburgh Sci-Tech HS and City Charter High School. Cynics will tell you that their success is based on their being schools of choice (2 are magnets and one is a charter school.) "By definition, if their parents have to sign the students up to attend, then you are getting a population that is more motivated to succeed." The same could be said for families that have moved out of the ghetto to a suburb like Penn Hills, although with very different results. It would be a mistake to not learn from these programs simply because they are schools of choice. Here are some of the commonalities between these three schools.
- All three have had solid consistent leadership.
- All three have a student centered supportive culture.
- All are small high schools (around 600 students) focused around a single theme:
- Obama - International Baccalaureate
- Sci-Tech - STEM Programming
- City High - Career Readiness
- All three have a talented faculty with little turnover.
- All three are racially balanced (integrated) with a poverty level between 50 and 70%.
- All three have built a school community and culture of support, success and accountability.
- And all three have student achievement data that almost eliminates traditional achievement gaps based on race or socioeconomic status.
Nationally, the Schools That Can program consists of over 100 inner city schools with over 60% poverty that achieve extraordinary results with populations similar to Wilkinsburg, Penn Hills and Pittsburgh. Schools that take a student centered approach find ways to meet the needs of all students in a caring, supportive and academically rigorous culture. Success for all is the only option. The biggest and most difficult challenge to creating a supportive and successful integrated school is changing the attitudes of the school staff and the students.
3. Take a Comprehensive Approach - The Harlem Children's Zone. The Harlem Children's Zone, the brainchild of Geoffrey Canada, combines the best of community schools and a student centered approach.
My point is this. We are destined to replay the sad story of Penn Hills over and over again if we choose not to confront, in a thoughtful way, issues of poverty, race and middle class flight. By and large, the America described in 1993 by Massey and Denton has continued to the present day. The leaders of urban school districts and ring suburbs continue to grapple with the devaluing of property, the breakdown of community assets and the slow destruction of our schools. Traditional elected officials and school leaders are ill equipped to understand these challenging issues or know where to turn for help. We are adrift in a new world that is decentralized, lacking focus and quite different from the one we grew up in. Local communities are on their own.
The citizens of Penn Hills are caring individuals that desire quality schools. They want their children to have a better life than they do. But there is little agreement as to how to succeed in a mixed race, mixed socioeconomic community makeup. I don't believe that "drop down gates" or metal detectors will solve Penn Hills problems. Acting out of fear... turning schools into simulated jails sends the message that we don't trust our students... that we don't know what to do. Only progressive, well researched, proven models of education can succeed. And a belief that everyone can be educated and succeed at high levels.
"The Harlem Children’s Zone® has always been driven by the belief that the success of our children and the strength of the community go hand in hand. Their needs are inseparable and must be addressed together in order to break the cycle of generational poverty and give our kids a real shot at the American dream.
Aimed at providing comprehensive, critical support to children and families and reweaving the very fabric of community life, the HCZ® Project began as a one-block pilot in the 1990s. With bold ambition, careful planning, and a strong infrastructure, we set out to address not just some, but all of the issues children and families were facing within a finite geographic area: crumbling apartments, rampant drug use, failing schools, violent crime, and chronic health problems.
Building on the success of this early initiative, we launched a 10-year strategic plan in 2000, steadily and systematically expanding the depth and breadth of our programming to encompass 24 blocks, then 60 blocks, and ultimately 97 blocks. Today, the Children’s Zone® serves more than 12,000 youth and nearly 9,500 adults and our organization as a whole serves over 13,700 youth and 13,200 adults.
With 70% of children in the Zone engaged in our pipeline of programs each year and thousands of youth well on their way to achieving the ultimate goal of college graduation, we have not only reached the tipping point, but also have become a national model and thought leader in the fields of education, youth and community development, and the fight against poverty." (Harlem Children's Zone, 2015)The HCZ model provides children and families with support from birth to graduate school. They have a proven Promise Academy K-12 Charter School network that is focused on meeting the needs of all students and success in college. This comprehensive community/student approach is costly, yet powerful. The level of effort and commitment to all students and their families is unprecedented. I'm not suggesting it as a model for change since the cost and effort is too high for most any community to bear. But it is a demonstration of the power of a community that is single minded in its belief that everyone can succeed.
My point is this. We are destined to replay the sad story of Penn Hills over and over again if we choose not to confront, in a thoughtful way, issues of poverty, race and middle class flight. By and large, the America described in 1993 by Massey and Denton has continued to the present day. The leaders of urban school districts and ring suburbs continue to grapple with the devaluing of property, the breakdown of community assets and the slow destruction of our schools. Traditional elected officials and school leaders are ill equipped to understand these challenging issues or know where to turn for help. We are adrift in a new world that is decentralized, lacking focus and quite different from the one we grew up in. Local communities are on their own.The citizens of Penn Hills are caring individuals that desire quality schools. They want their children to have a better life than they do. But there is little agreement as to how to succeed in a mixed race, mixed socioeconomic community makeup. I don't believe that "drop down gates" or metal detectors will solve Penn Hills problems. Acting out of fear... turning schools into simulated jails sends the message that we don't trust our students... that we don't know what to do. Only progressive, well researched, proven models of education can succeed. And a belief that everyone can be educated and succeed at high levels.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, it might have been. '
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