Wake Up Pittsburgh - The Impact on our Neighborhoods

This is the second post pertaining to the Pittsburgh Public School reforms from 2006 - 2016.  I recommend reading the Wake Up Pittsburgh - Ten Years of School Reform first. It reviews 10 years of reforms started in 2006 by Superintendent Mark Roosevelt and ends with the 2017 Council of Great City Schools Report to the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

This second post discusses the impact on three local neighborhoods as a result of the school reforms - specifically the "right-sizing" of the district that occurred in 2006. 

Now let's move on to the second Post-Gazette article and finish the story. 

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Post Gazette Story II - February 21, 2017

The February P-G story I read pertained to the Environmental Charter School (ECS) and its application to expand in Pittsburgh.

Since it's initial Pittsburgh approval in 2008, the Environmental Charter School has had a huge waiting list. Annually there are over 300 students vying to enroll in their Kindergarten. With this type of demand, and the success they achieved, ECS considered opening another K-8 school and a high school for their graduates to attend. In 2014 the Environmental Charter School applied to the Pittsburgh Public Schools to expand accordingly. Their charter expansion was denied by PPS. "The board motion to deny stated the request failed to provide 'sufficient information'."

ECS reapplied with the additional information requested about its program in 2015 and was again denied by the District.

In 2016, ECS appealed the ruling to the Pennsylvania Charter School Appeal Board. In January, 2017 the appeal board approved the plan on a 5 to 1 vote.

Immediately upon approval, the District's solicitor, Ira Weiss, announced that he will file an appeal with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

"Mr. Weiss said the district believes Environmental Charter’s demographics aren’t representative of the city school system as a whole, and that its expansions don’t have the environmental link with Frick Park."

Here is what the District is referring to regarding demographics. Note the difference between the K-8 PPS average and ECS in the categories of White, AA and Low SES.

By referring to the difference in demographics the District is opening a can of worms. 

First, the demographics of a charter school is not a criteria for denying a charter (PA Charter School Law). 

Second, as long as ECS follows state guidelines pertaining to admissions, there should not be a problem. Does the District have a problem with their admissions procedures? Mention was made of the sibling preference rule that applies at many charters, but frankly, that rule was first used in District magnets schools. The rule exists for the convenience of the parents and the family. 

Arguing about demographics suggests that the District believes there is a basic "lack of fairness" in the state law. I'm guessing that they believe that allowing school choice via charters creates a sort of "private school" scenario.

Of course, the Solicitor and the District know that the charter school law does not allow private school exclusivity (through high tuition rates, entrance requirements or expelling students who don't conform to the academic or behavioral standards.)

The Environmental Charter School, for that matter all Pennsylvania charter schools, must have a process of application and acceptance that is fair, non-biased, and uses a lottery to ensure openness to all students. No one can be denied admission. Here is the ECS Student Application Process if you'd like to review it. It is not against the law to have a different demographic than the district as a whole. In fact, many individual schools in PPS are different demographically from the district as a whole (e.g. Pittsburgh Westinghouse 6-12 which is 97% AA.)

The Solicitor and the District are also arguing that the ECS expansions "don't have the environmental link with Frick Park." This is a simple minded and foolish argument if you look into the facts. The proposed ECS K-8 expansion would be at Fort Pitt Elementary School in Garfield (4 miles away from Frick Park). The High School expansion would be at the Letsche School in the Hill District (6 miles away). Does the District really expect a link to Frick Park? The new schools would use the natural resources near their location to envision the environmental aspects of the curriculum. This is a city of hills, creek beds, rivers, parks and more greenery than most cities in the world. Is there no "natural environment" in Garfield or the Hill District?

The District is simply being difficult. Their objection that the Environmental Charter School has too many white students and not enough poor students is embarrassing. Both expansion schools would be opening in buildings that were shut down by the District. The K-8 school would draw from a Garfield neighborhood that is mainly African American with high levels of poverty. The high school would draw from the greater Pittsburgh population and would mirror the District demographics because the high school is centrally located on the edge of Downtown (much like City Charter High School).

The District acts like they don't understand the politics of race in this city. Yet they are playing it with their charter schools. Let's remember that it was the Pittsburgh Public Schools that decided to segregate their school district when they began to eliminate magnets and move to neighborhood K-8 schools.

The District argument is not about demographics, race or where the park is. The District simply is not interested in approving any new charter schools. It doesn't want the competition. It doesn't want the drain on their budget. It doesn't want charters. So they put the lawyers to work.

We will have to wait and see if the District gets their day in court, or whether the new Environmental Charter K-8 and High School are allowed to open.

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Two stories about the Pittsburgh Public Schools appearing one month apart.  One pertaining to a Council of Great City School report that reviews the current status of the Pittsburgh Public Schools. The other about a Pittsburgh charter school attempting to expand and the District's fight to deny the expansion.

Why would I juxtapose these two stories in this two part blog post?

The 2016 CGCS report describes a school district that has lost its way. I very much believe that Mark Roosevelt and Linda Lane wanted to make the Pittsburgh Public Schools great. I understand the thinking behind these initiatives. But this was a lot of change for a parochial, neighborhood-based city. The changes were top down. They were paternalistic. The Superintendent and the Board felt they knew what was best, and the parents, the families, the students and the staff were expected to go along... quietly.

I believe the closing of Schenley High School was the straw that broke the camel's back. The parents did not go quietly. One way families responded was to withdraw their children from District schools. One out of five students left district schools since the reforms began in 2006. That is a damning statistic.

My conversations with District teachers, board members, parents and supporters of traditional public education have generated many beliefs about why the District is doing so poorly. Supporters of traditional public education:

• blame the state government for their problems because of decreased funding (even though the CGCS report states there is plenty of funding on hand that is underutilized);
• blame the federal government because they hated No Child Left Behind and its abusive testing;
• blame the charter schools because they take funding from the school district and suggest they are similar to "private schools".
• blame the Union and the Teachers; 
• blame the School Board and the Administrators. 

Fingers point everywhere.

Something significant happened during the timeframe in question (2006 - 2016) in the Pittsburgh Public Schools that no one wants to talk about. I would suggest that the stakeholders would rather place blame on external sources then do the research and connect the dots.

During the same timeframe that Mr. Roosevelt and Dr. Lane "reformed" Pittsburgh education, closed 22 neighborhood schools and displaced 6000 students, three charter schools opened in Pittsburgh - the Environmental Charter K-8, Propel Hazelwood K-8 and Propel Northside K-8. Why did these charter schools open up? And why did they open up in those particular neighborhoods?

During the same timeframe that the District closed 22 schools and displaced 6000 students, nearly every private school in Pittsburgh expanded their capacity - Ellis, Winchester, Oakland Catholic, Central Catholic, the Neighborhood Academy, Imani Christian Academy and Pittsburgh Urban Christian School. Was this a coincidence? Why were they expanding at this place and time? And who were the students that filled this new capacity?

Let's look at three neighborhood case studies during this time period, to try and answer these questions and connect the dots.

Regent Square and the Environmental Charter School

I have already blogged on the Regent Square story in depth.  Have a read and you will learn about what occurred in terms of schools in that community. Let's take a quick look specifically from 2006 to 2016.

The neighborhoods east of Squirrel Hill in the city are Swisshelm Park, Point Breeze, Regent Square, Homewood South and East Hills. Let's look at how schools in that community were effected by the reforms of 2006 - 2016. Note: the racial and socio-economic demographics are significant to this discussion.

• Park Place is a small community north of Regent Square and bordering Point Breeze. This area is mixed race, similar to the Environmental Charter School demographic. PPS closed Park Place Elementary School in 1974. 
• Swisshelm Park is a small secluded community that is almost entirely white and working class. PPS closed Swisshelm Park Elementary School pre-2006.
• Regent Square is a small community (that includes Pittsburgh, Swissvale, Edgewood and Wilkinsburg). The Pittsburgh portion of Regent Square is almost entirely white middle class. PPS closed Regent Square Elementary School in 2004. 
• East Hills is dominated by a low income housing development at the far east border of the city. Students from East Hills either were bused to Regent Square or Crescent Elementary School (Homewood) or attended East Hill Elementary School. East Hills Elementary School was a foreign language magnet that was racially balanced. PPS closed East Hills Elementary School in 2006. It also closed Crescent Elementary School as a neighborhood school and converted it to be part of the consolidated Helen Faison K-8 school.  

Are you getting the picture? The district left these communities high and dry. Currently, students who live in Swisshelm Park, Regent Square, Park Place or East Hills, are bused from 3 to 5 miles outside of their community to attend schools in either Homewood or Squirrel Hill. Once the district closed these community schools, they sold them to developers or community organizations. You can guess what happened. Charter or private schools opened up in them. 

The Environmental Charter School opened initially in Regent Square Elementary School (purchased from the District) and than expanded to Park Place School (purchased from a developer). The Imani Christian Academy (private school) bought East Hills Elementary School from the District.  

The Pittsburgh Public Schools will tell you that there were not enough students to sustain these neighborhood schools. Yet now they have reopened as charters or private schools and have waiting lists. They are filling up with the students from the neighborhoods around the schools. The District, through their Solicitor, argues that the Environmental Charter School demographics don't match the District's demographics. He is correct. They match the demographics of the communities they are located in. Does this surprise you?

Hazelwood and the Propel-Hazelwood Charter School

Hazelwood is a remote community on the Monongahela river. It was a classic steel town that was home to the Jones and Laughlin Steel plant.  Since 1980 Hazelwood has seen hard times. Most of the population is poor, unemployed and elderly. It is a mixed race low income community.  

Hazelwood had two Pittsburgh Public Schools - Burgwin Elementary School and Gladstone Middle/High School.  

• PPS closed Gladstone High School in 1976. At that point high school students were bused either 3 miles up the hill to Squirrel Hill (Allderdice HS) or 7 miles across the river to Beechview (Brashear HS). Gladstone was converted to a middle school. 
• PPS closed Gladstone Middle School permanently in the late 1990's and the students were bused 6 miles to East Liberty (Reizenstein MS) or remained in an expanded Burgwin ES.  
• PPS closed Burgwin K-7 School permanently in 2006. Students from Hazelwood were bused over 3 miles across the river to Mifflin Elementary School in Lincoln Place.  

Thus in 2006 Hazelwood had no schools. The Pittsburgh Public Schools will tell you that there were not enough students to sustain a neighborhood school in Pittsburgh. Yet, in 2013 a group of concerned citizens from Hazelwood, approached Propel Schools - a charter school group that worked in the Monongahela Valley. They asked Propel to open a school in their community. Read this again. A group of parents in a Pittsburgh neighborhood, where all the public schools were closed, went to a charter school group and asked them to open a school in their community.

Propel submitted a plan to the school district and was approved to open a K-8 school in the old Burgwin Elementary School. Propel Hazelwood Charter School currently has 260 students K-6. The demographics of the school match the demographics of the community: 78% Black, 10% White, 6% Multi-racial, 4% Hispanic, 85% low income and 13% special needs.  Does this surprise you?

North Side and the Manchester Academic and the Propel North Side Charter Schools

The North Side is an area that was once called Allegheny City.  It was incorporated into Pittsburgh in 1907. In the map to the right, it is the yellow region north of the Allegheny River. The North Side has 18 unique neighborhoods.


In the year 2000, the North Side had:

• 2 high schools (Oliver and Perry), 
• 3 middle schools (Allegheny, Schiller and Columbus) 
• 8 elementary schools (Chatham, Clayton, King, Manchester, Morrow, Spring Garden, Spring Hill). 
• It also had a Catholic K-8 school and High School (North Catholic).  

Since that time, 4 elementary schools (Chatham ES, Clayton ES, Mann ES, Spring Garden ES), 1 middle school (Columbus MS) and one high school (Oliver HS) were closed. And both Catholic Schools closed. The District closed 4 out of 8 elementary schools. They moved the students into Pittburgh King K-8 or to a new elementary in the Allegheny Middle School Building.

There are two Charter Schools in the North Side.  Let's look at how they came about.


Manchester Academic Charter School

Manchester is Pittsburgh's largest historical neighborhood. It is filled with beautiful Victorian homes that have been renovated. It has an area with modern split level homes that were built in the early 1970s. And it also has many small dilapidated houses that are rentals. The population of Manchester is majority black. The neighborhood has wealthy, middle class and poor residents. Pittsburgh Manchester Elementary School was and is the only public school in Manchester (other than Conroy which is a Pittsburgh school for students with special needs.)

In the 1960's Manchester was a poor, primarily black neighborhood with few resources for children: there was no community center, no health center, no grocery store, the public school was extremely low performing and there were few if any after school or weekend programs for children. This changed in 1968.

Dr. Betty and Rev. James Robinson established the Manchester Youth Development Center (MYDC) in 1968 to serve the needs of Manchester’s large population of children and youth. They expanded their focus to early childhood in 1979 with the opening of the Training Wheels community preschool, and again in the early 1990s, when they founded a small, community-centered, private elementary school located within MYDC.

In 1998, the Pittsburgh Board of Education granted a charter to the Manchester Academic School, one of the first in the region. Today, MACS, MYDC and Training Wheels operate in a shared facility, providing high-quality education and enrichment to children from early childhood through middle school. MACS serves over 300 children from the Northside and communities throughout Allegheny County. 

The state of Pennsylvania passed its charter school law in 1997. Betty and James Robinson saw this as an opportunity to provide wrap around services to students in Manchester (and the greater North Side). They converted their private elementary school to a K-8 charter. The school filled up immediately and now serves 326 students. The school serves students from a majority of the 18 North Side neighborhoods. Manchester Academic Charter School is an accredited national Blue Ribbon school.

A stones throw from Manchester Academic Charter (326 students) sits Pittsburgh Manchester K-8 (198 students). The charter school has 128 more students than the District school. Can you guess why? It's because the neighborhood trusts Betty and James Robinson to do right by their children. They invested their lives in Manchester. It is also because the charter school is drawing from the other North Side neighborhoods that were abandoned by the school district. Does this surprise you?


Propel Northside

In 2006, the District via "right sizing" closed four North Side elementary schools and one middle school. North Side parents were up in arms. Their children would be bused out of their neighborhoods and sent to one of two schools with students from other neighborhoods. This was a concern. The North Side, made up of 18 distinct neighborhoods, suffering from segregation, poverty and a hilly topography that created natural barriers between communities, is and was filled with turf wars. Gangs proliferate. Public safety is an issue. When students are asked to leave their neighborhoods, they worry about fights, bullying and are susceptible to falling into the street life.

Sending students from their small neighborhood schools to Pittsburgh King K-8 was worrisome. First, Pittsburgh King K-8 has over 600 students versus the local neighborhood schools that were around 250 students. Second, the student achievement at Pittsburgh King K-8 is one of the lowest in the state. Third, it mixed students from feuding neighborhoods thus creating safety concerns for parents and students.

A group of parents approached Propel Schools and asked them to open a charter school on the North Side. Propel applied for a charter from the District and opened in 2011. Not surprisingly, they opened in the recently closed Pittsburgh Columbus Middle School. They currently serve 405 students (K-8).

Take a look at the demographics of the two Pittsburgh Public K-8 schools on the North Side, the Pittsburgh partial magnet middle school (Schiller) and the two North Side charter schools. You will notice that the two charters have higher poverty than the public schools. You will also notice that Manchester Academic Charter School is 100% African-American.


I wonder if the Board or its Solicitor ever complained that the charter schools on the North Side aren't demographically consistent with the overall PPS demographics... or whether they were essentially a publicly funded "private school". Too many poor and African American students. Nope... they never said a word. The District complains when a charter has too many white students or non-poverty students, but remains quiet when it has too many black students.

Let's be honest... Pittsburgh is a segregated city. And unfortunately, its schools are as well. Local school demographics reflects the community they are located in. And once the District moved to K-8 neighborhood schools, the District schools became segregated by neighborhood. Neighborhood K-8 charters are no different.

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So let's get back to the original questions.

Why did these charter schools open up? And where did they open? And why did the private schools expand? 

Here is the obvious answer.

New charter schools open and existing private schools expand when the traditional public schools are faltering or abandon a neighborhood. Parents in these neighborhoods are looking for options for their children. Some can afford to move, some can afford tuition at a private ro parochial school, some attend a magnet school and some have no other options... so they ask a charter school to open in their community. But they have to do something... because they want the best for their children.  

Actually the Pittsburgh Public Schools does understand this. Look at the success of Pittsburgh Magnet Schools (aka "Schools of Choice"). CAPA, OBAMA, Sci-Tech High Schools are all excelling and have no problem attracting students. They are examples of how the district used an internal choice mechanism to keep people in the District. And by the way, their demographics don't match those of the District as a whole. No one says a word.

Charter Schools like PROPEL, Manchester Academic and the Environmental Charter opened up to meet a neighborhood need for a safe, quality school that would become invested in the community. They were asked by the community to do so. They were asked because the Pittsburgh Public Schools abandoned a local neighborhood.

The Pittsburgh Public Schools mission statement states:

The Pittsburgh Public Schools will be one of America’s premier school districts, student-focused, well-managed, and innovative.

We will hold ourselves accountable for preparing all children to achieve academic excellence and strength of character, so that they have the opportunity to succeed in all aspects of life.

PPS sees itself as the local conduit for educating children. They don't see themselves as the foundation of a neighborhood. They don't see themselves as a caring institution that will meet the social, cognitive, mental/physical/emotional health needs of its students and their families. PPS doesn't seem to understand that they are often the only institutional resource in a neighborhood. They are the hub of activity. They are where parents go for fund raisers, plays, ball games and graduations. They are where children go to get educated, to find friends, to get their vision/hearing checked, to get counseling, to get fed, to get love.

Schools that work in the urban core address multiple barriers to education: over 70% poverty, broken families, unemployment and crime. Basic commodities like food, medicine, health care, transportation, public parks and recreation don't exist in many urban neighborhoods. Police stations, fire stations, libraries and hospitals don't have a presence in these neighborhoods.

The Pittsburgh Public Schools have never acknowledged this. Yet often they are the only institutional presence in a neighborhood. So when they abandon a community - the North Side, Hazelwood, Regent Square - they make many of our students and families feel forsaken.

What did the District save by "right sizing"? By closing 22 schools?

The changes approved Tuesday night as part of the reorganization of Pittsburgh Public Schools reduce the number of buildings the district runs from 80 to 63 and will result in a savings of $10.3 million in the first year.  (Pittsburgh Trib)

The District budget at the time was over $600 million. The savings created by closing these schools represented less than 2% of the budget. Clearly there was little to gain financially. Superintendent Roosevelt would argue that he was using this "right sizing" as an opportunity to close the lowest performing schools (based on a Rand Report.) I'm guessing he wanted to get a fresh start and not be hindered by existing extremely low performing schools. The price for this "fresh start" was the abandonment of local neighborhoods.

Keep the schools in their local neighborhoods. Make them better. Put in Pre-K, put in a full time nurse and social worker, allow the neighborhood to use the gym, provide a quality breakfast and lunch program, find a quality school leader and let them stay in the school and the community for a minimum of 10 years. What a radical thought. Invest in our neighborhoods.

And you wonder why parents reach out to charter schools to join their community.

Wake Up Pittsburgh! 

Quit complaining and bad mouthing the charter schools and get to work. It is lazy thinking. It represents old provincial Pittsburgh thinking. Help our communities. Stand up and take on the responsibility that Pittsburgh should have to its neighborhoods. Or step aside and let someone else take your place in the community.

One warning... though I doubt you will listen.

You closed Schenley High School, Vann Elementary School, Madison Elementary School and Miller Elementary School in the Hill District. The Hill District is another abandoned neighborhood.

You closed Belmar Elementary School, Crescent Elementary School, Reizenstein Middle School, Pittsburgh CAPA (in Homewood) and have so screwed up Westinghouse High School that it may never recover. Homewood is another abandoned neighborhood.

You closed Sheraden Elementary School, Chartiers Elementary School, Stevens Elementary School, and Langley High School. The West End is another abandoned neighborhood.

Don't complain if these communities ask a charter school to open in their neighborhood. If one does, it was because Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Public Schools abandoned the neighborhood. That was the unintended consequence of the Pittsburgh Public School reforms and "right sizing" the District.

I'm OK with a charter school opening in those communities. But I would rather have PPS wake up and get it right.

Superintendent Hamlet, Mayor Peduto, Pittsburgh City Council, Pittsburgh School Board....

We are running out of time to get this right.

WAKE UP!