Penn Hills

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)

Penn Hills $58 million high school built to wow! (2012)

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)

Penn Hills School District leaders will seek court approval to borrow $18 million to pay day-to-day expenses, a move that one expert called a “last resort” for districts in serious financial trouble. Board members in a 6-2 vote agreed Monday to petition to Allegheny County Common Pleas Court for permission to float a bond of up to $18 million. Acting Superintendent Nancy Hines said that a significant number of under-budgeted and overfunded budget items from past years have generated a roughly $9 million shortfall... School officials placed business affairs director Rick Liberto on paid leave March 24 while the district audits office practices. (April 6, 2015, Tribune Review).

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

Penn Hills is not an exception. This is a tired and cynical urban story that has been played out both in Pittsburgh and in most rust belt cities in America. Older white families age out... Younger whites families move out... African American families move in... School District demographics change... And the schools are unprepared to handle this change.

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.

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.)  

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.  

In this scenario, the belief/strategy is to focus on physical plant, staffing and budget cuts. I call this the "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" approach. Both Pittsburgh and Penn Hills use this approach which is exemplified by lots of closed schools, new consolidated schools, changing feeder patterns, turnover in leadership, moving principals around, budget constraints, complaints about charter schools and consistently decreasing achievement.  

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.  

The non-profit group Great Public Schools - Pittsburgh is promoting a Community Based School model for Pittsburgh. The community school model is used in Cincinnati and Chicago and is being contemplated in New York City.

"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)

What is significant about this model is that it has widespread support from teachers unions. It is also significant that this approach looks at the community as a whole and realistically uses strategies that work with the entire community. There is significant research that suggests this approach works. This is the opposite of the consolidation approach that was taken in both Pittsburgh and Penn Hills.


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.

"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.

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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 Elephant in the Classroom

If you spend time reviewing current news about public education in general and charter schools in particular, you must be confused.  Are charter schools public? Do they hand pick their students? Are they high achieving or mediocre? Are they criminals skimming money and abusing the system? Are they education entrepreneurs?

Look at the headlines.

CREDO Study finds Charter Schools Might Not Be Better (US News, June 2009)

The Charter School Threat to American Society (Diane Ravitch Blog, Aug. 12, 2012)

A Dozen Problems with Charter Schools (Washington Post, May 20, 2014) 

Charters More Segregated than Public Schools in Pennsylvania (WESA, March 16, 2015)

Pretty bad.  Yet look at this most recent headline.  

CREDO Study Finds Urban Charter Schools Outperform Traditional School Peers (CREDO, 2015)

What is going on? Why is so much of this information dissonant. The discourse about charter schools in the newspaper, on the blogs, in the media appears to be dependent upon who the source is.  We are not getting accurate or objective reporting. The reporting is not about new school models, or lessons learned or achievement that is far above the norm. The stories tend not to provide an in depth understanding of how these new schools are addressing the needs of students. They don't focus on school culture or proven models for student support. Nor do they highlight the possible value of allowing educators to be flexible and entrepreneurial in their approach to their craft.

Frankly, the discourse has nothing to do with education. There is an elephant in the classroom that is dominating the discussion. The elephant in the classroom, that no one wants to admit, but everyone is paying attention to is the struggle over money, control and power in public education. It is about the rights of adults versus the rights of children. It is about the rights of those with a vested interest in the status quo versus the rights of the poor. It is about the haves versus the have nots. It is about marginalizing the needs of poor, urban students of color. Let's call it what it is... the new Jim Crow. This is why you see a headline such as "The Charter School Threat to American Society."

Please STOP.

Until we are willing to look at this from the point of view of the student, of all students, and why some students attend charter schools, we will get nowhere. So let's look the elephant in the eye and try to answer the fundamental charter school question:

Do charter schools represent a civil rights imperative or are charter schools attempting to dismantle public education, get rid of teachers unions and work with only the best students?

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Ted Kolderie's Seminal Paper on Charter Schools

In 1990, prior to the existence of Charter Schools, Ted Kolderie wrote a seminal paper on school choice, charter schools and the public school monopoly in education.

"Since it was rekindled by the 1983 Nation at Risk report, the national debate over education reform has advanced in progressively more radical stages. First came the traditional calls for more school spending, higher standards, and better teachers. Then came more novel proposals for school restructuring -- greater autonomy for individual schools, professional status for teachers, and real accountability for student performance" (Kolderie, Executive Summary.) 

In retrospect, we can see that the Nation at Risk report, published in 1983, was the demarcation between the analog age and the digital age, the age of working with your body and the age of working with your mind, the age of working with objects and the age of working with information. The report made clear that our public education delivery system was built for a different time and different set of circumstances. A time when it was not necessary for all students to graduate or go to college in order to earn a living wage. The report stated that the post-industrial world we live in demands that all students become educated at a pre-college level. It stated that current school models were not aligned with the skill sets necessary to succeed in information age careers. Nor do they provide student support systems necessary to move all of our children toward success.  

Here is what Kolderie had to say in the year 1990.  

Executive Summary - Kolderie Report

While Kolderie was talking about creating charter schools, our country's demographics were changing in a significant manner, particularly in the urban core. We were experiencing (and still are) a huge influx of Spanish speaking immigrants, white flight to the suburbs and an urban core that was left to the poor and unemployed. As previously discussed in this blog, Pittsburgh schools, beginning in the early 1990s, were resegregated as a result of a series of conservative Supreme Court rulings. At the same time state funding of public education decreased, the steel mills and blue collar jobs were gone and Pittsburgh's population shrank due to middle class flight to the suburbs. As schools were struggling, and achievement plummeted, parents looked for alternatives.

Kolderie points out that due to changing demographics, and a drop in the quality of urban schools, families were desperate for school choice options that would provide quality education for their children.

Kolderie Report - Page 5

Note that the constituencies with the highest desire for school choice were parents with children in public schools, families in big cities, people of color and young parents who were starting families. This is significant. Basically people with limited financial resources want expanded public school options. A testimony to the concept of public school choice was the success of Pittsburgh's Magnet Schools. In 1990, the magnets were thriving, voluntarily integrated and high achieving.  A certain degree of this success was due to it being a school of choice. One wonders why the school district did not scale up and create more magnet schools. When Homewood Montessori School had a huge waiting list, it was baffling that the district would not create a second Montessori School.

The Pennsylvania Legislature and Governor would not have considered charter schools if the public schools were achieving across the board. Unfortunately, in the 1990's that was not the case. School districts were slow to respond to the The Nation at Risk imperative. So as middle class families left the city, and the remaining students were pressured to take a college prep program of study (e.g. Algebra, Geometry, Biology, Chemistry), the district struggled to both manage and educate a student population that was at risk, ill prepared for school and had fewer resources at home.

In lieu of any significant structural changes in public education, the Pennsylvania Legislature, with the Governor's approval, passed a Charter School Law in 1997. And thus began the era of charter schools in Pennsylvania and with it, the rhetoric about charter schools attempting to destroy public education, to steal tax dollars, resegregate our schools, break the unions, etc. There was only one charter school authorized in Pittsburgh prior to 2000. Charter Schools were immediately blamed for drawing funds from districts, drawing students from districts and not achieving. And yet, there were very few charter schools in existence. Figure 1 below, using census information from 2012, shows that only 3% of Allegheny County students attend charter schools.

By 2014, there were still only six charter schools in Pittsburgh (Urban Pathways, Manchester Academic, The Academy, City High, Urban League and Environmental Charter.) Six schools are not a threat to public education as we know it. However, they were perceived as a huge threat to the public school sector as exemplified by a 2014 Washington Post reprint of a Yinzercation screed against Charter Schools.  The Yinzercation argument against charter schools made 12 accusations. 

1. Most are not helping kids.
2. Some are actually hurting kids.
3. Far too many are cash cows.
4. The industry is rife with fraud and corruption.
5. Lack of transparency and accountability.
6. Skimming and weed-out strategies.
7. Contribute to the re-segregation of U.S. education. 
8. Drain resources from struggling districts.
9. Closing traditional public schools.
10. Lack of innovation.
11. Hard to get rid of the bad ones.
12. Charters promote “choice” as solution.

Let's look at a few of these accusations to get a sense of their validity.

6) Skimming and Weed-out Strategies.
Critics claim that because parents have to actively choose a charter school, the school is getting a "better" student. They don't mention that PPS Magnets such as CAPA, Sci-Tech and Obama High Schools all have academic entry requirements that take only the best students. Nor do they tell you that these PPS Magnets have created an untenable situation for feeder pattern comprehensive high schools such as Perry, Allderdice, Westinghouse, Brashear and Carrick. Nor do they tell you that the charter school demographics in Pittsburgh look more like the feeder schools and less like the Magnet Schools. And they never tell you that the charter schools have a lottery with no entrance requirements. Who's skimming who?

7. Contribute to the re-segregation of U.S. education.
A recent NPR report of a 2015 Penn State study on charter schools, segregation and school finance continues the constant criticisms of charter schools.

... it’s a different story in a number of the city’s other charter schools. Among Pittsburgh’s seven brick-and-mortar charters, four of them have an African-American enrollment of more than 90 percent. Pittsburgh Public Schools at large has a split of 56 percent black, 34 percent white and 13 percent other races. According to the charter school trends study from the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, regardless of region, charter schools are disproportionately enrolling students of color. (WESA-FM, March 16, 2015)

This is terrible reporting. The reporter compared single segregated charter schools to the District at large. The Pittsburgh Public Schools is a segregated school district. Many schools are all black... some are nearly all white. However, when you look at the district at large, it looks integrated. The district is integrated, but the schools are not.

Pennsylvania Districts and schools are segregated as well, many are all white... some are all black.  And the same is true for our country. Charter Schools are schools of choice. Should they be blamed because poor students of color are looking for a quality education?  Why is the Center for Rural Pennsylvania attacking charter schools regarding diversity or lack thereof and not looking at the public schools with the same issue? The answer lies deeper in the report. It's about the money. It's always about the money.

The growing financial impact on local taxpayers of the increasing number of students attending charter schools and the current funding system that places the full responsibility for charter school costs on school districts is clear. While the rapid expansion of charter schools, especially cyber charter schools, may provide some parents with more school choices, policy makers need to be cognizant of the financial impact that state mandates place on traditional schools and districts. (Assessing the Enrollment Trends and Financial Impacts of Charter Schools on Rural and Non-Rural School Districts in Pennsylvania, pg ii.)

If they would think this through, they would find their complaint is with the Cyber Charter Schools not the bricks and mortar charters. I agree with the complaint about Cyber Charters. Cyber Charters have a record of low achievement, working with populations not in need and excess funds due to their cost efficiency. Take note of the differences between the students at brick and mortar versus cyber charters.  

"Two types of charter schools are authorized in Pennsylvania: physical brick and mortar schools and cyber, or virtual, schools. The student populations at the two types of schools differ. The typical cyber charter student is white and ineligible for subsidized meals, while the typical brick and mortar charter student is black and receiving free or reduced-priced lunches. Furthermore, the starting score for cyber students is significantly higher than for brick and mortar charter students in both reading and math. Additionally, cyber students are more likely to be repeating a grade than brick and mortar charter students." (2011 Credo Report, Pg. 8)

This is not about resegregation... if it was, and the media cared, they would be talking about the resegregation of American schools in general. This is about the financial crisis occurring in Pennsylvania public schools. Critics take their anger about inadequate funding out on charter schools. But the simple fact is that whether charter schools existed or not, the funding crisis has to do with lower taxes and diminishing state support for all education from pre-schools through state supported Universities. 

11) Hard to get rid of the bad ones.
When I read this list of 12 problems with charter schools my first reaction was the author must be talking about the majority of urban and poor public school districts such as Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boston, New York and even Pittsburgh. Apply these accusations to Westinghouse HS, Perry HS, Wilkinsburg HS, Clairton HS, Sto-Rox HS, McKeesport HS, Carrick HS, Woodland Hills HS, Penn  Hills HS and Brashear HS and see if they ring true. These urban schools are segregated and produce abysmal results. There is never any thought towards closing them. Yet, when applied to local Charter Schools, Career Connections comes to mind. The point of charters was they would be held accountable for high achievement and their charter could be revoked if they were mediocre. And that's what happened to Career Connections. It was closed.

Charter schools are reviewed annually and only receive a charter for five years. At the end of five years the district has to determine whether they are doing a good job and whether they should be rechartered.

This is the law.  If the school district does not follow through and determine whether the charter is fulfilling the requirements of the law, than they are to blame.

There is an elephant in the classroom. And it has nothing to do with education. The elephant is about money, control and power. 

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Here are some facts.

• Seventy-eight percent of the Pennsylvania’s public charters were located in non suburban areas in 2011–12 as compared to 59 percent of traditional public schools.
• Only 5 percent of the state’s public schools were charters in 2013–14.
• Only three communities in the state had more than 10 percent of public school students in charters in 2012–13.
• The state’s public charter schools served a significantly higher percentage of racial and ethnic minority students (33 percentage points more) when compared with traditional public schools in 2012–13.  

It is clear that the majority of people who attend Pittsburgh brick and mortar charter schools are poor and African-American. Let's take a look at these schools and their feeder pattern counterparts.

Urban Pathways and Manchester Academic charter schools provide an education alternative to Northside public school students that are among the lowest achieving in the city and the state.

The Academy Charter School was started at the request of juvenile court judges who were seeking a healthy alternative to the institutionalization of Allegheny County juvenile offenders.

City Charter High School is a high achieving, integrated, centrally located high school that provides students from all neighborhoods of Pittsburgh with an alternative to local, segregated, extremely low achieving feeder pattern schools.

Urban League Charter School is an alternative to low achieving segregated black schools in Pittsburgh's Hill District and Homewood neighborhoods.

Environmental Charter School is an integrated school in the Regent Square area where the district closed both public schools leaving students without a neighborhood feeder school. Environmental Charter School has come under criticism for not being "integrated enough". That is because it has a majority white population. That criticism is never focused on the Urban League or Urban Pathways charter schools, although they are almost exclusively black. As stated, Environmental Charter School started in two empty public school buildings after they were closed. They have a waiting list that has hundreds of families desperately wanting to attend quality public schools.  

When a neighborhood's public schools are mediocre or non-existent, there are no alternatives for residents of that neighborhood. Charter Schools can provide that alternative.  

This is about money, control and power. Federal monies via Title I and Special Education have funneled through the state and focused on needy populations since the mid 1960's. However, for the first time in our country's history, local monies, via charter schools, are going specifically to the "have-nots".  One would guess that the outcry over funding would come from the local taxpayers. But that is not where the outcry is coming from. It is coming from "public school advocates". University professors, labor unionists, liberals, progressives and the like are outraged because funding is leaving the local districts (which are doing a terrible job in their segregated schools) and going to charter schools. One would think that the political left would want to provide quality educational alternatives to at-risk students. Not the case.

I am appalled at the behavior of these so called progressive thinkers. They want to help students, while defending the traditional public school enterprise, but can't seem to find a way to succeed at educating these children in the traditional education system. And in their effort to maintain the traditional model, they are willing to deny alternatives to the students in need. When they talk about charter school accountability they are disingenuous. I have yet to hear a single critic apply their criteria for measuring success to the public feeder pattern school. And if you really want to understand where the progressives are coming from, take a look at where they send their own children to school. If they attend public schools, they will always be magnet schools (a.k.a. schools of choice.)  They don't go to the feeder pattern schools because the achievement is too low.  

So let's get back to the original question.

Do charter schools represent a civil rights imperative or are they an attempt to dismantle public education, get rid of teachers unions and work with only the best students?

I would suggest that if Thurgood Marshall was alive, the great Supreme Court Justice and the lawyer from the NAACP who fought the Brown vs. Board of Education case and won, would state that charter schools represent a choice option which considers quality public schools a civil right. He would be appalled that the issue of segregation still remains. But he would demand quality schools for all children in our society. That's why he fought and won the case. 

I can hear the critics getting upset... "All charter schools are not great. Some are terrible". This refrain has been used to damn charter schools in mass. Quit being so naive, so simple minded. Some charter schools are extraordinary, some are plain good and some are terrible. That is the nature of life. In theory, the terrible ones should go out of business either for lack of students or through rigorous oversight. Get rid of the bad ones. And increase the number of extraordinary ones. Or really go out on a limb and begin changing some of the district schools using lessons learned from quality charter schools.  

One final comment. As a 25 year veteran of urban public schools, a ten year veteran of public charter schools and once a member of the Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers and the Pennsylvania State Education Association, I am a proud public education advocate and have greatly benefited from union representation. Yet I am often accused of having a hidden agenda. What are my real intentions? I deeply believe in public education, and have no desire to propagate private schools or for-profit schools or cyber schools. 

My greatest hope and desire is for the public education enterprise - the school boards, the teachers, the unions, the administrators - to get their house in order in terms of quality and put the charters out of business. But until they put in place a quality system of education, I will fight for the right of poor and needy students to get a quality education wherever they can - public, private, charter. And if the public schools are incapable of educating poor, at risk students of color in a quality way, then just like charter schools they should be closed.  

There are people in the "Choice Movement" who want to dismantle public education. They are my adversaries. But I can tell you this much. In Pittsburgh Pennsylvania there are six charter schools (more including Propel) that believe that their existence is a civil rights imperative. Ask their students and parents what they think.