Wilkinsburg Report

Partnership Update

The Pittsburgh Public Schools/Wilkinsburg School District Partnership is moving forward. An announcement (to the right) inviting people to a joint community meeting is posted on Wilkinsburg's District web site. In the weeks following the meeting, both school boards are scheduled to vote on the terms of the partnership. Wilkinsburg's board will have an open planning session on Oct. 20 at 7:00 PM in the Board Building and will vote on the proposal on Oct. 27 at the same time and place. I hope that anyone interested in this issue will attend these meetings. I will be there.

Two news articles this past week provided further details about the proposal.  The first explained the Wilkinsburg Education Associations point of view with respect to moving the students to Westinghouse.

"Barbara Bell, retired Wilkinsburg teacher and chief negotiator for the Wilkinsburg Education Association, said contract language permits furloughs only as a result of enrollment declines. The contract, which expired June 30, states the number of furloughs cannot exceed the percentage of decline in total school district enrollment from the previous school year... 'Anything beyond the enrollment declines is a contract violation,' Ms. Bell said. 'We will go to arbitration over that if we have to.'" (PG - Oct. 1, 2015)

Basically, the WEA is making sure the District follows the contract and saves as many teaching positions as possible. The article also quotes the current union president, Mike Evans.

"I think they’re being disingenuous in saying they’re trying to offer the Wilkinsburg students a better opportunity,” Mr. Evans said. “It’s a lateral move. Westinghouse is one of the lowest-performing high schools in the city of Pittsburgh. If we were to invest as much time and resources and effort into rebuilding the middle and high school as we did in this plan to get rid of our students, we would be on our way.”

I agree that this is a lateral move.  But I'm afraid Mr. Evans comment is disingenuous as well.  The WEA was a major partner in helping this district to become the worst in the state over a 40 year period. It's a little late to point fingers.

PG - Sept. 29, 2015

The second article provided insight into the revenue side of the plan.  There were two key issues in this article that I'd like to point out.

The first is the $8,000 first year tuition for each Wilkinsburg student. This is incredibly low... far below market rate. Dr. Lane states that the partnership is revenue neutral for both districts. During the 2014-15 school year, the tuition rate that Wilkinsburg paid to charter schools was $14,557 for regular education students and $34,206 for special education students. Any way you look at this proposal, it is generous on the part of the Pittsburgh Public Schools to accept $8,000 per student. I can only conjecture as to why they are accepting such a low tuition rate.

1. It is out of the goodness of Pittsburgh's heart that they are reaching out to Wilkinsburg.

2. By sending the students to Westinghouse, which currently has many empty classrooms and small class sizes, the additional cost per student is much less than typical. Thus the actual cost of educating these additional students may actually be close to the $8000 tuition rate.

3. Pittsburgh is looking to add students any way possible to make up for the continued loss of students over the last 40 years.  Combining small, poor ring suburbs with PPS makes great sense from an efficiency perspective.  However, mergers have a long history of being opposed in Pennsylvania.  This would be a large political undertaking.

4. This "partnership" is really just one more step to pressure for an overall merger of Wilkinsburg and Pittsburgh.  I'm guessing this is the most likely reason for moving forward.  

The second issue the article raised was in a quote by one of Pittsburgh's Board Members:

“Having students come into another school district en masse and say that our kids have this but these children have this, I have a problem with that,” board director Regina Holley said during Tuesday’s meeting. “They’re not getting full access to everything the school district has to offer. I think they should be allowed to apply just as any PPS student would apply.”

Basically, Dr. Holley is suggesting that the Wilkinsburg students should be allowed to apply to Pittsburgh Magnets. They should be given equal access to all PPS programs. It's reassuring to hear someone from PPS advocating for Wilkinsburg students. Access to all PPS programs is one of the last components of the plan that will have to be worked out one way or the other. Equal access would make the partnership much more palatable from a Wilkinsburg perspective.

However, from a Pittsburgh resident's perspective, there may be concerns. PPS is taking in over 200 low achieving students from Wilkinsburg, the tuition is far below market rates and it is possible that Wilkinsburg students will get access to all PPS resources such as magnet schools.  I can't believe Pittsburgh voters will be happy about that. If this is a step toward a merger, the mayor, county executive and state legislators should be involved in this discussion.  I do not believe that is the case. So frankly, I still can't figure this out from Pittsburgh's perspective.

What I know for a fact is that the media is paying little attention to the needs of our children. This is all about logistics, revenue, rights of teachers, school boards and property values. Although Westinghouse is a superior facility that offers sports and upper level classes that Wilkinsburg does not have, it is a terrible institution from an academic perspective.  Hard to know the value added in this exercise, at least from the students' perspective.

Survey Update

You may remember that in my last blogpost, I challenged readers to see if there was any interest in getting involved in the Wilkinsburg education situation.  In particular, I promoted the idea of either getting an outside charter to apply to run the district schools or using the Project XQ program to design a 21st Century break the mold high school.  I asked interested parties to take a survey and offer their help.

Here are the survey results:

• 9 people took the survey.  
• 6 were Non-Profit Leaders.  2 of these previously worked for the Pittsburgh Public Schools and 3 are education advocates in Pittsburgh.  
• 2 were school administrators (Executive Director and Principal). One was from a private school and one was from the Pittsburgh Public Schools.  
• 1 was a teacher from a charter school in Pittsburgh.  
• Only 1 of the survey takers works in Wilkinsburg Borough. 
• All but one were willing to work 5 or more hours a month to try and come up with a solution to the Wilkinsburg Education problem.  
• The group was relatively consistent about their initial impression of how to move forward.
• No one wanted to send the students to Westinghouse HS.
• 6 out of 9 suggested sending an RFP out to quality Charter School groups to try and engage them to open a charter middle/high school in Wilkinsburg.  
• 1 out of 9 suggested merging the two school districts.
• 2 out of 9 (and a third said they might be interested) recommended moving on the Project XQ proposal to create a model 21st century middle/high school in Wilkinsburg.  

First, thank you to everyone who responded to this outreach effort. Second, I will be following up with an email to these people to discuss next steps.  I was disappointed, but not shocked, that no Wilkinsburg residents responded. Nor was I shocked that most of the people who responded were in the non-profit sector. These folks are quite aware of the devastation Wilkinsburg students experience, but have little or no power in either district. It is to their credit that they would volunteer to seek a progressive education alternative for Wilkinsburg students.  

"The Community Must Take Control of Their Schools"

I was also emailed by an individual who has had much experience with Wilkinsburg and has since moved away. He suggests the problem is outsiders, poor management and and lack of due diligence when hiring for Superintendent and other leadership positions. He states clearly that "the community must take control of their schools." He also stated that "The Blackridge and Regent Square folks don't understand sending the kids to Westinghouse is hurting the community."

The quote about Blackridge and Regent Square gets to the core of this discussion. Wilkinsburg is a legal entity called a borough. But, I would hesitate to call it a community. It includes three wards, 3-6 distinct neighborhoods and various constituencies that have little in common. Take a look at this link which contains a very accurate Wilkinsburg Map. The borough is small at 2.3 square miles. There are 5,615 Caucasians living in Wilkinsburg (29.3%). There are 12,768 African-Americans living in Wilkinsburg (66.5%). There are 14 churches in Wilkinsburg.


There are white middle class enclaves in each Ward. In the 1st Ward a middle class population lives in Blackridge, a quiet residential community that is shared by Wilkinsburg, Churchill and Penn Hills. In the 2nd Ward a middle class population (black and white) lives in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. There is also a small white middle class enclave in the quiet area bordering Churchill around Scenery Road. In the 3rd Ward, there is a middle class white population that lives in Regent Square (which also contains parts of Pittsburgh, Edgewood and Swissvale.) 

Each ward has all black areas.  And each ward has mixed race and low income areas. It really is a hodge-podge. Most of the residents who live in poorer areas of town are renting.  Many of the residents who live in middle class areas are home owners. 2.3 square miles. 19,000 citizens. About 19 percent of its houses and 40 percent of its shops are vacant.

There are a large number of different "areas" which are ill defined; although you somehow know when you've crossed from one area to another. It's usually a railroad bridge, or Penn Ave. or a steep hill. Wilkinsburg is not a community... just a group of small neighborhoods without any real sense of itself.   

The quote above "The Blackridge and Regent Square folks don't understand sending the kids to Westinghouse is hurting the community" can be translated as follows... A white man is stating that the white middle class families in these two areas don't care what happens to the black kids in the Borough. They are just worried about their property values.  

This community can't take control of its schools, because it is not a community.  It is a group of homes beautiful and decrepit, scattered about, abandoned, rented and owned.  It's almost as if the people don't exist.  

Look in the last collage at the photo in the top left corner.  That is a statue of Abraham Lincoln that greets people as they enter the borough from the parkway.  A few years after I moved into the Borough, in 1982, the statue was stolen. Late one evening a couple who had been drinking sawed off the copper statue and took it. The statue was created in 1916 with funding through a penny collection by the Borough's elementary school children.  Imagine, someone stole the statue of "Honest Abe". 1982 was when urban renewal and forced integration initiated a flight to the suburbs that decimated this borough. 

Ultimately the statue was found, repaired and put back into place.  I believe that when they stole "Abe the Emancipator", they also stole the soul of this borough.  We recovered the statue, but our soul remains MIA.