The moral: the public schools are in crisis everywhere, and chasing the newest and shiniest school district available isn't a winning strategy. Suburban or urban, parent or childless, we ALL have to stand and fight for our public schools.

 

And lest people think I've gone all serious, well, YAY BOOBIES!

 

I'm not a parent, but the school system seems to be one of the biggest concerns for families. My first gut reaction is that we need an enormously reinvigorated public school system. We need a system that puts more responsibility on the parents and holds them accountable for their child's actions and academic progress, even if the consequences are punitive on the parents. We need to get parents more involved in what is going on at the school. 

 

What did you do with the real David??  :?  That was the most thoughtful and spot on post you've written.

 

Well I get serious in the more political threads and topics I'm passionate about.  Parents in the inner city are indifferent, minus the rich who have traditionally afforded to stay in a few neighborhoods of the city and who send their kids to the elite private schools. The public school administration is just as indifferent. They don't view themselves as one of the root causes of social malaise. They want to be educators, not social workers. They want to have decent relationships with parents without having to provide buffets of food and refreshments at PTA meetings only to find out parents still don't show up. Some of my friends who I met in grade school went on to elite private schools while their parents struggled, paying 8-10k a year for tuition, probably the equivalent of about 15-20 percent of their family income. From what I hear, their teachers would relentlessly brag about their altruistic decision to take a pay cut to work at a private Catholic school but the fact of the matter is that they don't have to deal with the socio-economic injuries our society faces. They don't get books thrown at them. They don't have to break up fights or get attacked. They're more likely to teach without being interrupted. They eliminate that kind of chaos and conflict in their lives just as people in the suburbs/exurbs did by moving farther out; the problem is that we're are counterfeiting a solution to a BIG problem

 

And those suburban school officials are actually right. They shouldn't be held accountable for the problems that kids from sad backgrounds bring to school. But then, neither should the urban districts, which have a far higher percentage of kids from sad backgrounds.

 

My hometown school district has really been struggling with this of recent. Its a "district of choice" meaning anyone can enroll. And since its sits on the border of the Detroit School District, it gets a lot of Detroit students (around 25% of total enrollment if I recall.) Not all of them are bad, but some of the key indicators that the State board of Education looks at have been affected in a negative way, especially its graduation rate. (perhaps more so due to the transient nature of transferring students)

 

One of the systems in the Akron area is paying a bounty for pointing out kids that don't live in the district.  The main reason is that bus drivers have been dropping kids off at vacant buildings or seeing parents waiting at the stop with cars.

 

The latter is extremely common in Maple Heights and Bedford.

 

To get city and inner ring public schools where they need to be, I believe we are going to have to return to "tracking" and possibly even start/expand special schools for discipline problems.  "Self esteem" be damned.

well why don't you all start complaining to state legislators about school funding.  back to sprawl

^Except we've identified an engine of sprawl: challenged public schools.

 

The schools of choice issues is a moot concern; any parent who cares enough to place their kids into a better school is exactly the kind of parent good school districts want.

An interesting thing is that the shape of the graph mimics the projected peak oil curve. Coincidence? It also mimics the population curve.  It is clear that the 1950's and 1960's were the high growth periods, and there is hardly any growth at all today, if any.

 

 

I really like Jeff's graphs as well, but unfortunatley, his graphs end at the southern border of Montgomery county. 

 

They do not show Warren county.  They do not show the land just south of Montgomery county, called Springboro  (south of the Dayton Mall).  There has been tremendous growth in the Springboro area over the past 15 years, and it continues unabated today.

 

So there has been sustained growth in "Dayton", it's just not on Jeff's maps. 

 

The real answer will never happen .  .  . the state should shift the entire state to county-wide school systems without offering any opt out provision. . .

^Except we've identified an engine of sprawl: challenged public schools.

 

The schools of choice issues is a moot concern; any parent who cares enough to place their kids into a better school is exactly the kind of parent good school districts want.

 

Word! I even know some people in the city who have used fake addresses of relatives and people they know just so their kids could get a better education somewhere else. People who go through that type of trouble are people who care about their child's schooling and discipline.

^Except we've identified an engine of sprawl: challenged public schools.

 

The schools of choice issues is a moot concern; any parent who cares enough to place their kids into a better school is exactly the kind of parent good school districts want.

 

Word! I even know some people in the city who have used fake addresses of relatives and people they know just so their kids could get a better education somewhere else. People who go through that type of trouble are people who care about their child's schooling and discipline.

 

By breaking the law?  Sets a fine example.

Laws are great if you can afford to abide by them. Some parents who really care but can't afford to move or pay an extra 8k a year, do that. You would have to be in their shoes to understand why they do it.

I still wouldn't break that law.

 

On the otherside of the fence, why not work with the district you're living in and fight for improvement?

 

 

^

On the otherside of the fence, why not work with the district you're living in and fight for improvement?

 

LOL, yea, right.  Like that is going to do you any good!

 

You are one person in a school district of 2,000+ parents.  And there is an "in-crowd" that you must get accepted into to be heard.  And they are usually the type of peole you don't want to associate with (the house-wifes who want to hold bake sales to raise money for the teachers who are about to go on maternity leave). 

 

Yes, you can fight hard and make a difference.  That is true.  Unfortunately, the difference you make comes after your child has cleared the particular school and moved on. 

 

It's like being at a University.  You can fight for change, but it will only impact the people coming up behind you.  By the time it gets implemented, you will have graduated.

 

 

Now fighting your town board for changes in your neighborhood is a fight worth taking on because you will realize the fruits of your efforts.  Not so with the school system.

 

^Except we've identified an engine of sprawl: challenged public schools.

 

The schools of choice issues is a moot concern; any parent who cares enough to place their kids into a better school is exactly the kind of parent good school districts want.

 

Word! I even know some people in the city who have used fake addresses of relatives and people they know just so their kids could get a better education somewhere else. People who go through that type of trouble are people who care about their child's schooling and discipline.

 

By breaking the law?  Sets a fine example.

 

Busting into a school and stealing computers is breaking the law. Paying a friend's gas bill to place you in a better school district is somewhat less.

 

It's a white collar crime and against the law.  Period.

It's a white collar crime and against the law.  Period.

 

And we see how society punishes white collar crimes at the exact same rate as the other kind.

The real answer will never happen .  .  . the state should shift the entire state to county-wide school systems without offering any opt out provision. . .

 

You're damn right that will never happen as long as legislators are elected.  But if it did, the state would essentially become the equivalent of a third world nation, particularly in the "big city" counties.

Is back.

I really like Jeff's graphs as well, but unfortunatley, his graphs end at the southern border of Montgomery county.

 

Corrections made!  See my recent thread in General Discussion on "Sprawl, Demographics, and Race".

 

 

Is back.

 

Thank you.

White People in the News - May 15

May 15, 2008 by clander

 

“They Love the City but not the Schools”

By: Nancy Cambria

 

The St. Louis Dispatch, April 25, 2008.

 

Summary

White people are moving to the city of St. Louis in droves, but after they have kids they are forced to make a tough choice. Public schools are not seen as a viable option for gifted white children, so parents must decided to either send their child to an expensive private school or move back to the suburbs. This is the double edged sword of diversity.

 

http://www.stltoday.com/

 

The article also shows that white people are thriving and reproducing in the midwest.

 

Stuff Mentioned

Diversity (in every way!)

 

Gentrification

Coffee

Farmers Markets

Gifted Children

Bumper Stickers (future post)

Private School (future post)

The rich will always have an advantage when it comes to schools. Most Charter Schools are a joke. At least in Cincinnati.

I don't trust the government to provide it b/c whatever the government does, it tends to do badly.

 

Agreed.

 

The rich will always have an advantage when it comes to schools. Most Charter Schools are a joke. At least in Cincinnati.

 

Such is the nature of life.  Being rich will always be advantageous in almost every way to being poor.  That is nothing unique to Cincinnati or the US.  Being a "have", by it's very definition, is advantageous to being a "have not".  The best we can hope for is to build and maintain a society of social mobility where if today's "have nots" make wise decisions they or their children will be tomorrow's "haves".  Whether or not we live in such a society is certainly up for debate, but I believe we do.

No link for the article.

 

 

Don't know if this is the right place, but I found this a great call for urban living:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/28/global.warming.ap/index.html

 

City dwellers produce less carbon, report suggests

 

    * Story Highlights

    * Study looked at largest 100 metro areas where two-thirds of people in U.S. live

    * Smallest carbon footprint was in cities in West, New England

    * Cities in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana dominated bottom tier of high carbon emitters

    * About 6.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide are released into the air annually in the U.S.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- While cities are hot spots for global warming, people living in them turn out to be greener than their country cousins.

 

Each resident of the largest 100 largest metropolitan areas is responsible on average for 2.47 tons of carbon dioxide in energy consumption each year, 14 percent below the 2.87 ton U.S. average, researchers at the Brookings Institution say in a report being released Thursday.

 

Those 100 cities still account for 56 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide pollution.

 

But their greater use of mass transit and population density reduce the per person average. "It was a surprise the extent to which emissions per capita are lower," Marilyn Brown, a professor of energy policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-author of the report, said in an interview.

 

...

Yep, I posted it at the global warming thread in Urbanbar

Several months old, but new to me...

 

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/were_making_a_difference_spraw.html

 

We’re making a difference: sprawl is slowing as smart growth catches on

Friday, March 28, 2008, 12:51:47 PM | Kaid Benfield

 

One of the things that has challenged me as an advocate of smart growth is that, while we see substantial evidence of smarter development around us, we also continue to see a lot of sprawl.  So it can really be hard to tell that we’re making any progress in our efforts to stop paving over every acre of our countryside and spending more and more time in traffic, emitting greenhouse gases and getting frustrated.  Statistics have been hard to come by.

 

But now we have some, and I’m here to report that they do, in fact, show that smart growth is starting to make a difference.  In one of the most encouraging data sets I’ve seen, central cities are now starting to grow again, while the rate of growth in outer suburbs is declining.  This is a huge change:  when my colleagues and I were researching our 1999 book on sprawl, the trends could hardly have been more disheartening:  we had statistics showing that the central areas of Atlanta, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, Baltimore and more were all losing jobs and population, while the counties around them were experiencing dramatic growth. 

 

This is no longer the case.  Fringe counties are certainly still growing, but the near-total claim they once had on regional growth has disappeared.  New analysis of census data from Dr. John Thomas at the US EPA shows that, since the mid-1990s, the portion of regional growth (as measured by housing starts) that is taking place in central cities and counties is on the increase, while the portion that is going to the sprawling fringe is starting to decline.  While John’s analysis is not yet published, he has generously given us permission to share it. 

 

...

Cities in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana dominated the bottom tier of high carbon emitters.

 

These urban areas are "kind of a poster child of what high carbon intensive growth looks like," said Brown. She noted their reliance on coal for electricity and natural gas for heating, a shortage of mass transit, and often older, energy-inefficient buildings.

 

Huh?  Cleveland's still the biggest metro area in these three states IIRC and we get a lot of our power from nuclear.  This tends to prove my old point that global warming advocates don't like to talk about nuclear energy....which calls into question their motives.

Nuclear is the miracle answer as long as you disregard the front end and back end costs which are high in terms of dollars, cents and logistics. In terms of the waste confinement, the NIMBY effect is, well, nuclear. 

Cities in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana dominated the bottom tier of high carbon emitters.

 

These urban areas are "kind of a poster child of what high carbon intensive growth looks like," said Brown. She noted their reliance on coal for electricity and natural gas for heating, a shortage of mass transit, and often older, energy-inefficient buildings.

 

Huh? Cleveland's still the biggest metro area in these three states IIRC and we get a lot of our power from nuclear. This tends to prove my old point that global warming advocates don't like to talk about nuclear energy....which calls into question their motives.

Sorry, I don't follow.  Would please put a finer point on it?

Nuclear is the miracle answer as long as you disregard the front end and back end costs which are high in terms of dollars, cents and logistics. In terms of the waste confinement, the NIMBY effect is, well, nuclear. 

 

Isn't it true that in Europe, the spent fuel is recycled and reused while in the US the spent fuel is 'unusable'. From college at Oregon State (what little I remember) virtually all the waste can be recycled back into the process if our nuclear regulations would allow it.

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html

French technocrats had never thought that the waste issue would be much of a problem. From the beginning the French had been recycling their nuclear waste, reclaiming the plutonium and unused uranium and fabricating new fuel elements. This not only gave energy, it reduced the volume and longevity of French radioactive waste. The volume of the ultimate high-level waste was indeed very small: the contribution of a family of four using electricity for 20 years is a glass cylinder the size of a cigarette lighter. It was assumed that this high-level waste would be buried in underground geological storage and in the 80s French engineers began digging exploratory holes in France's rural regions.

 

So basically Yucca Mountain in Nevada is holding a bunch of half used fuel.

 

EDITED to fix formatting issues!

^Well "holding" is a generous way to put it: http://www.gdr.org/putoniumfoundinwater.htm

 

Any way you slice it, nuclear is a political hot potato. Though, I'd speculate the fossil fuel interests--and now big corn--have done more to thwart nuclear than any grubby bunch of hippies ever could.

 

Also, as pointed out, nuclear is simply too "French" for Americans.

The fuel rod "recycling" system merely uses chemistry to "re-enrich" the nuclear fuel.  It does not further decrease the radioactivity.  It would require a "breeder reactor" to do that, with the first stage being a plutonium reactor.

 

The process creates an even worse remainder product that is harder to store than fuel rods.

High gas prices won't stop sprawl

Saturday,  June 14, 2008 7:06 PM

By MARK FERENCHIK

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

Soaring gas prices are prompting potential homebuyers to look closer to the central city to save money, say those promoting so-called “smart growth” for Columbus.

 

They want people to buy in urban neighborhoods where they can walk to the store and bike to work.

 

But planners and developers say the slowdown in central Ohio's outward growth is temporary. A regional planning agency says central Ohio's population is expected to grow by 500,000 by 2030, and 60 percent of that growth will be in unincorporated land, much of it outside Franklin County.

 

...

 

[email protected]

 

http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/06/14/sprawlin.html?sid=101

She can have her five acres. She'll need them to grow food.

^----"A regional planning agency says central Ohio's population is expected to grow by 500,000 by 2030."

 

    Huh? The Census projects a DECLINE in all of Ohio by 2030. Is Central Ohio attracting people from the rest of the state?

Boy, that article was quite stilted in favor of sprawl.

 

Soaring gas prices are prompting potential homebuyers to look closer to the central city to save money, say those promoting so-called smart growth for Columbus.

 

So-called? Since when it is up to the reporter to add an editorial comment in a news article?

 

I would love my house with 5 acres behind me, but it's not gonna happen, she said.

 

Did the reporter have any plans to interview someone who is moving to the urban core?

 

It's a given that metropolitan Columbus, with its love of suburban-style developments and backyards, will continue to grow outward.

 

It's a given? Who's the source here? Since when it is up to the reporter to add an editorial comment in a news article?

 

The U.S. Department of Transportation reported that nationwide, driving was down 4.3 percent in March from a year earlier. That's the first dip since 1979, another time of gasoline price spikes.

 

The reporter could have mentioned that this was the biggest drop since the feds began tracking such data in 1942. Why was this rather important piece of information omitted?

 

They'll keep moving out to where they perceive schools are better, said Weiler, who has a stake in that: He's developing 1,300 homes at the NorthStar Golf Resort and Pastures at Blue Church near the I-71 and Rts. 36-37 interchange in Delaware County.

 

Yay! Good reporter for noting why some have their beliefs and others don't. I'm very interested to know why the reporter has his beliefs.

The article was standard auto-phile boosterism. I get so peeved when someone from AAA says something like "Americans' love affair with their cars" - suggest that its patriotic to love your ride, and somehow those who criticize auto-sprawl and freeway construction are unAmerican. Mostly, I object to the all-inclusive and totalizing language.

^----"A regional planning agency says central Ohio's population is expected to grow by 500,000 by 2030."

 

    Huh? The Census projects a DECLINE in all of Ohio by 2030. Is Central Ohio attracting people from the rest of the state?

 

The actual stat is "central Ohio's population is expected to grow by 500,000 TONS by 2030."

I'm pretty sure that article was a column.

No.  It was a front page story...not a column...in this morning's Dispatch.  KJP...you ought to take a crack at a letter to the editor...you raised some excellent points.

I should have said that article was written like a column.

Mark's actually a pretty decent reporter and a good guy, and pretty smart.

 

That said, I too, had a lot of problems with this story. The reporter, like the paper as a whole, does not do a great job of stepping back and getting the big picture. I also was surprised at some of the quotes from MORPC folks (though the director, Chester Jourdan, was pretty straightforward in talking of the obvious need for walkable communities).

 

One of the most obvious things missing was real-estate data and trends. Central Ohio 'burbs, as I understand it, have a more-stressed housing market than urban neighborhoods. (As is the case in many places around the country.)

 

Knowing this paper all too well, I see this story as more incomplete or sloppy than blatant bias.

No. It was a front page story...not a column...in this morning's Dispatch. KJP...you ought to take a crack at a letter to the editor...you raised some excellent points.

 

Thanks. I would love to write such letters. Alas, considering my employment, I am unable. I encourage others to take a crack at writing a letter, however.

 

The article was standard auto-phile boosterism. I get so peeved when someone from AAA says something like "Americans' love affair with their cars" - suggest that its patriotic to love your ride, and somehow those who criticize auto-sprawl and freeway construction are unAmerican. Mostly, I object to the all-inclusive and totalizing language.

 

I hate all-or-nothing language, too. That was something I learned in college, that there is no such thing as "always," "only" or "never."

 

And I hate tag lines that give Americans an escape clause for not having to think about something. We drive to Point B because we have a "love affair with our cars." Uh, maybe we drive there because there is no alternative because every attempt at getting funding for transit through the state assembly has been fought by political action committees representing the highway contractors and car manufacturers. Or because the local zoning has created land use patterns that make it difficult if not unsafe to walk there amongst all the parking lot entrances and high-speed roadways. Or, how hard is it just mark a bike lane on the freakin' road??

 

I also love the mis-use of the word "progress." For example:  "That glorious castle-like home where President James A. Garfield liked to give sermons was demolished in the name of progress, to make way for a new exit ramp from the James A. Garfield Memorial Highway. Highway planners proposed demolishing the McDonald's across the street but the property-take expense was less for the 19th-century home. Soon motorists will be able to speed from the drive-through lane directly onto the Garfield Highway and head straight home to the comforts of their suburban paradise. That's progress, America!"

"America's love affair with the automobile has turned into a cheap date"

 

---- Kevin Brubaker of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, speaking at a recent public meeting of Ohio's 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force.

 

That quote was echoed at the same meeting by Columbus City Engineer Randy Bowman who stated:

 

"Not only is it a cheap date, but it's like you're trying to break up with her and she keeps calling you."

Boy, that article was quite stilted in favor of sprawl.

 

Soaring gas prices are prompting potential homebuyers to look closer to the central city to save money, say those promoting so-called “smart growth” for Columbus.

 

So-called? Since when it is up to the reporter to add an editorial comment in a news article?

 

He didn't, not there anyway.  I guarantee he's pro-sprawl, the line about making people's jobs tough absolutely dripped with irony.

 

But calling anti-sprawl policies "smart growth" is no different from calling anti-abortionists "pro life".  It's a self-selected descriptor of dubious impartiality

^The rub is with the "so-called." This expression, while semantically correct, lugs a lot of pejorative baggage.

But most of the zombie hoards probably didn't even notice.

 

Foreman, 37, loves her Near East Side neighborhood. But she wants lots of land for her 1-year-old son and her friend's four children to explore, learn about wildlife and play in a place without fearing for their safety.

 

 

Wouldn't a weekly outing to a metropark or nearby state park take care of this need, plus she would get to spend an additional hour or more each day at home with her kid by skipping the commute from an outlying county to downtown Cbus.

 

The underlying antisocial/antidiversity side of sprawl never comes up in these articles -- that topic is taboo I guess. It's always about space, a big yard, etc. Seems to me its a big part of what motivates people to keep seeking outward escape for all the perceived urban evils -- to the point that they won't take their kid to a park...

Visit the country?!?! Visit it??? Why, that flies in the face of our God-given right to move to the peaceful countryside, clog it up with houses and cars and strip malls and noise, to the point that we love it to death! Then we move on to the next to batch of countryside, like some swarm of locusts while the "undesirables" follow behind to pick over the scraps the middle-class has left behind. Now that's freedom, America, dammit!!!

Once upon a time, people had summer homes and they stayed there for a couple months. They tended to be in rural/touristy areas. This could actually become more popular rather than less if cities re-densify.

^

I dont know about here in Ohio, but in Louisville there were little summer cabins or cottages close-in, for people to live in as it was heathier and less oppressive than living in the city.  Farmers would build these and rent them out for weeks or months to city folk, who would take the train or maybe even drive out (this was, say, between 1900 into the 1920s) and live in the country (assuming the man of the house would commute in).