Strong schools are the key to a strong, livable city
School choice and focus option programs are at the very root of the problems facing PPS. The District has a duty and obligation to provide good schools in every neighborhood. Instead, PPS has expended an inordinate amount of time, energy, and resources attempting to compete with private schools for students whose parents want a "special" program for their child, and don't mind commuting across town to get it. Meanwhile, parents in neighborhoods with under-resourced neighborhood schools are driven to transfer out of their neighborhood. It is a completely misdirected and unconscionable strategy.
PPS' duty is to the great mass of students, not to a select few. In the end, open enrollment and focus option schools promote inequality. The affluent few get to choose, but everyone else is left behind. Neighborhood schools become the schools of last resort, the schools you go to when you have no choice.
We need an open and honest public debate about this ruinous policy of school choice and open enrollment. The only logical outcome of the current policy is the shuttering of poor-perfoming schools in marginal neighborhoods, as the Darwinian competition for students favors schools located in affluent neighborhoods. The only kids left in the decimated schools are from families who can't afford to take advantage of choice. It is a vivid illustration of Bush's America, where some have the good life and the rest are left behind.
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"Strong Schools Key To Viable City"
I'm practically a senior citizen, a product of public schooling, and aware enough to realize that most cities are in a social transition. What makes the issue of closing down some schools and enlarging others very difficult, is the result of one primary factor. There are secondary factors that I won't address.
Primarily, the demographics of major cities is shifting more to include a higher percentage of 3 important groups of people:
Child-free adults who do not intend on becoming parents
Retired people with comfortable income
Affluent families that shun the suburban lifestyle
All 3 of these groups will have the largest influence on decisions made by city councils that have to deal with revenue enhancement. All 3 of these groups have the least amount of a buy-in mentality towards increasing the funding for local public schools. These groups are the reason why we have more high-end retail, residential conversion properties, business suite conversions, yoga/pilates centers, and expensive food stores,( Zupans, Whole Foods, Natures). The revenue generated from the services that provide for those 3 main groups I described will be the "cash cows" for our cities to mend their fiscal shortfalls. How can this be corrected? Aside from electing "honest" CPAs to run a city, there really isn't much you can do to alter the demographic changes that face " desirable cities to live in ", of which Portland is near the top of the list. That delicious espresso, great sushi place, cool shoe store/ clothing boutique around the corner and down the block, all come at a great cost to middle class families of our nations cities.