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Re: [Phys-l] How Much Value is Added at Elite Institutions-Response to Haim #2



Try to put a Wal-mart or other big store in an urban neighborhood and you are instantly accused of "gentrification", destroying minority communities, and all kinds of nonsense. We have an area of abandoned factories in Providence called Olneyville. Any attempt to put anything but free housing for those who choose to be unemployed begets huge protests and a slew of politicians who promise to "protect" the residents of this slum from "evil developers".

I totally agree with Bill. The current educational system has failed miserably in the inner cities. What possible further harm could come from privatization?

Bob at PC

-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-
bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Marty Weiss
Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2011 10:53 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] How Much Value is Added at Elite Institutions-
Response to Haim #2


On Jan 29, 2011, at 9:18 PM, William Robertson wrote:

Let me throw a grenade and then get out of the way. How about we get
the government out of the education business? They don't have a great
track record in much else that they do. And if you say that private
education organizations would just abandon the inner city, then you
have to explain how other businesses survive in the inner city,

they don't.
Inner cities have no supermarkets, no fresh food of any kind, no
up-scale clothing stores except for a few shoe stores that sell Nikes,
dvd copies, cell phone places, and small shops that sell "knock-offs"
of Coach and other name brands; they also have fast food joints,
thrift shops, and liquor stores abound; there are many bodegas, Chinese
take-out (with bars on the serving windows), pawn shops and check-
cashing places; There are few factories left in the inner core cities.
You will find that many downtown areas are being rebuilt where
the transportation hubs and "Gallerias" can draw from the high rise
office buildings where professional people enter at 7 am and leave at 6
pm, leaving empty ghost towns. The "gallerias" are vast malls built
among shells of the former glorious Gothic department stores that we
used to shop in before there were suburban malls and strip centers;
before the light rail and six lane highways zipped you from your home
in the city out to the "sticks" where new housing projects turned corn
fields into split-level developments and mega-mansions. And where you
and I live today and send our children to nice safe schools, which are
not the source of the low test scores we have been writing about.
Back to the sociology lesson for the evening.
Just off the center city hubs are the gentrified areas with
million dollar condos and apartments with the opera houses, music
centers, restaurants, huge convention centers, gloriously appointed
hotels, and museum areas. These are populated by the upper-middle
class and wealthy who for the most part have no children, or if they do
have children they all go to private schools which spring up in the
near suburbs and in walking distance of the high rises. They work in
the center city areas and have little to do with the what we call the
"inner-city". (Think "Bonfire of the Vanities") These areas are
spreading out in many of the major cities, as more and more areas are
being gentrified, and the poor are squeezed out of homes they have
occupied for many years because of high taxes, "eminent domain", and
inability to keep up with tighter building codes. The interest in the
public school systems is less and less. The major concern is for
public police safety and fire safet
y. The people are not in opposition to funding schools to a point,
but they also don't have much of a stake in what happens there other
than if they are safe (ie: keep the student body away from their
protected condos).
I realize that much of this might seem strange to you who may be
reading this from the safety of some university town somewhere far from
Washington, Chicago, Philly, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Pittsburgh,
etc. (New York may be an exception with its diversity and mix of
neighborhoods, but even there, where Tom Wolf wrote his book, cited
above, they have an invisible divide reaching across racial and class
lines.) Maybe you travel here to attend the opera, or see a show, or
visit a famous museum. Probably you zip in and out via some freeway,
or take the Metro or subway, do your business or attend your convention
in relatively safety. Most never, never venture off the track into the
shadow areas where the concierge and AAA (or the GPS in your car) tells
you not to go. In some areas, going one or two blocks away from the
hotel where you stay puts you in danger! I got lost once in North
Philly taking a detour from the Zoo and believe me... that was scary;
and I was b
rought up and taught in a similar city environment.
These, then, are the neighborhoods with the schools I have been
writing about. The schools which are in danger of turning out
illiterate kids with little hope and few skills for the job market of
the 21st century. These are the schools where many of us taught or
are still teaching faithfully and professionally every day; The
neighborhoods where the private sector thinks they can come in as the
knight in shining armour. The neighborhoods where the private schools
do a fantastic job, as long as they DO NOT have to deal with the
numbers of teenagers we work with every day; as long as they can pick
and choose who they take in and who they can expel. We who teach in
the public schools do not have that choice!

MW.





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