Urban Schools and the Middle Class

I have missed posting for the past three weeks because I have been traveling on family business. Much of that time was spent in Cleveland. The big news in Cleveland is that recent census data rate it as the city with the highest poverty. This number one rating seems to have caused some consternation locally. The mayor appointed a task force to recommend ways to reduce the poverty rate.

Logically, there are two types of strategies to reduce poverty rates: (1) attract more middle class people and (2) convert poor people into middle class people. On the first strategy, Milwaukee seems far ahead of Cleveland: converting warehouses into condominiums, reviving neighborhoods such as Bay View, and developing interesting projects such as those along the river. The process of warehouse conversion in Cleveland, for example, has barely begun. By building freeways along its lake shore, Cleveland may have eliminated much of the land that would today be most attractive to potential city dwellers.

But Cleveland and Milwaukee have much in common as old industrial cities much of whose traditional industry as left. They also underwent massive busing programs aimed at integration but leading to a middle class exodus.

Which brings us to the question of the role of schools in determining whether cities have a strong middle class. When it comes to schools, most of the attention has been devoted to the second strategy: how to give poor children the skills they need to get good jobs and leave poverty behind. This is an extremely important goal but a very frustrating one because of the lack of consensus as to how it can be done, or even whether it is possible.

By comparison, very little attention has been paid to the schools' role in supporting the first strategy. Without attractive schools, the city's ability to build its middle class will be limited to those not needing schools. The lack of attention is frustrating, especially because educators know how to make schools attractive to middle class parents. Every superintendent of a wealthy suburb knows how to do it--or they lose their jobs. In Milwaukee, schools like Golda Meir, the language immersion schools, arts schools, Montessori schools, and others show it can be done in an urban environment.

Part of the explanation for the lack of attention to schools that would attract middle class families is that the needs of middle class children seem far less pressing than those of poor kids. Educators know that the middle class kids will probably survive--but if they leave how well will the city survive? There is sometimes the view that the schools can serve one group or the other and must choose between them. Programs targeted at different groups may be attacked as unfair or discriminatory.