Cities and Schools

I promised to do part II of the budget today, but I’d like to use Fridays to talk about national trends in education, and there was a piece in last Sunday’s Boston Globe that got me thinking about the importance of good public schools to the well-being of a community. The story, “There goes the neighborhood,” by Michael Jonas, asks whether Boston is becoming what author Joel Kotkin {“The City: A Global History (2005)} calls ‘an ephemeral city.’ Kotkin describes San Francisco as the ‘quintessential ephemeral city’ which serves more as a ‘cultural center and magnet for those drawn to the perks of city living – affluent empty-nesters, younger college graduates, gays – than an engine of economic growth and opportunity.’ The danger, according to Kotkin is that poorer, distressed cities (like Detroit and Cleveland) will try to revitalize themselves through such culture-centered strategies rather than do the hard work of providing good city services, ‘including schools that will make them viable places to raise children for those who have other choices.’ What is missing from the culture-centered strategy for urban renewal is middle-class families with children. San Francisco, by the way, has the fewest children per capita of any major city in the country.

So, what has all this to do with Lowell? Well, if the public schools continue to be under funded to the degree we’ve seen in recent years, while being heaped with non-funded federal mandates like ‘No Child Left Behind’, all the while serving as a scapegoat for community problems, then we will increasingly lose middle-class families from the system, resulting in what Paul Grogan of The Boston Foundation calls a drop in “social capital” meaning the ‘civic energy needed to push for reforms….. and higher standards in the school system.’