When I was growing up in South Lawrence I attended what was then the Breen School. All the teachers were Irish Catholic spinsters and their calling was to teach. They did it as if their students lives depended on it and they disciplined us as if our lives depended on it. The principal and our parents stood behind them; you had no choice but to learn and be courteous.
The question of diversity cuts both ways for parents. White parents may live in Boston because they want their children to feel comfortable with all races, but many will say privately that they feel like a minority in the public schools, which are only 14 percent white.
The families who have stayed are, on average, poorer, less likely to be white, and more likely to be immigrants than those of a decade ago. (Indeed, if it weren't for the large rise in immigrant Latino families primarily in East Boston, the city would probably have seen more of a decrease in children and families.) These trends are not unique to Boston – cities all over the country, including San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., have seen similar dips.