Posted on 02/20/2002 12:01:13 PM PST by Salvation
Portland Tribune: Census shows that rich kids are leaving public schools behind
Todd Murphy of The Portland Tribune
Portland, OR, Feb. 19 - Families in Portland's higher-income neighborhoods are increasingly abandoning Portland Public Schools.
The evidence comes - for the first time in a concrete way - in a recent analysis of 2000 census data. It hints at the beginning of a trend that city leaders have dreaded for years: that middle- and upper-class families will flee the city's historically strong school district, causing the debilitating decline that has occurred within inner cities and city school systems across the country during the last three decades.
The census analysis, prepared as part of a report by Portland State University's Population Research Center, compares the percentage of school-age children enrolled in Portland Public Schools in 1990 to the percentage enrolled in 2000. That percentage declined across the district, from 85.8 percent in 1990 to 83.5 percent in 2000 - a percentage still higher than in many U.S. cities.
But the portion of school-age children enrolled in the Portland district declined more steeply from 1990 to 2000 on Portland's west side and in a large area of Northeast Portland around Grant High School - some of the most affluent areas of the city.
The percentage of school-age children enrolled in city schools in Southwest Portland dropped almost 10 points, to about 73 percent, from 1990 to 2000. The percentage declined 8.6 percent, to 71.1 percent, in west and northwest portions of the city. And the enrollment decline was 6.2 percent, to 83.8 percent, in city schools around Grant High.
The west-side decline happened even as the total population of school-age children increased significantly in the area during the decade, according to the PSU analysis.
"I guess what's most concerning about those kinds of rates: Are we just becoming like every other kind of urban center, where people with more resources don't care (about the public schools)?" Portland school board Chairwoman Debbie Menashe asked.
"Portland isn't that way yet,'' she said, but the numbers concern her. "I find it very sad."
A serious threat While district leaders are concerned about declining enrollment across the 54,000-student district - down from more than 80,000 in the early 1960s - the import of losing middle- and upper-class families is about more than their numbers.
Middle-class and upper-middle-class parents generally have more time to provide volunteer help in schools. They have more political clout to make sure that schools get government support.
By keeping their children in public schools, they generally make schools better - making city neighborhoods more attractive to live in. And pulling their children out of public schools has precipitated declines that have decimated inner cities and city school systems from Detroit to Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
"Look at what's happened in other cities, and pick almost any other urban environment," said Karla Wenzel, school board vice chairwoman.
"You lose the investment of the middle classes in caring about the school system and caring about schools and how they affect the livability of the city, and you have people who might shrug their shoulders and say, 'Public schools are only for people who can't afford other choices,' '' she said.
The apparent shift toward schools outside the Portland district is obvious in enrollment numbers.
Enrollment in the two largest suburban districts west of Portland - Beaverton and Hillsboro - has increased by more than 14,000 since 1990, or more than 37 percent.
Enrollment at Washington County private schools has jumped from 4,900 in 1990 to more than 7,600 this year, according to state and other figures. Enrollment in Multnomah County private schools has increased from about 8,900 in 1990 to about 9,900 this year.
The children of Mike and Nancy Phillips are among those statistics.
The couple, both physicians, live with their two sons in Portland's West Hills. Sixth-grader Spencer and second-grader Grant both have attended the city district's Ainsworth Elementary, which Nancy Phillips calls "a great school." But both are now attending private schools.
Spencer attends Gilkey Middle School because the Phillipses were concerned about the large size of the Portland district's West Sylvan Middle School. Grant attends Catlin Gabel School because they worried about the large class sizes at Ainsworth.
"I never thought in a million years that I would be doing this," Nancy Phillips said.
But the continued budget cuts to public schools and the erosion of programs "make me nervous" about Portland district schools, Phillips said. "I'm pulling my kids out of them because I'm not sure about the future. And it's sad."
District leaders say the trend can be stopped if state lawmakers better invest in schools, and if the district continues to develop its special programs and schools that can compete with private schools for middle-class and upper-class children.
But addressing the issue soon is urgent, Wenzel said. "What it says to me," she said of the PSU analysis, "is that the writing is on the wall. And what are we going to do about it?"
Fewer children born In recent years, district leaders have pointed at two other trends as major contributors to the enrollment decline: Couples are having fewer children, and skyrocketing Portland house prices are forcing families to buy homes in the suburbs.
The PSU report confirms the effect that the city's housing can have on school enrollment. It points out, for example, that while the city added more than 14,000 housing units during the 1990s, many of them were multifamily units - which house fewer school-age children per unit than single-family homes do.
This means that the number of kids per household is significantly lower in Portland than in the suburbs - and even lower in the city in 2000 than it was in 1990.
But the most striking part of the PSU analysis was the movement in percentage of Portland children attending Portland Public Schools - movement that had not been formally tracked before.
In the north, inner southeast and outer northeast areas of the city, the percentage of school-age children enrolled in district schools changed little from 1990 to 2000. In the outer southeast, an area that gained scores of immigrant families during the 1990s, the percentage of school-age children attending district schools actually increased from 84 percent to 90 percent.
Do you have any news articles about this? I believe you, I just think it would be great to expose these schools and their hypocrisy.
Thanks for the article link.
The migration of whites away from urban (and now suburban) areas has been enormous-it is one of the greatest untold demographic stories of the last fifty years.
It is at least comparable to the Northward migration of blacks from "down home" in the WWII and post-WWII era.
It seems that nearly all the schools showed some improvement over previous surveys.
The next issue of the local fish-wrap (The Oregonian) then carried stories about how the standards by which the schools had been measured were too lax.
I find it all very amusing since I am one of those who have fled the open sewer known as Portland Public Schools. My daughter went to a neighborhood public school for three years (K-1-2) before we elected to go with a private school. We visited several small, church-oriented schools in the area before settling on St. Stephen's. With only 130 students (K thru 8) she was bound to get smaller classes than in public school, and the religious education certainly wouldn't hurt her either.
Of course, she complained about wearing a uniform, and she didn't like this or that or something else, but what kid doesn't have something to dislike about school? Still, she was finally convinced about the quality of her education when she visited her brothers' school in Vancouver (WA). She noticed that the history book he was using in his 11th grade class was the same book she had used in her 7th grade class! Then when she visited his math class (it was open-house at his school,) she found that he was studying the very same things she had worked on that day in her 8th grade math class!
Next year, God willing, she'll start at La Salle High School and continue to learn.
By the way, for those who live in the Portland area, the tuition for St. Stephen's isn't as bad as you'd think. This year it's $2950 for Catholics, slightly more for others, and can be broken up into 10 payments. I suppose next year it'll have to go up $20 or so, but it's well worth it. This year the school had students representing 39 different religious or ethnic backgrounds.
I don't mean to make this sound like a commercial, but St. Stephen's has been very good for my daughter. I reccommend it highly.
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