Tube City Almanac

July 09, 2007

School Days, School Days

Category: default || By jt3y

The river of crocodile tears being cried by certain state legislators and politicians over the fate of Duquesne High School is truly moving. The outpouring of grief reminds me of the words of the great Tom Lehrer:

It's fun to eulogize / The people you despise / As long as you don't let 'em in your schools.


Under state law, if a public high school closes, the next nearest high school is obligated to accept the students. Normally, that would be West Mifflin. To prevent the district from being overwhelmed by an influx of new students, the state Education Department proposed a compromise that would have divided Duquesne students between East Allegheny and West Mifflin.

But new state Rep. Bill Kortz lobbied fellow legislators to reject that request, and they did, unanimously ... which is amazing since they can't even get a budget passed on time.

Although Kortz isn't a career politician, he must be a quick learner, because his behavior last week was Grade-A pandering. The state shouldn't be allowed to "bulldoze" Duquesne High School, Kortz said. He and others want the state to keep Duquesne High open; West Mifflin would then allow Duquesne students to take certain classes at the larger school.

Some how, I suspect this proposal wasn't designed to "save" Duquesne High School; it was made to keep Duquesne students out of the neighboring districts. Duquesne parents have seen right through it.

Denise Washington, whose son Malik is a senior in the fall, told the Tribune-Review: "How would that work? Would they bus them back and forth? Would they have first period at West Mifflin, second period at Duquesne and third period at West Mifflin?"

Mrs. Washington says her son doesn't want to go to West Mifflin anyway "because school officials and students there have made it clear Duquesne students are not welcome." I can't say I blame him.

. . .

Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking. The new school year is less than two months away, and Duquesne High students still don't know what's going to happen.

Why haven't more people taken up their cause?

Where are local church pastors, for instance? Does anything that's happened so far seem "Christian" to you?

Where are the Pittsburgh newspapers? There's been hardly a peep out of the Post-Gazette's editorial board; I haven't seen anything from the Trib editorial page.

And where (Lord help me) are local bloggers? They're written nothing about the situation (Mark Rauterkus is a notable and welcome exception).

On the other hand, every time Pittsburgh Mayor Opie "Luke" Ravenstahl blows his nose, someone bangs out 3,000 words. Don't worry about Opie. He got a great education at a private high school and an expensive private liberal arts college. He may need to be "schooled," but his education is complete.

That's not the case for the students of Duquesne High School.

. . .

Maybe if we close our eyes and stick our fingers in our ears, someone else will come up with a solution. Maybe the state will reopen Duquesne High School. Maybe a charter school will open. Maybe the "problems" will go away.

These aren't "problems," they're young men and women who need an education. These aren't problems, they're people who deserve access to opportunities that everyone else takes for granted.

This parochialism and separatism defines everything that's wrong with Western Pennsylvania. We need to invest our energies in working together, not in finding new loopholes to keep us apart.

For now, everyone seems to be turning their backs on Duquesne High School's students.

It's about time someone stood up for them.






Your Comments are Welcome!

These folks could just sign their children up with PA Cyber schools
http://www.go2pacyber.com/
but that would require some intiative on their part.
Dependency on the government is to leave your life in the hands of idiot politicians and clueless bureaucrats.
doug - July 09, 2007



You mean the one that’s under investigation by the state Attorney General’s office?

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07077/770513-298.stm

But I get your point, Doug. Sooner or later you end up putting your life in someone’s hands —- whether it’s bureaucrats or businessmen —- and either way, you have to be an intelligent consumer.

Ironically, 20 years ago the Midland School District was in the same boat as Duquesne is now —- the high school was failing and no one would accept the students. That’s why the cyber charter school was formed in the first place.
Webmaster (URL) - July 09, 2007



“These folks could just sign their children up with PA Cyber schools
http://www.go2pacyber.com/
but that would require some intiative on their part.
Dependency on the government is to leave your life in the hands of idiot politicians and clueless bureaucrats.”

Or, alternatively, folks could use their initiative to stand up and demand accountability from the idiot politicians and clueless bureaucrats.

Too many people in this area sit around rubbing their hands and ruing the “theys”; “they do this”, “they don’t do that”, “they’re lazy bums”. Alternatively, people sit around and say “it’s their problem, not mine.”

The Duquesne situation is not going to go away, and the people in South Allegheny, East Allegheny, Elizabeth-Forward, Clairton, Steel Valley, and even West Mifflin need to wake up and realize that they are about 5 to 15 years away from becoming the Duuquesne School District.

Rather than sticking our heads in the sand and blaming the politicians (whom “folks” vote for, by the way), maybe we need to be flooding the state legislature with letters, calls, and emails demanding that Allegheny County begin to consolidate the patchwork quilt of school districts and municipalities and stop trying to maintain an 18th Century system of government and what laughingly passes for public services.

I’m not saying that alternative education sources are a bad thing or have no place. Certainly a good parent should do whatever is necessary for the good of their child. But every tax paying citizen of the state needs to understand that we all have a stake in quality public education, whether we utilize it or not.

Some 18th century philosopher whose name eludes me once said something to the effect of “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” The evil is that our tax money and (more importantly) the region’s future are being squandered, and not too many people are doing much about it.
Officer Jim - July 09, 2007



You mean the one that’s under investigation by the state Attorney General’s office?

Yea that’s the one. It is the same one that Rick Santorum’s kids used. I mean if PA Cyber is good enough for a US Senator I think Duquesne should be ok with it.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07077/770513-298.stm

My problem with this topic is the turn to the “government” for solution approached. You don’t like PA Cyber how about this: teleconference classes from another school or home schooling. There are solutions to this problem that would make the parents and students in Duquesne satisfied. But they aren’t going to be found in Harrisburg. Property tax reform anyone?

Quote of the day:
PA bureaucrat interviewed about shutdown: “ I don’t understand why the casino are still open.”

They make money for the state. You don’t.
doug - July 09, 2007



Officer Jim, it was Edmund Burke. Can I get an “amen!” for Officer Jim?

The first step toward property tax reform would be to get rid of these inefficient, tiny school districts like Duquesne, Cornell, Clairton, etc., which require disproportionate amounts of money to run and aren’t able to provide a full range of options because they’re so damned small.
Webmaster (URL) - July 10, 2007



You know, I freely admit that I am one of the bloggers that dropped the ball on this. Jonathan Potts picked it up and ran with it today. The thing is, somewhere I had found a link to the Allegheny Institute website, where they claimed (6/1/07) the students were having some outrageous amount of state money spent on them (16,000 per student), and the school was still closing. This makes no sense to me, and in fact was somewhat intimidating. I just don’t know enough to have a logical opinion on this. The PG mentioned something about debt service in the district, maybe that is what is eating up the state money. The Institute claimed the state was spending more per student than Mount Lebanon spends per student in its district. Maybe there is an apples and oranges thing going on, but I don’t really know.
Ed Heath (URL) - July 11, 2007



It’s no surprise that bloggers like Ed Heath find the finances of the School District of the City of Duquesne to be a “somewhat intimidating” subject.

On February 26, 2007, Chris Berdnik, the School District of Pittsburgh’s Director of Finance and Asst. Board Secretary testified before the Pennsylvania Task Force on School Cost Reduction. Regarding Pittsburgh’s charge of the Duquesne schools, Mr. Berdnik said: ‘With substantial effort by the recently appointed (Duquesne) Finance Manager and Pittsburgh’s Finance division, the financial position of the (Duquesne) district is accurately stated to the very best of our knowledge as of June 30, 2006. The accounting records inherited on July 20, 2006 were an unmitigated disaster.”

Earlier reports by former Auditor General Robert P. Casey Jr. noted some p r o g r e s s in Duquesne complying with standard accounting and record keeping procedures, but it could never recover from a series of poor decisions that began in 1995 when the school directors decided to renovate the high school building and consolidate all public education under on roof. The current education crisis actually existed then, but no one in Duquesne would admit it.
Strisi - July 12, 2007



“It was made to keep Duquesne students out of the neighboring districts. Duquesne parents have seen right through it.”

Maybe parents in Duquesne should try getting their kids to be more behaved, and parents from other districts wouldn’t be afraid to have their kids share a school with them.

As for a solution, why not give the parents the money that would have been spent on their kids and allow them to pick an alternative school whether it be public, private or God forbid a religious-based school that they feel would be best suited for their individual child?

Where the dependency on the state lies, I don’t blame the parents as much as I blame the state. The state doesn’t even give the parents the option of being independent. That’s a shame for the parents and the kids.
Adam - July 19, 2007



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