KC urban core population density.

[mean]

People are moving away from districts like Raytown, Center, Hickman Mills and even Grandview because of the perception that the schools suck. Stopping the rush away from the inner-ring probably isn't a bad idea to keep the core intact.

What has been happening to make the schools go bad? I know it can't be a race-based perception thing, since everyone knows that racial demographics is just one tiny, insignificant factor. Right?

[flyingember]

People are moving away from districts like Raytown, Center, Hickman Mills and even Grandview because of the perception that the schools suck. Stopping the rush away from the inner-ring probably isn't a bad idea to keep the core intact.

What has been happening to make the schools go bad? I know it can't be a race-based perception thing, since everyone knows that racial demographics is just one tiny, insignificant factor. Right?

ignore crime as a factor in a neighborhood. there's plenty of good schools in high crime areas across the country and crime can be solved much quicker than a bad school can

every school has students who do poorly so only having achieving students isn't what makes a good school. Liberty High has a ~80% graduation rate at its best and no one would call it a bad school.

it's not race. NKC high school is a good school and I bet it's less segregated than the KC district is at this point.
http://www.northkansascityhighschool.co ... s/2012.htm
here's the 2012 class photos just to get a feel for how mixed the school is.

the biggest issue the schools face these days isn't race but parental involvement.

a parent who cares is one who pushes the kid to succeed. pretty basic. I'd have a hard time finding the study but someone did a study about books and reading. it said that families that had books had more successful kids. not because the kids read but because the parents cared about learning.

a parent who cares about the environment their kids grow up in will move to a place where like parents are.
a parent who cares reads, encourages homework, goes to sports games, etc wants their kids to be at a school where like students are.

thus a successful school is just one where successful students are. and successful students don't have to have successful parents, just ones that push their kids to succeed.

learning has three legs. a teacher that pushes, a parent that pushes and a kid that responds.

You can't force someone to care about their kids education.
What you need to do is provide an environment to get people that care to move in and prop up the edge cases.
peer pressure is powerful.
if you have 10 kids and 5 are failing, 2 might and 3 will succeeed the 2 that might have little incentive to care if most their peers don't.
if you grow the group to 12 kids where 5 will succeeed there's a lot more pressure to not look stupid as the minority. maybe now 5 will succeeed and 3 are iffy and 4 will fail. that's a decent improvement. adding 1 more individual with a diploma who would have dropped out changes someone's life. that could be one less people that sits on welfare or is in jail. our tax rates are directly tied to how we help the inner city.

I bet someone who cares enough to maintain their home would care about their kids education. As a city we need to bring in more people looking to fix up homes and less cheap apartments.
We need more college educated workers living downtown and nearby. That core group of people who care about education can kick start an area.

Having available time to focus on the family. goes hand in hand with helping a kid succeed. A big deal change would be to speed up public transit. Cutting 15 minutes off a bus commute gives someone more time to focus on family.
This same change could help cut crime. A kid who's supervised has less time alone with bad influences. (I'd apply this to the suburbs too)

[longviewmo]

People are moving away from districts like Raytown, Center, Hickman Mills and even Grandview because of the perception that the schools suck. Stopping the rush away from the inner-ring probably isn't a bad idea to keep the core intact.

What has been happening to make the schools go bad? I know it can't be a race-based perception thing, since everyone knows that racial demographics is just one tiny, insignificant factor. Right?

I have never lived in those districts except Raytown personally, so I'm not really sure. Definitely wasn't race-related, as my neighborhood there was much whiter than the one I live in now. The inner-ring districts die silently while KCMSD gets all of the attention. I feel that a lot of it probably has to do with district administration, but I don't really have anything to back up that claim. A lot of people that went to those schools are moving away when they have kids, and they aren't necessarily moving to houses that are significantly nicer, which seems kind of weird. A lot of them aren't moving until kids hit middle school age.

every school has students who do poorly so only having achieving students isn't what makes a good school. Liberty High has a ~80% graduation rate at its best and no one would call it a bad school.

It's actually above 90% from the statistics I've found.

it's not race. NKC high school is a good school and I bet it's less segregated than the KC district is at this point.
http://www.northkansascityhighschool.co ... s/2012.htm
here's the 2012 class photos just to get a feel for how mixed the school is.

NKCHS also serves as the magnet school for the district.

[chaglang]

ignore crime as a factor in a neighborhood. there's plenty of good schools in high crime areas across the country and crime can be solved much quicker than a bad school can

every school has students who do poorly so only having achieving students isn't what makes a good school. Liberty High has a ~80% graduation rate at its best and no one would call it a bad school.

it's not race. NKC high school is a good school and I bet it's less segregated than the KC district is at this point.
http://www.northkansascityhighschool.co ... s/2012.htm
here's the 2012 class photos just to get a feel for how mixed the school is.

the biggest issue the schools face these days isn't race but parental involvement.

a parent who cares is one who pushes the kid to succeed. pretty basic. I'd have a hard time finding the study but someone did a study about books and reading. it said that families that had books had more successful kids. not because the kids read but because the parents cared about learning.

a parent who cares about the environment their kids grow up in will move to a place where like parents are.
a parent who cares reads, encourages homework, goes to sports games, etc wants their kids to be at a school where like students are.

thus a successful school is just one where successful students are. and successful students don't have to have successful parents, just ones that push their kids to succeed.

learning has three legs. a teacher that pushes, a parent that pushes and a kid that responds.

You can't force someone to care about their kids education.
What you need to do is provide an environment to get people that care to move in and prop up the edge cases.
peer pressure is powerful.
if you have 10 kids and 5 are failing, 2 might and 3 will succeeed the 2 that might have little incentive to care if most their peers don't.
if you grow the group to 12 kids where 5 will succeeed there's a lot more pressure to not look stupid as the minority. maybe now 5 will succeeed and 3 are iffy and 4 will fail. that's a decent improvement. adding 1 more individual with a diploma who would have dropped out changes someone's life. that could be one less people that sits on welfare or is in jail. our tax rates are directly tied to how we help the inner city.

I bet someone who cares enough to maintain their home would care about their kids education. As a city we need to bring in more people looking to fix up homes and less cheap apartments.
We need more college educated workers living downtown and nearby. That core group of people who care about education can kick start an area.

Having available time to focus on the family. goes hand in hand with helping a kid succeed. A big deal change would be to speed up public transit. Cutting 15 minutes off a bus commute gives someone more time to focus on family.
This same change could help cut crime. A kid who's supervised has less time alone with bad influences. (I'd apply this to the suburbs too)

Agreed. But there has to be something driving that parental disinterest, and from what I've read, poverty is the culprit. If a parent isn't well educated, they tend not see the value in education and don't push their child to do well in school. Because of the high minority poverty rate, it's easy to confuse impoverished students not achieving with minority students not achieving. But looking at parental income and not race also explains why the racial demographics of inner-ring suburbs may not change, but the quality of a school will.

[pstokely]

Are people moving from Raytown to Lees Summit because LS schools are high performing or because "those" people are moving into Raytown? Center has Accreditation with Distinction, Hickman Mills only has partial accreditation

[shinatoo]

Are people moving from Raytown to Lees Summit because LS schools are high performing or because "those" people are moving into Raytown? Center has Accreditation with Distinction, Hickman Mills only has partial accreditation

I moved from Raytown to LS for the schools. My new neighborhood has about the same ethnic mix as me old one. I believe overall LS is about an average reflection of the national African American population. Many parts of Lees Summit are indistinguishable from Raytown. Both in build and ethnic makeup.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Are people moving from Raytown to Lees Summit because LS schools are high performing or because "those" people are moving into Raytown?

"Those" people have been moving to the Raytown schools for some time time now, over 30 or 40 years now. Many black city employees moved to the area east of Swope Park and further north of Raytown because they could live in the city but have Raytown schools. Even a former mayor did this. But then blacks have been moving outward for years now. Look at the sports teams for many suburban high schools. They contain a good percentage of black youth. (Darren Sproles, 2001 graduate of Olathe North High School, born 1983, all childhood in Olathe.)

[pstokely]

People are moving away from districts like Raytown, Center, Hickman Mills and even Grandview because of the perception that the schools suck. Stopping the rush away from the inner-ring probably isn't a bad idea to keep the core intact.

What has been happening to make the schools go bad? I know it can't be a race-based perception thing, since everyone knows that racial demographics is just one tiny, insignificant factor. Right?

high number of single parent families and the old original owners selling their old 3 bedroom cracker box houses in Ruskin Heights to LLCs

[pstokely]

Are people moving from Raytown to Lees Summit because LS schools are high performing or because "those" people are moving into Raytown?

"Those" people have been moving to the Raytown schools for some time time now, over 30 or 40 years now. Many black city employees moved to the area east of Swope Park and further north of Raytown because they could live in the city but have Raytown schools. Even a former mayor did this. But then blacks have been moving outward for years now. Look at the sports teams for many suburban high schools. They contain a good percentage of black youth. (Darren Sproles, 2001 graduate of Olathe North High School, born 1983, all childhood in Olathe.)

There's even a small portion of KCMO in the Lees Summit district. Then Mayor Emmanuel Clever's kid went to Center using a relatives address. Most districts make you provide residency before the school year begins. I guess the whitest districts are noncompetitive in sports by your logic.

[longviewmo]

Are people moving from Raytown to Lees Summit because LS schools are high performing or because "those" people are moving into Raytown?

"Those" people have been moving to the Raytown schools for some time time now, over 30 or 40 years now. Many black city employees moved to the area east of Swope Park and further north of Raytown because they could live in the city but have Raytown schools. Even a former mayor did this. But then blacks have been moving outward for years now. Look at the sports teams for many suburban high schools. They contain a good percentage of black youth. (Darren Sproles, 2001 graduate of Olathe North High School, born 1983, all childhood in Olathe.)

There's even a small portion of KCMO in the Lees Summit district. Then Mayor Emmanuel Clever's kid went to Center using a relatives address. Most districts make you provide residency before the school year begins. I guess the whitest districts are noncompetitive in sports by your logic.

A crazy amount of city employees live in that small portion of KCMO for the LS schools.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Then Mayor Emmanuel Clever's kid went to Center using a relatives address. Most districts make you provide residency before the school year begins. I guess the whitest districts are noncompetitive in sports by your logic.

Wrong. The mayor's family went to Raytown South high school. He lives, or lived, just inside the city limits by Gregory and Blue Ridge. And as long as the relative has legal custody a child can attend the school in the school district the relative lives in. Come to think about it there might have been something to the Center thing but Raytown schools Center schols what's the difference? They are not the KCMOSD.

What logic about sports? Nothing was said about competiveness. I was just pointing out there is a large number of black families living in the burbs. Sports teams were mentioned since they are usually pictured in the local sports reporting, which many watch, instead of the chess club or debate. Just pointing out ,in other words, lily white suburbs, for the most part, are a thing of the past.

[pstokely]

Then Mayor Emmanuel Clever's kid went to Center using a relatives address. Most districts make you provide residency before the school year begins. I guess the whitest districts are noncompetitive in sports by your logic.

What logic about sports? Nothing was said about competiveness. I was just pointing out there is a large number of black families living in the burbs. Sports teams were mentioned since they are usually pictured in the local sports reporting, which many watch, instead of the chess club or debate. Just pointing out ,in other words, lily white suburbs, for the most part, are a thing of the past.

Some districts will take a power of attorney of a kid actually lives in the district with a relative without custody. Instead of being 100% white, formally lilly white suburbs are they now just 80% white.

[pstokely]

Has any recent mayor with school age kids sent their kids to KCMO public schools, not a suburban district with boundaries in KCMO city limits? Obama doesn't send his daughters to the DC public schools, Bill didn't send Chelsea to them either.

[pstokely]

Then Mayor Emmanuel Clever's kid went to Center using a relatives address. Most districts make you provide residency before the school year begins. I guess the whitest districts are noncompetitive in sports by your logic.

Wrong. The mayor's family went to Raytown South high school. He lives, or lived, just inside the city limits by Gregory and Blue Ridge. And as long as the relative has legal custody a child can attend the school in the school district the relative lives in. Come to think about it there might have been something to the Center thing but Raytown schools Center schols what's the difference? They are not the KCMOSD.

People think "Central High School" and "Center High School" are the same

[FangKC]

I agree that success in school is most largely the result of parent participation, or parents who care and make their child do homework, have set rules, etc.

Their are many people though who don't see parenting as a responsibility or job. They just see kids as people who live with them, and some even see them as an inconvenience or burden. These parents don't take responsibility seriously, and it's just not about their kids. They usually don't take life seriously. Often it's because they had bad parents themselves.

It always makes me sad to see any child in this type of family situation.

The problem is not entirely because children are being raised by single parents. Many urban poor have to become single parents for a variety of reasons: their spouse had substance-abuse problems; is in prison; has mental illness, or has died in violence circumstances or because of disease. Women especially sometimes have to divorce to avoid violence and substance abusers, which creates even greater problems in a family than raising children alone.

My grandmother raised nine children--mostly alone. She was widowed twice, and divorced her last husband because he was alcoholic and not supportive. They were desperately poor. This was mostly during the Depression. She worked practically all the time. However, she made sure her children were fed properly, and kept up in school. She did this without help of any kind. No federal or state assistance, because it didn't exist. All of her children graduated high school, and none got into trouble with the law. She was strict but loving, and all the children had responsibilities and chores to do. In the summer, and after school, she found them jobs to do to keep them out of trouble. My aunts have said that they never got jobs on their own. They would come home, and Grandma would tell them she found a job for them. This was mostly to keep them busy and out of trouble while she was working.

Yes, it's harder as a single parent. However, I don't single that out as the most significant factor. It's the attitude of the parent(s).

That said, I do think a lot of single and married couples, that are also poor, need help. Life can beat some people down to the point they no longer care. And often alcohol and drugs play a part in this.

Another issue within the black community is the high number of their young men being sent to prison for minor drug possession. Many of these men are not violent. However, once they spend time in prison, they learn to behave like criminals. Many are sent to prison while still young, and during the time they should be acquiring job skills and work experience. When you get out of prison at age 25 because of marijuana possession, it practically impossible to get a job.

The punitive approach to drug usage has not worked. My point in bringing this up is that many of these men are also parents. This policy deprives their children of having a relationship with a father early in their lives. The father also learns how to be absent, and thus when he returns, the habit continues.

I don't think government can solve this issue. However, I do wish churches got more involved, in the same manner as in this article.

http://joco913.com/news/it-takes-a-village/

One of the programs that has most engaged Village Presbyterian volunteers has been PAL, which stands for Partners in Active Learning.

Each volunteer commits to spending one hour a week tutoring two children for half an hour each in reading at Faxon Elementary School, 1320 E. 32nd Terrace.

The school is one of the lowest performing schools in the Kansas City district, said Principal Kathleen Snipes. Of the 310 students, only about 10 percent were reading at grade level last year, she said. Many are one to two years behind.

The volunteers supplement what the students are learning in their classrooms.

Before coming to Faxon three years ago, the program operated at Franklin Elementary for 10 years before the school closed, said the PAL coordinator, Charlotte Davison of Village Presbyterian.

As the church members started participating, they recruited their friends and now 90 volunteers are in the program, Davison said. About half are from Village.

“But we need more volunteers, especially men,” she said.

Snipes said the students look for their PALS every week.

“One little boy wanted a PAL

and kept asking me, ‘Am I going to get a PAL?’” she said. “Finally, one volunteer took him on as her third student.”

Snipes said some students are discipline problems in their classrooms, “and when they are sitting with their PAL, they have halos on their heads,” she said with a laugh.

...

In the 13 years since Betty Crooker showed up in Frances Pickens’ neighborhood, the two have become family.

Pickens calls Crooker her white mother, and Crooker calls Pickens her black daughter.

They pray with each other at 7 each morning.

Pickens and her husband had been on cocaine at the time and now are clean. Their house had been in need of repairs, and Crooker arranged for funds and volunteers to fix it up.

Pickens’ and her husband’s three sons have graduated from high school and have jobs. One is married with children and says he wants his children to get a good education. And their daughter is in college.

[chrizow]

Then Mayor Emmanuel Clever's kid went to Center using a relatives address. Most districts make you provide residency before the school year begins. I guess the whitest districts are noncompetitive in sports by your logic.

Wrong. The mayor's family went to Raytown South high school. He lives, or lived, just inside the city limits by Gregory and Blue Ridge. And as long as the relative has legal custody a child can attend the school in the school district the relative lives in. Come to think about it there might have been something to the Center thing but Raytown schools Center schols what's the difference? They are not the KCMOSD.

his son definitely attended ray-south middle and high for a bit, b/c he was in my class. i think he transferred to o'hara or something for part of high school?

[chingon]

Has any recent mayor with school age kids sent their kids to KCMO public schools, not a suburban district with boundaries in KCMO city limits? Obama doesn't send his daughters to the DC public schools, Bill didn't send Chelsea to them either.

Funkhouser.

[flyingember]

Agreed. But there has to be something driving that parental disinterest, and from what I've read, poverty is the culprit. If a parent isn't well educated, they tend not see the value in education and don't push their child to do well in school. Because of the high minority poverty rate, it's easy to confuse impoverished students not achieving with minority students not achieving. But looking at parental income and not race also explains why the racial demographics of inner-ring suburbs may not change, but the quality of a school will.

I agree but it's not a defining reason for failure of kids as a whole group.

look at how different poverty and education tie together in the city vs the suburbs. there is poverty and parents working multiple jobs and the like in Liberty and Gladstone but many more kids graduate. The NKC district is a great example because there's homes downtown that cost the same as homes that go to Oak Park or Winnetoka or NKC HS.

I wonder how much of it is sports. How many kids at Winnetonka or Raytown would fail without football grade minimums?

[aknowledgeableperson]

Funkhouser's offspring might have attended public schools but not while he was mayor.
With regards to children of the POTUS Amy Carter attended Wash DC public schools. Generally speaking usually the WH is not occcupied with school aged children.

[chaglang]

Agreed. But there has to be something driving that parental disinterest, and from what I've read, poverty is the culprit. If a parent isn't well educated, they tend not see the value in education and don't push their child to do well in school. Because of the high minority poverty rate, it's easy to confuse impoverished students not achieving with minority students not achieving. But looking at parental income and not race also explains why the racial demographics of inner-ring suburbs may not change, but the quality of a school will.

I agree but it's not a defining reason for failure of kids as a whole group.

look at how different poverty and education tie together in the city vs the suburbs. there is poverty and parents working multiple jobs and the like in Liberty and Gladstone but many more kids graduate. The NKC district is a great example because there's homes downtown that cost the same as homes that go to Oak Park or Winnetoka or NKC HS.

Sure, I don't think that there are defining reasons for the failure of a whole group. But there are things like race and poverty that make a group of kids more likely to succeed or fail. There will always be students who overachieve. I'm just not comfortable with calling it "parental involvement", only because there are bigger factors that drive involvement - again, race and poverty. People who are born to poor and uneducated parents tend to become only slightly less poor and uneducated adults.

And, while I understand that you have to graduate high school to go to college or a trade school, talking about a high school diploma as if it's meaningful is a little silly. On its own in the labor market it's barely relevant anymore. We should be factoring in post-secondary (2 year, 4 year, trade school, whatever) education when we talk about the success rate of a school district.