During grad school, a lot of my classes had us in the Philadelphia schools, tutoring, counselling or otherwise trying to help. I would talk to people I know about what I saw inside and while some were sympathetic, there was also often a question of why the district just can't pull itself together. Can't they hire better teachers? Or figure out how to keep the kids under control? The issue really is that there just aren't the resources to serve and support of all the students who attend. Students in poverty tend to need academic help, their neighborhood stress them out and their parents often work whenever they can and so can't help as much as they'd like. As a result, even grad students assigned to schools were spread thin.
The situation has gotten worse as the money per pupil available in Philadelphia has be reduced. Last year, two students died at schools who only had part-time nurses due to the lost money. This year, the schools are crowded, classes are ever bigger and there aren't nearly enough teachers. There isn't much to be done other than try to convince the Pennsylvania legislature not to give up on these kids, but I had to share when some of these schools were such a big part of my life for so long. If you live in Pennsylvania, please consider contacting your state rep or state senator and urging them to pass a budget that restores funding to schools. If you need to find your representative's contact information, you can click here These kids will grow up to be your neighbors one way or another, so if you want them to be good neighbors, we need to give them a chance.