The editors of the Wall Street Journal seize on the riots in Baltimore as an opportunity to criticize Democratic Party domination of cities:
Nothing excuses the violence of rampaging students or the failure of city officials to stop it before Maryland’s Governor called in the National Guard. But as order starts to return to the streets, and the usual political suspects lament the lack of economic prospects for the young men who rioted, let’s not forget who has run Baltimore and Maryland for nearly all of the last 40 years.
The men and women in charge have been Democrats, and their governing ideas are “progressive.†This model, with its reliance on government and public unions, has dominated urban America as once-vibrant cities such as Baltimore became shells of their former selves. In 1960 Baltimore was America’s sixth largest city with 940,000 people. It has since shed nearly a third of its population and today isn’t in the top 25.
The dysfunctions of the blue-city model are many, but the main failures are three: high crime, low economic growth and failing public schools that serve primarily as jobs programs for teachers and administrators rather than places of learning.
While I think their identification of the problems is fair, I disagree with some of their other interpretations. Their prescriptions:
It’s time for a new urban renewal, this time built on the ideas of private economic development, personal responsibility, “broken windows†policing, and education choice.
won’t solve our cities problems. I reject their view that Rudy Giuliani’s “broken windows” policing was the linchpin of New York’s recovery. I think that can be attributed to two reasons: New York’s unique cultural position in the United States and the massive federal subsidies that have been heaped on the city over the last several decades. “Broken windows” policing did help but the Disney company among others was instrumental in New York’s revival. Restoring the city’s position as a major tourist destination just isn’t a strategy open to Baltimore, Cleveland, or even Chicago. And if we stop subsidizing the financial sector I strongly suspect that New York will falter.
I don’t know if there’s a single magic bullet for our cities. I can point to some of the things that need to happen, for example we should stop subsidizing oil production, home building, and the highways that ease travel between the urban centers and the suburbs. It’s not that we shouldn’t do any of those things but that we should let them stand on their own two feet and let their actual merits determine what gets done.
Single party rule is obviously a problem but it’s not a problem with a ready solution. Educational choice is a policy that will benefit children with engaged parents and the children of the upper middle class disproportionately. Sadly, many parent just aren’t engaged.
I think that what will make our cities prosper is to stop subsidizing the growth of suburbs and a restoration of economic dynamism but I just don’t know how we get there from here.
Educational choice is a policy that will benefit children with engaged parents and the children of the upper middle class disproportionately.
Choice, like charter schools, is a way for people with some pull & money to get subsidies for their children.
Yep.
I keep asking the question what about the other 50% (or 90%) of kids? Nobody is proposing any answers. I have my answer: a more diverse economy. Not everybody will be a doctor, lawyer, teacher, or other professional.
@Icepick
The New Orleans school system is all or almost all charter schools. I have not kept up with it, and I find it interesting that neither side uses it to prove their argument. From what I have seen, it is having mixed results.
It is almost exclusively college oriented, and in a tourist town, a lot of jobs do not require a college degree. I know there are other complaints.
Come on, TB, don’t you know you can’t be a barrista without at least a four-year degree?
(Sadly, almost tragically, I’m not even being sarcastic.)
@Tastybits, I heard an interview recently of a New Orleans woman who complained she couldn’t get her child into any of the good programs because her child wasn’t an A student. The mom seemed active and engaged in learning about all of the options, but it sounded like her kid was average. Not a trouble-maker, just someone that the best schools were not competing to enroll.
Not that it didn’t happen before. I had a friend who taught at an N.O. public school that was designated a musical academy, and just that additional designation/restriction provided a vehicle for sorting the best students. I frankly don’t see any public benefit unless a charter school has to take all-comers.
PD, what’s the benefit of a charter school in music takes ng people who are tone deaf?
What the schools need is a blind admission policy. That would still be gamed, but it would be better than …..
The curriculum designation, described by PD, is an important ingredient to creating a more meaningful and thus successful educational format for students — no matter what the educational path might be If you place children in academic settings that sync with their interests and inclinations, they tend to engage more fully, leading to higher HS gratuation percentages, along with greater employment opportunities because of pinpointed skill sets.
This kind of course assignment would require having a larger variety of options than are currently available, over and above what would be academically mandated to provide a generally proficient K-12 education. Consequently, shops, homemaking skills, arts, science, language etc. would be blocks of education emphasized for those who indicated a proclivity for such. The illusion that everyone is college-bound would fade, giving children the space to grow in areas that will better serve and support them in jobs during their adulthood.
The New Orleans school system is all or almost all charter schools. I have not kept up with it, and I find it interesting that neither side uses it to prove their argument.
It is best that it not be used to bolster arguments from either side because the situation is so unique.
In New Orleans, there are no teacher unions. After Katrina, they fired all the teachers. (There is a lawsuit over it.) I think there are a few magnet schools, but otherwise, the public schools are charter. This should be a conservative’s wet dream.
The problem with the government entities acting like their private counterparts is that they have captive customers and that they have requirements to fulfill. The public school system MUST educate ALL students. They cannot turn away anybody, but they cannot be put out of business.
The charter schools rely on a public and private money, and everybody wants their donations to go toward college prep. Nobody wants to donate to a charter school for oyster shuckers, busboys, waiters, carriage drivers, etc., and none of the other charter schools want them because they drag down the school’s scores.
I am sure that this is the best way to ensure they grow up to be fine upstanding productive citizens. Oh wait, …