urbanSTL

Against my better judgement, I'm going to take the bait.

Northside Neighbor wrote:Look at schools in the city. 75% of city kids don't have access to a decent education.

First, is this an opinion or is there a source for this 75% number? I need help because I can't even think how a stat like that would be derived...how is it measured? Secondly, this statement doesn't align with my experience with 3 kids in STL and talking (sometimes endlessly) about school options with all kinds of parents. Thirdly, I need to know exactly which schools you think are terrible and what is keeping this 75% of kids from succeeding at school. I need to know so I can go visit it myself and see if I agree. Usually doing some research and first hand talking to a teacher or admin and seeing with your own eyes goes a long way toward gaining an understanding. If standardized test scores are your measure of success, that'll help me frame the comment. All kids in STL have great options for schools...if their parents are involved and committed to finding them the option that fits that kid. Will they have to ride a bus, get a ride, make some sacrifices, work hard...of course. I'd argue there are more choices here than many cities in the suburbs due to Charters and magnets in SLPS.

onecity wrote:

75% of city kids don't have access to a decent education.

Not true.

100% of the kids in the city have access to a decent education at SLPS. The facilities are adequate, the teachers are all degreed educators, many with masters degrees.

In terms of the kids' backgrounds, that is the failure, and in my opinion, something SLPS will never have the resources to properly address as long as the teachers are stuck with the existing student body composition. Put another way and repeating myself - you take the students from Ladue and the students from Vachon, and swap facilities and staff, and there will be no measurable change for either student body, though the Vachon students entering Ladue might fare worse since those teachers have never had to deal with deep poverty. The only way to solve the problem is regional deseg. You can't have schools that are 80% poor and consistently expect them to function as schools.

I agree with you and certainly having poor children learn along with peers from higher economic levels is the fundamental key to large-scale success. And regional deseg does not have to involve busing kids from well-performing districts to poorer ones; the goal should be to build strong neighborhood schools, and kids who live within the imprint of poor performing ones should be able to transfer to performing ones through a well-developed program. I think this would provide a huge boost for Saint Louis & NoCo neighborhoods and I think also help enrollment in city schools by middle class families by moving to more of a neighborhood focus rather than a district focus.

Newly released demographic info shows some interesting changes for the City and County from 2010 to 2014.... I guess I'd sum it up by saying in the City, we lost blacks but gained in other races and we had some nice gains in several age brackets. We grew the population in the Under 5, 5-9, young adults from 25-39 and seniors. Where we hurt is 10-24 yr. olds; I was especially surprised by a significant 14% drop in 20-24 yr. olds. Not sure what is going on with that but I think it indicates young grads 1) aren't flocking to Saint Louis and 2) young adults aren't able yet to afford their own apartments and move out of their parents homes in the County.

On the positive side, I think the nice increase in 5-9 yr. olds especially bodes well as it seems to indicate families are finding improved school options and are staying around longer... if that continues when those kids become 10-14 yr. olds that will be a huge win.

As for the County, the reverse of the City is in play with more blacks but fewer whites. There was a nice increase in the Asian population of 14%. Unlike the City, there also was a drop in every population category for children (0-19). There was a big increase in 65+ and some gains in young adults.

^ You're welcome.... I have quite a few tweets about the numbers on my feed, btw. Here is the link to the tables for the new data, btw.

http://www.census.gov/popest/data/count ... index.html

^ I'd be careful with the term projection.... for example the estimated loss in the City b/w '13&'14 was a bit higher than '10-13 so you'd wind up with measurably different numbers if that rate of loss continued through the rest of the decade.

^ yeah, I think it is in large part a combination of how many good jobs are being added in the region and where they are centered... again though the good news is some of these static growth regions show that if we get it right we can still grow our core to a greater extent than we have been even if we never are a hot growth area like Minneapolis or Nashville.

^ Fleshing out our 20-something issue more, here is the breakdown on '10-'14:

20-24 yr. olds: City (-3,345) + County (3,915) = + 570
25-29 yr. olds: City (485) + County (-498) = -13
Total 20-29 yr. olds: City (-2860) + County (3417) = 557

My speculation is that this is largely showing that few 20-24 yr. olds are coming into the region and as more County natives begin to be able to afford their own housing they begin to move into the City or elsewhere. And unlike our peers, we aren't adding 25-29 yr. olds... this is especially concerning I think.