Back to School ... in the Suburbs

by Amy Z. Quinn

Exactly 73 steps separate the front door of my family home in Manayunk from the Philadelphia public school across the street. James Dobson Elementary, built in 1929, consumes the entire block between Hermitage and Wright streets, off Umbria, its concrete schoolyard serving as the unofficial backyard of a neighborhood with few real backyards to speak of. It's where I learned to roller skate and to ride a bike, where I jumped double dutch (not well) and, later, sneaked cigarettes and kissed boys in the long shadows cast by its heavy iron fencing.

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What I never did there was attend a class. In 36 years of life, 22 spent growing up on Dobson's doorstep — close enough that its squawking afternoon dismissal bell would wake a napping baby — I've never gone into the building beyond the auditorium that serves as the local polling place, or the claustrophobic basement gymnasium where my nephews played floor hockey. My parents sent their six kids to one of the local parochial schools — and let's not pretend it was just for the religious instruction.

When my husband, young son and I were moving back to the Philadelphia area from Central Jersey a few years ago, not once did we seriously consider moving into the city itself. Like many couples we know, we moved to the suburbs specifically so we could send our child to public school there. In fact it's probably fair to say we pointedly and unapologetically avoided the city of Philadelphia. You want to know why? Let's start with two words: persistently dangerous.

An annual Pennsylvania Department of Education report issued last week classified 20 Philadelphia public schools as "persistently dangerous," an ominous-yet-efficient bureaucratic descriptor for seats of learning where students are at risk of robbery, assault, rape, weapons crimes, kidnapping and other "dangerous incidents" every time they walk through the door.

Go back to Dobson for a second. It's not on that dangerous-schools list, and never has been (nor has the neighborhood's public secondary school, Roxborough High). And while Dobson doesn't have playground equipment or athletic fields out back the way my son's suburban school does, its students score well above average on the PSSA. A banner used to hang out front advertising a "private school education at a public school price." Yet to the mind of a parent making the choice of where to live based on the city's public school options, Dobson and Roxborough — and thus, the city itself — never even become part of the discussion.

The problem facing this city's leaders, assuming they want to attract people other than twentysomethings and empty-nesters to town, is that for parents deciding where to settle down, Philadelphia rarely even comes into consideration. Philadelphia's public schools are seen as institutions of last resort, for folks who can't afford anything else or whose kids aren't smart or lucky enough to get into Masterman. The issue isn't race, class or economics but perceptions and expectations, and the lack of them. The perception is that Philadelphia's public schools are just bad, and that removes any expectation that the city's schools offer a quality education in a safe environment.

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I'm not sure it's getting better. I'm not blind to all those young families I see pushing strollers around Northern Liberties or along Main Street, or the young marrieds quaffing microbrews at Gastropub of the Week with a Baby Bjorn slung across the chest, "Murderdelphia" the furthest thing from their minds. But I still don't see many families with school-aged kids. By the time kindergarten looms, they've safely decamped to Havertown or Collingswood or Glenside.

It might seem that if families like mine were really committed to the city, it would be a wash to just spend $10,000 a year on private school tuition, instead of South Jersey school taxes. Certainly 12 years of Catholic education helped my spiritual development. We also could have followed the example of several of our Jewish friends and enrolled our boy in one of the city's Quaker schools. Charter school? Home schooling? Even a decent public school, perception be damned? We could "become part of the solution," as they say.

The point is, we shouldn't have to. Many students do make it through Philadelphia's public schools and go on to successful higher educations and productive lives. But I can't shake the feeling that they're succeeding despite their schools, not because of them. And while I love Philadelphia, my commitment to my city doesn't outweigh my commitment to my son.

Amy Z. Quinn blogs at quinnchannel.typepad.com.