Archdiocese of Baltimore to close 64 schools including one high school, Cardinal Gibbons

[Stinky The Clown]

I feel bad for those who will lose their jobs because of this.

I am glad the schools are closing. More enrollment in public schools may well get us more parent involvement and more funding due to paying attention.

[Igel]

1. Cardinal Gibbons used to be a good school.

I had a friend who went there when I was in high school 35 years ago. Don't know what it's like now.

It provided choice for the parents who wanted their kids to get a certain kind of education--where I grew up, that meant "good." The next high school over wasn't much better.

The school did improve after I left. More parents got involved. Instead of 2% of the graduates going to college, 10 years later it was upwards of 60%. It got more funding. The reason was simple. Everybody like me--working class kid, working class parents--moved away and middle class families with at least one college-educated parent moved in. All the crappy teachers left, too; the good ones that *had* bailed regretted their decision.

The parental involvement when I was there wasn't low--whenever the teachers expected more, they were put in their place: baseball, football, basketball first. The school had a lot of funding, a new science wing. It just never used the funding to great advantage: The chem and physics labs were busting out with hardware that they didn't need and didn't use. It lacked AP courses and advanced courses because there was no demand. To force my friend to go there would have guaranteed the mediocrity that he yearned for but his parents denied.

Since then, of course, educational spending in the US has far, far outstripped inflation. Overall there's been scant improvement. But that doesn't mean that the money was for nought. The local schools have really neat wrought iron and burnished copper decorations. The academics still suck, but the money bought some really neat equipment. Like it did in my high school in the '70s.

The thing about Gibbons is that it drew kids from all over the place, not from a small neighborhood. They weren't always the best and the brightest, just had parents who insisted that they be made to learn. Closing it back in the '70s wouldn't have beefed up any public school by more than 2-3 students. The funding increase would have been trivial; the academic "upgrade" wouldn't have happened. Nice belief to have, though. Just counterfactual.

It's also nice that your primary concern isn't choice, what works for kids, or even what parents want and are willing to pay for, but funding for schools, the system as it is. Must remember: The Corps ... uh, the system is mother, the system is father.

Stinky *and* a clown.