As we have previously reported, the shooting of seven people near Strawberry Mansion High School has led parents of students at another school whose children were going to be transferred to Strawberry Mansion due to asbestos remediation to protest that vigorously, claiming that the Mansion was inherently unsafe. When the transfer actually happened, only 28 students actually showed up at Mansion.
So now The Philadelphia Inquirer is telling us what a great school Strawberry Mansion is!
Strawberry Mansion High School continues to fight an old reputation. But students say the school is an oasis.
“We will meet our students where they are, and really work to get them to their highest potential,” Strawberry Mansion Principal Brian McCracken said.
by Kristen A Graham | Monday, March 13, 2023 | 5:00 AM EDT
When Patience Wilson shares with people that she attends Strawberry Mansion High School, they often shake their heads and tell her all the bad things they’ve heard about her school.
But Wilson, a smiley 17-year-old senior, knows the real Mansion, the one behind the hasty headlines and deep-seated stereotypes.
The real Mansion, she says, is different: a place where students can start on a path to a building trades career, partner with nonprofits, spend their lunchtime in clubs and activities, and have access to trips, career and technical education programs, college classes, and adults who surround them with expectations and supports and love — no matter where they’re coming from or how long they’re able to stay.
“People usually judge us based on what’s happened in the past. But they’re not focusing on what’s happening right now,” said Wilson.
Reporter Kristen Graham focuses on Philadelphia schools, and it’s a good thing that the newspaper has someone who does that with such a large public school system. Mrs Graham then began to tell us about the school’s problems:
For years, Strawberry Mansion has fought on several fronts: against the challenges of its surroundings (the neighborhood has the highest number of shootings this year in the city; a full 52% of children under 18 in the immediate area live in poverty, according to Philadelphia and federal data), against a mismatch between available funding and concentrated student need.
It’s coped with a system that, because it emphasizes choice, has made things tougher for comprehensive high schools, which accept all students who walk in the door. Less than 10% of the students who live in Mansion’s attendance zone go to the school, according to district data, and those who do tend to be the most vulnerable.
I’m actually impressed that these two paragraphs were placed where they were, fifth and sixth in the story, because much of the remainder of the story is extremely positive about the school itself. But when Mrs Graham tells us that the neighborhood has the highest number of shootings in the city so far this year — and plenty of them in previous years — one thing is obvious: the concerns that the Building 21 parents raised are valid: it doesn’t matter how great a school might be if the students are getting shot!
There are several more paragraphs telling readers — and the newspaper didn’t restrict it to subscribers only, so if you don’t have too many Inquirer story reads, you can access it online — what the school has been doing to try to be better, almost to the point of pro-Mansion propaganda, Mrs Graham comes to this point:
On paper, Mansion’s statistics are startling: By the district’s measure, last year, 41% of the school’s ninth graders were on track to graduation. Just 9% met state standards in reading, 2% in math.
But the intense needs of Mansion’s students mean those numbers require lots of context. Consider the student who’s never been identified as requiring special-education services but who reads at a second-grade level. Or the teen whose attendance and grades are spotty but recently had been removed from his family’s care and now lives with a foster family, whom the school can’t reach.
If fewer than half, barely 41%, of freshmen are on a path to graduation, a figure I find questionable if “(j)ust 9% met state standards in reading, 2% in math,” it’s difficult for me to see how the school is doing its job. If there are students, in a high school, who need “special education services” going unnoticed by teachers when reading at the “second-grade level,” how are readers supposed to believe that the teachers are doing a good job? How would the parents of the displaced Building 21 students ever think that Strawberry Mansion High School is a good place to send their kids even without the question of violence in the neighborhood?
You know, I get it: Mrs Graham wanted to inform readers of the good things happening at Mansion, and pointed out several things that are supposed to be good, about vocational education to get some students into trades which don’t require college, several things telling readers how hard the school under principal Brian McCracken is trying. But when fewer “than 10% of the students who live in Mansion’s attendance zone go to the school,” it’s an inescapable fact: parents and students, people who are most familiar with the neighborhood and the school, are voting with their SEPTA passes, voting against the place. With fewer than 10% of the students in the school’s attendance zone going there, is it any surprise that the parents of the Building 21 students don’t want their kids there?
Your text avoids some critical issues. If a student is not up to the grade average, but can make change, read blueprints, and dimensions, and work effectively, then they might have a productive place in society. Many of the people I worked with were “functional illiterates” who were hard workers who could balance their effort with the needs of “Production” in a very sophisticated manner,
What was this school teaching to what kind of student. Some studebts may struggle with mathematics and reading at the high school level but still be functional and productive out in the world. Some parents and students may avoid such a school because they have different interests and skills. That does not make the school “bad” if it is successful with a particular type of student. The write up does make me question the intelligence and experience of the author. Have another look and tell us what you’ve seen. You don’t need a high school level ability to read and figure for many jobs.
Your text avoids some critical issues. If a student is not up to the grade average, but can make change, read blueprints, and dimensions, and work effectively, then they might have a productive place in society. Many of the people I worked with were “functional illiterates” who were hard workers who could balance their effort with the needs of “Production” in a very sophisticated manner,
What was this school teaching to what kind of student? Some studebts may struggle with mathematics and reading at the high school level but still be functional and productive out in the world. Some parents and students may avoid such a school because they have different interests and skills. That does not make the school “bad” if it is successful with a particular type of student. The write up does make me question the intelligence and experience of the author. Have another look and tell us what you’ve seen. You don’t need a high school level ability to read and figure for many jobs.
I agree, not everyone is cut out for academic pursuits, even at a basic level; that doesn’t make them any less useful to society or any less capable of productive work. I grew up in a rural farming community. It was not uncommon where and when I grew up for a respected member of the community to have very little formal education. With that said, continuing to pass students on to the next grade when they have not met the basic standards does no favors to anyone.
The student who is passed on without the required foundational understanding is very unlikely to succeed at the higher levels. Plus, once they discover that they’ll be passed whether they achieve the standards or not, what are the chances they’ll put any effort into trying to achieve those standards?
It also does a disservice to the students who do achieve the standards. If the school passes everyone regardless of competency, what is the value of a diploma from that school? It means nothing and anyone who receives such a diploma will be tainted with the brush of low (or no) standards.
I grew up in the era where we well understood that coddling and patronizing people doesn’t help them, it cripples them.
Talk about a tacit condemnation of the Philly school system.
Um…if they only read at a second grade level, how did they get to high school? Shouldn’t they still be in the third grade, trying to get their reading up that level before being allowed to continue on?
These kids aren’t “slipping through the cracks”, they’re being intentionally set up for failure so the teachers and schools can keep their statistics up.
Back in ancient times, when I was in the 8th grade, we had a 17 year old in our class because he had been “held back” several times. I believe he dropped out when he turned 18, but at least they didn’t just pass him on from grade to grade.
Do they even do that any more, or do they just shuffle them up to the next grade level regardless of their achievement of the objectives?