My daughter is in 4th grade at Greenfield and we've been generally happy with it. She's having an amazing year this year... loves her teacher, loves school. The school does change after 4th grade, in part because so many children qualify for and transfer to Masterman. That in itself is a pretty strong recommendation!

There is a new principal who, although he's not much of a cheerleader for the school, is doing a lot to improve the overall education quality. It's one of the only (if not the only) public K-8 schools in the Center City area with a fully equipped science lab and a certified science teacher. The Library is wonderful - renovated and restocked a couple of years ago - and the cafeteria was fully renovated summer before last. A pilot art program is being started next month with the idea of expanding it throughout the school via a partnership with Moore College of Art.

Hope that helps convince you that Meredith isn't the only option!

AHB

Thanks...everything you described sounds really positive...

Its funny, I have spoken with the principal, and had this strange reaction to him, where he came across as a dud, and almost negative about the school, at the same time, in spite of this, I kind of liked him...that he wasn't acting as a salesman and spoke to me in a very comfortable manner... I wasn't convinced that he wasn't an excellent principal...if that makes sense...

I think though, stability, or the idea of stability (not having to reconsider what to do after grade four) is very appealing...

Yeah, I know what you mean about the principal... he's almost too honest for his (the school's) own good... yet because of that you trust that you are getting the straight scoop.

The principal's just barely been there a year now -- he started long about January of last year -- and I suspect things will improve more and more over the next couple of years. If your child is still young -- which I got the impression he/she is -- you have awhile to decide. I was really hoping that a critical mass of my daughter's class would decide to stay for 5th grade this year, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I actually think the upper school teachers are great, but the kids that replace those who go to Masterman, GAMP and private school often bring behaviour problems and other issues with them. That's really what seems to make the difference between the upper and lower schools. My sense is that they may opt to not take as many new kids in the 5th grade which may help with some of those issues.

As far as keeping the kid at the same school through 8th grade.. it may be less of a big deal than you think once your child is 9-11 years old. They are amazingly mature and resilient.

AHB

I've known parents who've had good experience through middle school at all of these places - Meredith, McCall, Greenfield, even much-maligned Bache-Martin, so I don't buy the doom-and-gloom "no choices" argument. Public school is imperfect at best, but there are choices out there.

AHB,

May I ask what you and your daughter plan for next year?

David

She's applied to GAMP but if she isn't accepted -- and maybe even if she is -- we'll stay at Greenfield. The middle school teachers I have observed at Greenfield are excellent and I'm very torn about what would be best for her.

A.

Center City Region concept passes. What effect does this have for the schools affected by and located in the new CC region?

From http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/13882786.htm

Posted on Thu, Feb. 16, 2006

"Neighbors get an edge in getting into Center City schools: Families who live there have a better chance of enrolling their children in a nearby school under a policy adopted yesterday."

By Susan Snyder
Inquirer Staff Writer

If you live in the Philadelphia School District's Center City Region, the chances of getting your child into one of the more popular elementary schools in that area just got better.

The School Reform Commission yesterday by a 3-2 vote approved a new, controversial policy that gives parents within that region preference to send their children to schools there. Preference, that is, if there is still space after all the children from within a school's neighborhood boundaries who want to go there are admitted.

The policy will affect only the Center City Region in the fall, and only schools with kindergarten through eighth grade. The city district's other nine regions are likely to be phased in at three a year, with the entire city under the mandate by 2009-10.

Enrollment at the schools previously was opened up districtwide after those in the neighborhood boundaries were served.

But district officials believe the new policy will encourage more households within each region to use the public schools and so stem flight from the city. The policy, which was first aired last summer, was backed by the Center City District, an economic-development agency, and some parents.

"I think it can only make better choices for parents in Center City and enhance the schools and bring more folks in, and that's what we want," said Keri White, parent of two children who attend the McCall School in Society Hill, which is in the region.

Opponents, however, complained that the policy is unfair because not all regions in the district have schools of equal quality. Some regions have far more schools making adequate yearly progress under federal law than others. The Northeast Region, for example, has more than 71 percent, while the Central Region has less than 33 percent.

"If all of our schools were up to par, it would be open admission to any of them so that students could experience all different programs across the city," said Patricia Raymond, president of the Home and School Council, the parents' group. "Schools should be created equal and they're not, and I'm just concerned this is going to add insult to injury."

Raymond said her office had heard lots of concerns from parents.

High schools are not under the new policy. In the Center City Region, that means the the district's highly popular elite magnets, including Masterman and the High School for Creative and Performing Arts, will continue to give students citywide equal preference. Other high schools in the region not affected include Benjamin Franklin, Franklin Learning Center, and Parkway Center City.

Two new high schools opening in the fall - one in partnership with the National Constitution Center and the other with the Franklin Learning Institute - will not be under the policy officially, but district chief executive Paul Vallas said both were likely to set aside 25 percent of the slots for students within the region.

The 14 schools affected in the Center City Region are Arthur, Bache-Martin, Greenfield, Harrison, Jackson, Kearny, Ludlow, McCall, Meredith, Nebinger, Peirce Middle, Spring Garden, Stanton and Waring.

Students now enrolled in those schools will not be displaced. More than one-third of students attending Center City Region schools come from outside the region - the highest percentage of any of the 10 regions.

Vallas said he would not force any region to adopt the policy.

Other regions that have expressed interest so far are West Philadelphia, Northwest and South, he said.

Vallas said he expects the effect of the new policy to be minimal in terms of actual enrollment. Most schools, especially the popular ones such as Greenfield, Meredith and McCall, do not have a lot of space left after their neighborhood-boundary enrollment.

"I don't think we're going to see much of an impact at all," he said. "I think it's perception more than reality."

Also, he said that the federal No Child Left Behind law, which requires the district to give parents whose children attend failing schools the right to transfer out, would supersede the new policy. A long-standing court-mandated policy that requires the district to maintain racial balance within some schools also takes precedence, he added.

Commissioners Sandra Dungee Glenn and Martin Bednarek opposed the policy, citing concerns about equity.

"I get so many calls in my office from parents who are struggling and sometimes almost in tears about trying to get access to schools that they believe are better. That's stressful," Dungee Glenn said. "The real answer is to make all of our schools quality schools... and, until we reach that goal, try to keep the doors as open as possible across the district."

Vallas, however, contended that the district was making efforts to open new gifted and enrichment programs throughout the city, which would make the regions more equitable.

He also asserted that while the Center City Region would serve such tony neighborhoods as Society Hill and Rittenhouse Square, it also would encompass some high-poverty schools in areas such as Northern Liberties and Fairmount.

Dungee Glenn unsuccessfully proposed an amendment that would require the administration to ensure that all regions have equitable academics, enrichment programs, and behavioral support programs in place over a four-year phase-in.

Other commissioners, however, said they likely would support Dungee Glenn's measure at a later meeting once its implications could be reviewed.

Bednarek said he had heard from many single parents who liked the option of enrolling their children in schools near their workplace, and he said he was concerned the new policy would limit that ability.

"This is the kind of stuff that I think needs vetted out there, and we haven't done it," he said.

Commission Chairman James Nevels, however, endorsed the new policy.

"It stabilizes neighborhoods," he said. "It institutes choice and it institutionalizes a way in which there is predictability for people to make their choices."

Contact staff writer Susan Snyder at 215-854-4693 or ssnyder@phillynews.com.

© 2006 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.philly.com

And in case you missed it, a column on the subject.

Not sure I understand the pros and cons. When it was first announced, I was thrilled. It grants the power to create a large, sustainable Center City that is not just commerical, with boundaries that correspond permanently to the new CC school region.

But the press and some school officials are pointedly critical, likening it to a Titanic policy of underfunding schools in the area. Is this true?

Posted on Thu, Feb. 16, 2006

Ronnie Polaneczky | "Find the right mix for better schools, better outcomes"

"SO I WAS AT yesterday's meeting of the School Reform Commission, listening to arguments about the new policy that will give school admission and transfer preference to elementary-school students based on the region in which they live.

Those for it said it will strengthen neighborhoods by involving families in local schools instead of those across town.

Those who nixed it - until all public schools are equal -argued it's unfair to ask parents to send their kid to a crappy school just because it's close by.

Me, I think the new policy could be a good thing for city schools - but only if it helps to favorably integrate all of them.

Not racially, but economically.

Take the newly formed Center City region. It sounds high-rent, and it does have some of the district's highest-performing elementary schools. But its boundaries stretch into poor neighborhoods of North and South Philly.

So children there will now get better dibs on entering the region's "good" schools, which have a higher concentration of middle-class students.

This can be a good thing.

Research overwhelmingly shows that schools with 50 percent or more children from middle-class families are 24 times more likely to out perform schools with students from poor families.

That's right: 24 times more.

In Philly, 80 percent of public-school students are low-income, and it's not like the middle class is fighting its way into the city's schools to balance those odds. As for the middle-class families who do use the schools, well, they're not lining up to attend the city's lowest-income ones.

They tend to want to stay together - and not always for reasons of status.

Middle-class families bring to a school resources that have a profound impact on school environment, Richard Kahlenberg told me. He's a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and has written plenty about economic integration in schools.

"For one, studies show that middle-class parents are four times more likely than low-income families to belong to the PTA's," he said, donating time, money and skills to everything from building campaigns to classroom tutoring.

Because they tend to set higher academic standards for their kids, their kids tend to work hard - which helps create a rigorous classroom gestalt.

And middle-class kids, he added, tend to have fewer behavioral problems than low-income kids.

So schools with an optimal mix of low- and middle-income students are simply happier places for teachers to work. They can spend more time instructing and less time disciplining and remediating.

"So they stay put longer," he said, which further contributes to school stability.

Better still, he notes, research shows that low-income students perform better alongside peers who are middle-class.

All this, from economic integration.

The big unknown about the school district's new preference policy is whether or not it will end up tipping economic balance too far in the wrong direction in good schools already struggling to maintain a healthy economic mix.

CEO Paul Vallas is confident that the district's promised "accelerated academies" and other magnet programs will attract and keep new middle-class families in all the city's classrooms.

But that's a mighty tall order.

If families with choices continue to opt out of public education, the preference policy won't improve that sad poor-to-middle-class ratio. It'll just shift it from one school to another.

And that's not progress. It's just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship."

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/polaneczky

© 2006 Philadelphia Daily News and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.philly.com

"Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good" states school admission and transfer reformers.

Won't this opening of neighborhood schools be mandated under NCLB soon anyway? Stepwise implementation will help sort the bugs out. Not sure I understand the opposition to it.

Posted on Thu, Feb. 16, 2006

"School admission, transfer policy approved" from www.phillynews.com

By MENSAH M. DEAN
deanm@phillynews.com 215-854-5949

"In a rare 3-2 vote, the School Reform Commission yesterday approved an admission and transfer policy that will give preference to students based on the region in which they live.

Such a policy is needed to foster stronger bonds between schools and students and to give parents more educational choices, according to supporters, who include schools CEO Paul Vallas and parent and education advocates from Center City and East Falls.

Voting for the new policy were Chairman James Nevels and members James Gallagher and Daniel Whelan.

Voting against were Martin Bednarek and Sandra Dungee Glenn.

Bednarek said he believed that many parents across the city had not been given a reasonable opportunity to learn about the policy and how it would affect them when attempting to transfer their children to schools outside the regions in which they live.

Glenn said she opposed the policy because some regions have more enrichment programs and better-performing schools than others. She said it would be unfair to limit students' access to better schools simply because they live in different regions from the schools they seek to attend.

Currently, more than 12,400 students, or 10.5 percent of the total population, attend schools outside their home regions. The Center City Region has 34.6 percent of these students, more than any of the other nine regions, district officials said.

"The real answer is to make all of our schools quality schools," Glenn said after the meeting.

"Until we reach that goal, we should try to keep the doors as open as possible across the district... . I'm concerned about too much regionalization without fair access across the board."

Said Nevels: "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

"We cannot freeze in time and deny everyone because we can't do everyone at the same time."

Vallas said the district is rapidly increasing the number of courses and programs for academically gifted students.

Over the next several years, each of the 10 regions will have four or more "accelerated learning programs," he said. Before the vote, Glenn proposed an amendment that would have committed the district, over the next four years, to close the gaps that exist among the regions in academics and enrichment and behavioral programs.

That amendment was voted down, but could be resubmitted at the next meeting, Nevels said.

Under the new policy, when admitting students to a school, first in line would be those who live within a school's immediate boundary, known as a catchment area.

Next would be those who live in the school's region but outside the catchment area.

Last considered would be those from outside the school's region.

The current admission/transfer policy only gives preference to students in a school's catchment area with no special consideration for others who live in a school's region. The new policy would only apply to elementary and middle schools, district officials said.

It will not change the criteria for admission to magnet schools.

It also will not stop students from transferring to schools outside of their regions under the district's desegregation policy or under provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

That law allows students who attend failing or dangerous schools to transfer to better ones.

In addition, students who are already enrolled in a school outside their home region will not be displaced, district officials said.

The Center City Region is expected to implement the policy in the fall.

The other regions will follow when they are ready, Vallas said."



© 2006 Philadelphia Daily News and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.philly.com