Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

“Schools Weed Out Non-Residents”, an article in today’s NYTimes, describes the efforts Greenwich CT is taking to make sure that parents from less affluent communities nearby are not enrolling in their schools illegally. This problem exists everywhere in America and affects even downscale communities.

In my first administrative assignment at Darby-Colwyn High School, a blue collar district that borders Philadelphia, we shared a truant officer with other schools whose primary responsibility in September was monitoring trolleys to see which students were disembarking to attend our schools. As the year progressed, in addition to monitoring students who were truant in our schools he also checked on reports of students whose transport to school was suspicious. One of the first parent conferences I held was with a Philadelphia parent whose child was “sneaking” into our district because her son didn’t feel safe in the Philadelphia schools and who couldn’t afford to more from her home in the city. Would a charter school in the city helped her? I doubt it because the reason the child was identified as a non-resident was because a teacher who was having trouble managing the child in class followed the parents car from Philadelphia into Darby and reported this to the office. Because she was not the only teacher who encountered problems with the child, his non-residence was celebrated in the faculty room.

As Superintendent this problem emerged in Wappingers CSD and Hanover NH, where some of the neighboring communities were less affluent and, therefore, had less comprehensive programs. I am certain that residence problems exist anywhere there is a district whose programs are superior to a nearby district, which is to say anywhere in America. The fix isn’t charter schools or vouchers. The fix is providing more equitable funding so that those less affluent districts can attract and retain quality teachers and expand their programs so that students can get the same kinds of courses as their neighbors.