Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Cynicism about PPS

On the December "Start a New Post" Anonymous wrote:

Maybe this post could be about the PPS website- what caused me to suggest it is that when one searches for schools, the names are alphabetized...except, when one types "S," the new Science and Technology school appears before Schaeffer, Schenley, and Schiller. Is this an honest mistake? Do they not know how to alphabetize? Is this a push to try to get more interest in the new school? This may seem cynical..but, hmmm.

5 comments:

Questioner said...

"S" doesn't seem to always pull up Sci-Tech first. However, once there was a time when this kind of question didn't even come up. A time when, if PPS were to say that magnet response was unprecedented, no one would have wondered if the opposite was true. A time when people didn't feel the need to measure basketball courts and check enrollment projections for themselves. Something has been lost, and it will be difficult to get it back.

Anonymous said...

HAH! A friend suggested I look at the new and improved site and I was impressed. This friend can be annoying but for once she had a point. Then, I looked at the school directory by type. Why on earth is the first TYPE listed 6-12 schools? Could it be because this trend is so forceful it is only a matter of time before there are not any comprehensive middle schools left? How about ascending order listing? Will we always have choice? It seems like the answer to that can be found in looking at the listing of schools by type.

Questioner said...

The administration apparently does not like comprehensive middle schools b/c test scores were "terrible," so if there was a way to do away with them it probably would. It is not clear though that scores are really dependent on school configuration.

Anonymous said...

Instead of the schools being listed in chronological order, or any type of order at all, the website once again appears to be promoting the Superintendent's agenda. Also the drop down of the school names on the top bar of the home page clearly lists the "S" schools in non-alphabetical order, another example of this type of activity.

Anonymous said...

Mark Roosevelt is a corporate head, nothing more. His day to day dealings within the Pittsburgh Public Schools are indicative of his corporate background. Roosevelt is surrounded by similar types whose approach to education is quite similar, right down to the idea that few have ever been in a classroom and if they have, their failures and shortcomings have made moving into administration to be the obvious move.
What is most striking about Roosevelt is that again, in true corporate fashion, he has a public relations machine that pretties-up just about any news item with spin. What the average city resident doesn't hear or read should be cause for alarm. That the average city resident still believes that the Pittsburgh Promise equates to a "free education" is beyond troubling. That city teachers and residents have been force fed not only an outrageous curricula that has no basis real world urban education AND a 50% policy where failures are concerned is mind numbing.
There is no doubt that what Roosevelt has done to Pittsburgh Public Schools will take years to fix.