Monday, July 11, 2011

District Choice -- For Cities

Here's an interesting story to follow from the suburbs of Pittsburgh.  It seems that the majority of the residents of the tiny borough of Rosslyn Park have signed a petition asking that their community be part of the Chartiers Valley School District rather than the Carlynton School District.

Why?  A number of issues seem to be at play, but it seems that the main driver is that Chartiers Valley is, in many ways, a better district and has lower tax rates.  Given that 34 of 70 school-aged children residing in Rosslyn Park attend private or parochial schools, it's possible that the latter is actually more important than the former.

This isn't without precedent, but I can't say I've ever heard (or considered the possibility) of towns switching school districts.  Granted, this only applies to towns that are part of a multi-town school district -- which eliminates this as a possibility in an awful lot of places -- but it seems plausible that this could become a growing trend.  Based on the information in the article, I think if I lived in Rosslyn Park I'd want to switch districts too.  But I wonder if this were to catch on whether it would just be another way for parents to send their kids to more segregated schools.

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