NIMBYism in Seattle

The Portland and Seattle school districts are near mirror images --similar populations and number of schools, similar funding problems, a similar emphasis on school choice, and the same misguided strategy for improving efficiency --closing neighborhood schools.

Oh, yeah, and the reek of NIMBYism that emanates from neighborhoods that manage to escape the school closure axe. 

The one thing that irritates me more than incompetent educational 'leadership' in Portland is the parochialism that attends the school closure frenzy that Vicki Phillips has unleashed on the district.  Forget about the wrongness of the policy.  Just scrap and claw to keep your school open. 

Despite what he says after his sigh of relief, Seattle blogger David Goldstein's first concern is for his daughter, and only after that for the thousands of poor kids in Seattle who are ultimately hurt by the rush to close schools.  That's understandable for someone who sees himself only as a "dad", but not for the author of horsesass.org, an influential and liberal commentary on Washington public policy. 

That said, Goldstein analyzes the problems facing Seattle Public Schools in much the same way as I see the problems facing Portland and all of Oregon's public schools --it's about funding, not minor efficiencies.  He writes:

• "I also believe that the imperative to close a large number of schools now, and all at once, was overstated from the start. In fact, there will be very few if any cost savings from these closings, while many children will have their education disrupted. I still believe that the driving force behind this round of school closures was a demand for political cover from legislators who otherwise lack the balls to fight for the kind of funding increases all our state’s schools desperately need."

Seattle is a more stratified city than Portland --think Boeing and Microsoft.  The Seattle Weekly estimates that only 68% of Seattle's children attend public schools, a figure that ups the poverty quotient in the Seattle district.  That makes the school closure issue of even greater importance in Seattle than in Portland, at least for those who believe in educational equity.   

But nevertheless, it remains an issue of equity in both cities.