I did not hear anyone yesterday suggest that we ought to simply “open more schools” — in fact, I heard many people say that we may indeed have to close schools, but that we ought to have much more data and community input before that happens. That is the entire point of the first part of the grassroots pledge — to have a moratorium on more school closures until we have a thorough community impact study on the last four rounds of closures.

To your point about funding: this is very straightforward. We here in the grassroots have been fighting hard to make sure that all corporations pay their fair share to support our public goods. That means that UPMC’s tax exempt status is something we need to look closely at; it means that Rivers Casino needs to stop trying to have its property reassessed to get out of paying several million to our schools every year; and it means that we need to insist that our PA state legislators stop handing out corporate tax breaks like candy, starving our state of revenue at the same time they are claiming we don’t have money for public schools.

Finally, in your piece, you say, “The state (not in recent years) but since 2010 has been very kind to Pittsburgh Public schools. I do not see any reason to not close schools and continue to advocate from more state resources, but to take that off the table until resources are restored just doesn’t make sense.” If I understand you correctly, you are saying that you believe the state has provided more than adequate funding to Pittsburgh Public Schools. This is really surprising to me. Pennsylvania actually ranks in the bottom 5 of all states in the proportion of funding it provides at the state level to our schools: it currently provides just 38%, while the national average is 48%. What that means is that our local towns and municipalities are footing the bill for a much larger portion of our schools — and is a major source of inequity in our state. And when the state does provide its funding, it does so using a terribly inequitable funding formula. For example, if our legislators put money back into this year’s education budget, the wealthier districts in our area will actually receive a much larger percentage increase than the poorest (with a district like South Fayette getting a 4.86% increase but Pittsburgh only a .75% increase).
I have written extensively about both of these issues (you can find more information using key word searches on this site). Also, for a good graphic on state funding over time which shows that Gov. Corbett is still funding our schools at substantially less than they were receiving in *2008*, see:
https://yinzercation.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/budget-with-a-but/

Many classes, services, and other opportunities for enrichment were lost as schools became smaller. Home ec and shop classes disappeared in the moves. Middle schools that had previously supported multiple musical groups, several sports each season, and many clubs or activities no longer had enough students or teachers to keep the range of options open. Having those kinds of choices is a plus for students in this age range — it connects them to the school, to students in other grades, and to the teachers that coach and supervise clubs. Those are often the relationships that keep kids in school or keep them working in the classroom so that they can attend the “extra.”

Having smaller high schools (and again, I agree, we’re not arguing for huge schools!) multiplied this effect, as course offerings dropped dramatically — fewer choices, because class sizes would be too small. Sports drop out, elective choices become smaller, vocational choices, well…that’s another option that has been quietly strangled during the Broad/Gates era.

The previous model, having multiple programs offered through a comprehensive high school, offered far more choice and opportunity for students. Fortunately, we at least escaped the multiple schools with separate administrators in one school building fiascoes of other cities.