Another valentine for Vicki Phillips

It’s no secret that the Portland Public School system has been losing enrollment.  The district enrolled 56,000 students in 1998 and has only 48,000 this school year, a drop of 15% in six years.  This is consistent with other demographic data in Portland; though the city’s population is much higher than it was 50 years ago, this is the result of annexation more than of new housing.  Earl Blumenauer once told me (and I’m sure many others) the odd fact that Portland had 373,000 residents in 1950 and about the same (372,676 according to the census) in 1960.  The 1990 population, he said, was 420,000, but between 1960 and 1990 the city had annexed swaths of mid-Multnomah County and smaller portions of the west side, which is why the population increased so much; in 1990 the area within the 1950 city limits had only 320,000 people, a loss of more than 50,000 people.

Vicki Phillips, the superintendent (I would hate to misspell that word in an essay about public education) of PPS, announced that she wants to respond to the declining enrollment by closing six schools.    Parents at those schools are understandably upset and at some of the six schools (most notably Smith Elementary, in southwest Portland) are organizing to fight to keep their neighborhood schools open.

They’re fighting a losing battle.  Portland once had more than 80,000 students in public schools.  (See this post from BlueOregon by Leslie Carlson and Wendy Radmacher-Willis.)  The recent enrollment peak was 56,000 students in 1996.  (A school district report, in PDF format, is here.)  A district with 48,000 students doesn’t need as many schools as one with 70,000 students.  Basic math suggests that PPS should close 40% of the schools it had at its maximum, because it’s lost 40% of its students.  (I recognize that it’s closed several elementary and high schools already.)  And the school buildings are old: the high school buildings are 70 years old on average, and the grade schools 61 years old.  The last building boom was in the 1950s and early 1960s when the district built Bridlemile Elementary and Jackson High School.

This situation is uncannily parallel to the struggles to close unneeded military bases.  Each domestic military base was in someone’s congressional district.  The military was reluctant to offend Congress by proposing to close specific bases, and eventually Congress, recognizing that some bases should be closed, ordered the military to prepare a single omnibus report on which Congress would then vote up or down, without amendment.  Any committee of parents that includes representatives from all parts of the district will likewise be unable to agree unanimously that a particular school should be closed; just like the military bases, each school is in someone’s district.  Congratulations to Superintendent Phillips for making the decision.