The Unpromising Consequences of the Pittsburgh Promise

I was out of town and away from the keyboard when the Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Superintendent of Schools Mark Roosevelt made their big announcement about the currently-unfunded "Pittsburgh Promise" college scholarship idea. The basic notion here mirrors a program currently offered in Kalamazoo Michigan, which pays the college tuition of all students who graduate from the local public school system. As stated in the Post-Gazette, "if a student goes to the district's public schools, from kindergarten through graduation, the program will pay their entire tuition and fees at any public university or community college in Michigan". Those who have receive less than the full 13 years (but no less than 4) of education from the public schools receive less money. Those who attend the schools for less than 4 years apparently receive no tuition assistance at all.

At first blush, it seems hard to argue with such a fantastically generous program. Indeed, a number of sources that I respect, such as The Burgher seem genuinely overjoyed at the prospect. One might complain, with good reason, that this plan is still unfunded. It might not have been the best idea to announce it without any funding sources lined up. And it might not even get off the ground if sufficient funding cannot be found.

One might also cast a skeptical glance at some of the details of the Kalamazoo program, which is offered to all graduates regardless of class rank, test scores, or grade point average. It could be argued that it rewards mediocrity, which is precisely the opposite of what is needed to reform most public school districts, and especially Pittsburgh's.

But still, it seems like such a fantastic way to revitalize the city. Existing middle-class families will stay here rather than move out to higher-quality suburban districts. Suburbanites, seeing this as something that could save them tens of thousands of dollars, could even be attracted to move into the city limits. It would be a very big lure.

But despite its obvious advantages, my very first reaction to this program was to see it as an enormous and impending disaster. Full disclosure is in order here. My family, like thousands of other Pittsburgh families, has elected to send our children to a private school. In part, our decision was based on concerns about the quality of public eduction, although the public elementary school for our part of the city is thought to be excellent. Many, perhaps even most of our neighbors send their children there.

But mostly, our choice came from a desire to give our children a Catholic education. My wife was educated in Catholic schools, and that is what she wanted for our children. And we simply wanted our children to learn in an environment where our faith would be a key part of their experience.

There can be no doubt that this plan, if it is executed using the Kalamazoo model, will destroy many of the private educational options within the City of Pittsburgh. I would imagine that the high-end institutions, such as Winchester-Thurston, the Ellis School, and Shadyside Academy would largely survive intact, albeit with a slightly smaller enrollment and (perhaps) a reduction in tuition. But the small parish schools and many of the mid-level options would almost certainly be forced to close their doors. Bob O'Connor's beloved St. Rosalia parish, for example, would almost certainly lose its K-8 program. Mayor Ravenstahl's alma mater, North Catholic High School, which was already thought to be considering a move to Cranberry, would also disappear.

Such developments would obviously be bad for my family. Not only are we likely to see our own school disappear, but our children would transfer into the public schools too late to receive a full K-12 education. Thus they would not be eligible to receive the full tuition benefit offered through the Pittsburgh Promise.

Apart from my personal concerns, there are also likely to be some disadvantages to the city as a whole. For example, the city would need to provide educational services to the many children who would transfer in from private schools. At the moment, these kids and their families are pure gravy to the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Their parents pay (rather high) taxes to support the school district, but require only minimal expenditures in return.

And yet, I resisted saying anything negative about the Pittsburgh Promise. Most people see the words "private school" and think of the high-end institutions where even kindergarten tuition can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, and most of the families are extraordinarily well-off. It would be hard to muster much sympathy for these kids, when the Pittsburgh Promise could provide such enormous benefits to other children who would otherwise really struggle (or even fail) to pay for college. Besides, I do have my own horse in this race, and part of my reaction is likely to be based on pure self-interest.

But then I encountered this excellent post by P. V. Poplicola over at the Burgh Report. I am not the only one to have these kinds of concerns about the Pittsburgh Promise. And to be perfectly honest, his "Open Letter to Luke Ravensthal, Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh" puts the case far more eloquently than I ever could.

For example, Mr. Popicola points out, as I did above, that the Pittsburgh Promise will cause many private schools to simply fail and close their doors forever. But the damage would go further than that:

... worse yet than the threat to our private schools, is the inevitable degradation of the quality of public education that would result from the loss of private schooling expenditures. When parents choose the public schools over the private schools because of your program, they no longer pay for their children's education twice. Now, rather than merely paying school taxes and receiving nothing in exchange, the public education system will bear the weight of educating children who currently are taught in private schools at their parents' expense. Because there is no connection between school taxes and enrollment, this rush of students into the public system brought on by your largesse inevitably means one of two outcomes: either a decline in expenditure per student or an increase in school taxes.

One of the stated ambitions of your proposal is to increase interest in the Pittsburgh area by making our public schools more appealing than those in other cities. On first blush, this proposal would seem to have that effect. But if the quality of education falls because the available resources per pupil falls, the reputation of our schools will suffer. If we attempt to maintain expenditure per pupil by increasing taxes, we will have contributed further to one of the reasons most frequently cited for driving people away from Pittsburgh: our already onerous tax burden. Whether it be a decline in quality or an increase in taxes, the after-effects of your program will badly chill whatever increased interest free college tuition may have engendered in those considering Pittsburgh as a place to raise their families.

In the initial euphoria surrounding the announcement of the Pittsburgh Promise, I thought of many things. I worried about the little school that my children attend. I worried about the effects on my family. I worried about having to pull my children out of classrooms where they have formed strong and important friendships with children who do not live in the city limits. But I have to say that I didn't extend my thinking to considering how this plan might affect the tax base and instructional quality of the public school system.

P. V. Poplicola makes some very good points here. To some extent, there may be some broadening of the the tax base if wealthier families move into the district from the suburbs. But there is plenty of housing stock in the city, and thus it seems unlikely that any in-migration resulting from the Pittsburgh Promise will have an enormous affect on taxable property values (which in any case are currently frozen at the 2002 assessment levels). Since a large portion of the public school funding comes from property taxes, where will the money come from to educate these new arrivals, let alone those who are forced out of their private schools?

Mr. Popicola then goes on to uncover some potentially negative consequences to even those who one would be "helped" the most by the Pittsburgh Promise:

Even if one accepts that there are structural consequences to your program that will damage the city collectively, surely the individual souls going off to college are better for this program's existence, are they not?

Sadly no, Mayor Ravenstahl, the children are the ones who suffer most. According to a study conducted by the Rand Corporation, the quality of education in the Pittsburgh public school system is markedly below the Pennsylvania average. As of 2003, only 39% of our public school children passed a basic test of math proficiency tailored to their grade level and only 46% showed basic proficiency in reading. As noted above, the increased burden your program places on the public school system would mean either a decrease in dollars available per student or a decrease in tax base because of flight from increased taxes to off-set the decline. As a result of this drop in available resources per student, not only would Pittsburgh schools continue to score below the state average, but our scores would actually fall. Because of the effects of your program, our young graduates would find themselves, on average, less prepared for the rigors of their college studies and thus more likely to fail.

Furthermore, the proposed program disproportionately favors those demographic cohorts least in need of assistance in financing their education. The same Rand study says that African American students drop out of Pittsburgh schools at an alarming, horrifying 39% rate. This rate, an embarrassment to our city, is well above the rate at which white students drop out. Furthermore, countless studies show that there is a link between poverty and the high school drop out rate. Because it is impossible to give a free college education to a student who does not graduate from high school, a disproportionate share of grants from your program will go to white, affluent students. The result, then, is a shift of available resources away from our neediest students, toward those students who are least in need of our help.

That was yet another point that I had not considered, and it is one well worth thinking about. This program would be great for families whose kids were destined to go to college anyway. Any shortfall in the public schools' educational quality could be (partially) corrected through summer learning programs and parent-funded tutoring during the school year. But for those who would form the first generation of their families to attend college, it would likely leave them even less prepared than they would be without the Pittsburgh Promise.

To a certain extent, however, this argument is weakened by the simple fact that all of these future college students would be freed from the burden of paying tuition. As such, they would not be forced to work outside jobs to meet these financial obligations and would have more time to devote to their studies. Still, P. V. Policola has a good point. It's very difficult (perhaps even impossible) to study hard enough to pass elementary college-level calculus when you haven't been provided with a strong understanding of ninth-grade algebra.

The thing about the Pittsburgh Promise is that, as good as it sounds at first, it -- like all public policy decisions -- will have unintended consequences. Usually, these kinds of effects are not given any thought at all prior to starting up a program like this one. But they really are worth thinking about.