There is a neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio that at first glance seems to be headed in the right direction. But what’s surprising is the neighborhood has been “headed” in this new direction for years. Amy Scott, a journalist for Marketplace, has been covering this story for over 7 years, and her most recent article tries to pinpoint why a school that “seemingly” has everything would not change the neighborhood around it.
The Oyler School System’s story starts out as a positive one. Originally, the neighborhood had an elementary and middle school, but no high school. Once neighborhood children finished middle school, they often just dropped out. But then, Oyler received a $21 million renovation which included a new high school.
This restart also meant that Olyer had the opportunity to put into practice lots of new interventions and recommendations for educating poor children. Amy Scott listed these improvements, stating,
...open year-round, from early morning until late at night, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and sends hungry kids home with food on the weekends. Olyer has a health clinic with a nurse practitioner and mental health counselors, and every senior is assigned a mentor who spurs them to graduate and apply to college.
In other words, when it came to resources and care for students, Olyer had just about everything a school in a poor neighborhood could need. And in 2012, 7 years ago, the senior class graduated 36 out of 38, all of whom were accepted to college. It was an exciting start for Oyler High School!
But what seems like a major success hasn’t transformed the neighborhood. After 7 years of reporting, Amy Scott recently reported that, since the first year, the school and the neighborhood have experienced little change. In her article, she quoted Darlene Kamine, founder of the Community Learning Center Institute. Darlene explained,
We had some hope that if the school was itself an attraction to people to come to the neighborhood, that the neighborhood would kind of organically improve. But the housing stock and the community was so distressed that it just couldn’t happen quite in that organic way.”
Her comments seemed confusing in light of the significant work done by the community around affordable housing and education. But the reality is the improvements that have been made are improvements that focus on the needs of people already living in this low-income neighborhood. These improvements have, of course, made the lives of those already living there significantly better (ex: graduation rates). But the improvements are not amenities that can compete with higher-income communities and draw more financially secure people back to the neighborhood.
Just a quick comparison of another school’s websites with Oyler’s website exemplifies the issue. As Oyler’s website photos scroll, there are happy children having their eyes and teeth checked by medical professionals. The website also includes a lot of information about careers and college prep. In contrast, visit the website of Hyde Park School, a highly-desired public school in a higher income neighborhood about 15 minutes away. This website boasts of numerous extracurriculars, flexible learning environments, and personalized education. The contrast between the descriptions and photos is shocking; the “vision” for preparing these students for their futures is clearly very different (see below).
Looking at the different offerings and different audiences of these two schools, it is easy to see why more families did not immediately flock to Oyler. Most middle-income families don’t need for their children’s schools to provide reading glasses or week-end meals. Families who have the financial resources to “choose a school” based on their ability to move into a particular neighborhood have a different vision of what a good school looks like for their children. The support and care offered at Oyler is not set-up to draw financially diverse families. It is set-up to serve the needs of those currently living in concentrated poverty. This is not to suggest that Oyler School is doing something wrong. It’s just not going to be an attractive school for families who have financial resources.
But putting in place amenities that will attract more wealthy families would, itself, be a good thing. As the CEO of the Model Group, an affordable housing developer, summed up:
A neighborhood is like an ecosystem. You need places for people to live, you also need places for people to work and play, you need a mix of incomes in a neighborhood.
This Cincinnati neighborhood is missing just that - a mix of incomes. As it is now, the community of Oyler needs less vacancy and more financially-secure neighbors to see change that impacts the whole neighborhood ecosystem. But how? Focusing on education wasn’t a bad idea...
One option is offering the type of education that draws financially-secure families back to neighborhoods while still offering the same resources at Oyler School. The city should layer on other educational choices in Oyler. Publicly funded private school scholarships for people living in Oyler would keep and attract young families to the neighborhood. In this scenario, families that need schools that include all-day care and medical resources can still get those if they choose to attend Oyler School. While families who are more interested in flexible learning environments, performing arts, or STEM programs can also live in the neighborhood and contribute to the larger change of the area while still receiving the education that meets their family values and preferences. To benefit low-income neighborhoods and to persuade financially-secure families to take the chance of exposing their children to the effects of concentrated poverty, this carrot doesn’t seem like too much.
It may sound backwards at first glance - “Why incentivize families who don’t really need help in comparison to many original Oyler residents?” But as the affordable housing developer explained, what families living in poverty often need most are people who are willing to invest in their community and grab hands with them as neighbors. Free meals are great, but they won’t transform a neighborhood. With vacant commercial buildings, vacant middle-class residential buildings and a lack of basic grocery stores, neighborhoods like Oyler need neighbors who will bring back industries, vitality, and social mobility. Transforming one school isn’t likely to organically produce a mixed-income community. But providing more education opportunities for all can be transformative.