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作者

Katharine Nelson

来源

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS,Vol.42,Issue4,P.534-553

语言

英文

关键字

作者单位

Rutgers University

摘要

Despite decades of sustained underfunding, many urban middle-class parents in Philadelphia are choosing to send their children to public neighborhood elementary schools. In contrast to the dominant idea in the literature that middle-class families bundle their housing and schooling decisions, this research finds that some urban middle-class parents actively choose their neighborhood school. So far, the literature on urban middle-class parents and neighborhood schools has emphasized the social character of the decision-making process, with parents feeling comforted by reinforcement from other parents making the same choice. This research explores a set of more independent choosers who “tune out” the opinions and judgments of their neighbors and who frequently get active in educational volunteerism and fundraising. This research finds that the more independent group may be central to better understanding social processes around neighborhood schools in areas experiencing gentrification. These independent choosers sometimes make their decision when their children are still toddlers or younger, and many in this sample volunteer with Friends of Neighborhood Education (FONE) groups where they actively work to promote and fundraise for their neighborhood elementary school. This article concludes with four parent archetypes representing different kinds of parent choosers corresponding to practical-independent, practical-social, altruistic-independent, and altruistic-social. Despite recent budget crises, decades of sustained underfunding, and ongoing resource scarcity in the School District of Philadelphia, many middle-class parents are choosing public neighborhood elementary schools (Cucchiara, 2013b; Cucchiara & Horvat, 2009). Middle-class enrollment in some neighborhood schools reflects evolving urban demographics. There are more middle-class families with small children in some parts of the city. At the same time, the influx of predominantly White middle-class children into schools educating predominantly lower-income students of color introduces new dimensions to ongoing gentrification debates.Choosing neighborhood schools: Why Philadelphia’s middle-class parents choose neighborhood elementary schoolsAll authorsKatharine Nelson https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2018.1457405Published online:02 May 2018 Figure 1. Parent chooser archetypes as developed by the author. Display full size Figure 1. Parent chooser archetypes as developed by the author. This article focuses on parent rationale in choosing the neighborhood school and proposes a set of archetypes to understand their decision-making process. In particular, this article explores the perspective of a set of more independent choosers who choose individually, sometimes by consciously “tuning out” the opinions of neighbors. This is very different from a social decision-making process commonly described in the literature, where parents are strongly influenced by reinforcement from other parents making the same choice (Kimelberg & Billingham, 2013; Posey, 2012). These independent choosers sometimes make their decision when their children are toddlers or younger and may become engaged in educational volunteerism years before their children are school-aged. As a result of the roles that some of these parents take on in educational volunteerism, school promotion, and fundraising, they may also be playing catalytic roles in their neighborhoods by increasing available school resources and shifting perspectives on individual schools. Many parents interviewed for this research invest significant time and resources in parent–teacher associations (called Home and Schools in Philadelphia) or through civic associations and neighborhood groups (commonly called “friends of” organizations). Friends of groups draw their members from the broader neighborhood and generally have a twofold purpose: to fundraise for the school and to promote the school’s reputation in the community and across the city. One important element of the friends of groups is that they provide an outlet for childless adults and parents with toddlers to directly support the school. Over the last several years, friends of groups have popped up to support nearly 40 neighborhood elementary schools (see Friends of Neighborhood Education (FONE) website at http://www.philacrosstown.org/). Similar trends with predominantly White middle-class parents entering urban neighborhood schools are being documented in other cities, such as Chicago (Edelberg & Kurland, 2009), Atlanta (Childers Roberts, 2012), Charlotte (Israel, 2013), Boston (Naimark, 2016), and New York (Stillman, 2012). Some voices herald these developments as a possible solution to racial and socioeconomic school segregation. In a Washington Post editorial, Chaltain, Kahlenberg, and Petrilli (2014) write: “This rapid gentrification provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create racially and socioeconomically integrated public schools.” However, there are good reasons to temper our optimism. A return of middle-class predominantly White families to the city may be an opportunity for greater school integration, but it does not reverse racist and classist ideologies that created and continue to perpetuate our segregated schools (Lareau, 2014; Lareau & Weininger, 2003). These families may instead choose to concentrate within a few select schools (Kimelberg & Billingham, 2013). Furthermore, school choice policies complicate things considerably. A year after the editorial quoted above, the Washington Post covered a wave of school closings, many of them located in rapidly gentrifying areas where middle-class parents chose charter schools. This left some neighborhood schools underutilized and populated primarily by lower-income children of color (Rosenblat & Howard, 2015). Urban parents frequently have access to charters, magnets, parochials, and transfer programs. In Philadelphia, a third of school-aged kids now attend charters (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, 2015). The relationship between school choice and gentrification remains little understood, although it is generally assumed that gentrification is associated with greater school choice (Jordan & Gallagher, 2015). This research situates itself in these debates by exploring a group of middle-class urban parents living in gentrifying neighborhoods 1 who choose to send their children to neighborhood schools. These urban middle-class parents are making house and school decisions separately and, therefore, they are making an active choice to send their children to public neighborhood schools. The idea of a neighborhood school is appealing to these parents both for practical reasons such as ease of pickup and drop-off and for idealistic reasons such as equity and access to opportunity. At the same time, some of them expressed a preference for less rather than more school choice. The question guiding this research is: Why do some middle-class parents choose urban neighborhood schools rather than leaving the city or choosing instead a charter, parochial, or private school? It adds to the literature on middle-class parents and school choice by (a) discussing in greater detail parent perspectives on charter schools and the school choice process; (b) focusing on a subset of parents who approach school choice more independently; and (c) presenting a theoretical framework for understanding how parents who choose the neighborhood school make that decision. The framework emerged from interviews with parents and distinguishes between practical and altruistic explanations and social and independent decision-making processes. I briefly review two literatures. The first is on school choice and the second on middle-class parents and urban schools. Situating this conversation within the broader literature on choice shows that this study and others like it on urban middle-class parents challenge some dominant assumptions about how parents bundle (or do not) their housing and education choices. The summary of the literature on gentrification and school choice provides context for this study and its focus on independent choosers. Choosing schools Our dominant assumption continues to be that parents choose schools through their housing choice. Nationwide, roughly 70% of kids attend the school in their neighborhood catchment area (Snyder, de Brey, & Dillow, 2016). The literature on school quality and real estate prices is vast and consistently finds that higher quality schools are associated with higher property values (see Machin, 2011; Nguyen-Hoang & Yinger, 2010). However, the surge in school choice programs, particularly in urban areas over the last two and a half decades, is changing and complicating this assumption. In the 1980s and 1990s, most of the school choice literature focused on magnet schools (Smrekar & Goldring, 1999). More recently, the literature on choice centers on the proliferation of charter schools. A central disagreement in the literature is about whether charters and choice reduce inequality by creating new opportunities for low-income children (Chubb & Moe, 1990; Young & Clinchy, 1992) or whether they exacerbate inequality by attracting the most privileged children and segregating by race and class (Ladd, Clotfelter, & Holbein, 2015; Makris, 2015; Saporito, 2003). This literature is not isolated to the United States. Butler and Robson (2003) argue that though a system of education markets has always operated alongside housing markets in London, these educational markets have greatly expanded since the 1988 Education Act and its provisions for expanded school choice. Educational choice policies in the United States are concentrated in urban areas and inner suburbs, and the literature on school choice reflects this bias (Goyette, 2014). In her analysis of metropolitan Philadelphia, Goyette (2008) identifies two “constellations” of families: one middle-class suburban Whites choosing schools by choosing their neighborhoods and a second constellation of lower-income families of color who more often choose non-neighborhood options. Goyette’s work (2014) emphasizes how researchers often engage separately in conversations about housing segregation, school segregation, housing choice, and school choice. Yet, individual choices may reproduce or exacerbate patterns of racial and socioeconomic segregation in neighborhoods and in schools. Research shows that segregation is increasing both in schools (Orfield, Ee, Frankenberg, & Siegel-Hawley, 2016) and in housing (Jargowsky, 2015). Very few studies have focused on how parents choose neighborhoods for their schools. One exception is Holme (2002), who describes middle-class suburban White parents engaging in a “for the schools” housing approach. More recently, Lareau (2014) finds that for both middle- and working-class parents who move to the suburbs, the reputation of the local schools is a major consideration in where they decide to live. Generally, the literature on school choice looks at the school decision after a house has already been purchased or rented (Lareau, 2014). This starting point decouples our traditional understanding of how parents bundle their house and education choices. Recent research on urban middle-class parents contributes to the school choice discussion in at least three ways. First, it counters the underlying assumption that middle-class parents choose schools through their residential decisions. The parents described here are choosing their homes and neighborhoods first and then actively working to improve their local schools. Second, there is a common assumption in the literature on school choice that parents who stay in their local catchments are “non-choosers” (see, for example, Goldring & Rowley, 2006; Schneider, Teske, & Marschall, 2002). This research provides convincing evidence that this is not necessarily the case. These parents are making a conscious choice by selecting their neighborhood school. And finally, where the literature has often described White parents opting out of majority-minority schools, these parents profess a desire for diversity. However, previous research suggests this desire can be embedded in complex social processes that reify rather than weaken racist and classist social structures (Kimelberg & Billingham, 2013; Posey, 2012; Posey-Maddox, 2014). Urban middle-class parents and school choice There is a steadily growing group of scholars exploring middle- and upper middle—class parents and education in the context of urban revitalization, often focused on gentrification. Though gentrification has been underway for at least 40 years, the 2001 Brookings Institution Primer on Gentrification and Policy Choices (Kennedy & Leonard, 2001) contained only two short paragraphs about education. It states that gentrifiers “do not have young children.” Those who do have school-age children “place them disproportionately in private schools, often translating their relatively lower housing costs … into tuition payments” (Kennedy & Leonard, 2001, pp. 37–38). Over the last 10 to 15 years, education has emerged as a central issue in the discussion on gentrification. Increasingly, “gentrifiers” have children and wish to remain in the city as their children turn school-age. Several studies document gentrifying families working to get their children into charters or into schools outside of their neighborhood (Butler, 2003; DeSena, 2006, 2009; Hall, 2007). A common theme in this literature is how school choice leads to more general segregation within neighborhoods, with children of gentrifying families attending different schools and building different social networks than lower-income neighborhood children and families. More recently, a group of researchers has started to focus on parents choosing traditional neighborhood elementary schools. A common thread among this research is how, despite the best intentions, the choices they make and their volunteerism in the schools can reinforce patterns of racial and socioeconomic inequality (Cucchiara, 2013b; Kimelberg & Billingham, 2013; Posey-Maddox, 2014). Cucchiara and Horvat (2009) find that outcomes depend on parents’ goals and the social context at the school. In particular, they emphasize that collective approaches that prioritize diversity and inclusion lead to better outcomes than parents motivated by self-interest to improve the school for their own children. Posey-Maddox, Kimelberg, and Cucchiara (2014) provide an excellent summary of this literature and highlight four explanations for middle-class urban parents choosing neighborhood elementary schools: (a) urban living is a strong preference; (b) they prefer racially and socioeconomically diverse schools; (c) they are guided by liberal or progressive political values; and (d) they tend to make their decisions socially, often coordinating with a group of similarly positioned parents to send their children together. Urban living and neighborhoods: These parents have a strong preference for urban rather than suburban living (Billingham & Kimelberg, 2013; Cucchiara, 2013b; Karsten, 2003; Posey, 2012). Several studies have also pointed to the importance of neighborhood identification (Cucchiara & Horvat, 2009; Kimelberg & Billingham, 2013). Karsten (2003) finds that unlike the broader citywide focus evident among younger gentrifiers, these parent-gentrifiers tend to have stronger neighborhood ties. Preference for diversity: Although a desire to send their children to diverse schools is mentioned in almost all studies, several researchers have questioned the strength of this preference compared to other factors such as test scores. In a study of parent school choice in New York, Roda and Wells (2013) found that despite stated preferences for diversity, parents often ultimately selected the school based on academic reputation. On the other hand, in a study of parents in Boston, Kimelberg (2014) concluded that parents were confident enough in their own cultural capital and therefore worried less about test scores. Reay et al. (2007) provide an account of parents in London, who choose diverse schools but remain isolated within their own privileged communities. As previously mentioned, other scholars have suggested that the role middle-class parents play in their neighborhood schools can threaten that diversity over the longer term, reproducing patterns of inequality by shifting school demographics (Cucchiara, 2013b; Posey-Maddox, 2014). Progressive or liberal ideology: The literature has emphasized how these parents root their decision in liberal or progressive values (Cucchiara & Horvat, 2009; Reay et al., 2007). Parents prefer to support public institutions and feel that sending their kids to the neighborhood school is aligned with their values (Posey, 2012; Posey-Maddox, 2014). Groups and social decision making: The literature emphasizes that urban middle-class parents are influenced by similarly resourced parents in the neighborhood making the same choice (Kimelberg & Billingham, 2013; Posey, 2012). If other parents “like them” are choosing the neighborhood school, the choice feels less “risky” (Cucchiara, 2013a; Posey-Maddox et al., 2014). The literature often describes groups of urban middle-class families coming together and choosing a school as a group (Cucchiara, 2013a; Stillman, 2012). The research presented in this article does not dispute any of the four central explanations the literature has provided but questions whether social decision making is as universal as the literature suggests. In particular, this research identifies a set of independent choosers rather than social choosers and suggests that this independent group is crucial to better understanding the social processes involved in middle-class parents choosing neighborhood schools. Parents who choose the neighborhood school when many of their neighbors are not making that choice tend to describe the school choice process differently. These early choosers place less emphasis on the opinions of others around them and can play important roles in shifting the attitudes and opinions about the school in their communities. In the next section, I set the context for the study by describing changing urban demographics and previous work on middle-class parents and neighborhood schools in downtown Philadelphia. The fieldwork for this research was conducted outside of the downtown area, in more residential neighborhoods. Philadelphia context When the 2010 Census numbers came out, Philadelphia was exuberant. For the first time in 60 years, the city had gained population—8,456 new residents to be exact. Beyond the symbolic importance of being in the positives, this small aggregate number masks larger uneven fluctuations in different parts of the city. Between 2000 and 2010, the downtown area, known locally as Center City, gained 57,239 people. Meanwhile, the greater downtown area that includes the neighborhoods researched here gained 179,903 people. Demographically, central Philadelphia has more Whites and fewer Blacks than the city overall. The greater downtown area is 62% White, 25% Black, 2% Asian, and 11% other. The city as a whole is 43% White, 45% Black, 7% Asian, and 5% other (Center City District [CCD], 2011). Many residents in this part of the city are young adults, people who are forming families and having children. A recent Pew report, ”Millennials in Philadelphia: A Promising but Fragile Boom” (Pew Charitable Trusts, 2014), documents the dramatic increase in the 20–34 age cohort, particularly in and around downtown and in nearby University City, which is a hub for universities, health, and research institutions. In some areas, millennials make up more than 40% of the population. There are also growing numbers of young children in these parts of the city. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of children under five in the downtown area increased from 3,716 to 5,287 (CCD, 2011). This raises questions about increased demand for schools if these parents choose to stay in the city to raise their children. There is evidence that some may be choosing to do so. Between 2010 and 2015, enrollment at neighborhood schools in the greater downtown area grew by 8%, compared to a 5% decline in the city overall. It also appears that this population may favor public over private; however, this is impossible to distinguish in the data between public neighborhood schools and public charter schools. Seventy-eight percent of children living near downtown attend public schools, which is close to the city’s overall average of 81% (CCD, 2016). Maia Cucchiara’s (2013b) research focuses on the city’s efforts to attract middle-class parents to neighborhood elementary schools in downtown Philadelphia. In Marketing Schools Marketing Cities (Cucchiara, 2013b), she describes a strategic partnership between the central business improvement district and the school district called the Center City Schools Initiative. The initiative marketed neighborhood elementary schools to “professional” parents through a web portal, beautification projects, branding, and outreach activities. Cucchiara’s (2013b) analysis stresses the equity problems associated with the Center City Schools Initiative. She argues that treating parents as “customers” rather than “citizens” introduces a market logic that privileges middle-class and professional parents, placing greater importance on more affluent members of society. This market logic is racialized because the demographics downtown are so different from the city as a whole. In my study, the area of focus is the neighborhoods immediately outside of downtown, where the character of the neighborhoods is more residential and where the increase in millennials and new parents is more recent. Each of the four neighborhoods where this research took place are experiencing a dramatic increase in income and real estate prices. Three neighborhoods also display a large shift in the racial composition, with declines in Black residents alongside increases in White and Asian residents. Methodology This research involved an exploratory approach with snowball sampling. I contacted four parent teacher organizations, called Home and School Associations (HSAs), in gentrifying neighborhoods in Philadelphia in the winter of 2015 and spring and summer of 2016. In my first interview, I was directed to a friends of group active in the neighborhood and subsequently learned that friends of groups exist around each of the four schools studied. I chose neighborhood schools outside of Philadelphia’s downtown and selected for geographic diversity, including areas north, south, and west of the urban core. In all four of the selected neighborhoods, the median housing values and incomes are growing substantially faster than in the city as a whole. These catchments saw at least threefold increases in median real estate values over the last 15 years. Catchment 2 grew the fastest, with a fivefold increase in median housing values; Catchment 4 shows slower growth, perhaps because of a large college-age population. With the exception of Catchment 4, each of these neighborhoods is also experiencing faster overall population growth and growth in children under the age of five. However, the school-age population declined in each neighborhood just as it did in the city as a whole. Three neighborhoods have declining Black populations and growing White and Asian populations. Catchment 3 is a historically White working-class neighborhood, so the racial demographics have not changed even as the class character has significantly shifted. The Hispanic population in each of these neighborhoods is lower than the Philadelphia average. In each neighborhood, I reached out to local parent groups asking for parents willing to be interviewed, and I offered to volunteer or attend relevant events. In total, I conducted 19 interviews of parents, most of which were one-on-one interviews, but there was one larger group interview of four parents and one joint interview of a married couple. I also attended two public fundraising events. Interviews lasted anywhere from 1 to 4 h, depending on the interviewee. I asked them how they made their school choice, about their experience volunteering, and about their broader perspective on other parent groups and district schools. Interviews were typed, recorded, and transcribed or, in a few cases, hand written and then typed. My sample was composed of 13 women and 6 men. There was some racial and ethnic diversity but the sample was dominated by Whites. There were 15 White respondents, one Black respondent, one Hispanic respondent, and two mixed-race respondents. Roughly half of the people I spoke with were involved with HSAs, a slight majority were volunteers working with friends of affinity groups, and some were involved with both. In total, there were 10 HSA volunteers and 12 friends of volunteers. A striking feature of many parents volunteering in the friends of organizations was that their children often were too young to attend the school. Of the 12 parents involved with friends of groups, seven did not yet have children in schools. Four out of those seven are known to have since started to attend the neighborhood school; one is still too young, and two are unknown. In addition to the parent interviews, I also interviewed one school principal and a coordinator of the FONE network in Philadelphia. Findings and discussion The next section of this article presents the results of my interviews, including a (a) discussion of decoupling the house–school choice and parent perceptions of neighborhood schools, charters, and school choice; (b) section on the distinction between social choosers and independent choosers; (c) section on the distinction between practical and altruistic orientations in school choice; (d) discussion of early choosers and volunteerism; and (e) discussion on race and equity implications. These findings form the basis to the school choice archetypes in the final section. Decoupling and recoupling the house–school choice The dominant assumption in the literature on middle-class parents is that they bundle their school and housing decisions. That definitely was not the norm in this sample. People whom I spoke with generally bought their houses and then figured out what to do about schools. Many of them also expressed that school choice was a stressful process and suggested they might prefer a simpler neighborhood school model. There was not a single respondent who said that he or she seriously considered or would consider moving to the suburbs for schools or any other reason. This is perhaps not surprising given the sample of parents recruited for the study. Still, with our dominant assumption that most resourced parents leave the city for schools, it was striking that not a single interviewee considered it. This preference for city living was the one universal among this group of respondents. Many people emphasized not wanting to drive all the time, some explained that they grew up in the city, some decried the social isolation of suburban living, and some focused on social bonds with neighbors. Here are two examples: My wife and I, we don’t want to live in the suburbs, chauffeur a kid all day. I don’t want to have an hour-long commute. I work [in Center City], I can get there on a bike, and it’s great. No. We are not moving to the suburbs. Not after what we’ve gone through for this house. And I like the idea of the kids growing up in the city. Lots of exposure. Like, my daughter will take the elevator and go and get coffee at the shop next door all by herself. I like that she gets to have that kind of independence. Personally, I would be miserable in the suburbs and my husband would too. Only one person in my sample “bought her house for the schools.” She describes how “there was not a choice” because she made that choice 4 years earlier with her home: There was not a choice in my household. Four years ago [when we were buying our house] that was a bigger conversation piece. Me and my husband are very much on the same page. We both want to live in the city, and that’s our starting point, this is where we’re happy. I mean I would have made a different choice that many years ago about where we were living long term. And he’ll [my son] be fine. And I’m not really worried about elementary school. There wasn’t another choice. I wouldn’t risk our future being happy in the city on a lottery. I couldn’t handle that. And I’m not a person that would make a personal relationship just to get my kid into a school. It’s not who I am. So, I guess if it came down to it [if it didn’t work out at the neighborhood school] I would have had to move and I would have been miserable. Although this parent says that she did not have a choice, she actually made two very calculated choices. The first was not to participate in the charter lottery because she perceived it as too risky, and the second was not to engage in social networking to get her child into a school in another part of the city. What she has done is to make a very conscious decision to disengage from all of the stress and risk she sees associated with the school choice process. In a different part of the interview, she said: When there’s choice it makes it a lot harder. Where I grew up you just went to school. Like you buy the house in the school district you want to be in, but once you’re there, that’s it. So, it’s a very bizarre scenario we are in, and it’s not really enjoyable either. Although this was the only respondent to link the school choice with the home purchase, respondents often expressed dissatisfaction with the school choice process. Many parents lamented having to go through it, and a very common recurring theme was how stressful it is. One mother, in talking about how long she wrestled with the decision to send her daughter to the neighborhood school for kindergarten, put it this way: I just wish school was school. This is a totally ridiculous conversation. My parents would look at me like I’m crazy, you just send your kids to school. Another mother described being explicitly “driven by the panic” she saw around her. All of the stress and time she saw spent on school selection made her decide to instead spend her energy organizing for the neighborhood school: There are people making spreadsheets. It made me upset thinking about all the hours that could have instead been invested into public schools. And it made me sad to see all this stress. I’m hoping this will be a change and the panic will disappear. Despite conflicted feelings about the school choice process, the strong majority put their children into the charter lottery. Only five parents stated that they did not pursue any other options beyond the neighborhood school. Roughly half considered private school but decided against it either due to cost or being philosophically opposed to private education. One parent transferred his daughter into the public school from a parochial school. Otherwise, the strong majority of respondents said that they did not consider parochial schools because of secular values or because of a preference for public education. In my interviews, I consistently heard about a handful of charter schools that everyone was trying to get into. When I asked one interviewee whether there were any other charters they looked at, he responded this way: My wife’s a nurse and when she was in grad school she did temp nursing at [Mastery Charter] and, I mean, it’s like 99% Black. I mean, there’s a culture within the school that is not inclusive of diversity. It is for a group that is not me. Another interviewee described her perception that charters cater to specific demographics: My really uncensored opinion is that those are the two that White middle-class families feel … well they cater to them. Mastery, Kipp and Universal cater to generally low-income, generally African American kids, that’s my general understanding and perception. And then there are a rare few—well once there’s a perception out there, it’s self-perpetuating. The implication here, substantiated in other interviews, is that there are a few charters that market to the predominantly White middle-class demographic and a larger set that market themselves to lower-income Black or Hispanic families. Parents often expressed mixed feelings about charters, sometimes connected to the preference for diversity in schools. One parent made the link between class segregation and charters particularly explicitly: “Charters claim diversity, but they are all from the same socioeconomic bracket and that isn’t diversity, that isn’t real life.” There was only one parent who said that they turned down a charter slot for a neighborhood elementary school and a second who described subsequently turning down a magnet middle school for a neighborhood school. It was much more common to hear that parents were turned down by charters, which means that it is impossible to say from this fieldwork what they would have done. I did not detect anger or resentment at not having been chosen: Private wasn’t in the options. We also did a few charters, there are a couple that everyone does. We did a couple of lotteries, and we visited a few and they all seemed fine and happy. So, we felt like a lot of it was reputation and you just don’t know. And you think you should take it if you get it because its coveted. But we didn’t get in and that was fine. A few parents said that they were happy to have not gotten in, either because of a positive experience in the neighborhood school and/or because they felt relieved of the burden of making a tough choice: We put our daughter into the charter lotteries. And the date came around and I was like what if we get in to whatever school. And at first, we were seriously thinking charter, and then as it got closer I said, “I don’t think even if we got a spot we’re gonna do it.” But there was definitely a “What are we going to do?” kind of thing. I mean, I’m glad we didn’t even have the option to do it. And I think there were a couple people that gave up charter slots this year. Although no one lamented not getting into a charter themselves, several parents expressed dissatisfaction with so many other parents opting out of their neighborhood school. This mother describes both her normative idea about how neighborhood schools ought to be and her disappointment in her neighbors’ choices: For me, what I like about the neighborhood school, when I went to school there were no charters and there was not parochial like there is now. It was about the neighborhood and the community, about kids knowing all the other kids around. That’s the foundation of it, it’s about knowing your neighbors. It’s so disappointing how many kids I see in the catchment. I see all these kids that are going, getting on the bus, and I think how different things would be from a resource let alone demographic perspective. None of [my neighbors] even looked at the neighborhood school. It wasn’t about the school. It was about the Philadelphia public school system. It emerged very clearly from my interviews that by virtue of choosing urban life, these parents were confronted with a major subsequent choice about what to do about schools. Furthermore, despite so many participating in the charter lottery, there was a consistent positive vision of what a neighborhood school is or should be. For some it was about everybody knowing everybody else, about kids playing together in the streets and playgrounds, and about parent friendships. Some described a more value-driven belief about schools educating entire communities and the right of every child to a quality education not far from their homes. This parent roots it in very practical terms but with a hint of nostalgia for how neighborhoods and neighborhood schools used to be: Not enough people talk about the burdens of schlepping your kids around to go to school. There are no buses. That’s valuable time that you spend driving, and sitting waiting for the pick-up. And then the kids end up having friends from all over the city and so there are those logistics to overcome. At non-neighborhood schools the kids can’t go over to each others’ houses as easily, and you can’t run the background checks that you can ’round here by asking neighbors about it. How do you ask if you don’t just have a neighbor who can tell you everything? I’m thinking about sending the kids to slumber parties. Here you can dig. That’s my idea of security, old school security. This vision of a neighborhood school suggests a desire to recouple the house–school choice. One father, who himself grew up in Philadelphia, harkened back to older times when he was a child growing up in the city. He talked about the kids playing together after school and walking to each other’s houses on snow days and everyone knowing each other: “This is how Philly used to be and how it can be again.” Many of these parents seem to assume that neighborhood schools are associated with greater access and equity. Despite the fact that a third of public school kids attend charters rather than neighborhood schools in Philadelphia, parents used the terms public school and neighborhood school interchangeably. There was a common critique that charters serve fewer disadvantaged kids and that neighborhood schools provide a greater sociodemographic mix of students. Several parents suggested that they do not think that charters are truly “public.” This mother was especially blunt: [Neighborhood schools] are accessible to everyone. It’s not because you tested better or because you have more money. People say charters are public. Your ZIP code shouldn’t matter. Yeah, yeah, whatever. I know there are charters with neighborhood catchments and my big issue with those is, are they actually doing a better job or are they draining money? Then you have the charters who are lottery based, which I think is a bunch of bullsh*t. You’re screening everybody out. How many people know how to navigate that system? If it takes you an hour, two hours to get somewhere. What about people who have to work, or who take transit? School choice as a collective decision? The special case of “independent choosers” A lot of the literature on urban middle-class parents and choice emphasizes social or group decision making (Posey-Maddox et al., 2014). This phenomenon was present in many interviews, but there were equally strong independent and antagonistic themes. Most parents described neighbors casting aspersions on the neighborhood school or questioning their choices. The social decision-making process common to the literature is captured nicely by this mother. She describes wrestling with the decision for more than a year and how her neighbors and friends played a central role in her choice: [My daughter] was in pre-K at the time and I started talking to some of the parents. They were talking, a handful maybe four or five. They were all my friends at that point and my kids’ friends. And they seemed to be folks like us very similar in a number of ways and so I thought if they are considering it, then so should I. I talked to my husband, he went to public school so he was more used to the idea. I’d been in Philly by then and you hear a lot of negative stuff about the schools. I went a year early to the kindergarten open house and I wasn’t necessarily impressed or underimpressed. I wasn’t really moved. Then maybe not a week or so later there was a story about a kid who brought a gun to the school, not loaded, but still I thought, “there you go, absolutely not.” But I kept talking to these other parents. I must have gone in the fall and then again in the spring for another tour. You know when it’s your first time … I didn’t know what I was looking for. Teachers looked fine, and the kids looked happy. And it comforted me that there was a cohort like me and I wasn’t throwing her to the wolves. There were many similarly “social” stories of school choice, in the sense of relying on the opinions and reinforcement of similarly resourced or peer parents in making the decision. The term peer parents was used by at least six interviewees to describe other parents like them in the neighborhood. However, social decision making was not a universal. Consider the following account from a mother who consciously “tuned her neighbors out”: The only other person I talked to … well I toured the school and talked to the principal. People would ask us early on what are you doing [about schools] and I thought “he’s only 3,” I have a whole other year. One of my neighbors has kids who go to the school. But talking to your neighbors makes you second guess yourself. You start to think you’re doing something wrong. Neighbors always have something negative to say. You have to tune it out. You know you did it for a specific reason. In contrast to the positive flow of information about the school that the first mother received, this second mother describes nothing but negative feedback from her neighbors about the school. She is choosing the neighborhood school when it is uncommon among peer parents. As a result, the decision is based on her own convictions and ideas and decidedly not on what her neighbors are thinking and saying. My sample drew heavily from parents choosing the neighborhood school before it was popular, so this subset of independent choosers was fairly pronounced in my research. More than half of my sample described a more independent decision-making process, in the sense of making their decision about the school on their own, without (or in opposition to) the input of many neighbors and friends. There is something very distinct about these independent choosers. Sometimes this decision seems to be motivated by idealism or a progressive value system. For example, one woman who has been active in a friends of for many years said that she and her husband planned to choose the neighborhood school even if their child was the only White middle-class kid in his class. They made this decision before they had children: Seven years ago, five years ago, I was always convinced that our kid would be the first White middle-class kid in the school. Because we were steadfast, and this was our decision, and he was going to go there. But you can’t control other people and we didn’t know what they would do. Not all independent choosers described their decision with this kind of early commitment. Some early chooser parents seem to, as one father put it, “assess risk differently” and simply feel more comfortable sending their child to a majority low-income or a majority-Black school. Early choosers, meaning parents who choose the neighborhood school before it is popular among peer parents, tend to be comfortable sending their child to a predominantly low-income and/or predominantly Black school. Parents who make the choice once it is more common among peer parents or who coordinate sending their kids with neighbors’ children may display more apprehension about the race and class of the students. One early chooser described hosting play dates with other parents considering the neighborhood school and what she took to be coded language about safety: We had play dates at our house where people would come and talk about it and how they felt and what school to attend. There are always fears about safety. Sometimes I wonder about what that means, if it’s not the underlying racial and socioeconomic dynamics. Someone asked me about active shooter policies at the school once. I feel like I come out looking like such a radical, but I don’t feel like I am one. I am labeling these parents independent because they are making their school decision individually (or as a parent couple) without the re-enforcement of many similarly resourced neighbors. However, this does not mean that these parents do not influence their neighbors or that they are somehow not influenced by their neighbors. I often heard from these independent choosers that they felt like their neighbors were casting judgment upon them for their choice or suggesting that they were bad parents for not opting their child out of the local school. One father described saying to neighbors: “Do I look crazy to you? Do I appear to be a terrible parent?” And another mother mentioned uncomfortable conversations with friends: It’s hard to listen to at this point. … I do have a lot of friends who have never set foot in the school and, like, have nothing nice to say. And it’s a really nasty sort of back and forth because you’re basically calling me a bad parent that I would send my kid to this school and you have no idea what you’re talking about. Some of these independent choosers were frustrated by the constant flood of negative opinions about the neighborhood school, particularly from parents who had not ever bothered to tour the school and knew little to nothing about it. One parent described “turning the blinders on” when talking to some of her friends and neighbors. In other instances, interactions with peer parents who were not considering the local elementary reinforced a parent’s decision to choose the neighborhood school. An example of this was the mother described earlier who was “driven by the panic” around her. She made an independent choice not to engage in the stressful school choice process that she saw her neighbors engage in and instead decided to spend that time being active supporting the neighborhood school. Generally, independent choosers do not seem to display the same kind of anxiety and stress about school choice as others in the sample. Social choosers were more likely to doubt themselves. A common theme among social choosers was that they did not know how to make this decision. One father told me plainly: “How do I know what makes a high-quality school?” These questions often came up when parents described attending school tours. One mother said: I was impressed with the principal and the active community of parents. The principal seemed great, like she cared a lot and liked the kids. But, now I’m really not an educator, I don’t know what questions to ask and I’m learning as I go. It’s like I learn everything after the fact. Another difference between independent and social choosers seems to be in their overall sense of what they want or expect in an elementary school. Independent choosers may place less importance on the academic preparation needed in elementary school, or they emphasize other kinds of learning, such as social skills and empathy. One mother said: I don’t necessarily care how rigorous his academic environment is early on. I don’t think that my husband or myself got to where we are because of elementary school. I have enough, quite frankly, privilege to realize he’ll be fine as long as he’s in a safe and somewhat nurturing environment. The rest we’ll figure out. Practical versus altruistic approaches to school choice Consider these two school choice descriptions: Parent 1: What’s the saying … a rising tide raises all boats. Education is the last space in our country to level the playing field. If we as middle-class White people pull our kids out of the schools, then we are contributing to the problem. We could throw twenty-four thousand a year at private school or we could put that towards the public school. I want my son to know diversity. People raised by aunties and grandmas. I want my son to see that and know that and know how to deal and manage and to want to work to change it. I don’t think he’ll get that at a private school. Parent 2: I came to it out of necessity. We don’t want to leave the city. We like living in the city. I was convinced early on. My wife was not as convinced as I was. She’s the pessimist, I’m the optimist. The basic thing has been, base the decision about whether to do it on actual knowledge. This narrative that you have to leave the city, people just accept it. And I guess maybe as a lawyer, the way my brain works, I thought, “Do I know enough to say that?” I do not know enough to say that. People assess risk improperly, I think. Some of the parents I interviewed emphasized a practical approach like Parent 2. These parents would say they wanted to stay in the city, and so they needed to figure out a school to enable that. Other parents emphasized more altruistic or progressive values about public education like Parent 1. For example, that education should be universal and equitable or that they wanted their children to go to school with students from other backgrounds. Of course, no respondent was singularly practical or altruistic. Parents who started from a social justice angle might switch over to practical considerations like the ease of getting children to school or making playdates. But most parents started from one side or the other. And perhaps more important, these two orientations lead to quite distinct justifications and different ways of understanding how parents approach school choice. One parent, reflecting on several years of work for the neighborhood school (his eldest was still only four), focused on the selfishness of his decision to try and improve the school before his children were school-aged. But he argued that this selfish decision produced socially good outcomes: It’s, like, totally selfish. You want your kid to go to the best school that you can provide for them. But the offshoot of singularly selfish motives is generally beneficial outcomes. So, you know, I’ve stopped really giving money to [my grad school]. They don’t need my money, but my dollars benefit everybody who is at the school now and will be coming down the pipe in the school. Parents who start from a practical perspective might, as this father does, say that organizing for the neighborhood school is motivated by selfish desires to improve it for his own children in the future. Or they might, as a few parents quoted earlier did, say that they did not want the stress, risk, or panic of engaging in a non-neighborhood school search. On the other hand, the more idealist or altruistic choosers may emphasize that they believe that neighborhood schools serve the whole community or that education is the great equalizer in society. Early choosers, social processes, and volunteerism Two types of early choosers emerged in my interviews. First, there were early choosers who chose the school for their kids before it was popular among middle-class families in the area. This was documented in a previous section. There were also early choosers in the sense of parents who became active around the school when they were childless or their children were still in preschool. This section explores parents who fall into this second category. More than half of the parents in my sample were early choosers in one way or the other. Eight interviewees got involved more than 2 years before their children started kindergarten. These early chooser parents were distinct because their school decision led them to support the schools and to consciously organize among peer parents in the leadup to kindergarten. These parents founded friends of groups to support neighborhood elementary schools, became active in local civic groups to focus on supporting the neighborhood school, and/or worked more informally organizing among neighbors. In each of the four neighborhoods I studied, there was at least one of this early chooser type playing a critical leadership role. Sometimes these parents explained that they knew they would choose neighborhood schools before they moved to the city or before they became parents. This woman made her decision before her son was born and became active in the local civic organization to identify and build a community of parent support: I started this journey while I was pregnant. I wanted this to work and the only way it will is if I bring people with me. I wasn’t the first to get involved, there were others. They were at a meeting at the [rec center] and I thought, “Here’s my movement.” Another woman emphasized that she would have been active in neighborhood education regardless of what neighborhood she moved to: We moved here and I just got on every blog and listserv I could related to education. I was pushed into [my role] and it gave me more of a window into all of these things. This early engagement can translate into major impact. Three parents described sitting on small boards called school advisory councils before their children enrolled, where they helped select new principals. New principals are central in turnarounds that parents described seeing at their schools. Here are two examples of that, one emphasizing new dynamism and charisma and the second how the new principal brought in new resources: Ex 1: Parents will say, “We can’t” and I’ll ask, “Have you ever been to the school?” and usually they haven’t. My push is you need to go visit the school. It’s not the school of five years ago. This new principal is amazing. The principal is what makes it happen. [She] has revitalized the school. 50K for the new tech lab. $7000 grant for the library, for books and also for an electronic system. Seven chrome book carts. Ex 2: I mean part of the sea change is well beyond [the friends of group.] It’s the fact that four years ago the principal that has been there for eighteen years retired. And we got a new principal. She’s fantastic, dynamic, charismatic. And that perked everybody’s attention and ears to say wow this is actually an option. Principal selection is also crucial in the likelihood of other peer parents choosing the school. Most parents referenced being impressed with the principal on a school tour, and six described their back-and-forth with the principal as a primary factor in their choice process. One father recalled the principal emailing him back within the hour on a Friday night, prompting him to take a tour the following week. Though the literature so far has talked about groups of middle-class parents coordinating to send their children to the neighborhood school together, it has not yet looked closely at the parent leadership that seems to be making this possible. In Philadelphia, there are now 40 of these friends of groups. Beyond hiring principals, these early choosers are doing major fundraising for capital improvement projects, after-school and arts programming, and unrestricted funds. They are building websites, conducting outreach campaigns, and hosting events and small gatherings to try and change the neighborhood perception of the school. And they are working more informally to try and change the narrative around the school. This suggests that these independently driven early choosers are putting themselves at the center of social conversations about schools. One father, active in both the HSA and the friends of group, said, “We’re on a quest to change hearts and minds. It’s hard. There are deep-rooted perceptions about the school.” And several parents emphasized the importance of starting these campaigns early, both because parents begin to solidify their ideas about the neighborhood school when their children are very young and because it takes time to shift the neighborhood’s perception. One parent said: It’s all about changing this narrative. Sometimes it’s too late to get kids when they’re four. They’ve already made up their minds. If you get people when their kids are 0–1 like you start to change that story. The most active parents I interviewed tended to be both early choosers and independent choosers. Early in the sense of deciding when their children were young (and getting involved) and independent in the sense of deciding on their own without the input of other families. Although they decide independently, they are actively working in social ways to attract other middle-class parents to the school. So, independent choosers are socially embedded in these processes. The neighborhood schools in this research are all still predominantly lower-income schools, yet the neighborhoods they sit in are changing fast. In the neighborhood that seems to be changing the fastest—Catchment 2 in Table 1—the percentage of residents who are Black fell from 75% in 2000 to 28% in 2015. Meanwhile, the White population increased from 20% to 55%. One parent expressed some concern about the longer-term role of friends of organizing in the neighborhood: [Our friends of group is] at this turning point where we’re becoming a victim of our own success, which is scary. The neighborhood has changed a lot and the school demographics have changed a lot and its only beginning to trend in that direction … and so we run the risk of our kids going to a lily White urban middle-class public school. That to me isn’t success. I want more than that. Choosing neighborhood schools: Why Philadelphia’s middle-class parents choose neighborhood elementary schoolsAll authorsKatharine Nelson https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2018.1457405Published online:02 May 2018 Table 1. Catchment area real estate and demographic trends. CSVDisplay Table Race and equity considerations in school choice and neighborhood processes The preference for diverse schools was universal among the sample of parents I interviewed. And yet the friends of groups I spoke with were predominantly White. Most of these parents seem to want to build across race and class lines but, at least so far, I did not get the impression that this is happening. And in the context of urban change and gentrification, this raises important questions about longer-term equity and access to quality neighborhood schools. There also are equity implications for the School District of Philadelphia as a whole as well. The parents in this sample are working locally in their own neighborhoods and not, for the most part, at a district level. Many parents were quite conscious of a broader districtwide picture and consider themselves part of a movement in support of Philadelphia’s public schools. Most described feeling troubled by ongoing inequalities in schools, and many parents raised the obvious racial politics involved in promoting neighborhood schools to predominantly White middle-class families in gentrifying neighborhoods. Some parents seem to want the movement to grow in a more equitable districtwide direction, but at least for now their efforts are focused on their own neighborhoods. One father, whose child was still a year away from kindergarten, said: I want to work for the betterment of systems rather than abandoning them. This charters stuff just drives me crazy. It’s not clear to me that “friends of” is changing the equation because we are working locally for one school in one neighborhood. But I suspect we will see another parent-led movement pushing for schools [throughout the district]. That to me is the unquestioned goal. The goal for now is to have this percolate. Parent choice archetypes This final section of the article proposes four archetypes of parent decision making based on the findings presented. The archetypes are summarized in Figure 1. They are heavily influenced by the sample of parents and stakeholders I interviewed, which included large proportions of independent and early chooser parents as well as parents active in local education volunteerism. As such, the archetypes are not intended to represent a broader parent population. They reflect a growing parent voice in some parts of Philadelphia where the demographics and class character are or have been rapidly changing. These archetypes grew out of the independent-social, practical-ideal distinctions developed in the Findings section and they attempt to provide a broader framework for understanding different perspectives. A parent can cut across more than one archetype, but he or she will generally tend toward one or another. In my sample, I categorized 13 independent choosers and six social choosers based on how parents described the influence of the opinions of their neighbors in their decision-making process. Social choosers described a positive feedback loop from their neighbors, whereas independent choosers made their choice either without outside input or in opposition to the input of their neighbors and friends. I also categorized eight practical choosers, nine altruistic choosers, and two as combination pragmatic-altruistic. This categorization was done based on the emphasis during the interview. Practical parents’ more rational school choice process generally takes staying in the city as the starting point. This parent is probably not ideologically opposed to charters and choice but thinks that it makes more sense to dedicate their time and resources to a neighborhood school. They may also stress that their choice is a self-serving choice that they hope others will make as well. By contrast, parents who ground their explanations in idealism or altruism emphasized the importance of public schools from the perspective of social justice or the importance of diversity. They might describe how their urban identity involves the racial and economic diversity that comes with living in a city. They are generally more concerned about equity or emphasize the importance of the institution of public education. The stop-panicking parent (pragmatic independent chooser) For these parents, the starting point of the decision is a desire to stay in their house, in their neighborhood, and in the city. These parents question the assumption that academic preparation in elementary school plays such a crucial role in life outcomes. They feel confident that their children will develop the reading and math skills they need to thrive in life regardless of whether they attend an elite elementary school. They are more likely to decide on their own to tour the school without talking first to other parents and may be more comfortable than many of their peers sending their children to a school where they would be the minority race or ethnicity. Although they may express that they had concerns for their children’s safety, a tour of the school alleviates those worries. These parents may decide that charter lotteries are too time consuming, stressful, and risky, so that investing in their neighborhood school is a safer bet that has the added benefit of paying off for the entire community. This personality type dominates among early choosers of the neighborhood school, when their kids will be in a class with only a handful of kids who “look like them.” Sometimes these parents express concern or annoyance that peer parents judge them negatively for their choice. The checklist parent (pragmatic social chooser) Having made the decision to stay in the city, checklist parents explore all of their options. Most likely, they apply to a handful of charters, the same charters that most of their neighbors are also applying to. Having not “won the lottery,” they decide to take a closer look at their neighborhood school. They tour the school and generally like what they see, and they spend time talking with other parents whose children are at the school or who are considering it. Some practical parents consider private schools but are concerned about the cost, particularly if they have more than one child. Those who do consider private school often note that it would leave them with little discretionary income. These parents discuss school choice with their friends and neighbors and take comfort in other parents making the same choice. Many of these parents will express anxiety about the school choice process or wonder why we cannot go back to a simpler neighborhood model. These parents commonly say that they are “taking it year by year” at the school. The community organizer parent (altruistic independent chooser) These parents are driven by both a real and imagined sense of community. They feel strongly that schools should educate an entire population and they place great importance on their own role within that broad community. These parents often have a strong social justice bent; they are politically liberal or progressive. When they talk about their choice of schools, these parents will focus on a child’s social education as much as on academic education, emphasizing that public schools play a critical role in teaching equality, diversity, and tolerance. They often choose the neighborhood school when their children are very young or may even have known that they wanted to send their children to public schools before they started a family. The anti-bubble parent (altruistic social chooser) Anti-bubble parents heavily value economic diversity. They do not want their children to grow up feeling privileged, and they do not want to hide them away from the world. These parents are keenly aware of how lucky they are to enjoy their middle-class urban lifestyle and want their children to gain this awareness as well. They also emphasize that public schools will teach their children how to navigate and socialize with people from different backgrounds. Regular interaction with people who have different life experiences will teach their children better values and self-confidence. Some of these parents feel that their own childhoods were too secluded, whereas others are proud products of the public school system and want their children to have the same grounding. In many cases, the preference for diversity is tempered by competing priorities like quality of academics, perception of safety, or the attractiveness of alternative learning philosophies and curriculums. As social choosers, these parents have more doubts and probably applied to charter schools thinking that they should explore their options. Conclusion and limitations This article situates research on urban middle-class parents within the broader discussion of school choice by arguing that urban settings tend to decouple the assumed house choice connection for middle-class families. The research conducted here strongly suggests that the house decision and the schools decision are seen as separate things by these parents and that attending the neighborhood school is an active choice. This article also offers new insights into urban middle-class parents and school choice. First, it presents a special case of independent-driven parents who, in contrast to the social choosers that dominate the literature, choose schools based on personal convictions as opposed to social processes. They may consciously ignore or tune out the opinions of their neighbors. Second, it highlights how some subsets of early choosers are active in organizing for their neighborhood school years before their children are old enough to attend the school. And third, it proposes an important distinction between practical and idealistic or altruistic orientations in approaching school choice. Based on these findings, my next step would be to try and situate early choosers and independent choosers within neighborhood-based social processes to better understand the impact they are having on the schools and on perceptions of other parents and neighbors. Additional interviews are necessary for this deeper examination. Finally, based on the findings of this research, as well as on a close reading of the existing literature on middle-class parents and urban schools, I propose four parent archetypes: the stop-panicking parent (practical-independent), the checklist parent (practical-social), the community organizer parent (altruistic-independent), and the anti-bubble parent (altruistic-social). The sample sizes used to develop these archetypes were fairly small. In an effort to triangulate my findings, I reread previous research by others on urban middle-class parents and neighborhood schools and the depictions here are generally supported by the literature. There is another very important limitation to this research, and that is in how the choices these parents are making relate to ongoing racial and class segregation in Philadelphia schools. The data collection here was limited to outreach to Home and Schools or neighborhood friends of groups. These groups are dominated by White middle-class parents, so the sample was largely limited to this perspective. The voices of parents of color are largely omitted. The goal of this research was narrow: to better understand urban middle-class parents choosing neighborhood schools. But, as a result, this research is limited in helping us better understand how parent choices relate to ongoing questions of educational equity and school integration. Table 1. Catchment area real estate and demographic trends.  CitywideCatchment 1Catchment 2Catchment 3Catchment 4Median housing valuea      2000$61,000$111,300$67,100$52,700$89,3002010–2014$143,200$363,900$350,000$190,200$246,200Median household income     2000$30,746$41,691$28,750$36,591$22,0592010–2014$37,460$71,646$72,788$55,980$33,2562000 Population: 8,9506,4587,3206,560Black43%27.2%74.9%2.6%69%White45%65.2%19.7%94.4%20.1%Asian4%0.9%1.9%1.1%5.2%Other or multiple races8%6.7%3.6%1.9%5.7%Hispanic9%6.9%2.4%4.8%3.6%2010–2014 Population: 9,1957,3147,4846,271Black43%20.5%28.4%1.7%45.5%White42%69.6%55.9%93%43.6%Asian7%3.7%8.3%2.7%3.9%Other or multiple races9%6.2%7.5%2.6%7%Hispanic13%7%3.4%4.1%1.7%Children under 5     As of 2014105,515717514479436Change since 2000+7,942+271+134+112+73Children age 5–17 years     As of 2014238,808495578565757Change since 2000−46,488−459−553−810−372 Note. aHousehold weighted medians from the composite census block groups. 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She specializes in community and economic development and geographic information systems, with particular interests in housing, segregation, and education reform. Prior to returning for her degree, she worked at the Reinvestment Fund, a Philadelphia-based community development financial institution, where she helped to build a free web-based data and mapping application called PolicyMap. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and young son.