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When Tess Bernhard worked as a cashier at Wegmans in Allentown, customers would sometimes ask her where she went to school.
“I would have people take steps away from me when I admitted I went to Allen [High], ” she told me.
Yet, remarkably, she was never in a fistfight and has no visible gang tattoos. In fact, she says she never felt in danger at the school and had some very dedicated teachers, including those who challenged her in the 11 Advanced Placement courses she took.
“They really encouraged anybody to challenge themselves,” said Bernhard, who was Allen’s Class of 2010 valedictorian and is now a sophomore at Princeton University.
That doesn’t sound anything like the Allentown schools you read about regularly on the blogosphere or in online comments tacked onto news reports.
I asked her father, Don Bernhard, PPL community affairs director, about his daughter’s experience after reading a Patch story on a speaker brought in by the Lehigh Valley Tea Party who said all education should be privatized.
Andrew Bernstein, a philosophy professor at State University of New York at Purchase, told the group: “Almost 90 percent of American children are forced to attend abysmal public schools.”
There are about 124 traditional public schools - not counting charters - in the Lehigh Valley and I’m curious whether 90 percent of the parents who send their children to them consider their own schools to be “abysmal.”
But even local suburban parents who would defend their kids’ schools view Allentown as the bogeyman of school districts. About half the schools have repeatedly failed to make adequate yearly progress under the No Child Left Behind law. Students come from 46 countries and speak 26 languages; about 80 percent are low-income.
I asked Don Bernhard if he ever considered sending Tess to a private school.
He said, “I got that advice a lot: ‘You’ve got to get her out of there and send her to Moravian Academy or the Parkland district.’ My daughter was totally opposed to that.”
“Learning how to deal with the real world is a good thing and she certainly got that at Allen,” he said. “The diversity of the school to her was a strength. The kids who were there to learn had no trouble learning.”
Tess Bernhard got a lot out of the extracurricular opportunities; she was a captain of the dance team and helped run a tutoring program, among other activities.
I asked Don Bernhard how he’d respond to those who say gifted students like his daughter might do OK, but what about average students?
He said he thinks most school districts have a special focus on students at the top and those who struggle. “The kids in the middle can be lost in the shuffle,” he said. But students of different aptitudes can be successful if they’re willing to work.
Tess Bernhard had a great biology teacher at Allen - Luke Shafnisky – who prepared her well for a special Princeton biology program for which she was selected.
“If education in Allen was so deficient, a) she wouldn’t have gotten into Princeton, and b) wouldn’t have been asked to join a class that the best science students were in,” Don Bernhard said.
Certainly, Allentown has its problems, but I think there’s a disconnect between how outsiders see its schools and the experiences of kids who go there. Maybe the “experts” and the rest of us should start listening to them.
Frediano
8:13 am on Thursday, December 8, 2011
You tell them, Canary-Tiger.
FGBartlett
William Allen HS '73
Princeton U '77
MIT G'78
Carol
8:56 am on Thursday, December 8, 2011
The article states what most people already know. If you are in the top grouping, you can get an excellent education at Allen or Dieruff. They have the staff and resources to do this. However, you are segregated from the population that has caused the poor reputation and holds the mainstream hostage. Even her father admits this.
This article is evidence that good educations (and schools) are the resut of good parenting and discipline. The current process puts their "rights" above the rights of the students who come to school for an education. If you drop the PC stuff and hold the disruptive students and their parents accountable, things will improve quickly.
Mark Albright
9:06 am on Thursday, December 8, 2011
A transplant to the Lehigh Valley, I graduated from Reading High School back in the Dark Ages (1975), and people described RHS in exactly the same way back then. My friends and I have gone on to challenging postsecondary schools and have ended up as everything from doctors, lawyers and physicists to teachers, business people, artists, corrections officials, and yes, convicts. That is the inherent nature of public education. Unlike the parochial schools of my youth, the city's public high school couldn't cherry-pick, couldn't get rid of the 'rotten apples'. We were all in school together and some of us made our way and some of us lost their way. Kudoes to all of those students in every generation who follow the old admonition to "grow where you're planted". Given outstanding and dedicated teachers (and don't kid yourself - they exist in *every* district), students who keep their noses to the grindstone can overcome some pretty adverse home environments to make something of themselves and to make their instructors proud.
Frediano
9:55 am on Thursday, December 8, 2011
Allen teachers extended themselves, way above and beyond. Like, Steve Hatzai teaching a Saturday morning course in chemical instrumentation, Bob Tostevin taking his biology class to Bake Oven Knob for a several day camping/field trip, Mr. Kindt's physics lectures, Jacki Mory's English classes...not to mention all the fantastic jr high/middle school and elementary teachers. It cuts me like a knife to see ASD denigrated, because I know for a fact it isn't the teachers who are failing.
Education is -primarily- taken, not given. It is at most, "well offered." Education has always been more than well offered in ASD.
Steve Schmitt
10:29 am on Thursday, December 8, 2011
This is a great story. Thank you Patch and thank you Don & Tess Bernhard for making it happen.
optimist
11:29 am on Thursday, December 8, 2011
Outstanding! The kind of thing public education haters do not want you to know about.
Amy
1:28 pm on Thursday, December 8, 2011
I think it was well said, that the parenting that Tess had pushed her to make her what she is. With the right parenting, any child can succeed. Thanks for the great story. Should go beyond the Patch to everyone!
Disgruntled
2:39 pm on Thursday, December 8, 2011
I live in Allentown and it will be a cold day in hell before I would send my kids to these schools. I'm sure the teachers are fine and my children would learn,because I push the impotance of education on my children. But the majority of students that go to these schools don't care about education, grades, and doing well, hell they aren't even bothering to learn to speak English. Nor do their parents care about any of this. I'm sorry if I don't want my children to go to schools where they will pick up bad habits and poor manners. This is a nice story and all about this girl, but what is the true graduation rate for AHS and how many students go on to further their education. Weigh that against how many of their graduates end up collecting welfare!
gruntled
3:33 pm on Thursday, December 8, 2011
I agree that most of the kids don't really try to excel, just to get by; unless their parents push them. My kids got a very good education at Easton, but only because they were near the top of their classes. Lower level friends didn't fare as well. Many schools are like that - different levels are almost like a completely different school (but with the same gym classes.) Of course, Easton isn't just an urban school, probably more suburban now.
I often hear stories of parents that attend a meeting with the teacher demanding a better education for their kid....."my kid isn't doing his homework, what are you going to do about it?").
Frediano
11:52 pm on Thursday, December 8, 2011
Sure. Do all of that. And you are right, the teachers are fine.
With SB1 it would in theory easier to flee insanity. But SB1 isn't restricted to students rewarded for good habits and great manners, and so, SB1 is likely going to end up being the carrier for the spread of the insanity.
Parkland SD has a large number of ASD grads sending their kids there. Not just why, but how? SB1 is all about short-circuiting the 'how.' As if the 'how' wasn't in fact critical to the 'why.'
Its not about money, it is about culture. Allentown was never spilling over with predominantly wealthy folks, not now, and not 40 years ago, either. Wealth is an effect, not a cause.
Allentown was Coal region, mill worker, dairy, steelworker, factory worker, lower middle class poor. But what it used to have was parents who made their kids eat breakfast before going to school, who rode their kids about their schoolwork. What it used to have was a culture that valued education as a step to something better. What it used to have was a culture that placed primary responsibilty for education outcomes on students, a culture that did not as its first, second, and third response to failures in education consist of blame aimed at others..
SB1 is a lousy idea that could be improved; instead of yet another passive entitlement, make SB1 a consequence of positive behavior and results in the classroom. SB1 has the cause and effect exactly backwards.
Gavin
7:19 pm on Sunday, December 11, 2011
I notice you push the "impotance" of education. Nice spelling, for one. Freudian slip? Second, I sent my kids to the Allentown schools and they did very well. Two kids already in great colleges. One in a mechanical engineering program (Villanova University) had a professor use a software program for advanced students. My kid was the only student familiar with it because his teacher at Allen H.S. had used it in class. Other students, even those from private schools had not been exposed to the same level of instruction. My other child is in one of the most selective schools in the nation. Every year Allentown School District sends kids to Ivy League schools and numerous other top flight colleges. Tess and her family are only one example of the great kids coming out of the Allentown schools every year.
Jon Geeting
2:46 pm on Thursday, December 8, 2011
Awesome column Margie.
Just want to make the obligatory point that while money's not everything, the fact that suburban districts have more revenue to recruit the best teachers is a big driver of segregation and inequality. This is a political choice, and it doesn't have to be that way.
If PA had County-wide school districts like in the South, and all schools were funded equally out of the same pot of money, kids from poor families be better off. Obviously we need parents to be more involved with their kids' education, but the schools need to be able to educate kids regardless of what the parental situation is like.
Teachers need to be held accountable too. One thing ASD could do is volunteer to participate in the Trial Urban District Assessment of school performance. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2011/12/07/urban_naep_scores_show_slowly_brightening_education_picture.html
Frediano
11:22 pm on Thursday, December 8, 2011
Behavior matters. Culture matters. Attitude matters. Effort matters. Treating the opportunity for a free education with little more than contempt for the process has consequences. If education could be 'given' then endlessly throwing money at students slumped into their chairs waiting for the Golden Education Funnel to painlessly deliver education into thier gaping maws might work. Education is primarily taken, not given. It is at most 'well offered.' We blame the bargain basement teachers? That is insulting. Books? Buildings? Lockers? The age of the artificial surface at J. Bernie Crum?
Everything but the students treating the opportunity with little more than contempt on their way to the endless thirteenth grade of life. We are decades past when it is time to place blame for failures in education. By endlessly pointing to 'the system...teachers...buildings...books....we encourage this apparently widespread belief that the missing effort and attitude is anywhere else other than the butts slouched in those seats.
Todd Gibbs
3:59 pm on Thursday, December 8, 2011
I agree 100% with Don Bernhard. Allentown schools are fine and it is what the student makes of the experience. My son and daugter went there and now our daughter is a doctor working in Princeton and our son is President of a local company in Allentown.
Todd Gibbs
bill kao
7:37 am on Friday, December 9, 2011
My wife and I live in the West end of Allentown and love it. We have 22 month old twins. We cannot wait to move out of Allentown because I would never expose my twins to the crap that goes on in ASD. I grew up and attended philadelPhia public school and not once did I ever fear for my life. Have you ever driven down 17th street between 2-3 pm while school gets let out. It's a war scene. Disrespectful kids cursing ,screaming, jaywalking and hitting your car while waiting at the traffic lights. It's even gotten to the point where cops arent even present during this time.
This is a awesome story about her goin to Princeton but thr reality is only the top tier of ASD make it out. The rest barely graduate let alone attend school. Someone needs to comPletly overhaul the system and it starts at the top.
optimist
11:45 am on Friday, December 9, 2011
What system bill? Do you mean education. Is that the blame for the scene between 2-3? If that's what you believe, we will have to agree to disagree.
Margie Peterson
10:40 am on Friday, December 9, 2011
Thanks Steve, Optimist, Jon and Amy for the kind words and all who responded. As for Allentown's graduation rate, it's a little over 70 percent. While that's low compared to most surrounding districts, it's on par with the national graduation rate. Interestingly, only about half of high school students nationwide graduated back in 1940, according to Education Week. Rates rose in the 50s and 60s and peaked in 1969 at 77 percent. Of course, back in the 50s, 60s and 70s it was easier to find a well-paying job at a manufacturing plant that didn't necessarily require a diploma.
Swag
5:51 pm on Sunday, December 11, 2011
great idea, poorly written. introduced her father - "I asked her father, Don Bernhard, PPL community affairs director, about his daughter’s experience" - but then didn't mention what he said about his daughters experience for another few paragraphs. also, you said "I asked her father" or "I asked Don Bernhard" 4 or 5 times. gets a bit annoying.
Peter H. Kromayer
2:05 pm on Saturday, December 17, 2011
Parental influence is the key to a student's progress. The problem at William Allen is that there an awful lot of kids going there whose parents dont give a hoot about what their children do in school. THEY are the ones that have to be educated first, before their kids can make any progress.