PublicSource: A+ Schools finds chronic absences and loss of students adding pressure to Pittsburgh Public Schools’ long-term inequalities

As Pittsburgh Public Schools tries to address attendance challenges that worsened during the pandemic, it faces long-term structural problems that have left the city with segregated schools, inequitable funding and the loss of thousands of students, according to nonprofit A+ Schools’ 2021 annual report to the community.

The report focuses on a handful of Pittsburgh schools that are bucking the overall trends to provide models for other district schools to follow.

The annual report by the nonprofit education advocacy organization has historically focused on some of the important data and trends in the city’s schools. But during the pandemic, the lack of comprehensive testing data caused the nonprofit to focus more on success stories and identifying structural problems.

“Telling the district that things aren’t working hasn’t yielded the outcomes that we’ve wanted,” said James Fogarty, the executive director of A+ Schools*, during a Monday press conference to highlight the new report.

Continue reading this story here.

This story was originally published by PublicSource, a news partner of Kidsburgh.org. PublicSource is a nonprofit media organization delivering local journalism at publicsource.org. You can sign up for their newsletters at publicsource.org/newsletters.