A hand-wringing discussion. Truth is, once you set aside the poverty/single-parent family issues, this all comes down to a value-added debate. Some cities do a better or worse job adding educational value for identical populations.
What’s striking about Rochester is that despite years of winning acclaim for various flavors of school “reform,” the city’s schools remain comparatively worse. And that’s because school reform usually judged by how adults compromise, not how students perform. I’m speaking as a former newspaper reporter in Rochester.