Dayton is the Fordham Institute's hometown. Thomas B. Fordham made his fortune here and he and his wife are buried in the city's Woodland Cemetery. As Checker (himself a Dayton native) and I chronicled in our book, Ohio's Education Reform Challenges, Dayton has been in decline since the 1960s. Student enrollment in the Dayton Public Schools peaked in 1965 at about 65,000 while this year the district enrolls around 14,500 students.
The New York Times summarized the situation facing Dayton in 2009 when it observed this ???vortex of economic and social change???:
The area's job total has fallen 12 percent since 2000, while about half of its factory jobs ??? 38,000 out of 79,000 ??? have disappeared this decade. Not only have large G.M. and Delphi plants closed, but NCR, long the city's corporate jewel, recently announced that it would move its headquarters to the Atlanta area.
To say Dayton and many of its people are hurting would be an understatement. The city is plagued by generational poverty and despair. But, the pain got worse Friday when the Dayton Urban League announced that it would temporarily cease operations after 63 years of serving the community. The Dayton Daily News reported that the Urban League serves 5,000 people annually, with programs including education and job training for teens and adults as well as homelessness prevention.
It is likely that many of the young people and families served by the Urban League will now turn to their schools for help. The Dayton Public Schools and the city's charter schools will be asked to do more. In speaking recently with leaders from one Dayton high school, I was surprised to learn that five of the school's students were living with school staff as they and their families are homeless and have nowhere else to go. This takes the mantra of doing whatever it takes to a whole new level, but teachers providing students with housing is not a sustainable model for educational excellence.
Yet, the pain is going to increase as Ohio's schools face budget cuts of up to 20 percent going into the 2012-13 biennium. Dayton and its people are hurting. The pending closure of the Dayton Urban League is just the latest blow to a once proud city that is trying hard to make itself work. Dayton is in the frontlines of the country's economic crisis. Out here it's not a pretty sight.
- Terry Ryan
