THIS must be the solution....

McKeesport plans to lure prospective homeowners to the area of White Oak by changing the name of the school district. But a rose by any other name....well, you know what I mean.

This is an interesting example that draws out the complexities of education reform. The Mon Valley in general has experienced a decline in population, increase in poverty, loss of jobs, crumbling of the infrastructure and in the cases of Duquesne and McKeesport, some rather scandalous education problems. But what happens in our schools is directly related to things that happen in our communities: property value, crime, taxes, transportation, population shifts, jobs. You cannot adjust one without affecting the others.

I can see where they got this idea. Most people sort of raise their eyebrow and give a nervous cough when I tell them I work in McKeesport. And Penn State recently changed its campus name from McKeesport to Greater Allegheny. But McKeesport, a town that has historical significance for the entire region, not to mention its recreation possibilities with the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail rolling right through it along its rivers, will not be built up by pretending that it's not McKeesport anymore!

This sort of happened with the Friendship neighborhood of Pittsburgh's East End, in the nineties. Not wanting to be identified with East Liberty or Garfield, the neighborhood association pushed for its own borders and name, and the area is indeed experience quite a rebirth.