I had the opportunity to visit Perkiomen Valley High School today. They just built another wing onto their school. It’s beautiful — a brand new several thousand square foot food court, an amazing gymnasium with seating for 2,000, three full courts and a press box, a pool, a two story weight room, and — of course — twelve state-of-the-art science labs. (And other stuff as well)

All their classrooms had smart-boards, DV equipment, etc… the science labs all had the latest and greatest equipment… the school hallways were wide and spacious and the general feel of the school was professional and top-notch. The teachers and students we spoke to clearly valued the chance to be in that kind of environment.

I don’t begrudge Perkiomen Valley the right to have a school like that. They had the opporunity to create something with the potential to be truly transformative for their students, and they did it. It really is a wonderfully designed building that shows so much thought and planning — in addition to money. I wish every school in America could be like that. I especially wish the Science Leadership Academy could be like that. And make no mistake — as urban schools go — I think we’re building an amazing school facility, and I believe that the School District is committed to building a state-of-the-art urban school.

But — and this is not the fault of Philadelphia or Perkiomen Valley — Philly doesn’t have the money (or the real estate space) to create the kind of schools that the wealthier suburban schools can create. But I wonder what the effect of that is. Do city kids accept that their schools won’t have the kind of facilities that suburban schools have? Does that matter?

In a city like NYC where the line between city and suburbs are more clearly divorced into different worlds, it feels less important, but in the rest of the world (like Philly) where the suburbs and city blend pretty powerfully on the edges, it somehow seems more important.

For city schools, it seems like — when it comes to the funding piece — we always are in the position to have to stretch the dollars, do as much as we can, make do with less, be creative, whatever. And even with that, the teaching and learning I’ve seen in cities is as powerful as anything I’ve seen in suburban schools, but it never does quite feel like a level playing field.

I wonder what the real effects of that are. I don’t know how to measure it, but it doesn’t quite feel right.