After the U.S. Supreme Court's recent rejection of school assignment plans in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle that were aimed at maintaining racial integration in schools, a variety of pundits and scholars trashed the court for sticking a fork in the most revered decision of the 20th century, Brown v. Board of Education. However, the ideals of Brown -- providing students with equal educational opportunities regardless of race or background -- are far from dead. What has been missing from much of the criticism of the June 28 decision is an analysis of what exactly makes integrated schooling so beneficial, and what advocates for equity in education can do within this new legal landscape to recapture those benefits.
The court's decision is potentially calamitous because it handcuffs districts that are working to achieve racial diversity, thus threatening to eliminate the proven benefits of integrated classrooms. Numerous studies have shown that students who attended racially integrated schools -- such as the students in Louisville and Seattle -- show higher levels of tolerance toward individuals of different ethnic backgrounds and an increased sense of civic engagement, when compared with peers who attended more racially isolated schools. Academically, the benefits for African-American students are immense, with studies showing higher graduation rates, larger enrollments in advanced courses, and even higher post-schooling salaries for African-American students who learned in racially integrated schools. Preliminary studies show similar benefits for Latino students. Meanwhile, the racial composition of schools has proven to have no effect on the academic achievement of white students.
Recognizing these benefits, school officials in Louisville and Seattle enacted plans aimed at maintaining racial diversity, in certain circumstances considering a student's race in making school assignments. It was this minimal use of race to achieve the districts' goals that troubled the court (or at least its majority in the 5-4 decision). In a line from the ruling that is already famous, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. Brown itself actually ended discrimination on the basis of race in making school assignments. Something more than just ending discrimination has been needed to achieve Brown's ideal of providing equal educational opportunities to students of all races. Now that the court has ruled that the "something more" can no longer include consideration of race to ensure integrated schools, the question education advocates must confront is how to recapture the benefits of integrated education within the new limits of the law. One avenue that offers a particularly hopeful outlook is a shift in focus away from racial integration and toward socioeconomic integration.
The disadvantages that characterize many racially isolated schools -- inequitable resources, higher teacher turnover, fewer advanced classes -- and the lower average outcomes for students attending those schools -- higher dropout rates, lower graduation rates -- are even more pronounced in schools with high concentrations of poor students. The same educational benefits that flow to African-American and Latino students in racially integrated schools will flow to poor students of all races in schools integrated by socioeconomics.
One district that already uses this model is Wake County (Raleigh), N.C. In Wake County, where socioeconomic integration has been in practice since 2000, low-income students perform better than similarly situated students in other North Carolina districts. In addition, Wake County's minority students outperform the minority students in similar districts throughout the state. And the improved outcomes are not limited to low-income and minority students. In 2003, Wake County had the second highest graduation rate among the nation's 50 largest school districts. In addition, the cultural benefits of racially integrated schools, such as higher levels of tolerance among students, can also be captured by socioeconomically integrated schools. Unfortunately, there is a high correlation between income and race, such that creating schools with children from differing income levels is likely to have the effect of also creating schools with children from different races. Wake County, for example, has maintained much of its previous racial integration since switching from a racial to a socioeconomic integration plan in 2000. Income-based assignment plans also have the legal benefit of not triggering the strict judicial scrutiny that follows whenever a decision is made based on a student's race, making them less vulnerable to challenge.
With all due respect to Chief Justice Roberts, the way to end discrimination on the basis of race is to create a world where the playing field for individuals of all backgrounds is as level as possible. That leveling begins in our schools. Although the Supreme Court removed a critical tool in achieving opportunities that are equal for students of all races, other tools remain. It is now up to advocates of equity in education to find new ways to pursue Brown's ideals with the tools we have left. They are ideals -- with proven cultural and academic benefits -- worth fighting for.
9 comments:
Daniel
I appreciate some of your points, but stat wise they are based on a very slippery slope.
1. What was the cost to White students or even Black students (and their parents) who had to travel past their neighborhood schools to help integrate another school? The students who were bused were deprived the benefit of a neighborhood school. Did they suffer? What does your studies say? If they opted out of public schools (like I am sure many did) what was the cost to society for them opting out of the public school system?
2. I would also hesitate to base anything on Wake County North Carolina. Wake County is the 2nd largest county in North Carolina and its only real peer is Mecklenburg County. The other large counties in the state is more then 30% smaller. In comparing school results between Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) and Wake County (Raleigh) one must realize two items. Mecklenburg is 30% black and Wake County is 20% Black. The Mecklenburg school district was destroyed by cross county busing and its school population is well over 50% black. Wake County did not suffer the busing disaster that Charlotte did. I might also add that Wake County will have among the smallest minority population % of any of the largest 50 school districts in the Nation. Does Memphis with 80% minority population in the high schools have a higher drop out rate then Wake County with a 40% minority population in high schools? Yes sadly one is less likely to graduate high school if one is Black. So the higher the black population % in a school district the higher the drop out rate. Its statistics. I ask you does the minority dropout rate between Wake County and Memphis vary? How about that stat? I challenge you present that info to me or the readers?
I would also point to a recent Wall street Journal article about the Wake County situation. Actually it dealt with school assignments being based on income or social economic status. The article mentioned a parent who was standing on the doorstep with his child ( a minority parent who was earning a good income) who had to tell his child that he was not attending the school that could be seen from his doorstep. Rather this child was being bused several miles away for the purpose of achieving social economic parity at another school. Is this child being sacrificed to help someone else's child? What is the cost to that community that this child cannot go to school with his neighborhood friends and walk to the school past his neighborhood institutions? Are we not disadvantaging one child to potentially help another?
What would you say to a child if he had to go to a different school is his best friend next door? Before you advocate liking the school board socially engineer your friends, neighbors and this city you better think about that question?
Ralph DelBove
My opinion historically has been if you want to improve at something, associate with those that are better than you at whatever your interest is, e.g. if you want to be a better ping pong player, play with someone who is better than you, not someone who has equal or less skill. Michael White(a white kid), an assistant basketball coach at Ole Miss, would go to inner city New Orleans to play ball, because he knew that's where the best players were. I have often thought I would do the same if I were a teenager today. Similarly, in the business world observe and associate yourself with those that appear to be skilled and effective at what they do.
Which brings me to my point........you mention the "immense" academic improvement of blacks in an integrated environment, but what about the white academic performance? I really don't know, but my guess is that white academic achievement will decline. Sure, there's bound to be "cultural" benefits, but what about the white reading, righting, and rithmetic, the 3 R's? Maybe there are a lot of white parents around here who don't want to risk their children's future by placing them in an environment where they may not be stimulated to achieve academically. So the proliferation of mostly white private schools.
Dick Carroll
Olive Branch
Ralph -
In response to your first point, I don't disagree that busing was an enormous burden on students and the system and that there were many collateral costs to communities of this practice. However, just to put the imposition of busing into historical perspective, the Supreme Court OK'ed busing nearly 20 years after Brown and at a time when in many school systems, one could easily point to "black schools" and "white schools." Busing probably was not the best answer to entrenched segregation, but the alternative - allowing local boards to continue defying a Supreme Court order - was not ideal either.
On your second point, I looked into your question about comparing minority dropout rates in Memphis and Wake County. While I couldn't nail that down precisely, I was able to find info on the converse- graduation rates. In 2004-05, the AFrican American graduation rate in Wake County (measured by on-time graduation), was 94.6%. In Memphis, the rate for the system as a whole (couldn't find it disaggregated by race) was 66.3%. Student outcomes across the board seem to be in better shape in Wake County than here in Memphis.
Finally, you seem to suggest that sending a child to a school beyond his or her neighborhood school must automatically be "sacrificing" or "disadvantaging" the child. This is certainly not the case. This is the most common misconception about integration - that white children suffer in integrated settings. Education is not a zero sum game where one student's gain must be offset by another's loss. No study has ever shown (and many have been conducted looking for it) that the academic achievement of white students suffers in schools integrated either by race or income. Going back to your first point, there was no academic cost to white children by having classes with African American students, but there was a huge academic benefit to the African American students to getting out of all-black schools.
You point out that there is certainly a cost in having to travel some distance to a school just to produce more integrated schools. I don't disagree. However, where you ask me what I would say to a child who must go to a different school than his neighbor next door, I ask you what you would say to a child who must go to an inferior school simply because he lives in a bad neighborhood. There are plenty of children whose life chances are "sacrificed" by forcing them into neighborhood schools with measurably inequitable resources and measurably lower achieving teachers and peers. The majority of these children are poor and the majority of these children are minorities. This is a sad fact. The goal of integration (at least in my mind), either racial or socioeconomic, was to give these children an equal opportunity to have a decent education and a decent life. In your example, the friends are sadly split up, but the schools they attend will be roughly equal. In my example, one student will get a measurably substandard education. Neither is the ideal situation, but I stand by my choice.
Mr. Carroll -
Your question about white performance is a common one and it is also the most common misconception about integrated schooling. There is a widespread sense that integrated schools simply must be worse for white students. However, education is not a zero sum game where gains for some must be offset by losses for others. No study has ever shown that integrated schools - either by race or by income - have any negative effect on white achievement. And plenty of studies have been conducted to search for just this effect.
You are correct when you say "Maybe there are a lot of white parents around here who don't want to risk their children's future by placing them in an environment where they may not be stimulated to achieve academically." I agree that there are plenty of parents who think this. However, that thought is based on a false premise. There is no risk to white children's future - only the perception of a risk. And sadly (at least in my opinion), perception, in this case, trumps reality.
I appreciate your comments and I have several in return.
1. I am sure Wake County and Memphis schools are supplying comparable measurable stats. Wake County may have 94.6% of his students graduate in 12 years, but Memphis is measuring what % of 9th graders (those students at about the last age mandatory school attendance) who eventually graduate. That is the true dropout rate and I suspect based on racial classifications Wake County and Memphis too not vary that much.
2. Myself and most conservatives place almost no value in these so-called Scientific Educational studies. In a Medical study one can determines that 90% of patients show a reduction in infection upon taking a certain medicine. Doing a social study of students is really so much mumbo jumbo (in my opinion) guessing and speculating is the common modus operandi. How can one show that students benefit from attending an integrated school as an example? My child attended a school (she just graduated from High school) that was 8% minority. Can one prove that she would have had better grades with 28% of her class being minority students? How can one go about proving that any student would have done better at Lausanne (a private school) or White Station Optional?
3. I feel bad for kids living in a poor neighborhood and attending a school in a poor neighborhood, but what is the solution to that? Close down all the schools in South Memphis, North Memphis and Frayser? I would contend rather then bus students into those schools (which not work) that making the communtity schools as successful as possible is better then sending kids six miles away so they could attend school with Middle class kids (be they white or black).
To an extent its an argument without end. I believe that individual's right to send a child to neighborhood school trumps any right that the school board has (or society for that matter) to try to improve society by juggling school assignments.
Dear Mr. Kiel:
I really enjoyed your editorial in the online version of the Commercial
Appeal. I have to admit I did not quite understand your criticism of the
Roberts decision (that race should not be used as a criteria), but I
definitely agree that socioeconomics gets you to the same place without the
distraction of race. And the advantages to children educated in integrated
schools is true (take it from someone who chose to educate his three
children in public schools through high school).
Your points are well stated but you fail to mention one major, but somewhat
uncomfortable fact: people who state they strongly believe in equality do
not place their children in integrated schools - either racially or
socioeconomically diverse ones. Why is this? Take the members of the
United States Supreme Court (or the attorneys who argued the cases before
them). How many educated their children in public schools? I don't know
the answer but I doubt if there is much difference between the five majority
justices and the four dissenters. Justice Breyer's unusual vehemence in
reading his dissent was widely reported, yet did he send his children to
racially and socioeconomically diverse k-12 schools? Again I don't know the
answers to these questions but I would bet very few children and
grandchildren of the justices attended schools that are the subject of this
debate.
My point is this - unless the public is willing to embrace these principals
with action then the schools will continue to languish. As your editorial
points out, there are irreplaceable advantages to being educated in a
socially and racially diverse environment. But in my opinion we let people
off the hook too easily by speaking in theories. My first question for
anyone who engages in this debate is "Where do your children go to school".
Actually I don't ask the question because to do so is considered rude and
inappropriate. But shouldn't we? Shouldn't there be a stigma to abandoning
public education, especially if you espouse to believe in the merits of
integration? Would you care to ask this question to the members of the
Commercial Appeal's Editorial Board? I know I could not because I do not
wish to offend my friends and the reality is too harsh. But can we really
express a belief in an education system that we spend thousands to avoid?
Thank you for your thought provoking editorial.
Ed Lancaster
Ed-
I think you hit on a very critical dilemma for public education, and especially for wealthy and well-connected public education advocates. It is certainly simple for someone (myself included) to argue about schooling in theory, but the debate becomes a lot more difficult when the futures of your own children are at issue. I applaud your decision to send your children to public schools - my parents did the same thing for me and my sister and I think the experience was great for me.
You are correct that there ought to be some stigma for abandoning the public school system - though I'd hesitate to criticize every parent who chooses a private school as children thrive in different environments (what was good for me may not have been as good for my sister, for instance). The greatest trouble with powerful people, such as Supreme Court justices or wealthy community leaders, not sending their children to public schools is that it creates the illusion for these people that what happens in the public schools does not matter because their children are unaffected and it sends the signal to others that the public schools are "not good enough."
There needs to be a realization within the community - no matter where your children attend or whether you have children in school at all - that we all have a huge stake in the public schools being successful. In Memphis, the majority of future Memphians - from our city leaders to our future workforce and even our future criminals - are being educated in the Memphis City Schools. We would all be better served in areas from economics to safety the better off these students are.
Ralph - I think that at the heart of this, we are in agreement. What I want is for every school to be as successful as possible so that juggling school assignments is not necessary. I do believe there is value in integrated classrooms, but I believe even more strongly in quality education. Given the choice, I'd choose a quality school over an integrated one.
Where we disagree (and you are probably right that it is without end) is on what fundamental right is most important when push comes to shove. You've said that the individual's right to send a child to a neighborhood school trumps and I can respect that position even though I disagree. I think that a child's right to a quality education trumps and so I'm willing to allow for some action to be taken in that direction even if it means some students don't go to neighborhood schools. In the most successful models, some parents choose to have their children sent to non-neighborhood schools for specific educational programs - I'd agree that a choice-model is preferable to an assignment-model, but not all districts offer such choices.
it's interesting to look at the systematic opt-out for white and middle class families. the CAB group from the early 1970s effectively removed 56,000 students from public schools for several days and tens of thousands permanently in the years that followed.
what we have now is a memphis city school system for low-income city residents, a county school system for middle-income former city residents and a thriving private school and home school system for upper-income students.
we live in a culture of exit, rather than voice or loyalty (hirschmann). if you can afford it, you leave. if you can't, you stay. exit is the southern form of voice in terms of desegregation - look no further than the rise of the "academies."
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