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School segregation by choiceSubmitted by Amanda Fritz on July 20, 2007 - 9:28am.
Thursday's Oregonian published an insightful guest Op-Ed column written by Chapman Elementary School teacher Steve Brand, titled "The silent segregation of Portland's schools". It's written in response to reports earlier this month about Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood parents petitioning the Portland Public Schools Board to change boundaries to allow children automatic admission to the school of their parents' choice. Mr. Brand writes: "These families want their children to attend one of the largest elementary schools in the city (678 students), one of the most homogeneous elementary schools in the city (81.7 percent white, 0.4 percent English language learners) and a school with one of the highest SES (socioeconomic status) ratings in the city (0 title I funds, 12.7 percent free and reduced lunches). In return, they want to abandon Vernon, a school that is smaller (404 students), more heterogeneous (12 percent white, 13.6 percent English language learners), and poorer (86.5 percent free and reduced lunch). Following this model, especially given the gentrification of traditionally high-poverty neighborhoods, families will continue to flee their neighborhood school in favor of more homogenous and higher-income schools. The result is obvious: the segregation of our public schools. But besides segregation, another issue arises: school quality. Many families examine only published test results to evaluate their neighborhood school. However, test results are not comprehensive enough to evaluate what makes schools excellent: high-quality teaching. The teaching at many low-performing schools is at least as good and sometimes better than the teaching at some high-performing schools. Test scores actually may obscure the quality of teaching at a school. We might be shocked that high-poverty schools don't need our paternalistic assistance. We just need to send our children to our local school, attend PTA meetings, join the site council, volunteer in the classroom and communicate with the teachers, principals and families from the school." I don't think it's quite that simple, although Mr. Brand's point is also valid. High-poverty schools in some cases also need less interference (e.g., the continual reorganizations at Jefferson High School), and more top-down support in providing the same range of electives and advanced classes as are available at other schools. Part of that would come if more families chose their neighborhood school then parents joined the voices calling for equity in class offerings. But many of the schools already have active PTAs and strong parent advocates, yet resources are directed to magnet/focus schools drawing students away from neighborhood schools lacking courses I consider essential. Four years of foreign language in high school, for example. I cut out another of Mr. Brand's questions, for my own comment. He asks: "When will those of us who move to diverse neighborhoods commit ourselves to the entire community in which we live, including its public schools and the people who use those schools?" What Mr. Brand probably didn't have space to discuss, is the rewards to families when they make that choice. The value to the school and the community is understood, and clear. It's not just "the right thing to do" philosophically, it's the choice of most benefit to YOUR children. I could not have imagined, when we moved into the Markham Elementary School area the year before Luke entered kindergarten, what a profound and wonderful effect choosing to send our children to their neighborhood schools would have on their lives, and mine. We haven't only received excellent teaching, by educators who cherish and celebrate the multicultural environment and guide all students to achieve their highest potential academically. We made lifelong friends at Markham. My children and I have grown up in the melting pot of people living the American Dream in all its rich variety -- its challenges and pitfalls, its setbacks and successes. It's harder to find and see that in schools segregated by race or income. And parents seeking a "better" school for their children likely can't understand that, intellectually, because the heart and spirit can only learn it through experience. Missing in Brand's piece is any critique of the self-reinforcing PPS transfer policy that is perpetuating economic and racial segregation. He didn't cover the transfer policy directly, but I thought the overall point of his OpEd alluded to it. Whether district policy encourages or allows transfers is another factor; parental choice to stay in a neighborhood school can be made independently, regardless of the district's policy. ...parental choice to stay in a neighborhood school can be made independently, regardless of the district's policy. I think you may underestimate the degree to which the PPS transfer policy has been self-perpetuating and the degree to which it has caused public school funding to flow from working class neighborhoods and to wealthier neighborhoods. After a couple years of this cycle, it becomes a no-brainer for parents. It is unfair to blame them for taking advantage of the district policy that has created the problem in the first place. Remember, enabling individual choice is what got us into this mess. Isn't it quixotic to try to chide and cajole people into making individual choices to fix the problem? Isn't it quixotic to try to chide and cajole people into making individual choices to fix the problem? I wouldn't call what either the Op-Ed or I are saying as chiding or cajoling, rather giving parents with choices reasons to choose their neighborhood schools. Well, OK, maybe a little of each. I think it is entirely fair to let parents know that the choice the district policy gives them will have positive and negative results for their children - the same as the choice of any one school over another has some advantages, some disadvantages. In my experience, parents who choose to leave their neighborhood school often aren't aware of the benefits staying would bring to their family. School transfer policy is a question of degree, and of where to draw the line with giving choices that keep families in Portland Public Schools instead of private or suburban ones. I'm confident Ruth Adkins will provide needed rebalancing on the School Board, with her stance that every neighborhood school should be good enough for parents to want to send their kids there as their first choice - while also recognizing that some magnet and specialty programs can enrich the city's educational menu offerings. Also, I hope we can agree that a huge culprit is the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which mandates that parents from struggling schools be allowed to choose for their children to go elsewhere. Until that directive is changed, Portland Public Schools' policy is hampered in many ways. Before you go all judgemental on us, please consider our side of the story! Take a look at my comments here: http://morehockeylesswar.org/blog/archive/2007/07/19/steve_brand_on_pps_segregation_in_todays_oregonian/#comments And maybe you could watch the google video of our testimonies at the board meetings: In reviewing a couple of the above links, I find a very good discussion going on with this topic on OlsonOnLine, Terry Olson's blog. It's already further along than this thread, so I suggest folks interested join in over there. I hadn't seen Terry's post from yesterday evening before putting mine up this morning. My experience after 16 years as a Portland Public School parent is that any school can work for some kids, no school works for all, and there are great things happening in every school. And that things I thought would be good or bad for my kids often didn't turn out that way. I don't think the value of schools that are diverse (racially, economically, and philosophically) is considered enough in the school choice discussion. I hope we can agree that a huge culprit is the federal No Child Left Behind Act... Agreed. But we also must acknowledge that the PPS transfer policy goes well beyond what NCLB mandates, and is responsible for resegregation and inequity in our public schools. We can't blame this all on Bush. I also accept that there is a place for magnet and special focus schools, as has been pointed out to me by others. But if neighborhood schools all have equitable offerings, why should we allow free transfers among them? Since experience shows us this policy leads to racial and economic segregation, why not reverse it? How can we expect the same policy to suddenly have opposite effects? I'm not sure when "school choice" became a sacred cow to school policy makers in Portland, but I do know that the Bush administration is a big fan of it. Also charter schools and vouchers. I'm pretty sure the population of Portland is more progressive than this, but unfortunately, people haven't really paying attention in sufficient numbers. Hopefully this is changing. |
Missing in Brand's piece is any critique of the self-reinforcing PPS transfer policy that is perpetuating economic and racial segregation. Once white families begin to transfer out of mixed neighborhoods, a death spiral begins for neighborhood schools.
PPS policy encourages a pattern of disinvestment in our working class neighborhoods, as funding follows families to whiter schools in wealthier neighborhoods.
We need a New Deal for Portland Public Schools. I've taken a first stab at what that could look like on my own blog.