Is It Time to Give Up on School Integration?

Monday’s article focused on African-American families becoming more and more interested in forming their own learning pods and microschools post-pandemic.

Yesterday we explored an article written by Kenneth B. Clark, a psychologist, professor, and social activist, writing about alternative school options as a solution to segregated schools in the late 1960’s.

Today, an article in EducationWeek, titled “Schools Are Resegregating. There’s a Push for the Supreme Court to Consider That” caught my eye.

Written by Mark Walsh, the article begins by stating,

“When the U.S. Supreme Court heard nearly five hours of arguments about the consideration of race in higher education on October 31, much of the focus was understandably about the details of undergraduate admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. They are the two institutions whose practices are being challenged by opponents of affirmative action in the cases.”

“But in a handful of briefs filed with the court, and in some of the comments during the lengthy arguments, there were reminders that racial diversity among student enrollments remains a delicately pursued but often elusive goal in K-12 schools as well.”

“’If you’re Black, you’re more likely to be in an underresourced [K-12] school,’ Justice Sonia Sotomayer said to a lawyer challenging race-conscious admissions at the University of North Carolina. ‘You’re more likely to be taught by teachers who are not as qualified as others. You’re more likely to be viewed as…having less academic potential.’”

“Sotomayor’s observation may have been influenced by a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the college cases by the Council of the Great City Schools, the coalition of the nation’s 76 largest urban school districts. The brief focused on telling the court that racial segregation and inequality persist in elementary and secondary schools, nearly 70 years after Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka held that racially segregated schools were inherently unequal.”

“’Despite the best efforts of school districts like the council’s members to create more diverse schools, racial segregation has increased over the last two decades,’ the council’s brief says. ‘As a result, educational inequities persist.’”

“The brief cites a 2019 report from the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, which concluded that at the 65^th anniversary of the Brown decision, ‘intense levels of segregation…are on the rise again.’”

“Black students, who accounted for 15 percent of public school enrollment at the time of the report, attended schools where Black students made up an average of 47 percent of enrollment, said the CRP report.”

“Students of Asian background were attending schools where 24 percent of students were fellow Asian-Americans. Meanwhile, white and Latino students were the most segregated groups, the CRP report said.”

“White students, on average, attended a school in which 69 percent of the students were white, while Latino students attended a school in which 55 percent of the students were Latino.”

“’The data in this report show a disconcerting increase of Black segregation in all parts of the country,’ says the report. ‘This is true even though African Americans are a slowly declining share of the total student population, and many now live in suburban areas.’”

A 2022 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that,

“more than one-third of U.S. public school students (about 18.5 million) attended a predominantly same-race/ethnicity schools, defined as one where 75 percent or more of the student population is of a single race/ethnicity. The report, based on the GAO’s analysis of U.S. Department of Education data for the 2020-2021 school year, also found that 14 percent of students attended schools where 90 percent or more of the students were of a single race/ethnicity.”

“Wencong Fa, a senior attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, [a Sacramento, California group promoting quality education over diversity], said in an interview that the American public school system should shift its focus from racial diversity goals to improving the education of all children.”

“’Just because a school does not consider its students racially diverse, that doesn’t mean it’s segregated,’ he said. ‘The government use of race has a really sordid history. I think this [debate] is a distraction from the real problem, which is getting students the opportunities they need to succeed and thrive.’”

When I worked in a large urban school district some years ago, a school board member shared this with me when the topic of neighborhood school boundaries came up:

“You know Scott, in the end, every family is going to send their kids to a school where they feel comfortable.”

At the time, I thought his comment to be racist and classist.

But now, if adequate funding comes with the concept of “comfort”, then I say let’s give “comfort” a try.

Til tomorrow. SVB