Solving the Inequitable School System

A big problem with the current K-12 public school system is that most of it is inherently unfair when it comes to providing equitable learning across the country. The 74 online published an article today that focuses on how U.S. school segregation contributes to this inherent unfairness. “Inside U.S. School Segregation by Race and Class begins,

“Plopped in the middle of the school district in Dallas, Texas is an island that has existed unto itself for decades.”

“Since the mid-20 century, the town of Highland Park has resisted annexation and today operates a separate, roughly 6,700-student school district that is surrounded on all sides by the 139,723-student Dallas Independent School District. Student demographics between the two school systems – and the services they’re able to offer – are markedly different, according to a just-released report from New America’s Education Funding Equity Initiative, which explores how school district borders across the U.S. create racial and economic segregation – often intentionally.”

…

“In Dallas, students of color comprise 94% of enrollment and in Highland Park, just 18%. Such segregation extends beyond race. In Highland Park, less than 4% of students live in poverty. In the Dallas school system, a quarter of kids are impoverished, with some of the city’s most underserved neighborhoods just a stone’s throw from Highland Park.”

“Such jarring school district disparities, which create real-world gaps in learning opportunities for students, exist across the country. America’s patchwork school district borders carry serious consequences for communities and children’s academic outcomes, according to the report by New America, a left-learning think tank based in Washington D.C. Nationally, about 30% of school funding is generated by local property taxes, a reality that creates haves and have-nots between property-wealthy districts and those that serve predominantly low-income families.”

“Much of the disparities can be blamed on inequitable housing policies, such as redlining and exclusionary zoning, which were explicitly implemented to segregate neighborhoods along race and class lines, ultimately showing up ‘not just in residential patterns but also in school budgets,’ said Zahava Stadler, a project director at New America…”

“’These are policy choices that are being made not just in the way we’ve designed school funding systems, but also in the way we actively maintain school funding systems year to year,’ she said. ‘All of those things are policy choices that are being made by state policymakers every single year.’”

“In total, researchers analyzed more than 13,000 school districts across the country, along with more than 25,000 pairs of neighboring school district borders, to identify how such arbitrary divisions work to generate inequality. Nationwide, they found that, on average, enrollment of students of color fluctuated by 14 percentage points between neighboring school districts. Along the 100 most racially segregated school district borders, however, the average difference was 78 percentage points. In other words, in one school district, students of color comprise 2% of the total enrollment while, in a district directly next door, they accounted for 80% of the study body.”

“Economic segregation was similarly stark. On average, the enrollment of impoverished students fluctuated by 5.2 percentage points between neighboring school districts. Yet along the 100 most economically segregated school district borders, researchers found the average divide was roughly six times that, at 31 percentage points. One example, the Utica, New York, school district where 33% of students live in poverty, compared to the neighboring New Hartford district where 5% do.”

Jerry Weast once serve Montgomery County, Maryland as its school superintendent. During Weast’s tenure, Montgomery County outperformed other school districts like it, achieving both the highest graduation rate among the nation’s largest school districts for four consecutive years and the highest academic performance ever, at a time when the non-English speaking student population more than doubled and enrollment tipped toward low socioeconomic demographics.

When asked how he led Montgomery County to such academic excellence, Weast claimed that little that they did to make black, brown, and poor kids smarter and stronger, just like their white counterparts, had to do with curriculum, instructional strategies, testing, or interventions. Weast believed that Montgomery County’s school success had everything to do with housing patterns within the Washington D.C. suburb. You see it was the rezoning of Montgomery County’s single-family housing, along with a mixing in of apartment building to the rezoning process, that caused low-income children to attend the same schools as children coming from middle-class families. The fact that children, from different racial backgrounds and different economic status, were able to go to school together made all the difference.

It’s important to keep in mind the importance of mixing kids and their families together when a new learning system is created – no matter their race or economic status. It’s doubtful that our existing school system will be able to accomplish this type of mixture. A new learning system must be created to give that type of desegregation a chance to succeed.

Til tomorrow. SVB