Facing the crisis

In the midst of preparations for war, with budget crises looming
in Albany, in Monroe County, in City Hall, it’s easy to overlook one of the
biggest crises of all: the waste of minds that is taking place in the Rochester
school district.

                  We’ve
heard about that crisis so often that we’re bored with it. And few of us feel
any connection to it. It’s the teachers’ fault, or the principals’, or the
superintendent’s; or it’s the fault of the School Board That Never Does
Anything Right. Or it’s the children’s parents’ fault.

                  Certainly
we bear no blame.

                  Only
about a quarter of the children who enter Rochester high schools graduate four
years later. The unfortunate majority will struggle for the rest of their
lives. Odds are poor that they’ll ever have above-minimum-wage jobs — if they
have jobs at all. Odds are tragically high that they’ll become involved in the
criminal-justice system. Odds are high that they will produce children, in
marriage or out, who will follow the same path.

                  Those
of us more fortunate will support them, one way or another (unless the State of
New York amends its constitution and stops providing for their basic needs).

                  But
we’re sure that we played no role in their inferior education. And improving
things is not our responsibility.

                  The
parents and attorneys pursuing the lawsuit called GRACE (Greater Rochester Area
Coalition for Education) know otherwise. We do bear some of the blame — and
the responsibility for a remedy — assuming that each of us bears
responsibility for what is, and is not, done in our name as citizens of the
State of New York.

                  The
state has fostered a system of segregated communities and segregated school
districts. Most poor children in Monroe County live in the city, in
high-poverty neighborhoods. They attend high-poverty schools, in a high-poverty
school district. They cannot attend schools in more affluent communities —
because they cannot afford the tuition. They cannot move to a more affluent community, because they cannot afford to.

                  This
is a system of apartheid. And numerous studies show that it is poverty concentration
— not bad schools, not bad teachers — that is robbing urban children of a
good education. But no one in government will do anything about it.

                  Thus
the GRACE lawsuit, which charges that by fostering segregated school systems,
New York is denying Rochester’s poor children the basic education that its
constitution mandates.

                  Last
week, the City of Rochester announced that it wants to appear in court
supporting the GRACE argument. The reason, according to the city’s legal
papers: “An effective public school system is essential to the social and
economic vitality of a city and the surrounding region.”

                  This
is a major development. The mayor and City Council have been harsh critics of
the Rochester school district. They aren’t likely to mute that criticism, which
is aimed primarily at the district’s fiscal practices. But City Hall has
embraced the GRACE argument: The school district cannot overcome the effects of
concentrated poverty.

                  Rochester’s
students, says the city’s legal brief, “are trapped by the resident-based
system in the Rochester City School District, a zone of virtual poverty with an
atrocious educational performance level.”

                  Immigrants
came to this country seeking a better life, seeking a chance at education and a
job. In New York State, we wall off our poorest residents, passing zoning laws
and creating school-district boundaries that segregate urban-area residents by
income level — and, not coincidentally, by race.

                  This
has been going on for more than a quarter of a century in Rochester. And
despite the efforts and energy of talented superintendents, principals,
teachers, and school boards over those years, the situation has gotten worse.
There’s no mystery there: The school district’s poverty concentration has also
gotten worse.

                  Still,
we do nothing. And incredibly, the Democrat
and Chronicle argues against one of the few opportunities inner-city
children have for an integrated education: the Urban-Suburban Transfer Program.
The answer, the D&C editorialized
recently, is notto permit more city
children to attend suburban schools. The answer is to just make the city
schools better.

                  The D&C ought to be urging the state to
break down the poverty barriers. Every suburban official and school
superintendent in the region ought to be joining the GRACE suit.

                  The
rage keeps rising up in me until it’s a wonder that I have any rage left. (And
I’ve got to save some for the coming war.)

This article appears in Mar 12-18, 2003.