Should the city school district be dissolved? That’s the question Erica Bryant of the Democrat & Chronicle raised in a columnrecently, though the topic comes up with some regularity. Bryant referred to the bold decision that school and city leaders in Memphis made to dissolve that city’s failing school district.
But there’s a bigger question lurking inside this discussion, and it seems like it needs to be answered first: How serious are we about providing urban students, most of whom are black or Hispanic, with a chance at a quality public education?
We know the challenges students in the Rochester school district face daily, but addressing them requires tremendous political will and courage. Yes, we’ve taken some important steps. The city has made great strides in reducing the potential for lead poisoning in children. The State Education Department has raised the bar on academic performance and taken a tougher stance than it has in years on teacher competency.
And Rochester schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas is expanding school days, clamping down on truancy, and increasing reading proficiency.
But these measures, important as they are, may not be enough to mitigate the influence of living in extreme poverty. Rochester’s child poverty rate — one of the worst in the country — has grown even worse in recent years. More than 50 percent of the city’s children are living at or below the poverty line.
Almost any seasoned educator knows from experience what research confirms: academic achievement reaches a tipping point when more than 50 percent of the school’s students are poor.
Even though breaking up concentrated poverty in Rochester’s schools may be one of the surest ways to improve student achievement, it remains the approach we’re most reluctant to try in earnest. How committed are we to providing urban students with a quality education? Maybe we’re not as serious as we think.
This article appears in Mar 6-12, 2013.
What would we do with the students of the dissolved district?
If the answer is to divvy them up between the various suburban districts, we can just end speculation now. That’ll never happen. Suburban parents would never tolerate “those” students coming to their child’s school. (I don’t care how you phrase it, the fear isn’t of low performing kids in the schools; that just makes their children look better. The fear is having brown and black kids in the schools with their children. Irrational fear which under a less polite umbrella is known as racism.)
If the answer is to make a Metro/County school district… see above; except the parents would find a way to make “busing” the issue, and kids would be relegated to “neighborhood schools” with the same issues we already have. If that could be overcome, all you’d be doing is promoting a significant jump in charter and private schools and/or white flight to the 5 surrounding counties.
It is an interesting idea to contemplate, and I have long felt that the only really good way to raise the performance of many urban kids at once is to send them to suburban schools. A significant majority of the kids would find a way to make up the gap. The problem is that the parents will never stand for it. Suburban parents would also bemoan the amount of their money would spent on city schools, if only to improve facilities.
As much as I could and would support this idea, it will never come to pass here. That ship has already sailed.
This is a significant topic and City’s slant is as expected. But it is Yugoboy’s response that deserves attention.
Essentially a solution exists but because “racism” it will never come to pass. It is worth noting that I believe Yugoboy is in fact an RCSD employee.
First, the obvious. The solution has in fact been tried for decades within RCSD. Has there been a bigger – albeit unstated – policy goal than to get “integrated” classrooms and in particular to get poor African American students into middle class/mostly white programs? Look at the history of East High School. And what has been the upshot of this double standards-based effort? The dominant attitude of African American students (certainly by middle and high school) is basically don’t study (and sometimes characterized by “don’t be white”). I volunteer tutor 4 days a week and this hugely self-evident.
And what happened to those middle class programs? Well some qualified kids had to directly be displaced by this policy. But the secondary effect is creating programs with big differences in the student backgrounds and interests. This is a big problem. What would East High School’s basketball program/legacy have been under a policy of integrating several Asian American kids onto teams?
But the deeper issue is honesty. Yugoboy knows this. The accusation that suburbanites are biased against skin color as opposed to behavioral issues is absurd. By the way, for overt racism is there any group that demonstrates more of it than young urban African Americans?
It is good to honest about important issues – even PC-ified topics like race.
“Racism” today is never the reason, but the result. Rarely anymore are people overtly discriminated against because of their skin color. However, take a look at the results of the various programs and policies in the area (or the nation as a whole). Certainly no suburban school would turn an African-American kid away from the school doors if the parents have a home in the district. I cannot imagine many suburban parents objecting to their child sitting next to or playing next to a minority kid in their school.
A big reason for this acceptance is the mere fact of the “minority” being just that… a minority. They pose no threat to their child’s status, and in fact enhance everyone’s status by demonstrating how enlightened and tolerant they are.
There is at least one suburb in Chicago (whose name escapes me) that managed to remain solidly middle class while at the same time allowing African-Americans to move in. So many moved in that it is now very much “majority minority” and it is patently obvious that white flight has indeed occurred.
If you polled each and every suburban family, greater than 90% would demonstrate a genuine belief in their own toleration and progressiveness. See what the actual response is any time Metro Schools gets proposed.
I am indeed a City School District employee, and you would be amazed at the responses I get when I tell people where I work. Far far far too many people respond with pity and an astounding number reveal absolute ignorance of the behaviors of my students and/or reasons behind them.
These kids deserve a fighting chance at success, and current policies and programs both within and without the city are denying them that, ostensibly due to class, but the racial correlation is undeniable.
The belief that “behavior” is the main reason for district or student failures is a cop-out.
I know I and my colleagues appreciate your efforts at tutoring and assistance, but come into the schools and talk to us and our students on a larger basis than just those that need tutoring.
We’ve managed to replace “race” with “class” as the discriminated group, but again, the correlation is undeniable.