Richard Rothstein deeply believes that racial integration is essential, yet recognizes that school integration has been losing ground. This was inevitable, he argues, because the federal government has failed to use the powers it has to promote housing integration.
Rothstein is hopeful that a shift in the political winds could bring to office an administration committed to integrating American society. The sixty years since Brown have taught is that we cannot achieve a just and integrated society unless we attend to housing integration and economic justice, as well as school integration.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Excellent
shift in the political winds? It will only happen at the local level with parents opting out., not liberal dreams about social justice by castrated non profits. Just take a look how the entire Congress voted for charters.
Bob Dylan wrote”…You don’t need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows”. On the federal level, the wind is blowing in a reactionary direction: this country is moving farther right, not farther left. The hope, such as there is, lies in local politics and moving back towards the left in that venue. We have learned costly lessons during the two Obama elections: we voted with eyes wide shut and just look at the results. The Congress is itself unable and unwilling to take on social problems. A fine kettle of fish..
You may wish to repair the following for your website: “The sixty years since Brown HAVE taught US that…”
The sixty years since Brown has taught is th
The years has taught us…
Where did the Rothstein children attend school?
Joe Znathan, I have no idea where the Rothstein children went to school. I assume you are waiting to pounce with your insistence that two wrongs always make a right. You can’t find any way to deny that charters promote segregation, so now you are okay with segregation.
Diane, I just think people’s actions are as important as their words.
Again, having the power to decide is quite different than being forced to attend an inferior school. Yet the same word gets used.
Joe Nathan, if you honestly thought that people’s actions are as important as their words, then you wouldn’t be a paid shill for charter schools while claiming to support public education.
I don’t know whether you’re just lying to the public on behalf of your billionaire funders, or lying to yourself too, but you are as shameless as they.
Our work involves encouraging and honoring strong work by both district & charter public schools. Recent columns highlight, for example, an outstanding graduation portfolio program developed by Harding (district) high school, an outstanding collaboration developed by Long-Prairie Grey Eagle (district), growth of charter public school enrollment, and Mn Dept of Education honoring of financial performance of district & charter public schools:
http://hometownsource.com/tag/joe-nathan/?category=columns-opinion
We spent more time honoring, encouraging and assisting. We leave the name calling and insulting to others.
What you call “honoring” and “assisting” is in reality getting public schools and the teachers to collaborate in their own dissolution.
First, a number of the columns that I write feature outstanding work by district educators (such as the column about Harding High School) or honors district educators/students have won (such as the column on honors for outstanding drama productions.
Second, the collaborations we are working on involve, for example, having more high school students taking college level courses. Those are win/win/win. Next month we’re bringing together district, charter and university people to learn from eachother – the high school faculty will be providing new info to college faculty, as well as college faculty sharing info with high school college faculty. We’ve done this 3 times before. Each time more than 90% of the participants rate the workshop as useful or very useful.
I just got an email from $tudentsLa$t which tries to ride the coat tails of the 60 year anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education and drag Dr. King into this propaganda campaign as well. This is obviously the height of hypocrisy since $tudentsLa$t is among those who are front and center in pushing all of the toxic policies that are perpetuating and further exacerbating “separate and unequal” in our schools and by extension in our entire nation. We have spoken out against the blatant lie that corporate reform and the corporate reformers are civil rights champions. Who better than the SPLC to have as an ally in pushing back against this racist deception? Whom is it more important to educate on the details of this crypto racist lie than the SPLC? Who better than the SPLC to stand by our side and then leap frog past us in educating their constituency on the lies of reform and the cynical misuse of Dr. Kings legacy? WHY are we criticising the SPLC for doing what they do best just because it is not the same as what we do even though there is no actual disagreement between us? The corporate reformers could not in their wildest imagination have expected that we would dump such a beautifully wrapped gift right on their doorstep, a way to discredit both us and the SPLC by using our idiotic misunderstanding of the purpose of the SPLC report as a huge tool to co-opt and take ownership of the SPLC’s and our messages and pursuits of social justice. If we who oppose the entire corporate deform movement cannot get correct something this simple and obvious then we have already lost and should just turn out the lights, crawl under a rock and die. I for one refuse to do that.
Jon Lubar, the Southern Poverty Law Center has an honorable history fighting for civil rights and standing up to rightwing extremism. We are on the same side. But it is SPLC that needs to clear the air by fighting vouchers, charters, attacks on due process for teachers, and other efforts to weaken and diminish public education. I frankly don’t understand why they chose to treat Common Core as an issue that belongs in this discussion. As you note, those who want privatization through vouchers and charters are quite content with segregated schools. SPLC is correct to stand against the destruction of public education. However, in the present matter, they made an error by injecting Common Core into a much larger issue: the survival of public education. There are good people on both sides of the Common Core controversy, and the issues are complex.
When are you starting the campaign against rich suburban “public” schools that hire detectives to keep out kids who don’t live in the district? Those bastions of white, wealthy privilege?
I’d be glad to join it. In this state, we’ve knocked down some of those walls. If local boards decide they district has room, they can’t pick and choose among kids who want to attend – and state $ follow, allowing youngsters from low income families to attend.
We also provide greater state dollars per pupil for districts with high % of low income and limited English speaking…so that in this state, some of the highest spending districts are those with the largest percentage of students from low income families. Any time you’d like to try exporting that to New York, I’d be glad to help.
In the long run it is very difficult even for very powerful governments to force large numbers of people to do what they do not want to do.
Joe Nathan – I don’t understand your issue with any town not wanting to pay for out of towners who use someone’s in town address to attend. Does the $ follow the kid? Really? Under that circumstance, the answer is no. I live in a modest house and pay property taxes. Am I right in my understanding that the state takes taxes and redistributes them, that I’m paying more living 4 miles from Newark, yet Newark gets more of the taxes I paid than the schools in my own town?
I have no more skin in the game; my child is grown. I have no issue paying taxes for public education. I could care less how the state distributes the money either. I’m all for public education. If they wanted to have the $ follow the kid and send any child into this town, that’d be fine with me, IF THE MONEY FOLLOWED THE KID. However, is it fair for my taxes to be paying for out of town kids to attend my school “illegally” because they use someone’s rental address to pretend they live here? Doesn’t that raise my taxes? That is wrong. There are plenty of rentals comparable to what is being charged in surrounding neighborhoods. If someone wants their kid(s) educated here, move in, or have the $ follow the kid, if that is even possible.
I am interested in your using the term “my school”. What makes a school your school, and makes another school their school? Is it an imaginary line on the ground?
As for the money following the student, that often comes up in discussions about charter schools here. You might look at those discussions to see how that idea is received.
“My school” is semantics. Perhaps I should have written … any school in the town in which I reside. Clearly, I don’t believe I own the school or it is mine. Seriously.
Charter schools are not the answer; they never will be. If you follow that money, I think you’d be inclined to agree it is lining pockets more than educating kids that it follows, and there are phantom kids on the charter school rosters too, and when the students get thrown out, the money is kept, but they are returned to the public schools.
Perhaps back when the charter idea was new and alternative and creative and all that jazz; but now, charters are for profits and are diverting tax dollars from public schools, which are withering on the vine.
If you want your kid to attend a certain school district, move to that town. Isn’t that the way it works? If there is such a thing as attending in another district and having the money follow, fine.
By no means do I live in white suburbia. It isn’t more expensive to live here than in surrounding downs. This is not Essex Fells or Mendham; I live across the river from Newark. Comparable rents can be found in Newark, Belleville, Kearny, Jersey City, North Arlington, Lyndhurst, etc.
I don’t think it is mere semantics. I think it represents something deeper than that. When you say my school you create their school. Lines are drawn and enforced. I think it is a natural tendency. That is why the letter jacket that my son wears from his high school does not look like the letter jacket worn by students who attend the other high school in my town.
I was not posting to suggest that charter schools are the answer, but that many object to the idea that the money should follow the student. If motivated students were allowed to leave a district and attend another, bringing money with them, it is much the same as a motivated student leaving a district school and going to a charter school.
Of course dollars should follow the students. It should be the state average – and the state should pay 70-75% of the per pupil costs.
One source of huge inequity is that some suburban “public “schools spent 30-40% more than urban schools or rural schools.
therlo,
If you are interested in the money following the student, then check out what is happening in Missouri. Missouri has been doing that for some time now. Look specifically at what is happening to the inner-city schools (Normandy School District).
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/normandy-schools-are-in-a-holding-pattern/article_220d4b52-ea8c-545b-8bbe-dcc839d1aab8.html
As of right now, it is a disaster for the students who stay behind in the home district. It is a disaster if the home district goes bankrupt because then there is no money following the transfer students (the state legislature figured out their screw up and decided to give the district a couple million to finish out the year). What’s going to happen next? Other districts are on the chopping block, too.
Perhaps there’s a way to make this work that wouldn’t be a clustercuss but so far, all I have seen are empty promises and lies from the legislature, empty argumentation from pro-school choice advocates, and a whole lot of empty-looking futures for the majority of students and families in the district.
TheMorrigan,
“Let the money follow the child” was another cheap trick devised by people who want to destroy public education.
Thank you for the link. I didn’t think it was possible for, as I wrote, a child from Passaic to attend school in Parsippany on $ that followed the student. As you wrote, in Missouri it has been disastrous.
(Of course I know that charters take tax dollars to educate kids who choose them over public schools, in the towns within which they reside. Perhaps a child can live in one town and attend charter school in another town on their town’s taxes–I honestly don’t know.)
My point was that towns can stop kids from attending schools in towns within which they don’t reside when their attendance is based on faking documents that they live in that town. That is theft of services. There is nothing in my town/the town within which I reside, that would prohibit anyone from being able to rent an apartment, or if they had the appropriate funding, to purchase a home, be it cheap or expensive, so that their child could attend schools in this town, my town, the town within which I reside. That was my counterpoint to Joe Nathan. I thought it was valid.
As Diane Ravitch noted, the $ following the student is tied to edreformers and their goal to destroy public education. That makes sense.
Also as to teachingeconomist – you’re kid’s letter jacket is different from “the other high school” BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFERENT SCHOOLS. If I attended East Side H.S. in Newark, and lettered in football, should my letter jacket read University High, Arts High, or just Newark, NJ, USA? Who is “my” and “their” now?
I thought that your “them” are the students that steal the services from your town. It seems like a them to me.
My example with the letter jacket was to illustrate the tribalism of traditional schools,a tribalism that sometimes leads to violence. I think it is likely something deeply ingrained in humans. Some here, for example, speak of American jobs going to none Americans as if somehow Americans had a greater moral claim on employment then those in Cambodia.
Actually, state $ follow students all over the country. Each state provides some $ per pupil. If 100 students move from one district to another, the district gaining the students receives more $ and the district from which the students move receives less money.
therlo,
As a mental exercise, “having the money follow the child” makes sense. However, I have only seen a few models that work kinda-sorta well with the home district. In most cases, the home district becomes starved for funds or the state comes in and closes schools, and allows a sea of charters to come in and eat up what was left. The latter is what typically happens so that mayors and other elected officials save face. Chicago did it. DC did it. And so did Philadelphia.
In most cases, competition creates a series of winners and a series of losers. School choice advocates never talk about the leftovers. the losers in their argumentation; they never talk about how children are hurt in the home district (which happen to be the majority of children). They ignore the leftbehinds and castoffs, and raise the praise of the few who escaped. The focus is never on helping ALL children. The focus is always on helping the spotlighted few.
Yes, it was semantics. The notion of “my” creating “their” in my sentence is a total conception of your mind. Perhaps that is how you think. It isn’t how I think.
I was referring to the schools in the town in which I reside when I wrote my school. Again, that would have been better worded as the schools in the town within which I reside. You added the quotes to “my school” – and further state that creates a their school. All you. Perhaps your hammer makes everything look like a nail to you.
It is my understanding that unless a child attends private school, wherever it is located (in the residence town/not in town), which is paid out of pocket by that child’s family/parents/guardians, and that child is transported to/from that school on its own dime, alternatively and usually a child attends elementary and high school in the town in which the child resides, whether the choice be public or charter. Is this notion incorrect and/or naive? I went to elementary school in the district within which I lived. My child attended in the district in which we lived at the time. Isn’t that normal?
Now if you want to educate me on how the money from, lets say Passaic, will follow the child to get educated in Parsippany, and how the child would get to/from such a location be that public taxes or parents’ dollars, I’d like to read it.
teachingeconomist, In the first place, I wasn’t addressing a post of yours, and with this post I’m done defending my choice of words. If I wrote that pot is illegal in my state, and those that buy/sell/use are therefore doing something illegal, you would pretend to know my position on pot when I was merely stating that pot is illegal in my state.
I was stating a fact — if you falsify documents that you live in “town A” to attend school in “town B”, you are stealing services that the residents of town A pay for, and the taxes in town A increase based on an inflated school population. There is nothing in the town in which I reside that prohibits anyone from moving/living here, and sending kids to the schools in this town. If indeed the $ follows the student, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t happen within the surrounding towns of the town in which I reside, its stealing services. It isn’t a “THEM” versus “US” or a “my” versus “their” argument. That was in response to the post “When are you starting the campaign against rich suburban “public” schools that hire detectives to keep out kids who don’t live in the district? Those bastions of white, wealthy privilege?”
Think whatever you like and continue to paint with your narrow brush, but don’t pretend to know my heart. Your posts say more about you than about me; and, I’m done.
What would you do with those thieves?
In every state, some of the money for public schools comes from the state. The dollars are not just from the local taxpayers.
Many states have gone well beyond the idea that kids have to stay in the district where they reside.
The comment stream here is an excellent example of the perils of “regular people” chiming in on policy debates on the internet. Rather than focus on the substance of the primary text (which is excellent by the way, but will anyone listen and act?), commenters look to argue fine points of “he said/she said,” and the “winner” is the one with the most stamina. In such a context, “everyone” can be a celebrity with their own “unique opinion,” and readers are left to contemplate the “awesomeness” of the poster. Meanwhile the real issues are forgotten or ignored or obfuscated. The end result is that real democracy is subverted (once again!) by ultra-democracy–if all are speaking at once, nobody can be heard.
It’s not enough to rail against internet “trolls.” We need to recognize that not all opinions are equal. As the old African proverb says, “It is better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” Of course, it would probably be easier to just blame the public schools. Irony is context-dependent, after all, and thus very hard to assess on a standardized test.
African Proverb? that is Ben Franklin and still relevant.
There will only be housing integration if there is something in it for the middle or upper class.
Currently Buffalo is building a medical corridor in downtown Buffalo. There is a lot of renovations going on to provide the upscale urban housing necessary for professionals to relocate. Lofts are also popular.
Of course, these are self contained units standing adjacent to housing for the poor.
Side by side is not integration, but it is better than the urban-suburban configuration we currently model.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/05/17/ben-jealous-brown-education-anniversary/9087943/ perhaps you can answer this man who says that the solution to inequality is the common core. As long as they have media editors beating the drum for common core without knowledge of it’s pitfalls we are still in trouble.
Julie,
Testing has never been the answer to inequality. Test measures inequality. Testing does nos reduce the achievement gap, nor does it reduce poverty. We have had a dozen years of test-test-test, and nearly 40% of black children live in poverty.
Where the children will go to school is another issue. In a city which is currently 80% minority, there are a lot of segregated schools, especially the Charters.
Private? Religious? Or one of the high rated Public Schools, such as Olmsted?
The newly elected school board will now be pro charter – votes bought and paid for by the various pro charter forces. The old superintendent is negotiating her buy out package as we speak. Perhaps the new Charter Schools will be designed for the elite. There is a recently closed Catholic High School, owned by a school board member, ready to be rented out and set up immediately.
Those of us who read Diane already know the drill. We were just hoping that Buffalo would be different.
That’s what happens when the minorities stay home and those with money influence the vote.
Although Rothstein’s causal analysis is substantially correct, it is incomplete. No one objects to racial integration per se. What is objected to is the “culture,” so dominating urban black communities, as well as low-class white communities, the culture of unmarried mothers, of fatherless families, of crime, of lack of work interest, and of low achievement attitudes. It is the dependent, government handout culture.
One step in the right direction would be for liberals to support capitalism, investment, and LESS government regulation in order to grow the economy. Real jobs would make a difference. Rothstein instead supports government forced housing solutions.
If suburban populations did not fear having their kids corrupted by drugs, sex, crime, and low ambition, that is, if the poor families became interested in acting like normal middle class families, housing integration would take care of itself.
Unfortunately it is a chicken and egg problem. Rothstein says attack the housing problem first, which means more bureaucrats to regulate housing. I say attack the cultural problem first, which means fewer government incentives to perpetuate a culture of dependency.
Everything else Rothstein recommends is also desirable, BUT until the cultural problem is solved—which is NOT a function of race—the segregation by color will persist. No one wants red-neck white trash in their neighborhoods either.
Until liberals acknowledge that there IS a cultural problem, one cannot take them seriously as seeking solutions. Rather, it seems to some of us, that their REAL interest is in perpetuating the existence of a voting underclass to keep themselves in power so they can exercise more control of honest, working, responsible Americans who only want the freedom to do their own thing.
If liberals were to advocate for individual morality and individual responsibility ahead of social justice, it would transform America.
Dr. Ravitch, This article is excellent. Much is obvious–things we already know. However, I can’t describe how reading this has made me feel. All those things I did when I was teaching were the best things to do for my Title I students. The principal that was the beginning of the end for me, discouraged field trips and would not allow them if they interfered with test prep. I used to take my students down the block from the school to the local fire department on or near 9/11 with cards, etc. The fire personnel loved it and so did the children. The principal actually said to me, “Well, I guess this won’t interfere with learning too much.” They were learning! They were learning social skills, not to be afraid of people in uniform, careers, etc. My trips to the Grand Canyon were so eye opening and important to my students. We studied geology, had a ranger visit our classroom to prepare for the trip, talked about what it was like to be a ranger, etc. Some of my best memories of teaching are watching these children when they first saw Mount Humphrey or snow. The best memory was when they saw the Grand Canyon. Their eyes were wide open, and they would cheer. I am going to share this report with as many people as I can. I hope they read it and see how important it is for all children to have field trips, music, rich literature, etc. Saturday, I received my Christian Children’s Ministry License from the Diocese of AZ. My sponsors who stood up with me were my Priest and a young man from 8th grade who is Sudanese. He was my student for math in 4th grade. He is now my godchild. He is one of my success stories. He is learning by leaps and bounds. He is a wonderful young man. His environment has improved, which has changed his learning ability. It was such an honor and priviliege to have him stand up with me. My hope is to help more children like him. I think it should be mandatory for all Title I students to take at least one field trip per month. Many of the private schools do so and so do some of the elite charter schools.
Field trips can provide positive enrichment to learning, but in Austin Texas, they are more often punitive. AISD calls them ” incentive” field trips, and each class has one scheduled at the end of the school year. During the year, any child who has a failing grade, a behavior referral, or anything that would interfere with a perfect record is taken off the list and cannot participate in the end of year “fun” field trip, which is usually to one if those commercial video game places. Children who cannot attend because of some minor deficiency are left behind to sit in isolation in a lower grade classroom for the day and do a packet of busywork. It is humiliating and harsh punishment for those children left behind, most of whom live in poverty and do not need more shame.
an abomination for all the kids..