Archives for category: Segregation
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Chicago Schools, 2013: Still Separate, Still Unequal

By dianerav
May 17, 2013 //
20

The Chicago Teachers Union issued a report on segregation in the Chicago public schools:

 

New Report Unravels the Sordid History of Racial Segregation in Chicago Public Schools

On anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, “Still Separate, Still Unequal” examines continued acceptance of de facto segregation and injustices in district schools

 

CHICAGO—On was is the 59th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) today released a report on the history of disruptive actions against communities of color by Chicago Public Schools (CPS), exemplified by school closings that intensify the harmful effects of segregated schools and neighborhoods. The study, titled Still Separate, Still Unequal, acknowledges the deep segregation that exists in Chicago, but states that segregation is exacerbated by flawed education reform policies and assaults on communities that have long borne the brunt of its harmful effects.

 

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was one of the most successful victories of the modern Civil Rights Movement. The ruling declared segregation in U.S. public schools unconstitutional, saying it violated the “equal protection under the law” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

 

Now, nearly six decades later, parents of Chicago’s African-American and special education needs students are also seeking court protection against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to shutter 53 elementary schools. On Wednesday they filed two federal lawsuits seeking a halt closures because these actions are discriminatory and will cause undue harm to their children.

 

“The mayor and his CPS administration are barreling through the largest round of school closings ever—actions that will once again disproportionately harm students and communities of color,” said CTU President Karen Lewis. “What they’re proposing will set us back to the time before Brown v. Board of Education. This report shows that we are still living in an era of education apartheid and we must do all we can to resist the destruction of our schools and the harming of our vulnerable population.”

 

Over the past decade, one out of every four intensely segregated African-American schools—schools with a more than 90 percent African-American student population—has been closed, phased out or turned around. Yet segregation has increased and African-American students are now more segregated by race and class than in 1989. At the same time there are far more schools with virtually no Black teachers and no Black students. Schools with fewer than 10 percent African-American students and teachers now make up 28 percent of CPS schools, up from 10 percent in 2001. In CPS, integration has been abandoned as policy and segregation accepted as the norm, rather than as the deliberate and systematic construction that it is. The report addresses, specifically:

 

  • ·         Intense segregation in CPS
  • ·         Segregation across CPS and the city of Chicago
  • ·         What segregation means for CPS students of color
  • ·         The reproduction of segregation and inequity
  • ·         Segregated access to experienced teachers
  • ·         The increasing segregation of black teachers
  • ·         The segregated harm of school closings
  • ·         Integration and equity, not choice and competition

 

“CPS seems committed only to deepening the harms of segregation, rather than moving towards an integrated school system,” said Still Separate, Still Unequal author, Pavlyn Jankov. “Segregation has increased, and the associated policies of disinvestment and destabilization are more acute than ever.”

 

Still Separate, Still Unequal calls for an end to the segregated harm of failed school closings and turnarounds, and a halt to the rapid expansion of private charter operators and other aberrations of “choice” that increase segregation.

 

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Categories Chicago, Privatization, Segregation

May 17 in Our History: How Soon We Forget

By dianerav
May 17, 2013 //
10

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that segregation of the races in public school was unconstitutional. At the time, segregation was the law in 17 states and many districts.

For years, the states where segregation was outlawed resisted the court decision. Their favorite ploy was school choice. They knew that school choice would preserve racial segregation because whites would choose to stay with whites, and blacks would be fearful of applying to white schools, where they would face a hostile climate, harassment, and even violence.

The Supreme Court and lower federal courts overturned the many strategies enacted to evade the necessity of desegregation.

But that was then,and this is now.

Now, billionaires proudly sponsor segregated schools. Now, cities and states authorize all-black, all-Hispanic, all-white charter schools without embarrassment.

The UCLA Civil Rights Project says that racial resegregation is on the rise, for blacks and Hispanics.

The federal government–most especially, the U.S. Department of Education–doesn’t care about racial segregation any more. Nor does it have an active interest in discrimination against students with disabilities. When the ACLU recently won a ruling against voucher schools in Milwaukee that excluded students with disabilities, it went not to the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education, but to the U.S. Department of Justice. When the U.D. Government Accountability Office issued a report criticizing charter schools for their mall proportions of students with disabilities, James Shelton of the U.S. Department of Education said something like, “we’ll have to look into that.” That was the last heard from this Department.

Those who care about the resegregation of public education and discrimination against students because of their disabilities will have to wait for another administration that also cares about fairness, equity, and the principles enunciated on May 17, 1954. This one does not.

Categories Segregation, Special Education, U.S. Department of Education

BREAKING NEWS: US to Milwaukee Voucher Schools: Stop Excluding Students with Disabilities

By dianerav
May 3, 2013 //
9

Responding to a complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the U.S. Department of Justice warned voucher schools in Milwaukee to stop excluding, counseling out, or otherwise discriminating against students with disabilities.

“The state cannot, by delegating the education function to private voucher schools, place students beyond the reach of the federal laws that require Wisconsin to eliminate disability discrimination in its administration of public programs,” DOJ officials wrote in the letter to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Tony Evers.

Voucher programs across the nation–now operating in 20 states–will be affected, and states are now obliged to monitor voucher programs to be sure they are in compliance with federal laws protecting the rights of students with disabilities.

The ACLU contended that the voucher program excluded students with disabilities, and if they were admitted, they were systematically expelled and/or pushed out. This practice led to a very large percentage of students with disabilities in the public school district even as its funding was declining due to loss of enrollment to vouchers and charters. Consequently, the so-called “failing” district cannot possibly recover because the private schools don’t accept students with disabilities and the public school has to accept all comers. And despite their exclusion of students with disabilities, the voucher schools in Wisconsin DO NOT outperform the public schools.

A statement issued by the ACLU warned of the danger of choice programs:

“Publicly-funded voucher programs have the effect of setting up a separate escape hatch for only a few, leaving the majority of the poor students in schools that are even less likely to succeed than they were before the voucher program or tax credit began. Furthermore, the private schools that spring up to educate a child for $6,500 are producing results that are no better than the public school district – in Milwaukee, for example, three years of comparison test scores show they are performing worse than the public system. We also know that the Milwaukee parents who take advantage of these programs tend to have higher education levels and children without disabilities, leaving the public school district with a higher percentage of children with disabilities and parents with less education. There are few checks in place to ensure that all of the schools accepting vouchers are more than glorified day care providing convenient hours for parents.”

Even more ominous is the specter of segregation academies in the south:

“…some private schools in states like Georgia and Alabama, where tax credits have recently been put into place, were founded as segregation academies to thwart federal integration efforts. While the program in Milwaukee and its school district serve almost entirely students of color, as “school choice” spreads around the country, the stage is set for these programs to become even more exclusionary and segregated. We know this because Milwaukee’s voucher program already excludes students with disabilities and segregates them into the public school district while at the same time stripping the district of much needed funds to educate them. If we permit this to continue, we are condoning separate schools for a number of groups of students, including racial minorities, students with disabilities, religious minorities and LGBT students. What we have known for the fifty years since Brown v. Board of Education is that separate is not equal. School voucher programs and tax credits do not provide a choice for everyone. They create publicly funded separate schools.”

Categories Segregation, Special Education, Vouchers, Wisconsin

Newspeak and Education Reform: What Would Orwell Say?

By dianerav
April 4, 2013 //
7

A reader sent these late-night reflections to me:

“I drifted off to sleep last night, the phrase “No Child Left Behind” kept ringing in my ears. It sounds so noble… No – Child – Left – Behind – surely that is good for our country. Yet, at the same time my eyes were closing, the disturbing aparthied maps that Jersey Jazzman posted were flashing before my eyes.

In the corners of my mind, memories of 1984, by George Orwell churn. Newspeak (the removal of negative terms from language) reappears today. “Newspeak is engineered to remove even the possibility of rebellious thoughts—the words by which such thoughts might be articulated have been eliminated from the language.”

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/1984/section11.rhtml

Samples: Newspeak Reform Dictionary and Guide to Phraseology:

“No Child Left Behind”
Phrase meaning: self-explanatory
Reality: Yes, there are many children left behind. Can we find them in these maps?

http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/03/school-closings-new-apartheid.html

“AchieveNJ”
Word meaning: Achieve – attain; realize; accomplish
Reality: “AchieveNJ doesn’t even make the attempt to correct SGPs for poverty!”

http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/03/nj-ed-commish-cerf-wrong-on-poverty.html

“Community Engagement”
Word meaning: Oh… forget about the real word meaning… what difference does this section make?
Reality: “DONT allow the opposition to frame the standards or the new tests negatively: In particular, get in front of any opposition that seeks to characterize the new standards and assessments as a “one-size-fits-all” approach…”

http://www.achieve.org/

“Education Reform Toolkit”
Reality: School Closure Guide by the Broad Foundation

“Privacy”
Reality: “States must collect, coordinate, and use K-12 and postsecondary data to track and improve the readiness of graduates to succeed in college and the workplace…follow students through K–12 into postsecondary AND THE WORKFORCE and establish feedback loops to the relevant stakeholders…” (emphasis mine)

http://www.achieve.org/P-20-data-systems

What would George Orwell have to say about this today?”

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Poverty, Privatization, Segregation

Where are the Civil Rights Lawyers ?

By dianerav
March 24, 2013 //
37

Have you noticed that the vast majority of public schools that are being closed enroll disproportionate numbers of black students? Even in districts that are majority black, the closing schools are even more segregated than the district. What will happen to these children?

Jersey Jazzman noticed. He calls it the Néw Apartheid
.

Categories Closing schools, Privatization, Segregation

Teacher: Kopp Can’t Connect the Dots

By dianerav
March 15, 2013 //
9

A teacher in California heard Tavis Smiley and Cornel West interview Wendy Kopp, Jonathan Kozol, and me–in separate interviews–and this was her reaction. She wrote a post called “TFA can’t connect the dots.”

Here is a link to the interview with Kopp.

A link to the interview with me.

A link to the interview with Jonathan Kozol. I am not sure if this is the right link, as it is a panel discussion on poverty, not the 2:1 conversation found in the other links.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Economy, Education Industry, Poverty, Privatization, Segregation, Teach for America TFA

Hopkinson: Is School Reform About Escaping Blackness?

By dianerav
March 3, 2013 //
12

Natalie Hopkinson is one of our nation’s most interesting and provocative writers. In this article, she asks the question that is the title of this post. She could have gone further to look at the strict disciplinary rules of the “no excuses” schools. Or the nearly all-white young teaching staffs in all-black schools. What is the subtext? I am sure we will more about these issues from her.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Segregation, Teach for America TFA

Georgia’s Tax Credit Program for “Just Us” Folks

By dianerav
February 24, 2013 //
3

Here is a great article about Georgia’s “tax credit scholarship” program by Myra Blackmon of the Athens Banner-Herald.

Blackmon writes:

“I’m just sick about all this. My beloved Georgia has gone from being a shining beacon of educational innovation in the 1990s to a “me and my kid first” basis for decision-making and funding. We are resegregating our schools by race and class, making the quality of a child’s education dependent on his ZIP code or his parent’s income.

“Don’t talk to me about choice. That’s a euphemism for “just us.” Don’t talk to me about failing schools; talk to me about a failing legislature and corporate “reformers” who understand everything about education except teaching and learning. Don’t talk to me about “bloated budgets.” Since 2008, Georgia’s public schools have gained 37,000 students and lost 5,000 teachers.”

Categories Georgia, Segregation, Separation of church and state, Support for public schools

Rothstein: Cannot Close Achievement Gap without Ending Segregation

By dianerav
February 23, 2013 //
38

Richard Rothstein spoke to the AASA and told them that “reformers” like Joel Klein were wrong in claiming that high expectations and better teachers would close the achievement gap.

Here is a summary of his presentation:

Rothstein: Segregation Practices Block Achievement Gains

by Sasha Pudelski

Richard Rothstein gave a powerful lecture Thursday at the Federal Relations Luncheon where he urged AASA members to recognize the historical underpinnings of the academic achievement gap.

Rothstein, a senior fellow at the UC Berkeley School of Law, discussed how local, state and federal policies since the Great Depression have contributed to the intentional racial and socio-economic segregation of schools and communities. He urged superintendents to be proud of the academic gains that have been made over the past decade with regards to NAEP scores, graduation rates and other academic measures and to recognize the limitations of schools districts in doing more to improve low-income student achievement levels.

Rothstein’s latest social policy project, which he spoke of extensively during the lunch, is to educate policymakers, school leaders and others about how calculated policy changes aimed at maintaining segregated communities and schools since segregation in the 1930s continue to prohibit disadvantaged populations of students from reaching the same levels of achievement as their middle-class white counterparts.

“We have state-sponsored segregation and we will never narrow the achievement gap unless this goes away,” said Rothstein. But as a society, he argued, we have become convinced inaccurately that segregation is an accident of demographics rather than a long-standing deliberate attempt by our leaders to maintain separate communities and school districts.

Rothstein told the audience that school leaders need to stop apologizing for the achievement gap when they’re doing so much to improve it. He touched on a recent longitudinal analysis he authored that found while the most disadvantaged students in the country are improving on TIMSS, PISA and other benchmarking measures, disadvantaged students in places like Finland and Canada are actually doing worse on these measures over time.

He criticized those in the reform movement who believe that evidence of one school that succeeds in educating concentrated groups of disadvantaged students is evidence that it is possible everywhere. He slammed school reformers like Joel Klein, former chancellor of the New York City schools, who argue that if school leaders had higher expectations and higher-quality teachers, they could ensure every poor, hungry, mobile student was achieving in an equivalent manner to his stable, rich, healthy peer.

Rothstein concluded by insisting that if the United States ever hopes to make radical gains in eradicating the achievement gap, the answer is not in the school reform agenda, but in concrete changes to federal, state and local policy that force disadvantaged students to be integrated into middle-class or high-wealth school districts.

“When disadvantaged students are grouped together in schools, their challenges are compounded and build upon each other. … Unless we integrate disadvantaged students into middle class schools, we will never narrow the achievement gap beyond what we’ve done today,” Rothstein said.

(Sasha Pudelski is a government affairs manager with AASA.)

Categories Poverty, Segregation

Federal Commission on Equity Dismisses Bush-Obama Reforms

By dianerav
February 21, 2013 //
26

In a stunning surprise, the federal Commission on Equity and Excellence dismissed the reforms of the Bush-Obama era and called for a fresh approach. What is remarkable about the commission report is that the members were appointed by Secretary Duncan. Its members include a solid bloc of corporate reformers, but clearly they did not prevail.

Quite frankly, I was expecting a reprise of the corporate reformer mantra: more charter schools, more vouchers, more competition, more inexperienced teachers, more testing, and more online learning will end the deeply rooted poverty in our society and lift all boats. Test more often, fire more teachers, lower standards for entry into teaching, close more schools.

But this commission did not echo the popular and failed nostrums of the past generation.. It demanded more resources for the neediest students, better prepared teachers, early childhood education, health and social services, and a deliberate effort to reduce segregation.

Since 1983, when “A Nation at Risk” was published by another federal commission, the policymakers at the state and national levels have followed the formula of testing, accountability (read: punishment), and choice. With what results? After three decades, we now have a raging, destructive movement to privatize public education, bash teachers, remove their academic freedom, replace them with temps, and use standardized tests to judge and punish teachers, principals, and schools.

The heroes of this “movement” are entrepreneurs, foundation executives, and think tank thinkers, who express contempt for public schools and those who work in them. We are on our way to creating (re-creating) dual school systems in cities across the nation and giving public dollars to schools that are free to exclude the neediest students. A “movement” that talks incessantly about results and data-based decision-making has become impervious to the meager results of its own policies and has now turned into an ideological war against public education.

Secretary Duncan should read the report of his commission. For the first time in 30 years, a federal commission tells the nation what it needs to hear. We can expect the corporate reform leaders to ignore the report.

This, quite frankly, is the agenda President Obama’s supporters had expected in 2008. Will he listen?

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Duncan, Arne, Segregation, Teachers and Teaching, U.S. education
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