The next time an advocate of school choice claims it is “ the civil rights issue of our time,” tell him or her about Michigan. After many years of school choice, it is now one of the most segregated states in the nation, tied with Mississippi and just behind the District of Columbia.
Is racial segregation the new definition of civil rights?
”Jennifer Chambers and Christine MacDonald with the Detroit News report that the Associated Press analyzed data from the National Center for Education Statistics enrollment data from the 2014-2015 school year.
“The AP found that a large number of African-American students are enrolled in schools which are largely segregated, especially in Michigan, where 40% of black students are in public schools that are in “extreme racial isolation.”
“That puts Michigan in second-place nationwide, tied with Mississippi and behind only Washington, D.C., which came in at 66%.”
Racial segregation is highly correlated with low test scores.
“One major factor was charter schools, which are much more segregated than traditional public schools on average. In Michigan, 64% of black charter students are in schools in which the student bodies are more than 90% black.“
The head of Michigan’s charter association said the charter school hypersegrgatuin merely reflected residential patterns.
Truth is, charter advocates don’t really care about segregation or integration.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Michigan has had very segregated public schools for a long time. Not sure how much Devos or charter schools have to do with it in the big picture. The big picture with Detroit was near-total white flight, mainly for the northern suburbs, starting in the late 1960s.
LikeLike
@FLERP: I agree. The re-segregation of the publicly-operated schools in the Wolverine State, predates the career of Ms. DeVos. The collapse of the automobile industry, and the subsequent departure of the workforce, left Detroit bereft of workers!
I would blame the UAW, more than anyone else.
LikeLike
The UAW?
LikeLike
Oh, don’t get him started. It’s all the fault of those greedy workers, dontcha know. Poor GM just couldn’t afford to pay their workers decent money, so they should just be happy to slave away at minimum wage so their betters could rake in their millions. So it was all the union’s fault that the automakers fled to Mexico to hire cheap labor.
Sigh.
LikeLike
It just so happens my father was a member of the UAW in NJ.
LikeLike
There’s plenty of blame to go around.
What’s beyond dispute is that one of the most progressive northern states — one bordering progressive Canada, for gosh sakes! — one which was key in the developments of unionism and (formerly) desegregation … has its schools now more segregated than all but one of the states from the former Confederacy or Deep South (and is tied with that other former Confederate state in its segregation.)
How the-hell did that happen?
Betsy Devos now effectively owns the legislators and governors of Michigan. In pursuit of that control, Betsy Devos really geared up in the late 1990’s. Therefore, for about 20 years, Devos has gotten everything that she was wanted in regards to Michigan’s schools, and it’s time to review the results.
Exactly, what has Betsy wrought?
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
NEW YORK TIMES, quoting
EDUCATION TRUST-MIDWEST’s REPORT:
*”Michigan’s K-12 system is among the weakest in the country and getting worse. In little more than a decade, Michigan has gone from being a fairly average state in elementary reading and math achievement to the bottom 10 states. It’s a devastating fall. Indeed, new national assessment data suggest Michigan is witnessing systemic decline across the K-12 spectrum. White, black, brown, higher-income, low-income — it doesn’t matter who they are or where they live. …”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Here’s the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/12/08/a-sobering-look-at-what-betsy-devos-did-to-education-in-michigan-and-what-she-might-do-as-secretary-of-education/?utm_term=.1350446a35e9
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
WASHINGTON POST, piece written by a Mighigander:
“Largely as a result of the DeVos’ lobbying, Michigan tolerates more low-performing charter schools than just about any other state. And it lacks any effective mechanism for shutting down, or even improving, failing charters.
“We’re a laughingstock in national education circles, and a pariah among reputable charter school operators, who have not opened schools in Detroit because of the wild West nature of the educational landscape here.
“In Michigan, just about anyone can open a charter school if they can raise the money. That’s not so in most other states, where proven track records are required.
“In other states, poor performers are subject to improvement efforts, or sometimes closed. By contrast, once a school opens in Michigan, it’s free to operate for as long as it wants, and is seldom held accountable by state officials for its performance. Authorizers, often universities, oversee operation according to whatever loose standards they choose.
“And in Michigan, you can operate a charter for profit, so even schools that fail academically are worth keeping open because they can make money. Michigan leads the nation in the number of schools operated for profit, while other states have moved to curb the expansion of for-profit charters, or banned them outright.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
and here’s Politico:
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/betsy-devos-michigan-school-experiment-232399
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
POLITICO:
“Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department, Betsy DeVos, has spent two decades successfully pushing ‘school choice’ in her home state of Michigan — a policy that she and her husband vowed in 1999 would “fundamentally improve education.”
“Except the track record in that state shows that it hasn’t.
“Despite two decades of charter-school growth, the state’s overall academic progress has failed to keep pace with other states: Michigan ranks near the bottom for fourth- and eighth-grade math and fourth-grade reading on a nationally representative test, nicknamed the ‘Nation’s Report Card.’
“Notably, the state’s charter schools scored worse on that test than their traditional public-school counterparts, according to an analysis of federal data.
“Critics say Michigan’s laissez-faire attitude about charter-school regulation has led to marginal and, in some cases, terrible schools in the state’s poorest communities as part of a system dominated by for-profit operators. Charter-school growth has also weakened the finances and enrollment of traditional public-school districts like Detroit’s, at a time when many communities are still recovering from the economic downturn that hit Michigan’s auto industry particularly hard.
“The results in Michigan are so disappointing that even some supporters of school choice are critical of the state’s policies.
“ ” ‘The bottom line should be, ‘Are kids achieving better or worse because of this expansion of choice?’ ’” said Michigan State Board of Education President John Austin, a DeVos critic who also describes himself as a strong charter-school supporter. “It’s destroying learning outcomes … and the DeVoses were a principal agent of that.” ”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
… and on it goes.
LikeLike
Yeah, those greedy auto workers, whose wages and benefits, in a capital-intensive industry like auto, constitute all of 10% of the cost of a car, it’s all their fault.
Why, if not for them, the geniuses at GM might have designed and marketed a car like the Pontiac Aztek in 2001, if only those Union Goons had let them.
https://carthrottle.com/post/10-reasons-not-to-buy-a-pontiac-aztek
LikeLike
When faced with competition from abroad, and the lower prices of foreign automobiles, the manufacturing base of Detroit was eviscerated. The labor unions had pushed the costs of US automobiles to the point, that people ceased buying them. (other factors came into play, including the superior gas mileage of foreign cars).
When the auto plants closed, or moved to non-union states, like Tenn and South Carolina, that was the end of Detroit.
No jobs, no payrolls, no tax base.
When Volkswagen wanted to locate an automobile plant in the USA (2009), the German firm could have picked up a vacant Detroit plant for a song. But, rather than have to deal with the labor union, the final choice came down to Huntsville ALA or Chattanooga, TENN.
Detroit. R.I.P.
LikeLike
Read Richard Rothstein’s book “The Color of Law.”
Federal and state policies segregated Detroit, along with a Supreme Court decision Bradley v. Milliken, which blocked the creation of a metropolitan school district akin to the one that succeeded in NC.
LikeLike
Local policies, too. Property deeds in Detroit (and not just in Detroit of course) commonly had restrictive racial covenants, i.e., the owner agrees not to sell to a non-white buyer.
LikeLike
Racism runs deep in the Detroit area, with many people from the South migrating there in the 20’s-60’s, adding to whatever native racism that existed.
When the UAW was first organizing in the 1930’s, it had to contend with The Black Legion, a Klan-like group that fomented and engaged in racist and anti-union violence.
LikeLike
I was going to say — I’m not familiar with NC’s history on this, but what worked in NC may have turned out very different in the Detroit area.
LikeLike
No. Charlotte Mecklenburg was approved by the Supreme Court as a metro district that integrated all schools.
LikeLike
“The lack of diversity is a reflection of where people are living,” he says. “It has nothing to do with charter schools or traditional public schools.” Quisenberry acknowledges that charter schools are more segregated, but that the ultimate objective is providing that best educational opportunity for students. “The goal of greater diversity is certainly there. We’ve got work to do. But it’s a matter of where people live, and a lot of economic and social issues that are beyond charter schools.”
Well, where people live has a lot to do with traditional public school segregation but charter schools were specifically sold as breaking that connection. That was the point. They would be schools that wouldn’t have traditional boundaries based on neighborhood.
It was always nonsense. Children live in communities. They’re not college students. Detroit is huge and spread out geographically so the whole “choice” theory is different there than it is in DC or Boston or NYC.
This happened in Ohio too, with “open enrollment”. They didn’t pay any attention to the fact that the districts are 25 miles apart. The schools still look like the neighborhoods surrounding them because we don’t truck kids 50 miles to school, because that’s ridiculous.
LikeLike
“Well, where people live has a lot to do with traditional public school segregation but charter schools were specifically sold as breaking that connection. That was the point. They would be schools that wouldn’t have traditional boundaries based on neighborhood.”
But they usually (almost always? always?) have boundaries based on the school district. In Detroit (which is the biggest driver of Michigan’s hypersegregation stats), if you want to make a dent in school segregation, you have to start sending students not just to another neighborhood in the city, but out of the city entirely and into the suburbs.
LikeLike
Duggan (mayor of Detroit) looks at it the other way. His approach is to bring people into the city. A big focus of his has been bringing in newer immigrant groups which is a little different than the traditional focus, which is black/white – his view is a little broader.
His approach makes more sense to me than ed reform does, because I believe children live in communities that include schools. I would put the community first rather than second. Schools are part of their lives- they don’t have 1. schools and then 2. their lives. I don’t think kids look at it that way. It’s a whole to them.
LikeLike
Detroit, with its huge population losses, has always seemed to me like a perfect place to open the floodgates of immigration.
LikeLike
FLERP,
YOu reminded me that I made that very suggestion in the 1970s when refugees from Vietnam were arriving. I wrote an op-ed suggesting that NYC and other big cities should welcome them.
LikeLike
Not to suggest cause-and-effect, but by andf large the most economically successful cities in the country are those with the most immigration.
Cities like Detroit and Philadelphia, with far fewer immigrants, have not only had to contend with de-industrialization and job flight, but with stagnant populations or declining populations that have not been able to find other sources of growth.
LikeLike
The problem with Michigan charter promoters saying the goal is to provide the best education possible is Michigan’s charters don’t reach that goal either, so you’re left wondering why they have two systems. It isn’t for integration and it isn’t for educational improvement so what is it for?
Ed reform is a big fat failure in Michigan and they would do well to just admit it. They’ve had it forever. Engler was one of the first privatizers. The authorizers in Michigan are colleges and universities and we were told that was a guarantee of quality. It’s a disaster.
LikeLike
When Eli Broad took over Detroit his organization exchanged emails with ed reform groups all over the country. They were planning the new privatized system. Those emails were later published as a result of a FOIA demand. The “high quality” charters refused to come to Detroit. KIPP wouldn’t come, Uncommon wouldn’t come. I wonder why. I was thinking it was because Detroit has a much lower per pupil stipend than places like DC or Boston or NYC.
LikeLike
No, they knew they would fail. That’s why.
LikeLike
I wonder if part of it is attracting “the best and brightest”- you know, how ed reformers refer to themselves.
Maybe the best and brightest would rather live in DC or New Orleans or NYC than Detroit 🙂
I say this as someone who loves Michigan. You have to admit “New Orleans” is a lot more romantic and appealing than “Detroit” 🙂
LikeLike
“When disaggregated by race, we see two Americas. One where white students perform along the lines of the best in the world—with achievement comparable to countries like Finland and Korea. And another America, where Black and Latino students perform comparably to the students in the lowest performing OECD countries, such as Chile and Greece.”
That’s what Bill Gates has to say about the state of education today. His solution? More money for charters to increase segregation. It’s not just that he doesn’t care about segregation. He’s paying to increase it. He is CAUSING segregation. That’s philanthropic malpractice.
DeVos, on the other hand, blatantly favors segregation. It’s not malpractice; it’s willful destruction. She favors religious discrimination, racial disparity, and if there wasn’t a 13th Amendment, she would favor slavery.
LikeLike
White students in the US do not perform at the level of Korean students but they do perform well in comparison with white students throughout the world. As you say they are only exceeded by Finns and possibly New Zealand whites. It is also true that Latino students in the US perform well above almost all Latin American countries. Mexican American students in the US score much higher than Mexican students (the latter’s performance is pretty dismal). Although there is not a great deal of data on the performance of African students the little we have shows much lower levels than African-Americans. In fact African-Americans actually outscore the students in many countries of the Middle East.
American students of East Asian descent score at levels comparable to Shanghai and of course quite a bit above American whites.
So it seems that nearly all ethnicities in the US school system score
close to the top of the world in their ethnicity.
LikeLike
Wait, aren’t you the Bell Curve guy from way back on this site?
LikeLike
I know we can’t get into it here on Diane’s website because it’s very complex but our school district is not racially diverse but it IS economically diverse and I think economic diversity makes for stronger public schools. We have about 50% lower income (that has gone up the last 2 decades) and 50% higher income and a small group of very high income families. It matters if your public school has the POLITICAL support of higher income families. When we started a public prek it was deliberately offered to everyone because they wanted a mix of lower income and higher income kids. That works better.
I wonder which matters more for a strong public school system- economic isolation or racial isolation or if anyone could even tease that out.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Meet the Queen of Racial Segregation in the 21st Century … her name is Besty DeVos!
LikeLike
I’m told by current students at my Alma Mater in the whitest State in the country that students “self-segregate.” Economic level is just as divisive as race & I would suggest that it is the law of averages that make a school 90% black, as far as neighborhood, etc. Though I have seen some interesting “redistricting” by some communities to “better serve” students from higher incomes households.
LikeLike
Only 13% of the students in the nation are African American. It is not necessary to have so much racial segregation. We moved away from it in the 1980s. Then the courts began to stop requiring desegregation, and the trend reversed. Not by accident.
LikeLike
According to the Michigan DOE, 97.5% of the students in the Detroit public school district are minorities. (About 2.5% are non-Hispanic white.) So, essentially, unless you’re busing students from Detroit out to the suburbs or busing huge numbers of surburban students into the city, Detroit students will always attend hyper-segregated schools.
Click to access RacialCensus0506_204440_7.pdf
LikeLike
Anyone take notice how quiet betsy devos is these days…..with all the fire and fury going on in and around the white house, cabinet members in and out – somehow betsy devos’s name goes unsung…..remember this is the one cabinet member who needed the final vote from square face Pence to get betsy into the nuthouse in washington…..and…just about every cabinet member has been replaced since last January….except for betsy…..hmnnn strange…..the only thing i can think of is that trump could care less about education and with all the fire and fury going on in the white house, i doubt that good ole betsy will be able to get anything done for her personal agenda of school choice…i think most people realize now and know now that we have a loose canon in the white house and betsy is just there taking up space trying to mold the world into her demented view of education and the hysterical word of choice.
LikeLike
She is always quiet
She knows h
LikeLike
Integration has not worked. We still talk about achievement gaps more than 50 plus years after forced integration. Again, I just want to see some sense of consistency here. We have 104 HBCUs in this country. Why must we integrate K-12 but not college? It seems kind of arbitrary to me.
Correlation is not cause and effect.
LikeLike
When you use standardized tests noemed on a bell curve, the gaps are part of the design.
They may narrow as they did in early 80s when integration was at high point,but they never close
LikeLike
“Integration has not worked.” Integration works, you horse’s patoot. It depends on how committed over the long term we decided to be and at what age one implements it. Over and over and over again, when you put young children of diverse backgrounds together and don’t let their parents’ prejudices dictate their behavior, racism disappears. Racism—and which we fight against too often when it is too late—is a learned disability, not a natural state. HBCUs have NOTHING to do with promoting or prolonging racism in this flawed nation.
LikeLike
This conversation reminds me of the article on “When Progress Stopped” (Barton & Coley, 2010). And how Ferri, B. A., & Connor, D. J. in “Tools of Exclusion: Race, Disability, and (Re) segregated Education” (2005) argue that overt racial segregation has given way to more covert forms of racial segregation, such as placement in special education. As a deaf person growing up in the late 60s and early 70s, I was lucky that my progressive and inclusive school experience (in Michigan!) occurred squarely between the final years of overt segregation and before the years of covert segregation. If I were a student earlier, I could have been placed in an institution with very little hope for my education. If I were a student today, I likely would have been tested three or more times a year, seen as an underachiever, and placed in a special education resource room for a large portion of my school days with little opportunity to strengthen my language and literacy right alongside my nondisabled peers.
LikeLike
Thank you so much for sharing this with us, readingupsidedown! It is always refreshing to read comments from people who fundamentally understand issues in ways some us us can’t. Means a lot.
LikeLike
Thanks for all the info., Jack, at 2:25 PM up there. I was lucky enough to have been able to get that copy of the NYT w/the big charter article in their Sunday magazine. The story was outstanding, but to say that “a picture is worth 1,000 words” really comes to fruition, here–& you posted a few of them. The mere sight of those strip mall schools made me want to wretch. WHO thinks a school located in a STRIP MALL could possibly be a legitimate educational venue for elementary, middle or high school-aged students?
(Well, Betsy DeVil, of course, but anyone in her/his right mind?)
It reminds me of the heartbreaking post on this blog by the psychologist (or psychiatrist) in Florida (several years ago), describing this more than awful & inappropriate charter “school” that had a registrar who was, I believe, also the school social worker or guidance counselor? (Of course, not certified…but certainly certifiable.) He described the “playground” as being a small part of the back parking lot, having no “playground” equipment, of course. And, to add injury to injury, I seem to recall that the “school” was located near a gun shop & another adult type of store.
Author of aforementioned, if you are reading this & recognize your story, please do comment & let us know what happened to this house of horrors (hopefully, closed down, w/all former students attending PUBLIC schools, w/certified staff).
Tears in my eyes, again, but GRRRRR in my heart!
Keep resisting & persisting!
LikeLike