Matthew Gonzalez and his wife decided to move from the suburbs to the city of Indianapolis to enjoy the arts and culture and other amenities found in cities. But what to do about school? Indianapolis has many magnets and a choice system that has exacerbated segregation. They are trying now to manipulate the choice system to promote integration.
But in the meanwhile, the Gonzalez family had to decide whether to send their child to a mostly black neighborhood school. They did, he had a great year, and then they jumped for one of the coveted magnet schools.
Read here to see how they wrestled with the dilemma.
Another reminder that segregation is a social construction, that it can be thwarted, and that prejudice comes in many forms.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
White Flight has been a problem in every Urban school district in the country. Boston led to riots. NY’ers quietly moved to “whiteburbs” or private schools. Many middle class white parents chose parochial schools. All of this has been reoccurring since the 1950s hand has left us with the situation we now face.
Do we have a model where that isn’t the case?
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The absence of candid discussion is a problem. The post addressed that.
You are correct about “White flight” into suburban communities, but it is also true that many of the billionaire reformers not only want to keep segregated schools but also want to make these schools bootcamps with no-nonsense discipline venues where the only things that really matter are following directions, not getting out of line or thinking that you have rights, have something to contribute to the world other than compliance with authority.
Billionaires who defend racial boundaries and sustain pockets of poverty flood inner city neighborhoods with charters. They target parents who are mostly black, latinos, and qualify for low-income status by federal guidelines. Keep ’em in their place is the underlying principle. Never use your wealth to acknowledge or change the many business and political decisions that created these districts.
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Self-awareness is useful for discussions like this. Are there any “white” commenters/bloggers here who send or sent their children to “mostly black neighborhood schools”? I have not. My son attends an elementary school that is probably more diverse than most U.S. suburban schools, but it’s majority white/Asian/Indian and is located in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in NYC. My daughter attends a selective high school that is about 70% Asian-American and has a notoriously low number of Black and Hispanic students. I don’t feel bad about these choices, and I am not a bigot, although I acknowledge my own unconscious/implicit racial bias.
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FWIW, the public schools my youngest and oldest daughters attend are roughly 80% Latino, the rest mostly white. Very few blacks, though.
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Interesting. I assume that reflects the neighborhood?
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Yes, it does.
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All my children are grown, but yes, as part of the St. Louis deseg progam we sent our youngest for pre-school and kindergarten to a city school that was majority African American with a majority of AA teachers mainly because it was free and a few blocks from my ex’s health clinic. Our own district, considered one of the best in the state, had its own African American population plus some deseg students from the city who were African American but very few other minorities. We enrolled him at the same elementary in our community public school as his two older siblings attended for first grade and up.
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Thanks.
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Among the many topics to dissect in this article, why are school districts still getting away with pretending that unified enrollment procedures are designed to create equity? This one by a “Nobel-winning academic.” Even our allies have blinders on. In a series of articles exposing the Broadies pushing the unified enrollment plan in Los Angeles, reposted on this blog, I showed the proof by citing scholarly articles and conducting interviews. I managed to slow the process, but the Los Angeles school board voted to fund it and now it’s done. What hope is there when our allies refuse to heed our well researched warnings? At a certain point, we just become chronicallers of the end of American public education.
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Parents need to realize what a GIFTs they give to their children when they are able to their local public schools and that private schools and charters aren’t really better.
Public Schools and Public School Teachers are about not only learning, but also about community and the common good.
Just because someone graduated from a private or charter school doesn’t make that person better.
Schools should NOT be PROFIT Centers.
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oops, typo in first sentence above.
Parents need to realize the many gifts they give to their children when they are able to attend their local public schools…” As an aside, these gifts cannot be purchased. These gifts are the day-to-day life experiences one receives by attending the local public schools.
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Both my sons attended neighborhood schools in Oakland; the neighborhood middle schools are some of the most integrated in the district. His school is about 20% white; 40% AA, 20% Hispanic; 10% Asian. Oakland still has an open enrollment policy which allows any student to apply to any school in the district. Neighborhood students have first priority to attend the neighborhood school. Unfortunately, parents are now being bombarded with the message that you don’t really want to be able to walk to school and support your community school, you want to head on over to this new, shiny, charter school with more “opportunity”. There must be a special place in hell for reformer data hogs calling a neighborhood elementary school with little kids a “bad” school.
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