This article by Leslie T. Fenwick, dean emeritus at Howard University, was published in Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet blog in 2013, yet it remains even relevant today. I was in Washington, D.C., a few weeks ago and was astonished to see the dramatic gentrification of the city. My son was in New Orleans, having left a week before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and he was astonished by the pace of gentrification. More than 200,000 African Americans have left Chicago since 2000. Is the transformation of America’s urban districts, with high-rise condos that sell for more than $1 million and Starbucks and gourmet shops merely a coincidence?
Dean Fenwick prophesied what she saw and was remarkably prescient:
The truth can be used to tell a lie. The truth is that black parents’ frustration with the quality of public schools is at an all time righteous high. Though black and white parents’ commitment to their child’s schooling is comparable, more black parents report dissatisfaction with the school their child attends. Approximately 90 percent of black and white parents report attending parent teacher association meetings and nearly 80 percent of black and white parents report attending teacher conferences. Despite these similarities, fewer black parents (47 percent) than white parents (64 percent) report being very satisfied with the school their child attends. This dissatisfaction among black parents is so whether these parents are college-educated, high income, or poor.
The lie is that schemes like Teach For America, charter schools backed by venture capitalists, education management organizations (EMOs), and Broad Foundation-prepared superintendents address black parents concerns about the quality of public schools for their children. These schemes are not designed to cure what ails under-performing schools. They are designed to shift tax dollars away from schools serving black and poor students; displace authentic black educational leadership; and erode national commitment to the ideal of public education.
Consider these facts: With a median household income of nearly $75,000, Prince George’s County is the wealthiest majority black county in the United States. Nearly 55 percent of the county’s businesses are black-owned and almost 70 percent of residents own homes, according to the U.S. Census. One of Prince George’s County’s easternmost borders is a mere six minutes from Washington, D.C., which houses the largest population of college-educated blacks in the nation. In the United States, a general rule of thumb is that communities with higher family incomes and parental levels of education have better public schools. So, why is it that black parents living in the upscale Woodmore or Fairwood estates of Prince George’s County or the tony Garden District homes up 16th Street in Washington D.C. struggle to find quality public schools for their children just like black parents in Syphax Gardens, the southwest D.C. public housing community?
The answer is this: Whether they are solidly middle- or upper-income or poor, neither group of blacks controls the critical economic levers shaping school reform. And, this is because urban school reform is not about schools or reform. It is about land development.
In most urban centers like Washington D.C. and Prince George’s County, black political leadership does not have independent access to the capital that drives land development. These resources are still controlled by white male economic elites. Additionally, black elected local officials by necessity must interact with state and national officials. The overwhelming majority of these officials are white males who often enact policies and create funding streams benefiting their interests and not the local black community’s interests.
The authors of “The Color of School Reform” affirm this assertion in their study of school reform in Baltimore, Detroit and Atlanta. They found:
Many key figures promoting broad efficiency-oriented reform initiatives [for urban schools] were whites who either lived in the suburbs or sent their children to private schools (Henig et al, 2001).
Local control of public schools (through elected school boards) is supposed to empower parents and community residents. This rarely happens in school districts serving black and poor students. Too often people intent on exploiting schools for their own personal gain short circuit the work of deep and lasting school and community uplift. Mayoral control, Teach for America, education management organizations and venture capital-funded charter schools have not garnered much grassroots support or enthusiasm among lower- and middle-income black parents whose children attend urban schools because these parents often view these schemes as uninformed by their community and disconnected from the best interest of their children.
In the most recent cases of Washington D.C. and Chicago, black parents and other community members point to school closings as verification of their distrust of school “reform” efforts. Indeed, mayoral control has been linked to an emerging pattern of closing and disinvesting in schools that serve black poor students and reopening them as charters operated by education management organizations and backed by venture capitalists. While mayoral control proposes to expand educational opportunities for black and poor students, more-often-than-not new schools are placed in upper-income, gentrifying white areas of town, while more schools are closed and fewer new schools are opened in lower-income, black areas thus increasing the level of educational inequity. Black inner-city residents are suspicious of school reform (particularly when it is attached to neighborhood revitalization) which they view as an imposition from external white elites who are exclusively committed to using schools to recalculate urban land values at the expense of black children, parents and communities.
So, what is the answer to improving schools for black children? Elected officials must advocate for equalizing state funding formula so that urban school districts garner more financial resources to hire credentialed and committed teachers and stabilize principal and superintendent leadership. Funding makes a difference. Black students who attend schools where 50 percent of more of the children are on free/reduced lunch are 70 percent more likely to have an uncertified teacher (or one without a college major or minor in the subject area) teaching them four subjects: math, science, social studies and English. How can the nation continue to raise the bar on what we expect students to know and demonstrate on standardized tests and lower the bar on who teaches them?
As the nation’s inner cities are dotted with coffee shop chains, boutique furniture stores, and the skyline changes from public housing to high-rise condominium buildings, listen to the refrain about school reform sung by some intimidated elected officials and submissive superintendents. That refrain is really about exporting the urban poor, reclaiming inner city land, and using schools to recalculate urban land value. This kind of school reform is not about children, it’s about the business elite gaining access to the nearly $600 billion that supports the nation’s public schools. It’s about money.
Dean Fenwick gave the Benjamin E. Mays Lecture at Georgia State University in 2018.
She comes on at about the 15:00 minute mark, and she goes into detail about the education “reform” movement and its failure to help black and brown children. She calls it “Looking Behind the Veil of School Reform.”
The original lie of so-called reform was that we needed to “save black children from failing schools.” This lie was used to justify the devious social engineering manipulations that were designed to gentrify neighborhoods. By closing traditionally black schools and moving black students to charter schools away from the area of desired development, developers were able scoop up real estate generally near central business district in order to rebrand the neighborhood mostly for affluent white families. Sometimes, a selective charter is near the developed area. This selective charter will serve the educational needs of white families moving to the area. We have observed these same trends in multiple cities.
The federal government is playing a role to help real estate developers which is not surprising considering that #45 is a real estate developer. The Tax Cuts and Job Act of 2017 established “opportunity zones” throughout the country. The goal is to incentivize and hasten gentrification. It is not helpful to the poor people that currently live in a targeted “opportunity zone.” This law is intended to help developers, not the residents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_zone
Dr. Fenwick’s address is well worth hearing. The first part of her talk is about myths about black people. She actually conducted studies on some of the false assumptions, and I found some of her conclusions quite shocking. The second part of her address demonstrates the false narrative about charter schools. As she shows, charters are not about improving education, they are about an anti-democratic control of the real estate in order to make money for the already wealthy.
I recently visited several major cities and was shocked by the extent of gentrification. Especially DC. High rise condos where poor people used to live.
“As she shows, charters are not about improving education, they are about an anti-democratic control of the real estate in order to make money for the already wealthy.”
True, and the charter lobby will do anything to conceal their real motives, which can include politicizing their parents into an on-the-ground army meant to intimidate anyone who questions or reveals their motives.
and they are doing all they can to hide the fact that in city after city it is a few “planners” who have been pulling the school reform strings — thus employees and neighborhoods often keep fighting the wrong puppet masters
True!
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
Rahm Emanuel, former Mayor of Chicago who closed down 50 schools serving primarily African American communities (because, you know, he was just joining in the Civil Rights March of our time)
The Civil Rites issue of our Time”
The March for Civil Rites
Was led by Prez Obama
Who carried out the ” fights”
With charters, tests and drama
EXCELLENT!
And now, Emanuel is a network news commentator undermining Bernie.
Rahm is no doubt angling for a cabinet position in the Biden administration. His ambition never flags.
California’s March 3rd ballot measure, Prop 13 should be added to the title of this blog post ” Charter and Ed reform are really about GENTRIFICATION”
“Whether they are solidly middle- or upper-income or poor, neither group of blacks controls the critical economic levers shaping school reform. And, this is because urban school reform is not about schools or reform. It is about land development.”
Prop 13 is tied to development. Not only will it reduce the fees developers are currently required to pay (LAUSD UNION has not endorsed it, presumably for this reason – the district would come out on the losing side), but it would also burdon the vast majority of low income families of color struggling with the fact that THE RENTS ARE TOO DAMN HIGH!
This measure includes approval to nearly double the current caps for school and college bonds. What this means is that when a district passes these bonds at their new limits, landlords will pass the costs on to their rent burdoned tenents. And for the thousands of rental buildings across the state that have been sold in more recent years causing these property tax rates to increase and get passed through, we can see this as the new Jim Crow method to segregate and gentrify.
A Catholic school chain for the inner city (expansion funding provided by Walton heirs and Bill Gates).
Tax credits/vouchers for the selective Catholic schools that attract the gentry’s kids.
And, the 40% of white Catholics who didn’t vote for Trump turn a blind eye.