Segregation ironies
Thursday, Nov 20, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Ironic juxtaposition, Part 1…
For decades, Chicago Public Schools has operated under a legal decree requiring it to maintain as many desegregated schools as possible. But a federal judge may soon terminate the plan. In anticipation, school officials are already thinking about how they’ll grant admission to the city’s popular magnet schools. Some worry the court’s decision could mean a curtain call for the district’s racially integrated schools.
Chicago’s schools aren’t just segregated. […]
Thousands of white students have left the system over the years—they’re now just 8 percent of the district. Today, more than 200 CPS schools—a-third of the total—don’t have a single white student in them. But the consent decree did create some islands of integration—magnet schools. And many of them have become the jewels of the system.
* More…
Chicago Public Schools says it may use income rather than race to enroll students in its popular magnet schools. That’s if a federal judge ends the district’s desegregation plan in the coming months.
Under one plan CPS is considering, students would be assigned an income based on the census tract where they live. […]
But UCLA professor Gary Orfield, who has looked at similar plans across the country, says the idea threatens racial integration.
* Part 2, parents attempting to keep out the local riff-raff…
A plan that could double the number of entry seats at elite Skinner Classical on the Near West Side by using shuttered Sojourner Truth School in Cabrini-Green as a second campus was given the green light Wednesday by Chicago School Board members.
Several Skinner parents opposed the idea because it would add an unlimited number of neighborhood students to the “classical'’ students admitted based on tests. Eventually, they charged, neighborhood kids would crowd out classical students.
* Part 3, an attempt at deliberate segregation for a special class of students fails…
The organizers of a proposed high school aimed at gay and lesbian students said Wednesday that they dropped the plan from a vote by the Chicago Board of Education after realizing a revamped version failed to mention sexual identity.
Paula Gilovich, a member of the brain trust behind the Social Justice High School’s Pride Campus, said members of the group decided to withdraw its application after the school’s new mission statement shifted from being about gay students to a more generic “haven where students can feel safe and valued for who they are.”
“There were various communities that put a great deal of pressure on the proposal and on the design team and on the city and on the Chicago Public Schools to change it,” Gilovich said.
Gay rights activists supporting the school’s focus on gay and lesbian students blasted both the team pushing the plan and school officials for giving in to public and political pressure and scuttling the plan.
* But the fight isn’t over
All eight school designers vowed to resurrect the idea in time for a 2010 opening. Some hoped to bring the plan closer to its original vision: providing a safe, supportive haven for all students, especially Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning youth and their Allies, or LGBTQA students.
Discuss.
- Speaking At Will - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 10:46 am:
Nothing better than fighting for years to end segregation, and make homeosexuality a part of hte main stream, then turning around and fighting to reinstate it segregation.
Life isnt easy, and at some point no matter what your sexual orientation, the world isnt going to accomodate you. This idea of a separate “gay” or “disenfranchised” campus is ridiculous.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 10:51 am:
Magnet schools where enrollment is based on entrance exams are probably one of the worst ideas ever.
“Normal” students are stripped of high-achieving peers who are important role models, and “high-achieving” students are stripped of the social and academic benefits of building lasting friendships with peers who must work harder just to keep up.
Beyond that, while they may integrate students based on race, magnet schools segregate resources, creating a system that is unequal and discriminatory.
- Wumpus - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 10:55 am:
YDD, I agree with the concept in theory of normal students being role models, but not in reality.
High perfroming students can go with like minded students (parents) who want to do well while they won’t be criticized for acting…whatever or being nerds. It puts them in a pro-learning enviornment.
As for the gay school, it may be a saftey issue. I disagree with it, but believe some of these kids are bullied more than others. Provide as safe of a learning enviornment for all who want to learn.
- Carl Nyberg - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 10:56 am:
If you grade schools and districts by average test scores, you provide incentives for the schools to harass students from families on the margins of society.
South suburban districts complain that CPS freezes out students who don’t register by an arbitrary deadline. Large number of these students from families with transient lifestyles then go to schools in the south ‘burbs.
- Carl Nyberg - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 11:00 am:
Schools are often the whipping boys of our racial system.
There are a whole bunch of factors that go into Black, Native American and Latino students performing poorly compared to national averages.
But the difference is measured at the schools through testing.
So people demand the schools do something to fix the problem.
But the problem exists in the communities. There are a whole bunch of factors that cause achievement differences and the schools have control over few of the factors.
- Carl Nyberg - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 11:03 am:
I had a gay housemate. He said adolescent boys do two things to establish their masculinity. One is flirting/dating girls and the other is to beat up gay boys.
Unfortunately for Dave his parents sent him to a Catholic boys school.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 11:16 am:
The CPS system is enormous. I don’t have a problem with devoting some resources to magnet schools for high achievers.
It’s no different than the honors classes that they had in my one-school district (or so I heard; I had no reason to know about them). Or,for that matter, vocational focused schools, or the Math Science Academy. Students within this giant system have different academic needs and opportunities should abound.
However, I think the gay school is just a terrible idea, brain-dead political correctness . It’s bizarre to me that voluntary self-segregation could somehow be seen as an advance of civil rights. Can you imagine the outcry if it were suggested by the religious right that gays be sent to separate schools?
Sexuality has nothing to do with academic needs. If there are safety issues for gay students, then let’s address them and not separate them. E Pluribus Unum.
- John Bambenek - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 11:20 am:
If GLBT students can have their own school, why can’t we have single-gender schools too? Take into account that single-gender schools almost always tend to create better academic performance into your answer.
- Skeeter - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 11:32 am:
I have to strongly disagree with Yellow Dog.
Magnet schools are a great idea. Putting all students in the same school benefits nobody. The high achievers will not be pushed and as a result will get bored. On the other end, the students who need extra attention will not get the extra attention needed.
Quality private schools can easily run $16,000 per student per year. If you happen to have twins, that means $32,000+. In addition, the parents are faced with some tiny class sizes (try getting twins into a program that admits only 16 students per grade per year).
For some parents, magnet schools may be the difference between living in the city and moving to the north shore.
- erstwhilesteve - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 11:33 am:
In support of Y.D.D.’s comments above:
The second magnet school in CPS (Robert A. Black in Pill Hill) was specifically created to speed racial segregation in South Shore schools. While all the schools were more than 75% African-American, several, including Myra Bradwell where my children were in school, had activist coalitions of white and black parents seeking to preserve residential and school integration. Black School, announced to great fanfare, had new facilities, small class size and a rigorous lottery based on a 50-50 racial balance. Most of the white members of our committee applied, and all were accepted. A few of us left in disgust and got involved in a storefront coop school that had been set up the year before. Bradwell, which was 20% white in 70-71, was 3% white in 71-72.
A side note: The wife of Curtis Melnick, the district superintendent for CPS responsible for the South Shore area, had her real estate license suspended for panic peddling around the same time.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 11:42 am:
Chicago proves it’s failure every school day, and has been proving this for three generations.
Those living within City limits don’t send their kids to these public embarrassments.
If it wasn’t for the legal requirement of funding these crack-head failures, Chicago’s public schools would have been forced to reform or die back in 1980. These schools exist for the benefit of the teachers, bureaucrats, unions and politicians only.
Shut them down!
- wordslinger - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 11:47 am:
Ladies and gentleman, the great humanitarian, VMan.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 11:53 am:
–Those living within City limits don’t send their kids to these public embarrassments.–
Gee. So where DID all those kids come from?
- Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 12:04 pm:
So where DID all those kids come from?
I think VM meant to say, “MOST of those living within city limits, AND WHO HAVE THE MEANS TO AFFORD AN ALTERNATIVE, don’t send their kids to CPS.” Which is likely an accurate statement if a majority can be defined as “most”.
- Carl Nyberg - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 12:15 pm:
The reality of U.S. public education is that we’ve long spent more resources on and doted over better students and children of the better educated and those with social status.
The new wrinkle is that “special needs” families have organized to get more resources for “special needs” students.
This creates a squeeze for regular students.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 12:18 pm:
Six, if you’re going to take on the duty of making sense of what VMan writes, you’d better pack a lunch, because it’s an all-day job.
Actually, I thought his other statements were quite clear and revealing.
- Skeeter - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 12:26 pm:
Carl,
Living in Chicago, without magnet schools my children have no real options. My twins have no real hope of getting into a quality college if they attend most Chicago public schools.
It sure is easy for people to whine about “what about everybody else. . .” when they don’t have kids in the system.
Having kids changes your perspective. In the next few years, I will have three options:
1. Have my twins admitted to a quality private school (at $30,000+ per year — forget vacations for the next 20 years);
2. Have the twins admitted to a magnet school; or
3. Move to the north shore.
That’s it. No other options.
Without the magnet schools, we are out of here.
- Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 12:30 pm:
Word-
I am not my brother’s keeper:-) I take statements using phrases like “all”, “most”, or “everyone knows” with a grain of salt, but sometimes they ring truer if you burnish off the rough edges.
- Wumpus - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 12:34 pm:
Dan proft told me on the radio that 40% of CPS teachers send their kids to private schools. I’d like to hear a good number on the ones that go to magnets.
- cermak_rd - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 12:55 pm:
No one is sure of what the tipping point is, if it is 50% middle class or above, 45% middle class or above, or 40% middle class or above; but at a certain point, children in majority poverty schools don’t achieve as well as children in non-majority poverty schools, even if the child is middle class or above.
- Carl Nyberg - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 1:35 pm:
Skeeter, I’m not saying magnet schools are bad. I’m just calling the game for how I see it.
- Steve - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 2:09 pm:
Magnet schools are a bad idea.They encourage people to think big city public education can work,when it’s a failure.It’s time to separate school from state.Chicago has over 100 schools that are half empty yet Mayor Daley wants to raise taxes and build new schools!
- Wumpus - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 2:45 pm:
Steve, I kind of a gree with you. Magnet schools are not fair represeations of the system. I am supportive of them if the work. But where does that leave the kids who have dedicated families who are not able to get the test scores to be admitted, but are willing to work hard?
- James the Intolerant - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 3:05 pm:
My daughter will graduate in the spring from one of the city magnet high schools, one of the top schools in the state. She said that there were a certain amount of spots left for minorities in prvious years but that practive has changed, and she doesn’t agree with abolishing the practice. The thought is that admittance could have a great positive impact on the prospective student. I know part of the problem with CPS high schools is the lack of parent involvement, but I think enough money is spent per pupil to offer a better education than what the majority of CPS high schools offer. I still don’t understand how Arne Dunacn received such a pass during the Rev. Meeks protests.
- plutocrat03 - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 3:05 pm:
Quite an education here.
All these years I thought schools were for education. Here today I hear no expectation for learning, but a bunch of rationales for social engineering.
If I had children in need of an education, I would do as Skeeter proposes. CPS was a disaster when I was school age. It is worse now.
- Carl Nyberg - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 3:43 pm:
Would you consider segregation a form of social engineering?
What are vouchers but a simple way to segregate the schools by parental wealth/income?
- Amy - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 5:12 pm:
i’m surprised that white students are only 8% of the system. the recent performance results from schools in Illinois showed very good neighborhood schools on the northwest side and the lakefront. i’m sure those schools on the southwest side are not too far behind. maybe only 8% because those neighborhoods are not only white….there are many Hispanics in all areas of the city.
Gary Orfield should spend less time worrying about integration and more time studying whether the real problem
is economic class differences. Barack Obama did not send his kids to public school in Chicago. His economic class mixes with the same economic class of other people regardless of color. Also, Obama talked about affirmative action in this regard and not regarding color. There are lots and lots of poor white people in this country whose families came to this country generations ago with nothing and still have nothing. we don’t see them much in Chicago, but travel to the Appalachians and you will see that they are in need of some kind of affirmative action despite their color.
- cermak_rd - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 5:20 pm:
Although I’m against vouchers, I don’t see them as a way to segregate via wealth or income. I see that already existing with the current system whereby the wealthy can opt out of the public school system or move out to a better school system.
Vouchers are a way for the children with functional families (defined here as having one adult committed to the student’s academic success) to be separated out from the public school system. However, I also see charter schools in the same way, and charter schools are public.
My problem with vouchers is that if the public is paying for the education, then the public has a right to set curriculum and otherwise determine what the students are to be taught.
- Plutocrat03 - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 5:47 pm:
There are many examples where vouchers are a tool to save the poor children from an uncaring and indifferent public education.
Too much of the revenue is used to feed the machine, while forgetting the children.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Thursday, Nov 20, 08 @ 7:15 pm:
Skeeter -
Let me clarify: students CAN have an intellectually integrated school while having different tracts of classes. Nothing in the traditional way of doing things prevents high-performing students from attending calculus class during the day and playing basketball with the normoids after school.
I agree with you Skeeter that Chicago needs high-quality public schools. All I’m saying is that there’s no logical reason that EVERY school can’t be as good as a magnet school.
I think that part of the solution is expanding the role of charter public schools, which offer innovation, but unlike magnet schools don’t have entrance exams and are open to all.
It CAN be done. When Boston began school reform 10 years ago, only 18 percent of high school sophomores were meeting standards for reading and only 13 percent were meeting standards for math. Today, 58% are meeting or exceeding standards for reading and 59% are meeting or exceeding standards for math.
Today, roughly 2/3 of Boston public school graduates go on to college.