Rationale
My reason for writing this unit revolves around options: the options that some young people have and others don’t, through no fault of their own. Real estate prices are often an indicator of greater societal trends. When you look at the current housing market, you can often point to which areas are thriving or failing. Areas where there are more homeowners than renters often have residents with incomes above the national average, the schools have higher achievement rates and more resources, and communities are nearly free of violence. In neighborhoods with less single-family homeownership and more Section 8 housing, communities often experience higher crime and poverty rates, household incomes are significantly lower than the national average, and schools are often struggling.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone; what should be alarming is sadly not. It is a common reality that we all see in passing everyday. Most of these schools that are performing far below the state proficiency standards in math, reading and science are minority majority schools. In districts with urban student populations, with most students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, this is a reality that is all too often the case. With that said, I’d like to provide you with a bit of background on this unit, a follow-up to last year’s unit, “The American Dream for Members Only.” (7)
This past year, Westinghouse and University Prep at Milliones (U-Prep) have been two of the lowest performing schools in the district. In a sudden, poorly planned but well-intentioned move to correct the problem, central office officials came up with a possible solution at the end of the school year. The Deputy Superintendent of the district headed a team that proposed transferring U-Prep’s approximately 100 middle school students to Arsenal Middle School.
In the 2017-2018 school year, U-Prep had zero percent of their students pass the math PSSA and only 17 percent of their students pass the English portion of the test. Arsenal, however, was ranked in the top 15 percent of the state in terms of academic growth. (8) It had made tremendous progress over the last five years with 38 percent of its African American population being proficient or advanced in ELA compared to the district average of 30 percent. Arsenal also outpaced the district average for African American students in math with 30 percent when the district average hovered around 10 percent. While this would be a major step forward for U-Prep students, I continued to ask myself, “Is this enough?” Even if this proposal were accepted, those students would still be sent back to U-Prep for high school, a school that only had 30 percent of its students who passed the literature Keystone, 23 percent of its students who passed the Algebra Keystone and 4 percent who passed the Biology exam. (9)
Although I am not a parent, community member or teacher at U-Prep, their primarily African American student population looked like mine and came from similar backgrounds. I felt the need to attend as many meetings as I could regarding this possible transition. At a meeting with the U-Prep families, the former Deputy Superintendent pitched the idea to the community. Although the meeting didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped, I felt it was the best move for the students; there simply wasn’t a plan-B if they chose to stay at U-Prep for middle school. I was hopeful when I left and yet I came to find out sometime later that the idea was not approved and the students would remain at the failing school for the coming school year. What seemed to be an aggressive yet logical move for student growth was shot down without an alternative plan or action steps. I found myself asking, “So now what?”
On the other side of town, a similar situation came to the steps of my own school in Homewood. Scheduling has been an issue for years in my building and often becomes a point of division between certain factions, and this year wasn’t much different. At the end of the year, a new schedule with more targeted academic intervention periods for students was presented to the staff. In theory, these strategic changes would help to increase scores and academic achievement in ELA and Math. To be fair, the new schedule wasn’t completely discernable and there were questions as to how it would be implemented. The proposed schedule changes quickly ran into conflict with the union contract and was voted down and rejected. At a meeting a week after the vote, the former Assistant Superintendent for School Transformation, who had gotten wind of the vote and made it clear that she believed it was an active move to derail forward progress, asked “Can we meet next week to come up with another plan?” The response she received was “no” because members of the union were on break for summer. Soon after this, the meeting turned into finger pointing from both sides, each claiming the other was at fault. In the end, not much changed, and the conclusion didn’t feel like a resolution at all. Making matters worse, the Assistant Superintendent who spoke so boldly at that meeting took a job in Kansas without addressing the staff of her plans. She had climbed out of the trench, just when we needed her the most.
I feel it necessary to highlight this squabble because it’s been the reality of a place I love and call home. While I was disappointed in the resistance to change in order to improve the school, I have often felt that all parties have been put into precarious situations. Let me say it plainly: I don’t think anyone knows what to do with the current bureaucratic constraints. It is clear that we are behind. We cannot expect to catch up if we intend to run at the same place as everyone else. I’ve asked for examples of “Blue Ribbon” schools that have achieved exemplary status with similar student demographics and challenges. I’m still waiting for an answer. There are too many schools like mine throughout this nation who have a multitude of challenges and disparities without the necessary resources, support and political backing to meet every child’s needs. And too many of these schools have populations of over 95 percent poor minority students. If Brown v. Board had truly worked, this wouldn’t be the case. But because these children are black and brown, it’s deemed “unfortunate” at best. In the following pages, I will explain why people felt it necessary to integrate schools, how they went about the process, what disenfranchised children stood to gain from that legislation, and how we find ourselves back in a similar dilemma today.
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