-----------------
NYTimes
March 21, 2011
Separate and Unequal
By BOB HERBERT
One of the most powerful tools for improving the educational achievement
of poor black and Hispanic public school students is, regrettably,
seldom even considered. It has become a political no-no.
Educators know that it is very difficult to get consistently good
results in schools characterized by high concentrations of poverty. The
best teachers tend to avoid such schools. Expectations regarding student
achievement are frequently much lower, and there are lower levels of
parental involvement. These, of course, are the very schools in which so
many black and Hispanic children are enrolled.
Breaking up these toxic concentrations of poverty would seem to be a
logical and worthy goal. Long years of evidence show that poor kids of
all ethnic backgrounds do better academically when they go to school
with their more affluent — that is, middle class — peers. But when the
poor kids are black or Hispanic, that means racial and ethnic
integration in the schools. Despite all the babble about a postracial
America, that has been off the table for a long time.
More than a half-century after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education
school desegregation ruling, we are still trying as a country to
validate and justify the discredited concept of separate but equal
schools — the very idea supposedly overturned by Brown v. Board when it
declared, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential
patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities and long-held
custom, they most emphatically are in reality.
“Ninety-five percent of education reform is about trying to make
separate schools for rich and poor work, but there is very little
evidence that you can have success when you pack all the low-income
students into one particular school,” said Richard Kahlenberg, a senior
fellow at the Century Foundation who specializes in education issues.
The current obsession with firing teachers, attacking unions and
creating ever more charter schools has done very little to improve the
academic outcomes of poor black and Latino students. Nothing has brought
about gains on the scale that is needed.
If you really want to improve the education of poor children, you have
to get them away from learning environments that are smothered by
poverty. This is being done in some places, with impressive results. An
important study conducted by the Century Foundation in Montgomery
County, Md., showed that low-income students who happened to be enrolled
in affluent elementary schools did much better than similarly low-income
students in higher-poverty schools in the county.
The study, released last October, found that “over a period of five to
seven years, children in public housing who attended the school
district’s most advantaged schools (as measured by either subsidized
lunch status or the district’s own criteria) far outperformed in math
and reading those children in public housing who attended the district’s
least-advantaged public schools.”
Studies have shown that it is not the race of the students that is
significant, but rather the improved all-around environment of schools
with better teachers, fewer classroom disruptions, pupils who are more
engaged academically, parents who are more involved, and so on. The
poorer students benefit from the more affluent environment. “It’s a much
more effective way of closing the achievement gap,” said Mr. Kahlenberg.
About 80 school districts across the country are taking steps to reduce
the concentrations of poverty in their schools. But there is no getting
away from the fact that if you try to bring about economic integration,
you’re also talking about racial and ethnic integration, and that
provokes bitter resistance. The election of Barack Obama has not made
true integration any more palatable to millions of Americans.
I favor integration for integration’s sake. This society should be far
more integrated in almost every way than it is now. But to get around
the political obstacles to school integration, districts have tried a
number of strategies. Some have established specialized, high-achieving
magnet schools in high-poverty neighborhoods, which have had some
success in attracting middle class students. Some middle-class schools
have been willing to accept transfers of low-income students when those
transfers are accompanied by additional resources that benefit all of
the students in the schools.
It’s difficult, but there are ways to sidestep the politics. What I
think is a shame is that we have to do all of this humiliating dancing
around the perennially uncomfortable issue of race. We pretend that no
one’s a racist anymore, but it’s easier to talk about pornography in
polite company than racial integration. Everybody’s in favor of helping
poor black kids do better in school, but the consensus is that those
efforts are best confined to the kids’ own poor black neighborhoods.
Separate but equal. The Supreme Court understood in 1954 that it would
never work. But our perpetual bad faith on matters of race keeps us trying.
Roger Cohen is off today.
enviado por:
Gregory Elacqua
--
Director
Instituto de Políticas Publicas
Facultad de Economía y Empresa
Universidad Diego Portales
NYTimes
March 21, 2011
Separate and Unequal
By BOB HERBERT
One of the most powerful tools for improving the educational achievement
of poor black and Hispanic public school students is, regrettably,
seldom even considered. It has become a political no-no.
Educators know that it is very difficult to get consistently good
results in schools characterized by high concentrations of poverty. The
best teachers tend to avoid such schools. Expectations regarding student
achievement are frequently much lower, and there are lower levels of
parental involvement. These, of course, are the very schools in which so
many black and Hispanic children are enrolled.
Breaking up these toxic concentrations of poverty would seem to be a
logical and worthy goal. Long years of evidence show that poor kids of
all ethnic backgrounds do better academically when they go to school
with their more affluent — that is, middle class — peers. But when the
poor kids are black or Hispanic, that means racial and ethnic
integration in the schools. Despite all the babble about a postracial
America, that has been off the table for a long time.
More than a half-century after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education
school desegregation ruling, we are still trying as a country to
validate and justify the discredited concept of separate but equal
schools — the very idea supposedly overturned by Brown v. Board when it
declared, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential
patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities and long-held
custom, they most emphatically are in reality.
“Ninety-five percent of education reform is about trying to make
separate schools for rich and poor work, but there is very little
evidence that you can have success when you pack all the low-income
students into one particular school,” said Richard Kahlenberg, a senior
fellow at the Century Foundation who specializes in education issues.
The current obsession with firing teachers, attacking unions and
creating ever more charter schools has done very little to improve the
academic outcomes of poor black and Latino students. Nothing has brought
about gains on the scale that is needed.
If you really want to improve the education of poor children, you have
to get them away from learning environments that are smothered by
poverty. This is being done in some places, with impressive results. An
important study conducted by the Century Foundation in Montgomery
County, Md., showed that low-income students who happened to be enrolled
in affluent elementary schools did much better than similarly low-income
students in higher-poverty schools in the county.
The study, released last October, found that “over a period of five to
seven years, children in public housing who attended the school
district’s most advantaged schools (as measured by either subsidized
lunch status or the district’s own criteria) far outperformed in math
and reading those children in public housing who attended the district’s
least-advantaged public schools.”
Studies have shown that it is not the race of the students that is
significant, but rather the improved all-around environment of schools
with better teachers, fewer classroom disruptions, pupils who are more
engaged academically, parents who are more involved, and so on. The
poorer students benefit from the more affluent environment. “It’s a much
more effective way of closing the achievement gap,” said Mr. Kahlenberg.
About 80 school districts across the country are taking steps to reduce
the concentrations of poverty in their schools. But there is no getting
away from the fact that if you try to bring about economic integration,
you’re also talking about racial and ethnic integration, and that
provokes bitter resistance. The election of Barack Obama has not made
true integration any more palatable to millions of Americans.
I favor integration for integration’s sake. This society should be far
more integrated in almost every way than it is now. But to get around
the political obstacles to school integration, districts have tried a
number of strategies. Some have established specialized, high-achieving
magnet schools in high-poverty neighborhoods, which have had some
success in attracting middle class students. Some middle-class schools
have been willing to accept transfers of low-income students when those
transfers are accompanied by additional resources that benefit all of
the students in the schools.
It’s difficult, but there are ways to sidestep the politics. What I
think is a shame is that we have to do all of this humiliating dancing
around the perennially uncomfortable issue of race. We pretend that no
one’s a racist anymore, but it’s easier to talk about pornography in
polite company than racial integration. Everybody’s in favor of helping
poor black kids do better in school, but the consensus is that those
efforts are best confined to the kids’ own poor black neighborhoods.
Separate but equal. The Supreme Court understood in 1954 that it would
never work. But our perpetual bad faith on matters of race keeps us trying.
Roger Cohen is off today.
enviado por:
Gregory Elacqua
--
Director
Instituto de Políticas Publicas
Facultad de Economía y Empresa
Universidad Diego Portales
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