Author: dhenry

In eighth grade, going through the high school application process, I was one of the few around me that had a real chance at all the opportunities around us, as I did well academically and my parents had money.  I applied for high schools through the NYC Public School system, as well as took the SHSAT examinations, getting into my top choices. Nonetheless, I chose to go to  my private school. There were many reasons for this, but the main ones were that specialized high schools never really impressed me–I could get the same education elsewhere–and that it was an unfair system. The Hammack further justified my view on specialized high schools, one that I did not at first realize I even had.

I, at first, did not realize that I even had a true view on “elite schooling” and its admissions policies because, in many ways I have become desensitized to inequality; I see it so often. In the process of preparing for and taking the SHSAT, I’ve seen so many individuals just as smart–if not smarter–as myself unable to accomplish the same things because they are unable to to properly prepare (due to lack of funds, for example). In a broken system, they are expected to perform the impossible and achieve. The Hammack reading supports this by showing the Chinese admissions policies in Los Angeles. In addition, he also supports my opinion through speaking on the history of the admissions policies continuously being modified and improved, in an attempt to make it more just and equal between races.

What I found most interesting, however, is that this was written almost a decade ago and it is still being addressed and modified. Although on one hand it may be sad that we are still having the same conversations, it is also nice to know that school reform is alive and well, with people continuously fighting to promote change and equal opportunity to all. So although this article only strengthened my opinion about the SHSAT and “elite school”, I hope that as time goes on and more reform takes place, it will change.

Although decades apart, two different groups of people had a similar struggle in the fight to education against the New York Board of Education. In 1917, a school plan known as the Gary Plan , implemented requirements in schooling, for Jews. In 1954, African American schools also had rules implemented regulating education. Power, Protests, and the Public Schools : Jewish and African American Struggles in New York, Weiner speaks about the struggles of Jews in 1915 and African Americans in these systems.

From the outside –or even looking at the situation from the current time period–one could say that African Americans are worse off than Jews and that Jews, in fact, hold all the power in their communities that they are apart of. Going back a few decades, however, the two groups become comparable in power, or lack thereof. This is especially the case when it comes to economic and political power; they have no voice in total. In their respective time periods, both groups were considered the minority in all aspects, and had no control over anything. This trend continued over into their schooling, having no input into its implementation and little to no ability to effectively critique and change it. In both cases, the minority groups were put into extremely overpopulated schools seeming to lack the best interest of the students. African Americans were unable to receive adequate academic educations attended schools with inadequate resources; those that tried to integrate into schools once finally given open enrollment were unable to get their children to those schools.

Under the Gary Plan four decades earlier, Jews weren’t even given academic educations, but were only offered vocational education. Many times this didn’t even prove to be true as older children lacked classroom time overseeing the younger children in these understaffed schools. School days were unreasonably lengthen, which did not allow Jews time to practice their religion of Judaism. On top of that, they were forced to take part in Christianity,

When parents in both cases appealed to the Board, it seemed that little to no improvements were made. In the early 1900s, there were even times when the Board completed decided to not even review cases or to hear out the parents at all. The minorities seemed to be stuck in a situation that was not improving.

I believe Weiner speaking about both situations in the schools–although decades apart–made the cases and issues within them more prominent. Although two different groups of people, both were minorities and inferior in the towns and situations in which these riots took place. They had little to no voice in the situations and, definitely, had no power. Comparing these two groups that from the outside would look like they have little in common shows how inferiority can impact the lives of thee inferior negatively if they are not able to stand up for themselves.

For the past few classes, we have been speaking about the New York City public school systems and its issues of segregation and lack of diversity within its schools. The vast majority of the schools in New York City are segregated racially and economically, with little to no effort being made to fix this in the system. In “Why Our Schools are Segregated” by Richard Rothstein in Educational Leadership, Rothstein speaks about why schools are segregated and why he believes that although integration is necessary, many of the other problems that come with segregation will not automatically be fixed because they are bigger than just the school system.

Segregation issues affecting school ability is a problem starting long before the 20^th century represented with Rothstein says, “residential segregation is actually the result of racially motivated law, public policy, and government-sponsored discrimination”. The issues that came with these laws, as time went on, accumulated to what now makes it seemingly impossible to fight against. Even in a perfect school system, with great integration levels, and teachers who genuinely care about every student, it is hard to achieve when children who are disadvantaged miss school due to lack of preventive health care, have less enrichment opportunities such as after-school and summer activities, and are undeveloped in key tools for school success, such as language and organizational skills. For children in schools that are segregated, Rothstein believes these problems are worse.

Unlike Rothstein, in “Does the Negro need Separate Schools,” W.E.B. DuBois does not speak much about the other problems outside the school system—although I believe that he would agree with some of Rothstein’s views. I think, however, that DuBois would argue that the despite all these other issues, the school systems do not do enough to truly provide an education to blacks, even in an integrated system. In integrated schools, education is not prepared to benefit the Black child, nor does the environment usually make it easy, or comfortable for a black student to succeed. DuBois believes in separate schools for blacks, as he believes that once there is a leveled playing field (the institution is up to par with any white institution economically) that Black would be able to be educated and knowledgeable about themselves in all aspect as school as well as their history and culture. In an environment created for Blacks to succeed, they will.

The part of this article that interested me the most was DuBois’s mention of what we now consider HBCUs. DuBois speaks about how many didn’t not want to attend these universities because of it being run by black folk, portraying a lack of “self-knowledge and self-respect”. I found that interesting because if DuBois was around today, he would see that his wish for these schools to be respected and prided by the black community has come true and that another problem around those institutions has arisen: the internal struggle of blacks to attend, not because they do not love the school, but because outside those walls, blacks still have to go and live in a white man’s world.