Author: stevenmoshier

The relationship between school choice and racial diversity has been a common theme throughout our discussions this semester.  Allison Roda and Amy Stuart Wells’ “School Choice Policies and Racial Segregation” explores how so-called “colorblind” school choice policies often lead to the opposite, further stratifying already segregated schools.  Norm Fruchter’s “Is Demography Still Destiny?” discusses the correlation between college readiness and race, and how Bloomberg’s policy of school choice was designed (and failed) to narrow this racial achievement gap.  This theme is also relevant to the school profile Christina, Kashaf, and I are developing about Staten Island Technical High School and New Dorp High School.  The SHSAT was designed to admit students based solely on test stores and not on race, and yet the specialized Staten Island Tech is much less diverse than the neighboring New Dorp High School.

Roda and Wells examine how parents will almost always want their children to attend the “best” schools over the racially diverse schools.  A majority of the parents they interviewed valued diversity and stated that race was a factor in deciding on schools; however, they felt like they were limited in their school choice options.  One mother described how she selected the school “that [she] felt had the best educational program even though [she] would like a school to be more diverse” (278).  These schools with better educational programs became deemed the “good” schools.

Classifying certain schools as “good” naturally classifies other schools as “not good.”  This social construction of deeming certain schools as “good” schools “was often based more on who was enrolled in each school as opposed to what was taught” (Roda and Wells, 282).  The Bloomberg administration enacted the policy of school choice to give equal access to these “good” schools.  Yet, as the Fruchter report illustrates, the “strategies of school choice and school creation are not sufficient to create the equity that the administration has envisioned” (1).  This is relevant to our group’s analysis of Staten Island Tech and New Dorp High School.  The specialized high schools like Staten Island Tech often boast about their students’ success, noting high Regents and SAT scores and college readiness.  However, it is important to observe the prior achievement of these students.  Would these so-called high-achieving students perform just as well if they attended a neighboring, non-specialized school like New Dorp?

Chapter 1 from Matthew F. Delmont’s Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation focuses on “antibusing” protests and the opposition to desegregation efforts.  In March of 1964, over ten thousand white parents, more than seventy percent women, marched as “Parents and Taxpayers” to oppose busing as a means of desegregation in New York City public schools.  By calling themselves “Parents and Taxpayers,” these white parents were trying to justify their protests.  The name itself implies a certain superiority the protestors believed they had over their non-white counterparts.  They were marching because they believed desegregation was violating their rights as taxpayers.  However, in reality, “school officials and politicians structured housing and school policies around the expectations of white citizens” (26).  These white protestors were afraid and upset that their self-imposed higher social status was being threatened.

An interesting point Delmont brings up is how the media affects public perceptions, an issue still seen today.  When discussing the school boycotts in 1964, the New York Times “raised the specter of ‘busing’ to explain why the civil rights demands were ‘unreasonable and unjustified’” (43).  The editorial piece argued that the Board of Education in New York City can lessen the racial imbalance in the schools, but anything more “ignore the facts and figures of school population and pupil distribution” (43-44).  It also claimed that more teachers could be hired over bus drivers, and that these children are not learning anything on these sometimes hour-long bus rides.  This Times editorial illustrated more moral ambiguity over desegregation efforts in the North than typical reports about literal black-vs-white segregation in the South.

When I previously would hear the term “busing” as it related to desegregation, I would automatically associate it with efforts happening down South.  But in reality, the New York “antibusing” protests were one of the largest of its kind.  Moreover, these protests were also used as support for southern senators opposing the Civil Rights Act.  These senators argued that the New York protests “highlighted what they saw as the hypocrisy of the Civil Rights Act’s different treatment of school segregation in different regions” (27).  Schools in the South were de jure segregated schools, while most of the schools in the North were de facto segregated schools, and the desegregation efforts were different for these two types of schools.  Southern senators were outraged that “antibusing” efforts in de facto segregated schools were “accorded more political respect than similar efforts in the South” (28).  Northern senators wanted to exempt northern schools from desegregation provisions in the Civil Rights Act.

The NYC Department of Education’s report, “Equity and Excellence for All,” outlined their approach to foster learning environments that reflect the diversity of the City.  While the report was praised for its inclusive efforts, it was still met with some criticism.  Although it outlines potentially successful and beneficial efforts, the report is only a beginning step in changing the landscape of the public school system and tackling issues of diversity.

The general purpose of this report is to inform the public how the Department of Education is addressing the problems schools face with respect to diversity. The report begins with the statement that “the Department is reinforcing school diversity as a priority” (3).  On the surface, this appears to be an important priority of the DOE.  The word diversity encompasses many different forms, including racial background, socioeconomic status, and immigration status.  All forms of diversity need to be addressed, and the report subsequently proceeds to discuss them.  However, my biggest issue with this statement is that it implies diversity was not always a priority.  New York is a melting pot, with people from all different backgrounds living together as neighbors; this is what makes it such a great place to live.  Having the largest school system in the country, New York should have already had its schools be reflective of its vastly diverse population.

In my opinion, one of the more controversial policies was Policy 7; in it, the DOE plans to open new, high-quality schools and programs to foster diversity (11).  They “aim to open 15 new schools or programs over the next three years that have specific plans to serve diverse populations beginning with schools or programs opening in 2018.”  There are many benefits to this; namely, it will create more diverse classrooms.  Students at these schools will have access to great programs such as bilingual programs and STEAM, career, and technical programs.  These would greatly aid students coming from neighborhoods where these programs are not readily available.  However, a large controversy with this policy is that funds will be dedicated to building new schools and not allotted to fixing older, dilapidated ones.  Many schools are in desperate needs of refurbishing and upgrading.  While it is certainly a positive that these new schools will give students greater access to new programs, it comes at the expense of other students who could not attend them.  Instead of building new schools, funds should be used to increase STEAM and bilingual programs at existing schools who lack them.