Category: Response 7

“School Choice Policies and Racial Segregation: Where White Parents’ Good Intentions, Anxiety, and Privilege Collide” by Allison Roda and Amy Stuart Wells and “Is Demography Still Destiny” by Norm Fruchter both explore the relationship between our school choices and racial diversity, which is a common theme that has been discussed over and over through the course of the semester.

Roda and Wells explore how As Roda and Wells state, “Given that these more advantaged parents have the most knowledge and resources to navigate the school choice system (see Bifulco et al. 2009), they are more likely to get their children into the highest-status schools regardless of the specific school choice policies in place.”, Parents always want their student to get into the best schools possible (264). However, such desire leads to more separation and imbalance among students by race and ethnicity throughout schools and programs. It is interesting that while many parents believe that diversity is such a really important part of a school’s success and they hope their children to attend racially diverse school where students are able to interact with people from different background, they also try to get their children into the “best” (mostly white) schools. In a sense, those parents who “value” diversity, define the quality of the schools by examining who goes to the school rather than what is offered in school.

In the meantime, Norm Fructher examines a different aspect of the problem where college readiness is highly correlated with student racial background. As Fructher illustrates, under Bloomberg administration, “educational option program offerings, which control school choice to increase equity of student opportunity, have significantly diminished” (8). Although Bloomberg administration expanded students’ school choices and invest heavily in narrowing students’ achievement gap, it seems not enough to achieve a greater equity.

As far as I am concerned, what makes a school great should be determined by the school itself instead of by the type of students who attend the school. If every school is able to share the same amount of resources, there will probably be no such thing as good or bad school. As Fructher argues, rather than focusing on creating new schools, we should concentrate on improving the condition of existing schools.

The two readings, School Choice Policies and Racial Segregation: Where White Parents’ Good Intentions, Anxiety, and Privilege Collide and Is Demography Still Destiny, both explore the relationship between school “choice” and its impact on students of different backgrounds (in particular white families and students of color) and neighborhoods.

Roda and Wells briefly discussed the impact of magnet schools, which does pertain in some ways to Jamaica H.S. since the opening of magnet school Townsend Harris resulted in a “brain drain” from Jamaica H.S. Additional, the idea of “bad” and “good” schools (as defined in the minds of white families) does pertain to Jamaica H.S. and the four new schools since they are deemed as a “poor performing” school by more endowed and privileged families that have “better” options available to them. However, between the two readings, the study conducted by Annenberg Institute for School Reform relates most our school profile of Jamaica High School. This study looks at the relationship between neighborhood, demographics, family background, and the impact they have on the schools they attend. Additionally, the study sought to explore the impact of the Bloomberg administrations new policy of allowing a “choice” of high schools, in which students could apply to attend a high school that they were not zoned for. The study showed that most students first choice schools were less racially isolated than their middle school, however, the school they actually ended up attending were more similar to their middle school. The study concluded that while there were more choices, it did little to increase the “systematic equity of opportunity” for students of color, low socio-economic status, or students that came from poor middle schools or families with a low educational background.

The major difference between the four new high schools of Jamaica and the original Jamaica H.S. is the student achievement. Student achievement of the four new schools compared to Jamaica H.S.  is significantly higher. This is due to the type of students coming into the school, who are required to meet a certain cut off in terms of academics. This new admissions policy is contrary to the original acceptance policy where students have to apply or were zoned. The new schools are strictly schools of choice. In the Annenberg study, a suggestion to help address creating more opportunities to disadvantaged students (within the Bloomberg policy of school choices) was the ed. opt. Through this, schools kept a certain amount of seats open for students who might not meet the schools’ criteria, but could still do well in the school given the proper resources. While we do not know where the students of the four new Jamaica H.S.s are applying from, we do know that they are more ethnically diverse and still have a high percentage of students that are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (indicated by the percentage of students that qualify for FRL). All four school’s admission policy is through ed. opt. and, to some form of limited screening.

Past readings explored how disadvantaged students (racial, economic, social, or neighborhood wise) lack the opportunity to study in a school that they were not assigned to. However, these two readings show how even provided with the choice of schools (or the illusion of choice), this policy still fails to create systematic equal opportunities.

Annmarie and I are working on a policy change for Brooklyn Technical High School and our main focus is on admissions. Both “Is Demography Still Destiny?” by Norm Fruchter and “School Choice Policies and Racial Segregation” by Amy Stuart Wells further explain the decisions involved in applying or not applying to schools.

In Fruchter’s article, he discusses the expansion of school choice to families and it not having such a successful result in racial equality throughout schools. It turns out students tend to attend high schools that match their middle schools. Those schools may not always be their first choice, but it is where students end up. With Brooklyn Tech, applicants have the choice of applying to high schools across the city and other specialized high schools. If students went to prestigious middle schools who offered students SHSAT tutoring services, I would not be surprised if those students receiving those services ended up in a school like Brooklyn Tech.

In Wells’ article, she discusses the components making a bad or a good school that effect school choices. These categories of “good” and “bad” are characterized mainly by the racial make-up of the school – those that are mainly white are deemed good and those that are mainly composed of minorities are not. Brooklyn Tech’s student population is majority white and Asian and is known as a prestigious school. This article makes me wonder if Brooklyn Tech was still a specialized high school, yet it was majority Black and Latino, would it still be seen as a “good” school. Are the specialized exams inherently racist? Are there fewer Black and Latino applicants? – If so, this goes back to Fruchter’s article and our discussion in class today. Families may not want to send their kids to specialized high schools because none of their family friends are sending their children to those high schools and because they may believe they are not meant for them.

“Is Demography Still Destiny?” and Roda and Wells’s article approach the issue of racial imbalance from two very different angles. Focusing on policies developed by the Bloomberg Administration, “Is Demography Still Destiny?” reveals that despite the effort put into narrowing the racial achievement gap, college readiness is still highly correlated to demographics and neighbourhoods.  The research suggests that the underlying cause is the algorithms designed to match students and high schools. On the other hand, Roda and Well’s article discusses the racial achievement gap by analyzing the definitions and causes of “good” school and “bad” school.

“Is Demography Still Destiny?” brings up two potential solutions: small-school system and in-school counselling system. According to the research, investing in these two systems into high schools may help decrease the racial achievement gap. And increasing the counselor-to-student ratio can increase the degree of attractiveness to students, parents, and future high school employees.  This is directly connected to what is discussed in Roda and Wells’s article (and the article somehow contradicts the solution mentioned in the research). According to Roda and Wells, many parents have a stereotype that schools with white as a major population perform much better than the schools with Latino and African American as major population. Sadly, whether a school was good or bad “was often based more on who was enrolled in each school as opposed to what was taught” (282). If that’s the case, increasing the counselor-to-student ratio will not make a big difference since parents only focus on the existing student demographics.

In my opinion, destructing existed stereotypes on our educational system and building confidence in parents and students are the keys to decrease the racial achievement gap. I went to an absolutely “not-special” public high school in Queens. The school is neither a specialized school nor a magnet or charter high school. The school has no special affiliation with religions. My high school hosts more than 3,500 students, and there are only 4 college advisors. But what made my parents pick that high school? The answer lies in the demographics of the school – approximately 46% of the student population is Asian. I am an Asian. My parents feel more comfortable and safer putting me in an environment where there are a lot of Asian peers. Therefore, from my personal experience, changing people’s mindsets is more important than setting up mandatory policies.

Kiriaki and I are working on a project about Brooklyn Technical High School, which is a specialized high school that admits students based solely on SHSAT exam scores. Brooklyn Tech is regarded as one of the most elite high schools in New York City. However, its racial demographics are overwhelmingly made up of whites and Asians, with few Hispanics or black students being represented. Racial inequality in the New York City school system such as that which is embodied by Brooklyn Tech, is an issue that we have been studying heavily during this semester.

According to “Is Demography Still Destiny?” the Bloomberg administration focused on expanding school choice options in an attempt to narrow the racial achievement gap by giving minority races more opportunities to get into “better” schools like Brooklyn Tech. However, the aforementioned study determined that “choice has not been sufficient to increase systemic equity of opportunity” (2). Although this might seem obvious due to lack of economic resources in poor neighborhoods and difficulties involving navigation of the school choice maze, Bloomberg sought only to address demographic inequality and lack of opportunity through school choice, with vague reasoning as to why this would work (which mirrors the vague wording of the Equity and Excellence for All diversity report). Despite Bloomberg’s grand plans of immense options for school choice, “students tended to prefer high schools that matched their own academic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds…These patterns suggest that universal choice [is] limited in its ability to prevent stratification of students across schools by race, socioeconomic status, and academic ability” (Corcoran and Levin, 214-215). Rather, college readiness of high school students appears to be highly correlated with the neighborhood in which the students reside.

In contrast, Roda and Wells’s “School Choice Policies and Racial Segregation…” suggests an entirely different issue in the NYC school system, the perception of good vs. bad schools. Often times, white schools are perceived as being better than schools with large numbers of black and Hispanic students. This issue was explored in several of our readings this semester, particularly in the Delmont reading on busing, where black families wanted their students to be bused to better, whiter schools. However, why are majority white schools often deemed as being better than other schools? What makes them better? What exactly does a school need in order to be considered a good school?

These questions comes into play when studying Brooklyn Technical High School. What makes other non-specialized schools in the area less prestigious than Brooklyn Tech? Furthermore, why should Brooklyn Tech get more economic resources than “inferior” schools in the area? The Roda and Wells reading cites a study that addresses this issue in further detail. It states: “There is also some evidence that the process of sorting students through choice polices leads to self-fulfilling prophecies of “good” and “bad” schools, as those enrolling the most students from advantaged families are automatically seen as “better” (see Bifulco et al. 2009; Holme 2002; Wells et al. 2009).” In addition, even though many white parents claim that they want to see more diversity within their schools, they continue to participate in practices that go against these beliefs, such as by sending their children to expensive private schools that are almost entirely white, giving them a leg up in the educational hierarchy (284).

What if there was no such thing as a bad school? What if every school had an equal amount of resources? If every school in Brooklyn was given the same amount of funding per student that Brooklyn Tech was given, would this not be a way to rectify the lack of equity in racial opportunity? The next step in ridding New York City schools of segregation has to invoke a demolition of the concept of “good” and “bad” schools. Rather, the New York City government must ensure that all schools in New York City are good, which can be done by giving each school an equal amount of economic and academic resources.

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?

I’m working with Steven and Kash to look at the differences between New Dorp High School and Staten Island Technical High School. The articles “School Choice” and “Is Demography Still Destiny?” both relate to our school profiles. Staten Island Technical High School has a very competitive color-blind admissions test, but is very racially segregated compared to New Dorp High School, which is not competitive and whose student body is more reflective of the surrounding community.

“School Choice Policies and Racial Segregation: Where White Parents’ Good Intentions, Anxiety, and Privilege Collide” is a study of a diversely populated school district with very pronounced segregation despite colorblind school choice policies. The colorblind admissions benefitted white upper-class students because of parent social connections and money. Allison Rosa and Amy Stuart Wells interviewed white parents in the district about how they decided where to enroll their children. They found that, despite an increasing trend of desiring diverse schools, white parents with economic means still were drawn to mostly white “good” schools and gifted and talented programs. Their study pertained to kindergarten enrollments, but the same principle is relevant to specialized high school applications. Segregation is a major issue in specialized high schools, but white parents still encourage their children to apply. Both sets of parents fear that their children would fall behind in the high-stakes education system, so they chose “good” schools despite desiring more diversity.

This reading reminded me of a prior class reading by Nikole Hannah-Jones titled “Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City,” which was a first-hand account by a Black mother who wants to fix the segregated public-school system but also hopes her daughter can get ahead. According to “School Choice,” white upper-class parents struggled between wanting diverse schools and deciding how to best benefit their children. Both show parents trying to navigate an unfair system of power. Margaret Anderson wrote that having white parents “unlearn” racism will not dismantle a racist system. This supports a broader argument to make structural changes in the school system, so that parents aren’t forced to make decisions under these constraints.

“Is Demography Still Destiny?” outlines the problems with the current school choice system, and the former article also builds on that. The Bloomberg administration’s restructuring of schools to focus on school choice still allows white economically-advantaged students to have more options and obtain their first choice, as also mentioned by Rosa and Stuart. When we look at Staten Island Tech and other specialized high schools’ admissions policies, we find that the “color-blind” admissions test benefits white, economically well-off students. Specialized high schools are not as accessible a choice for economically disadvantaged students and students of color as they are for white economically advantaged students.