Whenever the idea of neighborhood schools is floated, the progressive community gets all up in arms about the resegregation of the Boston Public Schools.
News Flash: resegregation has already been accomplished. White people have voted and continue to vote with their feet. White people have abandoned the Boston Public Schools. Boston is 54% white, while the Boston Public Schools are 15% white.
I’m not interested in trying to lure these white people back. I’m interested in providing the best education for the students who remain. And the bottom line for me is this: in a time of tight budgets, it’s unconscionable to lay off teachers and librarians while keeping bus drivers.
Which BPS employees are making the biggest difference in the lives of students? Would a kid in an underperforming school benefit more from an extra teacher and a smaller class or from a longer bus ride?
It’s time to stop trying to fix racism on the backs of BPS students. Racism won. This is an ugly, despicable fact, but a fact nonetheless, and we need to focus on how to best serve the students we have. We’re not going to do this by ensuring they can take a bus ride to an understaffed school.
There are some very good arguments for neighborhood schools in Boston. I’m not sure you’ve really made any of them, though.
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p>Students benefit when they can attend a school in their neighborhood. The benefits are many:
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p>- Kids don’t spend 60-90 minutes a day on busses, giving them more time to study, to participate in after-school activities, to be kids.
– Kids benefit from schools in which their parents can become active participants in their child’s education, get to know their kid’s teachers and principals, and even know their child’s classmates. There are parents now who have never visited their child’s school because it is across town and not T accessible.
– Kids benefit when a school becomes part of a larger community, including nonprofits, local groups, even religious institutions. It creates an environment of community ownership over the quality of the school, both in terms of the education, as well as the infrastructure and cleanliness of the building and surroundings.
– Kids benefit when they can attend school with other kids in their neighborhood, and can work and study together.
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p>So while the arguments in favor or important, we still can’t ignore the history around this issue.
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p>We had blatantly unequal education systems in place prior to bussing. We had quality schools in the white neighborhoods, with a fundamentally corrupt school committee made up largely of people from those communities who always made sure their people got jobs, and got the money for the white schools. We had the lowest-performing schools that were 95-100% minority. If we ignore this, or pretend like Garrity’s decision was baseless, then we lose the argument from the beginning.
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p>What you say, JPiac is true that we no longer have a segregation problem in Boston schools with 85% kids of color. But had it not been for bussing, we’d still have good schools in the white neighborhoods and crappy schools for all our black and Latino kids. So if you want to make the argument that it’s time to see where we are and look at a very real solution for making things better, progressives should listen. If you want to make the argument that bussing failed and we should have retained segregated schools, then I hope progressives will reject that wholeheartedly.
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p>Let’s also do away with the argument about $80 million in transportation. About half of that is dedicated to transporting children with disabilities, which wouldn’t be changed by ending bussing. Another quarter of that would probably still be needed to maintained some amount of school busses for kids who don’t live close enough to a school, or for any of a variety of other bussing needs. So $80 million is probably closer to $20 million of savings — not a small sum, but let’s make sure we are talking about the real number.
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p>Let’s also recognize that to make this work, we’d to dedicate that $20 million just to improving the schools most in need of help, so that every neighborhood had a quality school. We could hire more teachers, we could get better textbooks and equipment, we could commit real resources so that no child is forced to attend a poor school. And I agree with John Tobin that no child’s education should be left up to a lottery. But longer-term, who ensures that 2, 3, 5 years from now, that dedication of transportation funds to help the lowest performing schools won’t be the first funds eliminated the next time we have budget cuts because a Republican Governor or wimpy legislature can’t provide municipalities with the aid they need to educate our children?
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p>With, with all of those caveats, let’s have this conversation, let’s talk about ways to get our children to a better place and give them a better education, but let’s remember the progressive context in which this conversation must take place.
Thoughtful comment. I have one quibble.
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p>1. Thinkingliberally, I’m not sure why/how you suggest that may be his argument.
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p>He specifically says: “Racism won. This is an ugly, despicable fact, but a fact nonetheless, and we need to focus on how to best serve the students we have”?
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p>Obviously he does not believe we should have retained segregated schools.
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p>2. Did bussing “fail”?
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p>Certainly it failed “integrate” the schools, in pretty much every city in USA. So that goal was not achieved.
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p>But bussing did end de jure segregation, leaving only the de facto type. So that goal was achieved.
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p>3. You write: “Kids benefit from schools in which their parents can become active participants in their child’s education, get to know their kid’s teachers and principals, and even know their child’s classmates.”
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p>On it’s face, hard to disagree. However, there are a few variations of your premise.
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p>For example, a parent might choose to avoid the neighborhood school b/c she visited and felt the staff was not welcoming.
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p>Hence she chose a school 4 miles away on the basis of a visit where she felt very comfortable. Therefore, she ended up being a more active participant.
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p>In such a case, parent choice might trump parent proximity in terms of your goal, which is parent involvement. There is an academic paper by Carolyn Hoxby which makes this argument.
Bussing may not have created a great situation, but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was.
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p>A parent may decide to get involved in a school 4 miles away. But that has not been the norm. In many cases, parents have never ever visited their child’s school, because they don’t have a car, can’t afford a cab, and a school 4 miles away isn’t T accessible.
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p>But that also goes directly to my point. I think most people in Boston of all races and ethnicities want neighborhood schools. But to get neighborhood schools, every neighborhood must offer quality school options, and we are very very far away from doing so. To eliminate bussing first is putting the cart ahead of the horse. Commit to fixing the poorer schools, commit long-term resources, energy, programs, whatever it takes. Once you have that underway, then you aren’t sacrificing the education of your communities of color to save a few bucks.
i agree: we’re very very far away. and that it’s cart before horse.
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p>just seems like: really hard to fix schools. i like part of the obama/patrick/menino education agenda. but i’m skeptical of the “turnaround” idea. i’m personally involved, at the margins, with 2 efforts (supplying tutors).
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p>but it just seems hard enough to create a school culture from scratch, let alone to transform an existing school culture. i.e., these schools seem to have resources, but maybe not the “whatever it takes” attitude.
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p>how do we get there?
big picture, i think you’re right. we need to let go of the history as the main driver of today’s policy, while not forgetting that history.
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p>then let’s revisit the question you pose.
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p>i agree that a bus driver less likely to make a difference in the lives of students than a teacher.
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p>but some who argue for keeping the “controlled choice” system are making a somewhat different argument. it’s not that bus drivers are more valuable than teachers. not that we need to bring back white families.
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p>they’d argue it like this…
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p>*worst in terms of lowest scores and in terms of being least-sought after by families when they rank their preferences.
…I didn’t realize bussing kids across town was something that was still done. My town has four elementary schools and with a handful of exceptions the kids go to school in their own district. The problem for us is that there is great disparity between the oldest and newest schools in terms of facilities and resources. Many families in the district of the oldest school like that school. My opinion is that the building has no business still being a school and the two old small schools should be replaced with one larger school like the other two newer larger schools. I personally don’t care what the de facto racial makeup is of the various schools as long as there is not forced segregation and there is equity throughout the town.