"Unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together."
Thus declared Justice Thurgood Marshall, dissenting from a 1974 Supreme Court decision that arguably marked the beginning of the end of judicial enforcement of school desegregation. In this pronouncement about the importance of integration, Justice Marshall also recognized the democratic purpose of public education. Our public schools exist not only to impart knowledge, but also to mold citizens.
Decades of research prove the wisdom of Marshall's words. The benefits of integrated education extend beyond academic outcomes. Students from integrated schools have highly developed critical thinking skills, are less likely to stereotype, have a heightened ability to communicate and make friends across racial lines and are more likely to seek out integrated environments for their children.
When this country was concerned with the broader purposes of public education, we saw our schools as parts of our communities. We tackled the problems children faced both inside and outside the school walls. From the 1960s to the 1980s, America addressed both segregation and poverty, and the achievement gap between children of color and white children narrowed. However, when we abandoned these comprehensive goals, our progress stalled.
Today, we hear little about the democratic goals of education. Reformers spout platitudes about schools' supposed role in economic competitiveness, insisting that schools be run like businesses. As two new studies show, this narrow focus for public schools damages our children and communities.
In a new report, UCLA's Civil Rights Project reveals that American schools are rapidly re-segregating. Eighty percent of Latinos and 74 percent of African Americans attend majority non-white schools. In our largest cities, many attend schools that are 0-1 percent white. Children experience double segregation: by race and income. In the 1990s an average African American or Latino attended a school where one-third of the students were low-income. Now, an average African American or Latino attends one where two-thirds of the students are low-income.
While we hold all schools equally accountable, we fail to provide our segregated schools with adequate educational resources. Experienced teachers, rich curricula, adequate books and other learning tools are reserved for our more privileged schools. Connecticut is a prime example. Our continuing history of separate and unequal schools keeps dragging the state back to court, from Horton v. Meskill to Sheff, to the pending Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding case.
The report notes that the Obama administration essentially ignores the goal of integration, as highlighted by its push to expand charter schools. Charters are no better than public schools, routinely exclude Latino students, and are the most segregated sector for African-American students.
This is no surprise. While head of Chicago's schools, Education Secretary Arne Duncan fought to end Chicago's desegregation order.
The segregation of both children and resources is compounded by federal education policies to intervene in our lowest performing schools, which are often the same impoverished and segregated schools. As another new report, by scholars from Berkeley and Brown, demonstrates, the Obama administration has a limited notion of education. It advocates a "business model" for schools, rather than a democratic one, with one narrow goal: increasing standardized test scores. This approach causes more harm than good.
The strategies favored are drastic and feature "churn": firing all or most staff. The methods and terminology are borrowed from the business world; however the lessons from business, that "turnarounds" do not improve organizations, are ignored. The report found that radical changes result in no sustainable school improvement. Moreover, the upheaval destabilizes a school, destroying morale, damaging school climate and leaving hard-to-fill staffing gaps.
The policies are also imposed in an undemocratic manner. Community members, teachers and parents are rarely involved, and if so, only to gain their support for preselected "turnaround" plans. The authors discovered that when parents organize, they seek the opposite of those turnaround policies. Parents fight school closures and conversion to charter schools. They demand more resources and wraparound services in their schools, as well as multiple indicators of school success. Parents want a return to the broad democratic purposes of education. They understand that schools are integral parts of communities, and that both need help in order for each to succeed.
These reports show that the reformers' myopic vision for schools limits our children's growth and further isolates our poorest communities. Justice Marshall was right. Only when we see schools as the breeding ground for democracy, will we implement the policies that serve our children and our communities.
Wendy Lecker is a columnist for Hearst Connecticut Media Group and is a former president of the Stamford Parent Teacher Council. She was staff attorney at the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, plaintiffs in a school funding lawsuit in New York.