Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in Post-Civil Rights America.

SEGREGATED SCHOOLS: EDUCATIONAL APARTHEID IN POST-CIVIL RIGHTS AMERICA

by Paul Street (Routledge, 2005)

UNFINISHED BUSINESS: CLOSING THE RACIAL ACHIEVEMENT GAP IN OUR SCHOOLS

by Pedro Noguera and Jean Yonemura Wing, eds. (Jossey-Bass, 2006)

Segregated Schools

by Paul Street and Unfinished Business by Pedro Noguera and Jean Yonemura both weigh in on the legacy of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed racial segregation in public schools. Both books ask, "Can schools be agents of societal change?" and illustrate that substantial work still needs to be done in order to fulfill the letter and spirit of Brown. The approaches of the two works, however, reflect the authors' different central premises.

Segregated Schools argues that we are witnessing the resegregation and permanent inferiorization of urban, poor, predominantly nonwhite public schools. According to Street, this is the result of several factors. Among them is the reliance on tax revenues to fund public education, which systematizes the funding disparities between wealthier suburban and predominantly white districts, and poorer inner city and predominantly black and Latino districts. Another factor is the tracking of students of color into remedial and other basic skills courses that hinder their chances of going to college. A third is the racist perception of some teachers, school administrators, and politicians that students of color are not as educable as whites, which has led to a "militarist obsession with 'security'" in many poor urban nonwhite schools (76-77). And a fourth factor is the No Child Left Behind Act's "real long-term agenda" (168) to privatize public education through school vouchers and charter schools. This has compelled public schools to gear their curricula towards preparing students to take standardized tests; as a result, developing critical thinking skills and actively engaging students in their own education is virtually ignored.

For Street, any plan to substantially reform public education must be broader than focusing on schools in isolation from the larger problems facing poor urban communities of color. In agreement with other education scholars including Richard Rothstein, Jean Anyon, and Christopher Jencks, Street asserts that any viable plan to remedy educational inequities necessarily has to deal with the "savage" economic and political inequalities in American society.

Street spends considerable time putting the Brown decision in historical context as well as discussing the court decisions since 1980 that have tended to undermine Brown's mandate. As American political culture has continued to shift rightward, school districts have become much less likely to voluntarily--or by court order--devise and implement desegregation plans. The result has been a significant increase in the percentage of grossly under funded racially homogeneous schools, filled with less-qualified teachers who expect little from their pupils. The students in such schools, consequently, produce less.

Street paints a disturbing picture of the contemporary state of public education, but many of his observations will not sound "new" to anyone familiar with Kenneth Clark's analysis of Harlem's schools in his 1964 book, Dark Ghetto. Referencing the similarities between Clark's forty year-old observations and the contemporary state of public education--the grinding poverty of urban ghettoes, the dangers of racially segregated education, and the inferior educational quality in predominantly nonwhite schools--would have brought home more forcefully Street's main arguments about the "savage" systemic inequities in American schools. Activists have been bringing these educational and social inequalities to light for decades. Street could have more effectively demonstrated how far we are as a nation from providing equal educational opportunities for all children.

Whereas Segregated Schools focuses on the unequal funding patterns between school districts and the racial segregation between schools and communities, in Unfinished Business Noguera and Wing emphasize the segregation within one particular school that results in dissimilar educational outcomes for students based on differences in race, class, language, and sexual orientation The editors begin with the premises that "public education is vital for a healthy democracy.... [and] that schools can play a decisive role in making our nation less divided and fractured on the basis of race, class, culture, gender, and language" (xvi). The authors work to make broad suggestions about the processes and prospects for school reforms that would close the racial achievement gap and ensure quality education for all children.

Unfinished Business is the product of a six-year research project at Berkeley High School (BHS) in Berkeley, California. BHS teachers, students, and parents, along with University of California professors and graduate students investigated and proposed solutions to close the racial achievement gap there. The researchers conducted their study at BHS for a variety of reasons. One reason was that in 1994 the New York Times declared Berkeley High the most integrated high school in the country. Also, the city of Berkeley has a history and reputation for being progressive. With that pedigree, what would it say about the pace or prognosis for racial integration and equitable education in American schools if the racial achievement gap that plagues school districts nationwide proved just as intractable to remedy in Berkeley?

The researchers compiled evidence to document that there was indeed a racial achievement gap at BHS in which black and Latino students, and those from socioeconomically lower-class families, suffered academically when compared to most middle- and upper-class white and Asian students. But in contrast to Street, who emphasizes factors external to educational institutions, the members of the BHS Diversity Project were concerned with critically examining the structures within the school in order to demonstrate the ways they contributed to, and perpetuated the racial achievement gap at the school. They examined several institutional structures that have been taken for granted as racially, economically, culturally, or gender-neutral and demonstrated how they, in fact, contributed to the creation and maintenance of virtually two separate high schools. Among the "school conditions that contribute to disparities in achievement," according to the authors, are "school size, the student-to-counselor ratio, procedures that are used to track students into higher- and lower-level courses, and processes used to provide academic support to students who are struggling" (31). As a result of the internal segregation that these conditions create, BHS prepares the majority of its middle and upper-class and white students to get into the most prestigious colleges in the country, while most lower-class and black and Latino students endure feelings of apathy, low academic achievement, and a significantly reduced opportunity to get into any but community colleges--if they graduate at all.

Over the course of its six year existence, the BHS Diversity Project produced some important successes including the formation and sustenance of two independent parent groups to advocate for black and Latino students. And participating in the Diversity Project was clearly a transformative experience for those involved. The editors admit, however, that they did not lessen the racial achievement gap at BHS because of opposition to some of the Project's proposals from middle- and upper-class parents, teachers, and school administrators--including ensuring that veteran teachers are assigned to teach students who are most in need; aligning graduation requirements with the California university system requirements so that more graduates would qualify for college admission (291); reducing the high turnover rates among principals and teachers; and imposing upon teachers some of the policy changes that might be most controversial to them.

The most powerful section of Unfinished Business was the final chapter, which includes former-student-participant reflections. The students eloquently and keenly articulate the injustices they experienced and witnessed while at BHS. They also demonstrate the importance of their participation in the Diversity Project, as well as that of student involvement in any genuine, substantial reform initiative. While the students offered their opinions as to how to improve Berkeley High, it became obvious that BHS and district administrators were not prepared to seriously consider student input. This was to the detriment of efforts to change the academic and social culture at Berkeley High.

This is one of the most important lessons of Unfinished Business: students can--and need to--be engaged in processes of school reform. The editors also make clear that educational equity is not only confined to class composition and teaching practices (although these are very important). Equity also needs to extend to course selection, department location, the dissemination of college preparatory information, and the mindsets of teachers, administrators, and students.

Both Segregated Schools and Unfinished Business are important works that will inspire lively debate about the legacy of Brown, the causes of the enduring racial achievement gap in public education, and how to eliminate it. These debates absolutely need to include students. Teaching Segregated Schools could be an effective way of doing this. The book provides ample data to dramatize the staggering disparity in the quality of education provided to different groups of children. Many students will recognize the current state of their schools in Street's descriptions and be given the tools to see their situation in a broader societal perspective. Street's language is also accessible to high school and college students and offers many issues about which students could debate in class. Unfinished Business will hopefully move teachers and administrators to take hard looks at their school infrastructures in order to ensure that they are not unconsciously perpetuating similar educational inequities.

Even though these books begin with different premises, they share important common ground: that the inequities in public education that negatively and disproportionately affect students of color and poor students need to be eradicated, and being successful in doing so is critical for creating the types of schools and type of society most Americans desire.