I happened across a very troubling article this morning in the New York Times. I live in Boston. I’m white. According to the most recent census data 54% of the population of the city is also white. At the time when our city was ablaze with busing controversy forty years ago well over 60% of the students in our public schools were also white. Today that number is less than 15%.
I’m the son of civil rights workers who risked their lives in Mississippi in the summer of 1964. That doesn’t mean much in terms of my racial sophistication other than the topic has been on my mind since the time I could walk. But the data in the article made me want to puke.
To me the epicenter of our future as a country is how we invest in education. Social mobility, rates of poverty, incarceration, and in fact our economic growth as a nation all depend on having an educated populace. And that is without regard to race.
The point of the Civil Rights Movement was that separate is not equal. So too was the supposed point of busing here in Boston. Yet we seem to be right back to where we started. The article points out that Boston spends $80 million, or over 9% of the total school system budget, moving 57,000 students who are almost all minority from one neighborhood to another randomly selected school which is often on the other side of town. And for what?
The real question is what happened to all the white kids? They still live in the city. They just no longer go to public schools. Antidotally, I have a partial answer. My son goes to Boston College High, a Jesuit school, in South Boston along with 1,600 other boys. Where the public schools are 87% minority, BC High is 87% white.
I realize the hypocrisy of what I am saying here. But I am not about to send my son to public school when he has the option of going to a school where he can learn how to be a good man (“a man for others,” as they say there) and receive a first rate education. But then if I, a guy who at least thinks about the implication of that fact, is unwilling to support the public system who else is going to?
I don’t pretend to have the answer here other than to say that busing didn’t work. The data here in Boston, and I would expect in every major city in the country, shows that we have a two-tiered educational system between that haves and the have-nots which all too often breaks down on racial lines. And as long as that is the case we are all in a heap of trouble.
Photo AP
About Tom Matlack
Tom, you and I have been in class together discussing this issue (with Bob Wood, former Superintendent of Boston Public Schools) and you may recall that I started out in the public schools of Boston before moving into the Newton schools in 1974, at the height of the busing “controversy” in Boston. In 1974, my dad began his tenure as one of the first African-American principals in the Boston Public Schools at the Thompson Middle School. I say that to say, I have long thought about these issues. Here in Montgomery County, MD, my son went to a truly diverse public elementary school and has just begun his middle school career at a slightly less diverse school. It is my hope that all the way through his career he (and soon my daughter) will experience education surrounded by those of different racial backgrounds as I did. All I can say, is AT LEAST you are thinking and writing about the issue. I wish I had the answers. But I have to wonder what is the tipping point in the minds of white parents that guides (forces?) the decision to move kids out of public, taxpayer sponsored schools and pay that private school tuition.
Agreed Dave. This is obviously part of a much broader conversation about what it means to invest in human capital in this country rather than trying to fight senseless wars in the Middle East. I know you are big Obama guy but to me the lack of focus at home while he has been doubling down in Afghanistan has me truly disturbed.
When I was born in 1973, my parents, who grew up in Brighton, were living in Mattapan. My parents decided to move to the South Shore, Holbrook, to be exact. At the school I went to in Holbrook, a Catholic school, I was the only one not born at St Mary’s in Dorchester. The South Shore is mostly people who moved from Boston.
If I could wave a wand and make an unrealistic change…I’d want to close all the private schools. White and wealthy kids would be back in the public school system and the racial and economic integration alone would be a positive educational outcome. Their families would not stand for the quality of education in many of the BPS high schools, and money and resources would come into the public system as a result. Then again…it might just make people move out of the city. Obviously that is NEVER going to happen but 40 years of “reform” hasn’t done much in terms of equity, so I think we need some creative solutions!!
My simple question to this: why? Why should the choices of guys like Matlack by limited just for the sake of diversity? It’s a nice idea, but that idea comes at the expense of the idea that Matlack et al have chosen.
By Matlack’s “idea” I think you mean sending kids to private school, right? Well first, diversity in the classroom benefits everyone and prepares them to succeed in a diverse world. And I think that all students – regardless of race, income, or family situation – should have the opportunity to graduate high school and go on to college if they chose to do so. As it is now, many low-income, students of color are excluded from these opportunities because of systematic barriers and years of institutional racism (less school resources in urban schools, minorities disciplined at higher rates and wrongly diagnosed with learning disabilities, high teacher turnover in “at-risk” schools, etc.). If we try to equalize schools in some way, marginalized groups might have a better chance at catching up to their white peers that, generation after generation, are doing better – and not because of effort. White and wealthy students are succeeding because their parents succeeded before them…they have a head start and continue to stay ahead. That’s how I see it anyway. I don’t think this equality will ever come but it’s worth working toward.
Please tell me about how a disadvantaged kid benefits from a more priveleged kid sitting next to them. Osmosis?
yup…
There is no way for you to equalize schools in any meaningful way unless you just tax the hell out of the rich people like Matlack. Even then, that might not solve the problem. As it is, Matlack and others like him are already heavily subsidizing other families. He sends money to the local government and doesn’t even use up any of the public school’s resources. The funding issue you raise doesn’t make sense. Schools spend more and more on a per student basis, yet they are not showing any improvement. You are basically asking white and Asian parents to keep their kids in schools with minority students. But those parents don’t want to do that because they realize that a school is not a function of its infrastructure. A school is a function of its students, and parents who care enough about education want their kids to go to school with kids whose parents also care enough about education.
You guys are starting at the end and trying to work backwards. Which is why these policies have gone nowhere. And that’s why the only solution you come up with is the severely despotic idea that private schools should be abolished. I suppose the internet and tutoring and music lessons and language lessons and math camp and all of these things should be abolished too. What is the end result of your suggestion?
My kids aren’t going to be the grist for your social experiment mill. I’m sorry that there is some kid out there who has had a tough life but my kids are not your tools to use to help that disadvantaged child out. I already pay more in taxes than my children will ever see out of the system. I donate money to my kid’s school directly. My older kids are still in the public school system (not in Boston) but I will pull them out the minute the school board starts making decisions that are suboptimal for them.
Fix the schools. People will come back to them. Treat the schools like a social engineering project; those who can will leave.
if I could wave a wand and make an unrealistic change, I would give every school age child a voucher to submit to any school of his or her choice.
No longer would they be forced to support a Union Shop…School. The poor would be able to afford a private school education with the money allocated to each student. No longer would poor minorities and their families be forced to put up with the public school systems.
They could send their children to a school that emphasizes discipline and is not bound by the policies in force at the government run schools.
-Jut (product of a racially diverse inner city private school-as far as you know)
My comment was deleted? Seriously? I didnt make ANY personal attacks. I didn’t use any discrimitory language. I did use a simple analogy- grist and mills. I stated that my children were not tools to be used to fix larger social issues. They are children and, as a parent, it is my job to do my best to give them the best possible start in life. I am not going to do less than my best for my kids just because other children have had a tougher start.
No, your post was held in moderation and the moderators will review all held posts, sometimes it takes minutes, sometimes hours.
Private schools aren’t better by virtue of money – public schools consume a ton of money – they’re better because they operate outside of the federal bureaucracy and are accountable to the parents rather than to politicians. Abolishing private schools would make public schools even less likely to try to compete on efficacy. Why bother when you’ve got a wholly captive revenue base?
I have some relatives in Richmond, VA. After desegregation, all the whites in Richmond simply moved out. The city was completely depopulated of whites. Now Richmond is an African American city in a sea of white suburbs. It’s really very stark. I don’t know what the solution is – busing clearly was a failure.
People living together and dealing with each other is probably the only solution. And I don’t know how you make that happen, cause you can’t force people. But racism and fear are alive and well. And it’s very sad.
These will sound like silly questions, but I really am curious about how race gets defined and used politically:
How does a school system “know” which students are white, black, Hispanic, Asian, etc.? Is there an application form that the parents fill out, they check a box, and now that kid is forever after a racial data point? Do the schools themselves put the students into those categories? How many students are “other” or “no race given”?
If I were a parent, I might just refuse to assign my kid a racial category. It seems particularly absurd for a kid whose parents are in two different categories – we’re supposed to force that kid to choose only one?
If we use census data to figure out the racial percentages of a city, then we’re now in an era where people get to mark more than one category, so the percentages will now add up to more than 100%.
” I don’t pretend to have the answer here other than to say that busing didn’t work. The data here in Boston, and I would expect in every major city in the country, shows that we have a two-tiered educational system between that haves and the have-nots which all too often breaks down on racial lines. And as long as that is the case we are all in a heap of trouble.”
Wrong, people like you who will instill some other naive and idealistic program are what will spell the next heap of trouble.
In my city we have similar trends. One driver I see- whenever a school is doing well they change the footprint to spread this higher performing population of students (who tend to be white and more affluent) to more schools thus bring up test scores in the underperforming schools. Then, the parents who can afford to pull their kids out of the public school system or move to another school pyramid.
My daughter went to a very diverse (income as well as race) elementary school in second grade. Although the diversity presented a picture of the world at large the less affluent kids in that school tended to have life challenges that I didnt necessarily want my 2nd grader exposed to. Call me elitist but I didn’t want my 2nd grader to have to learn about parents in prison (happened more than once) or be bullied for her lunch because another student was hungry (she’s too tough to be intimidated thankfully). My daughter’s presence at that school didn’t help those kids in the least. The distractions certainly weren’t helping my 8 year old learn. We do more for our community through our volunteer work.
In NYC, the schools are quite lopsided, too…the private schools are predominantly white…in one private school, the few Asians there are mostly girls adopted by Caucasian parents! Meanwhile, in the selective public high schools (which require a certain score on an entrance exam) the population is now more than half Asian with the rest mostly Caucasian….the number of Hispanics and Afro-Americans has decreased significantly since the 80s…this is front page news in the local papers (although it has been quite obvious to us alumni)…
I would just like to see Tom Matlack answer this question: why are the schools bad? You say we need to “invest in education” – but you do realize that all those white parents are paying taxes to pay for the public schools IN ADDITION to the tuition they pay for the private schools, right? And that it is almost certainly true that the public schools spend more dollars per student than the private schools do, probably twice as much if not more. So clearly the problem is not a lack of money i.e. financial “investment”.
So what is wrong with the public schools? And what is the solution?
The answer is that what’s wrong with the public schools is the students. Those white parents who are paying taxes to pay for the public schools IN ADDITION to the tuition they pay for the private schools are not paying for “schools”, they’re paying to send their good kids to school with other good kids. They’re paying to keep out the bad kids.
The only “solution” is for all the white parents to send their good kids to public school with the bad kids. Their kids will suffer as a result, and the minority kids won’t benefit much, but the “schools” will appear to be better because the good kids will bring up the average. That’s the only thing that will make the public schools better. In case you don’t catch my drift, let me make it explicit: THE ONLY THING THAT CAN “FIX” THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS IS EXACTLY THE THING YOU ARE REFUSING TO DO.
Please, tell me where I’m wrong.
What about looking into why some kids are “good” and some are “bad” huh? Perhaps it has to do with wealth disparity? Or assumptions about race and culture? Expectations that some kids (rich, white, suburban) are “good” and some kids (of color, less wealthy to poor, urban) are “bad.”
maybe if the “good kids” and the “bad kids” went to the same schools and their parents all actually worked together (even if it was scary at first to learn about people and cultures and norms different than your own), and lobbied to make sure the schools were safe, had healthy food, and good teachers, the entire school would improve.
Perhaps the “good kids” would learn that they aren’t unique and that they have things to learn from those “bad” kids and the bad kids would get some positive reinforcement for their talents and skills and lean towards succeeding on their terms.
But what that would mean is adults all confronting and dealing with social justice issues, race and class dynamics, living outside their comfort zone and an intense focus and support of the school. I doubt most parents are interested in that human experience for themselves (or it’s just too scary) nor do many have the time given how much work is expected from people out of their corporations.
I’m watching this experience happen in real time at my son’s middle school. It’s a phenomenal process. I know a lot of kids that are presumed to be “bad.” They aren’t. They are amazing, creative, funny, sensitive, and yeah, as they age? They get angry at the disparity. Some fight against it or get lucky enough to have mentors that keep them positive. Some do sink into despair. The kids know when the parents are invested. The kids see how the adults response to race and class affects them as they grow. They go ahead and live in the boxes of “good” or “bad” as we expect them to.
They pretty much all start out as limitless potential.
This country is extremely competitive and so parents think, “I’ll take my kid out of the worst situation and keep him/her with the “best” people”, which then teaches the child that well, some people are better than others. And so it goes.
Julie,
What incentive is there for the “good kids” to learn from the “bad kids”? Let’s just be honest here and we don’t have to focus on race or anything in particular. While yours is a nice idea, how much “bad” will the “good” kids and “good” parents put up with before they just throw up their hands and drop the notion of trying to work together for some larger good? Humans aren’t pieces on a chess board that can just be moved in one direction and forced to act in the ways that they should act if the system were perfect.
First of all, define what “bad” is? How are these supposed kids bad? What are they doing and why?
Let me provide an example. There is a middle school in our town in a lower income area. A while back it was decided to put a magnet school in the school so that it would bring these “good kids” meaning smart and affluent (and mostly white) to the school and raise everyone up.
But instead, there became two completely separate schools in one building, at one point with separate entrances. Mostly whites in the magnet, mostly children of color in the regular.
Separate PTAs as well as the magnet parents made egregious assumptions about the parents of the regular kids. So much so that assumptions were set that magnet kids could go on field trips and learn additional amazing things but it was assumed (without any reason) that the regular kids “couldn’t behave” on field trips. And then the magnet would get an 8th grade graduation but the regular kids wouldn’t.
And so over the last year there have been parents from both sides that realize this is bullshit and have forged one PTA. It’s been provocative the reactions from some parents, mostly white and affluent who really fear this. And it’s been stunning to hear the stories from the other parents who have been really disregarded and treated poorly.
It takes really hard work and it’s incremental and slow, which in our culture today means pretty much no one wants to do it. Much easier to just build private schools and hide away from the hard work of listening and witnessing each other and yes, learning from each other (as if the poor or people of color have nothing to say or teach? How insulting and sad). Much easier to just continue to build a division of people who are “good” and those other people.
(moderated
The way to make something better is to make it better so that most people think it’s better and be attracted to it for that reason. Diversity on its own does not make things better. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition. So called bad students have a stereotypical profile that influences their educational success: low income parent(s) with lower education, poor nutrition, poor sleep habits, less stable home lives etc. I’ve read many opinions on here on how we don’t pay attention to the educational needs of young boys, and how it is shoddy thinking to blame the young boys for their poor educational performances, and how it’s should be on us to improve the educational system to address these very real concerns. Yet, when the obstacles to success are mostly socioeconomic, then all of a sudden the conservative beehive mentality turns strangely funky libertarian. An evolved society values fairness and works towards that goal, even if individual acts and choices don’t always reflect that goal. Some of you seem to be under the misguided understanding that moral contradictions between acts and ideas signify that the ideas must be then bankrupt. They are not. And if you think that they are, I suggest you ask for a partial refund for your overpriced IVY school certificate, for you obviously were not paying attention during your moral ethics module.