School segregation by choice

Thursday’s Oregonian published an insightful guest Op-Ed column written by Chapman Elementary School teacher Steve Brand, titled “The silent segregation of Portland’s schools”. It’s written in response to reports earlier this month about Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood parents petitioning the Portland Public Schools Board to change boundaries to allow children automatic admission to the school of their parents’ choice.

Mr. Brand writes:

“These families want their children to attend one of the largest elementary schools in the city (678 students), one of the most homogeneous elementary schools in the city (81.7 percent white, 0.4 percent English language learners) and a school with one of the highest SES (socioeconomic status) ratings in the city (0 title I funds, 12.7 percent free and reduced lunches).

In return, they want to abandon Vernon, a school that is smaller (404 students), more heterogeneous (12 percent white, 13.6 percent English language learners), and poorer (86.5 percent free and reduced lunch).

Following this model, especially given the gentrification of traditionally high-poverty neighborhoods, families will continue to flee their neighborhood school in favor of more homogenous and higher-income schools. The result is obvious: the segregation of our public schools.

But besides segregation, another issue arises: school quality.

Many families examine only published test results to evaluate their neighborhood school.

However, test results are not comprehensive enough to evaluate what makes schools excellent: high-quality teaching. The teaching at many low-performing schools is at least as good and sometimes better than the teaching at some high-performing schools. Test scores actually may obscure the quality of teaching at a school.

We might be shocked that high-poverty schools don’t need our paternalistic assistance. We just need to send our children to our local school, attend PTA meetings, join the site council, volunteer in the classroom and communicate with the teachers, principals and families from the school.”

I don’t think it’s quite that simple, although Mr. Brand’s point is also valid. High-poverty schools in some cases also need less interference (e.g., the continual reorganizations at Jefferson High School), and more top-down support in providing the same range of electives and advanced classes as are available at other schools. Part of that would come if more families chose their neighborhood school then parents joined the voices calling for equity in class offerings. But many of the schools already have active PTAs and strong parent advocates, yet resources are directed to magnet/focus schools drawing students away from neighborhood schools lacking courses I consider essential. Four years of foreign language in high school, for example.

I cut out another of Mr. Brand’s questions, for my own comment. He asks:

“When will those of us who move to diverse neighborhoods commit ourselves to the entire community in which we live, including its public schools and the people who use those schools?”

What Mr. Brand probably didn’t have space to discuss, is the rewards to families when they make that choice. The value to the school and the community is understood, and clear. It’s not just “the right thing to do” philosophically, it’s the choice of most benefit to YOUR children. I could not have imagined, when we moved into the Markham Elementary School area the year before Luke entered kindergarten, what a profound and wonderful effect choosing to send our children to their neighborhood schools would have on their lives, and mine. We haven’t only received excellent teaching, by educators who cherish and celebrate the multicultural environment and guide all students to achieve their highest potential academically. We made lifelong friends at Markham. My children and I have grown up in the melting pot of people living the American Dream in all its rich variety — its challenges and pitfalls, its setbacks and successes.

It’s harder to find and see that in schools segregated by race or income. And parents seeking a “better” school for their children likely can’t understand that, intellectually, because the heart and spirit can only learn it through experience.