{"id":2559,"date":"2022-11-15T04:46:47","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T10:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/?p=2559"},"modified":"2022-11-17T08:42:39","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T14:42:39","slug":"school-choice-opportunity-hoarding-part-6-of-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/blog\/2022\/11\/15\/school-choice-opportunity-hoarding-part-6-of-6\/","title":{"rendered":"School Choice: Opportunity Hoarding (Part 6 of 6)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c<\/em>We\u2019ve tried: standardized tests, charter schools, smaller classes, longer school days, stricter discipline, looser discipline, tracking, differentiation. We\u2019ve decided the problem is teachers. The problem is parents. What is true about almost all these reforms is that when we look for what\u2019s broken we look at who they\u2019re failing: poor kids, black kids, brown kids. Why aren\u2019t they <\/em>performing better? Why aren\u2019t they <\/em>achieving more?\u00a0 Those are not the right questions. There is a powerful force shaping our schools; arguably the most<\/em> powerful force. It\u2019s there even when we pretend not to notice it.\u2026If you want to understand why our schools aren\u2019t better, that\u2019s where you have to look. You have to look at white parents.\u201d1<\/sup><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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image via newyorktimes.com<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Research has demonstrated over and over again that the most powerful method of closing the gap between black and brown students and white students is integration. And the level of integration required to make a noticeable difference in achievement is 25%; if a quarter of all the students in a school are white, that school will be able to pull in more resources for programs that benefit all kids and achievement for everyone will go up. But integration is not without its difficulties, and the newly-acquired resources and programs often reflect the values of the white parents rather than those of the pre-existing black and brown community.<\/p>\n

The quote at the beginning of this post comes from the podcast Nice White Parents<\/em> which examines one middle school in Brooklyn, New York and its long history with white parental involvement.\u00a0 In Part 5<\/a> of this series, we talked about New York’s position as the most segregated school system in the U.S. for Black and Hispanic kids. The school we’re looking at today was majority Black and Latino and mostly poor before 2015, when a group of wealthy, white parents came en masse<\/em> to the school because they weren\u2019t sure they could get into their top choices for middle schools.\u00a0 They believed they could marshal resources and make changes to the school and the curriculum that would benefit all the students.\u00a0 What resulted was a simmering frustration among the original parents in the school, and a fundamental misunderstanding among new parents of why there was widespread resistance to and resentment of such positive change.<\/p>\n

This wouldn\u2019t necessarily be of interest to education as a whole, except that the podcast also traces the history of segregation in the New York City schools, how school choice has exacerbated that segregation and forced schools to compete with each other for students (marketing!), and how the needs and desires of majority non-white schools and non-white students have consistently taken a back seat to the demands of white, middle and upper-middle class parents. The eye-opener here is that those demands took precedence even when the children of those parents didn\u2019t attend the schools in question.<\/em><\/p>\n

This podcast should be required listening for everyone trying to improve equity in schools and for every district leader trying to meet the needs of black and brown students.\u00a0 It raises some issues that are seldom talked about but absolutely critical. Here are a few things that jumped out at me as I listened:<\/p>\n