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Are we headed back to the desegregation of the 50/60's? How will the new Superintendent of Fulton County Schools help bring equity to a system whose disparity between North and South county is so great? Will North Fulton County be successful in their discussions to break from Fulton County to create Milton County? What would happen to South Fulton County when the money from North Fulton is gone along with the money APS takes from Midtown and Downtown?
The problem isn't unique to Fulton County. Atlanta Public Schools is divided between East versus West. Look at the disparity in the Ferguson schools (Normandy) in Missouri. Many attempts have been made to desegregate the schools in Ferguson, but are always met with hostility and anger from the higher performing systems to which the students will be bused.
Dr, Phillip Lanoue is our finalist for Superintendent. He has brought much recognition to Clarke County Schools since taking over as their Superintendent. He was able to draw national attention to Clarke County for their work on closing the achievement gap as a Title I district. Can he do the same for a district so divided by race, socioeconomic status, and of course APS?
How do we provide the students in ALL schools with the same level of instruction? How do we hire staff that resembles the student population? Should we be concerned that the staff or administration resembles the student population if we hire the best candidates out there? If our staff and admin teams do not reflect the student population at the school, how do we provide role models for the students so that they have someone that "looks like them" to inspire them to dream bigger? I am worried about the state of education today when it so clearly shows that where you live will be the biggest factor in whether you will graduate, attend college, or wind up behind bars!
I have been trying to get my principal to offer pre-calculus to our top students at McClarin without avail. We have students, who although they failed out of other schools, are testing above the 80th percentile in math when compared to other high school students across America in the same grade. Why shouldn't we be challenging them with a math course fit for their ability instead of only offering Advanced Mathematical Decision Making (AMDM)? Just more evidence of minority students not receiving the level of instruction best suited for them!
I did find this very interesting article entitled Segregation forever? from Teaching Tolerance. I also found it interesting that I decided to blog about this and suddenly I received the email from Teaching Tolerance, a post from Mind Shift (mentioned earlier in this post), and a cartoon about privilege from Upworthy. I guess I am not alone in my quandary!
Love your post, Tim!
ReplyDeleteI too share your passion for equal access and your disdain for segregated schools. I recently proposed an "indexed" (income-contingent) tuition plan to increase diversity at my school, which my board rejected. I was heartbroken. I firmly believe quality education is not just for white people, and I am outraged by the discrepancies in both the private and public school sectors. One quote from the article you shared really struck me:
"a 2003 survey administered by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation that found 60 percent of white Americans thought racially integrated schools were better for kids"
...Seriously? In the 2000s we're touting 60% as a victory???? That is shameful. I am embarrassed of that statistic. ALL students deserve more. ALL students deserve equal access. Diversity benefits everyone.
Thank you for taking a stand and for sharing so many helpful and enlightening resources!
Tim, so many things to think about in your post. I honed in on your comment about the teaching staff resembling the school’s population. I had not really considered this idea until a few years ago, when a principal whom I have a deep respect for told me that he could not hire me because I was a white male applying to a predominantly African-American school. At that time, I was teaching in a school with a majority African-American population, and our new principal wanted our teaching and administrative staff to be more reflective of the student ethnic make-up. I understand the need for kids to have good role models, and that it is important to have role models that look like us. I also feel it’s important to have diversity in your teaching staff - that students learn how to interact with people outside of our immediate family communities. The school in which I currently work is changing - little-by-little we are becoming more socioeconomically diverse - however, we have a predominantly white teaching staff, & it is my opinion that many of them do not know how to reach kids who are not like them. Approximately ten-percent of our teaching staff are individuals of color, there are a handful of African-American teachers, three in academic contents and the others are in special education. We have three Hispanic teachers, all in foreign language, and two Asian teachers, one in foreign language and the other in math. The remainder of our faculty and administration are white. As much as a faculty should provide role models for its students who look like them, it should also afford them the ability to learn from individuals from diverse backgrounds.
ReplyDeleteSince your blog, the future supt is no longer the future superintendent. It will be interesting to hear more about that. The equity issues that still exist within large districts is quite astounding. A colleague at GSU analyzed APS and found some pretty striking results.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.myajc.com/news/news/local-education/study-inequities-abound-in-atlanta-public-schools/ngRnR/
Since my posting Dr Lanoue has withdrawn his candidacy for superintendent. Now what? Also I was shocked to hear that APS' supt is considering farming out the poorest performing schools to not-for-profit charter systems! Really? What will a not-for-profit charter system do that APS cannot do?! Wow!
ReplyDeleteTim, I've not watched the news all that closely - honestly, it seemed like every time I turned it on it was a segment on teachers behaving badly...but, does APS' sup have a choice? When I was watching it sounded like the community wanted her to turn those schools over because her plan was to restructure/close some schools & the community didn't want that...
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