Resegregation
Anyone who has followed Orfield's work knows that his Harvard studies have documented this resegregation over time.
Toward Educational Equity
Hi Faustine, so great to hear your voice again! We are all pleased that the "Journal of Negro Education" continues your legacy as former and influential editor. And greetings to those leaders who serve in the National Council on Educating Black Children (NCEBC). You are absolutely on target in terms of the resegregation of the nation's schools noted in your communication above. In our work with NUA we have experienced this resegregation firsthand from Seattle, Washington, to Bridgeport, Connecticut. For me, two systems in particular, which symbolize the resegregation trend are Birmingham, Alabama, and Wyandanch, New York. As we all know, Birmingham has a rich place in our nation's civil rights movement. Yet today, Birmingham's student body is virtually entirely black. Except for a precious few magnet schools, if truth be told, the city leadership has all but given up on the hope of integrating the schools. It would seem that Martin Luther King's words from the Birmingham jail ring as true today as they did then:
"In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed." -- MLK, April, 1963.
Regarding integration, MLK's disappointment still pervades this great American city. Yet please do not read the disappointment to suggest that the many Birmingham community leaders have given up on the hope of educating its students for the highest levels of intellectual performance. If truth be told there is renewed hope in the fact that African-American schoolchildren and youth will succeed in spite of the challenges they face. Clearly the leadership has come together under the umbrella of Birmingham City Schools, and the University of Alabama, Birmingham, to prove to those in power and those that shape policy, that black American students are as capable of academic success as any.
Wyandanch public school system on Long Island is a district of 4 schools. The district has been gerrymandered to isolate African-American students challenged by poverty. It is surrounded by some of the wealthiest districts in the nation. One does not have to dig deeply to understand the motives of the wealthier districts. However, the structural racism that created Wyandanch PS will not be allowed to deepen the despair of the students served by the district's educators. The administration and educational staff have dedicated themselves to proving to the political and business forces that created the district -- namely promoted by influential writers such as Charles Murray whose ideas have helped shape the course of history for Wyandanch students -- that their policies are dead wrong. Please understand that Murray, writing for the influential conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), continues to suggest in 2005, that: "It is time for policy analysts to stop avoiding the reality of natural inequality, a reality that neither equalization of opportunity nor a freer society will circumvent. Why waste resources on raising the aspirations of students lacking European ancestry, to see their aspirations dashed by the reality of innate intellectual differences?" Well, if those words are not motivating to all of those who read this e-missive -- I don't know what will!
I would add to the relentlessly tireless and influential participants of NCEBC, that it is necessary for all to understand how the policies have been developed. One might read Mark Dowie's American Foundations, to understand that in this book, Dowie In American Foundations, "...argues that organized philanthropy is on the verge of an evolutionary shift that will transform America's nearly 50,000 foundations from covert arbiters of knowledge and culture to overt mediators of public policy and aggressive creators of new orthodoxy. He questions the wisdom of placing so much power at the disposal of nondemocratic institutions." In the book Dowie notes the influence that conservative foundations have had on shaping national policy on issues regarding education and the economy (please read about Smith-Richardson, Bradley, Olin, Pioneer and the Scaith foundations). For your knowledge, please also know that Charles Murray writes and helps to shape policy from his perch as Bradley (the foundation) Fellow for AEI. The form of racism expressed in our nation can be fleeting, wrapped in a disparaging, offhanded word; or, it can be more pervasive, embedded in school gerrymandering and academic tracking policies.
Well, I didn't expect to be writing this much in response to Diana's charge to us to weigh in on Faustine's words, but write I have. Let me end with an initiative to suggest hope.
Wayzata, Minnesota, a very wealthy township in metropolitan Minneapolis, is collaborating on a voluntary desegregation initiative with the West Metro Education Program (WMEP). Rather than engage in a costly court case, Wayzata and nine other inner ring towns agreed to engage in a process to bus students from Minneapolis to these targeted districts. In an attempt to enable the incoming "underperforming" students to succeed in their new school environments, it was felt that all teachers would need to learn new skills in, among others, differentiated instruction, culturally relevant pedagogy, and the use of new cognitive tools that foster improved reading comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, problem-solving and inferential thinking. Using these instructional strategies learned through professional development, and combining with the theories of effective school practice (i.e., the theory and research of Ron Edmonds, as Chappie has reminded us in a prior e-communication to NCEBC membership), the districts are having great success in accelerating learning for ALL of their students (please see the journal "Voices from the Middle: Closing the Achievement Gap," Volume 13, Number 1, September 2005.
When we are able to generate successful data, the data will ultimately strip ideology of its power to influence public policy. Thank you again for your connecting leadership using the potential of the Internet to sustain and accelerate the impact of NCEBC as an organization!
Warmest regards to all,
Eric Cooper
ps. Please consider asking Asa, when he delivers an NCEBC keynote, to speak to how pernicious policy is developed and framed. He was the first to introduce to me the work of certain foundations in our work in the Virgin Islands.
Relevant quote:
"...the practice of true art is the practice of knowledge un-seduced by its own beauty. We should understand it as rational because whatever its origin, mask or style, it is memory, it is perception, it is imagination and it is knowledge. There is no combination more powerful than these four, and there is no void more dangerous to the human project than their loss."
-- from an unpublished speech delivered by Toni Morrison to Aspen Institute's "Ideas Festival," July, 200
Toward Educational Equity
Hi Faustine, so great to hear your voice again! We are all pleased that the "Journal of Negro Education" continues your legacy as former and influential editor. And greetings to those leaders who serve in the National Council on Educating Black Children (NCEBC). You are absolutely on target in terms of the resegregation of the nation's schools noted in your communication above. In our work with NUA we have experienced this resegregation firsthand from Seattle, Washington, to Bridgeport, Connecticut. For me, two systems in particular, which symbolize the resegregation trend are Birmingham, Alabama, and Wyandanch, New York. As we all know, Birmingham has a rich place in our nation's civil rights movement. Yet today, Birmingham's student body is virtually entirely black. Except for a precious few magnet schools, if truth be told, the city leadership has all but given up on the hope of integrating the schools. It would seem that Martin Luther King's words from the Birmingham jail ring as true today as they did then:
"In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed." -- MLK, April, 1963.
Regarding integration, MLK's disappointment still pervades this great American city. Yet please do not read the disappointment to suggest that the many Birmingham community leaders have given up on the hope of educating its students for the highest levels of intellectual performance. If truth be told there is renewed hope in the fact that African-American schoolchildren and youth will succeed in spite of the challenges they face. Clearly the leadership has come together under the umbrella of Birmingham City Schools, and the University of Alabama, Birmingham, to prove to those in power and those that shape policy, that black American students are as capable of academic success as any.
Wyandanch public school system on Long Island is a district of 4 schools. The district has been gerrymandered to isolate African-American students challenged by poverty. It is surrounded by some of the wealthiest districts in the nation. One does not have to dig deeply to understand the motives of the wealthier districts. However, the structural racism that created Wyandanch PS will not be allowed to deepen the despair of the students served by the district's educators. The administration and educational staff have dedicated themselves to proving to the political and business forces that created the district -- namely promoted by influential writers such as Charles Murray whose ideas have helped shape the course of history for Wyandanch students -- that their policies are dead wrong. Please understand that Murray, writing for the influential conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), continues to suggest in 2005, that: "It is time for policy analysts to stop avoiding the reality of natural inequality, a reality that neither equalization of opportunity nor a freer society will circumvent. Why waste resources on raising the aspirations of students lacking European ancestry, to see their aspirations dashed by the reality of innate intellectual differences?" Well, if those words are not motivating to all of those who read this e-missive -- I don't know what will!
I would add to the relentlessly tireless and influential participants of NCEBC, that it is necessary for all to understand how the policies have been developed. One might read Mark Dowie's American Foundations, to understand that in this book, Dowie In American Foundations, "...argues that organized philanthropy is on the verge of an evolutionary shift that will transform America's nearly 50,000 foundations from covert arbiters of knowledge and culture to overt mediators of public policy and aggressive creators of new orthodoxy. He questions the wisdom of placing so much power at the disposal of nondemocratic institutions." In the book Dowie notes the influence that conservative foundations have had on shaping national policy on issues regarding education and the economy (please read about Smith-Richardson, Bradley, Olin, Pioneer and the Scaith foundations). For your knowledge, please also know that Charles Murray writes and helps to shape policy from his perch as Bradley (the foundation) Fellow for AEI. The form of racism expressed in our nation can be fleeting, wrapped in a disparaging, offhanded word; or, it can be more pervasive, embedded in school gerrymandering and academic tracking policies.
Well, I didn't expect to be writing this much in response to Diana's charge to us to weigh in on Faustine's words, but write I have. Let me end with an initiative to suggest hope.
Wayzata, Minnesota, a very wealthy township in metropolitan Minneapolis, is collaborating on a voluntary desegregation initiative with the West Metro Education Program (WMEP). Rather than engage in a costly court case, Wayzata and nine other inner ring towns agreed to engage in a process to bus students from Minneapolis to these targeted districts. In an attempt to enable the incoming "underperforming" students to succeed in their new school environments, it was felt that all teachers would need to learn new skills in, among others, differentiated instruction, culturally relevant pedagogy, and the use of new cognitive tools that foster improved reading comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, problem-solving and inferential thinking. Using these instructional strategies learned through professional development, and combining with the theories of effective school practice (i.e., the theory and research of Ron Edmonds, as Chappie has reminded us in a prior e-communication to NCEBC membership), the districts are having great success in accelerating learning for ALL of their students (please see the journal "Voices from the Middle: Closing the Achievement Gap," Volume 13, Number 1, September 2005.
When we are able to generate successful data, the data will ultimately strip ideology of its power to influence public policy. Thank you again for your connecting leadership using the potential of the Internet to sustain and accelerate the impact of NCEBC as an organization!
Warmest regards to all,
Eric Cooper
ps. Please consider asking Asa, when he delivers an NCEBC keynote, to speak to how pernicious policy is developed and framed. He was the first to introduce to me the work of certain foundations in our work in the Virgin Islands.
Relevant quote:
"...the practice of true art is the practice of knowledge un-seduced by its own beauty. We should understand it as rational because whatever its origin, mask or style, it is memory, it is perception, it is imagination and it is knowledge. There is no combination more powerful than these four, and there is no void more dangerous to the human project than their loss."
-- from an unpublished speech delivered by Toni Morrison to Aspen Institute's "Ideas Festival," July, 200
posted by Eric J. Cooper at 7:12 AM
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