All the research Mr. Edsall cites can be, if we care to think about it, summed up in Michael Harper’s poem, “American History.”
Those four black girls blown up
in that Alabama church
remind me of five hundred
middle passage blacks,
in a net, under water
in Charleston harbor
so redcoats wouldn't find them.
Can't find what you can't see
can you?
5
Simple. Make wealthy white liberals send their kids to public schools -- and that includes the hypocrites elected to office. The last President whose kids attended public schools? Carter. Almost 40 years ago. And the only one to do so in the last century.
22
I will agree with your numbers for Southern Cook country in IL
It is not racism that short shifts the black community , but plain old corruption and the same old power party (Democrats ) that has run Cook for 60 plus years. Using the African American community as a cheap voting block by providing just enough programs/money to keep them institutionalized poverty, but still viable voting blocks
Cant call racism when ALL of the villages and cities in southern Cook are run by Democrats , with vast majority of the elected officials being Black
6
These white savior articles always deny agency to African Americans. They must not "be segregated'; they must "be integrated."
11
Class matters.
I have family members living in the rural south who sent their kids to the local public schools through grade school. With the poor white people they found same problems attributed to poor black people. Drugs, crime, teen pregnancy, low achievement, etc etc. They noted the lack of interest that local parents (functionally illiterate) had in the academic progress of their kids. Many of the teachers were graduates of diploma mill colleges and were barely literate themselves.
Their strategy was to tutor their own kids and to find summer math camps and such to "enrich" their education. But at high school they had to bail out, because they feared their kids would never get into a college.
I'm not implying that racism doesn't create a burden--it does create an additional burden. But intergenerational poverty is such a destructive influence in education. Poor kids don't get what they need at home because their parents don't have it to give. We need to modernize our schools in such a way that we figure out how to deal with this entrenched poverty.
And any candidate who is willing to address income inequality, the root cause, will get my attention.
17
In the south suburbs of Cook County, Illinois (referred to here, oddly, as South Cook Sounty), I can tell you what happened...
When Mayor Daley closed the public housing projects, former South Side (black) city residents streamed south, into the suburbs. Some whites immediatedly moved to northwest INdiana. Many however stayed. Those who stayed watched their public schools drop in quality -- same facilities, same faculty (then), same tax base (until new residents voted against raising taxes in referenda).
What changed? The students and the family structure and the emphasis on education at home. More whites moved. And middle-class blacks who had moved south for better educations for their children.
As No Child Left Behind began to "grade" the schools, formerly excellent schools got F grades. That dropped the housing values. More Section 8 families moved in... Now, the only "whites" and middle class blacks who stay are empty nesters, and those unconcerned about the quality of the public schools. Many whites send their children to private schools instead of moving. Gays with no kids to educate buy in.
It's not white fear, or white flight. It's middle class flight. Because white people cannot solve the education problems in the black community alone.
When it is your child's quality of education at stake, you move to a good school, black or white. When blacks inherit middle class neighborhoods and schools, but can't keep up standards, everybody moves out...
18
Last month I was in the drive through line at McDonald’s (I know, I know...). When I drove up to the cashier she said, “Oh the lady in front paid for yours.” I was so amazed. I saw it was an African American lady who’d paid for my breakfast. We waved and smiled at each other. Then I paid for the person behind me. What a way to start the day!
“Hyper segregated neighborhoods” are a form of slave quarters. Trans-generational trauma perpetuates. Cycles of degradation, humiliation, despondency, resignation, fury and despair play out in front of our eyes. The “government” cannot change all this. But we the people, can. A change of attitude and an acceptance of something like holiness can penetrate the barriers. It’s already happening. We can do more. It feels great! The hateful talk running around will fly away from your life. Be kind to each other, every day, in the smallest of ways. Big mountains can be moved; it starts with you. After all we are Americans and we’re really good at this.
3
Performance in schools is poorly predicted by class size, teacher salary, school infrastructure spending or total resources spent on education. Teacher quality has some effect, but overwhelmingly the quality of schools is determined by the parents' educational background. If you want your child to get a good education, have them attend a school where most of the other children's parents have university degrees. Parents know this, and highly educated parents cluster in school districts accordingly. Is this racist? In practice, somewhat, but mostly it is classist. Educated whites avoid poorly educated whites almost as much as they do poor blacks. Educated blacks are welcomed into educated white neighborhoods. Nobody's burning crosses in the Cosby's front yard; a doctor and a lawyer make for good upper middle class neighbors, regardless of skin color. The real segregation is on income and educational attainment.
Small school districts and local funding of school districts is a real problem that would have to be fixed in state constitutions. Every child should receive equal funding for their education. It would also help to allocate 30% of every school's spots to a lottery open to any state resident. Asking rich parents to put up with 30% of their schools population coming from underachieving homes would probably be acceptable. Beyond that, rich whites will revolt. And don't ever suggest that rich kids should be bused to poor schools. That won't fly.
8
Even if one accepts the premise of Edsall's column, what is the real-world path forward in a city like New York? Only 15% of NYC public school students are white, and another 16% are Asian; 26% are black, and 40% are Latino (including Dominican and Puerto Rican students). Even if these students were evenly dispersed across all the city's schools, classrooms would approach or surpass the threshold for what researchers consider a "segregated school."
Put simply: there just aren't enough white and Asian kids to go around in New York City. (And that's if you accept the highly offensive perception, insinuated by writers like Nikole Hannah Wallace, that the purpose of white and Asian kids in elementary education is to serve as leavening agents.)
11
The descendents of groups that created and built the modern world tend to do better in school (which focuses on the relatively skills of literacy and mathematics). Whites and Asians are members of this first group. The descendents of groups which did not develop civilizations equal to, say, Europe’s level of development in 1500, do not do as well in school. Those with African or Mesoamerican descent belong to the second group.
Their academic underachievement is thought to be caused by various types of racism, segregation, generational trauma, lead poisoning, etc., none of which were an issue in their continent of origin. Maybe, just maybe, something else is going on here, something not unique to modern America. If so, busing and housing integration won’t change the situation.
3
Almost all neighborhoods in this country are segregated. Thought experiment; How many middle class neighborhoods exist in the United States which are integrated? In New York City there are essentially none. In fact most professionals of color choose to live in segregated communities of color rather than live in middle class white racist neighborhoods where they would be subject to racist stereotyping by white neighbors. There are essentially no African Americans living on the upper east side in New York city where I live. My wife’s Physiatrist who is African American and graduated Harvard medical school lives in Harlem. Why do we think this is? This country’s original sin has never been expurgated but rather has been reinforced over recent decades.The quality of my life as a person has been significantly, negatively impacted because of the zeitgeist of racism one must live with in this country. This country may eventually evolve into a society like South Africa. A minority population of whites who own the vast majority of property and wealth. And it will be no accident. An arc of justice has never existed in this country. Only sporadic attempts which have only temporarily succeeded.
4
Concerning the title of the column:
Integration vs. White Intransigence.
Is not that title, itself, racist.
If the socio-economic situations were reversed
would you, Mr. Edsall, expect African American Parents
to willingly and eagerly send their children from the better
and richer schools to the worse and poorer schools
for the sake of Integration ?
11
We could get a good idea of White Intransigence if we could enquire where Thomas B. Edsall himself lives. Has he chosen to insert himself into a poor neighborhood disproportionately populated by African Americans, Latinos and low-income individuals, so that he may contribute to ameliorating the effects of poor neighborhood environments that tend to compound existing forms of individual disadvantage, while enriching himself culturally and saving a few bucks? As with all such finger waggers all signs point to No.
12
A key point that many high school teachers know but will not tell you is that a desegregated school district does not mean the schools are desegregated! How is that possible?
Honors classes and college level (DE, AP & IB) classes are only accessible to higher performing students who are usually upper and middle class students - which is code for whites, asians and a handful of middle class Black and Hispanics. The other students - poor and under-achieving Whites, Black and Hispanic kids end up in 'Standard' and 'Remedial' classes. Now, what you do not want to read is: 'Standard' classes of today are the "Remedial' classes of the 1970's. Disgusting.
6
If integration is the answer than folks like Mr. Edsall should be in the vanguard of "woke" folk moving into predominantly black neighborhoods like Chicago's South Side or West Baltimore - but somehow I don't think that's going to happen.
6
So, then imagine - or try to imagine - what will happen to the children whom the Trump people have put in cages! And what should the punishment for those who are now caging children be?
Ignored is this basic question:
Why should segregated schools be a problem for black children? If the school buildings are just as good, if the teachers are just as good, then what difference should it make whether or not there is a white student sitting next to them?
Is the presence of a white student some type of magic potion?
If the facilities aren't as good, then make them. If the teachers aren't as good, then pay the good teachers more to go there.
Otherwise, the inescapable conclusion is that there is something toxic about the black culture that destroys learning in black children. And white parents know this--they see it. They see the murder rate is higher, the health problems are more severe, the single parent rate is higher, the work history of adults is less stable. As one teacher said: Give me a child with a father and their achievement will be higher.
Why can't that hypothesis that black culture is itself toxic be considered? Is it because it violates our liberal sensibilities? Well, too bad. Deal with it. If it's the truth, then ignoring the truth hurts black children.
There is no logical reason why integration should be good for black children if black culture is healthy. And if black culture isn't healthy, then why would any normal parent not want to protect their children from that?
15
I grew up in Detroit (born 1948). Detroit was a highly segregated city and I rarely ever saw a person of color in my neighborhood. My Catholic grade school was all white except for a boy who was a Palestinian immigrant and he hardly qualified as he was a white as many of the white kids. I was in high school at the time of the race riots, a predominantly black school, what am eye opener. I witnessed the anger. desperation, poverty and frustration. At the same time I had to listen to my bigoted mother and her parents rant against the black community. If I didn't know better I would have thought they ate their young, barbecued. My father knew better and taught me and my brothers to be tolerant.
And here I am its 2019, I live in Seattle which is about 66% white. I have neighbors of color more as a result of the influx of tech migrants. And now we have trump who is leading us backwards especially on racial integration and mutual understanding. Diversity is a dirty word to him. Americans of color deserve better, we all deserve better. I don't want to live in trumps world. I don't want to live in a segregated society. So I beg my fellow Americans of color to stiffen your resolve , ignore the calls "to go back to where you came from" . White people can be better than this. Trump will pass, he is not the Almighty and not immortal he will soon pass from office and eventually from this earth.
2
We can spin it any way we want, but what parents want most of all is for their children to be safe and to learn well. When the African-American and Latino crime rates come down to the levels of whites and Asians, there will be far less objection to busing as a tool for integration. Right now, they are multiples higher. Similarly, when African-American and Latino majority schools have performance rates that approximate those of Asian and white-majority parents, there will be far less objection to integration, and probably a lot more private school kids whose parents opt to send them to public school. I'll be the first in line.
12
As white parents who became disillusioned after their children transferred to inner-city black schools report in comments here, they were initially willing to give it a go. Motivated by doing the right thing, by expert opinions like those quoted by Edsell or simply goaded by school district policies leaving them no choice, thousands of white parents watched their children board buses which took them past the neighborhood school and to a different part of town. That experiment is widely disliked by white parents who participated in it, not because they are intransigent but because they saw harm done to their children.
Mr. Edsell doesn't present findings about white children entering mostly white suburban schools or private schools after years spent in the integrated previously black schools, being significantly behind their new peers in academic areas and skills. In fact, that topic does not receive the attention it deserves.
22
It is so much easier to yammer on and on about racism rather than come up with economic ideas that will raise wages. If workers could have the hope of making enough to support their families without having 2-3 jobs, they might calm down.
If our schools and justice system addressed violence more effectively we would have less of it.
6
@Liz
What if it were possible for there to be a full-time parent in the home again? Not for everyone, but as a cultural norm? Why not work to provide families with healthy communities where one-wage earners are the norm, and the other devotes time to child raising and homebuilding?
I think economically that is key. Making the children the center of attention in our communities again.
5
One place to start is an important change to rules requiring that developers provide a certain number of affordable units in new or renovated buildings. At present, most such programs allow the developers to opt out by paying a fee to a city, which supposedly uses the money to helps a build such units instead. The result is continued housing segregation by income, which as Edsall's article points out generally equates to racial segregation. Politicians don't want to eliminate the buy-out option because they love the pots of cash that come their way. The result is continued concentration of low-income housing, often in unattractive areas where land is less expensive, continued residential segregation, continued problems with schools -- and all that flows from it.
1
I have to chime in again because it is obvious so many readers think the explanation for the black achievement gap is that poorer school districts get less funding per pupil than richer districts.
That is not the case. Poor school districts typically get MORE funds per pupil than rich districts. Repeat: more dollars go to poorer students.
So many readers below have made the same comment about reforming the property tax system that it is obvious that there is misinformation out there. I think it's because certain social justice organizations have advocated for so-called "fair" or "equitable" funding, defined (by them) to mean that poor students need *substantially more* funding (in absolute terms) than well-off students to make up for structural disadvantage. In other words, they've moved the goalposts from equal funding to highly progressive funding.
But the fact remains that public school funding today is progressive. Slightly so, but still progressive.
See:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/06/how-education-funding-formulas-target-poor-kids/528741/
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/12/23/americas-school-funding-is-more-progressive-than-many-assume
https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-progressive-is-school-funding-in-the-united-states/
17
Being trained as a geneticist I am well aware that all humans on earth are very closely related genetically. There really are no "races". There are cultural groups that merge and interweave with each other. And as we all know different cultures do get different results. The conclusion to draw from that is that those american blacks who seem trapped in segregated communities with severe long term social problems do have a way out. Adopt cultural practices that lead to success. This is not so much bootstrapping as being self reliant and raising kids with values and attitudes that succeed. That is why I support Kamala Harris. She gets it. Remember that she pushed for parental responsibility as a key requirement. All people must be judged as individuals and what is needed to break the cycles of segregation, toxic environments and poverty, what is essential, is parents teaching and requiring sustained hard work, education and striving. Then adding outside assistance really helps.
9
@Federalist, you should also be aware that the genetic distance between sub-Saharan Africans and all other groups on the planet is greater than the genetic distance between, say, Chinese and Germans.
The word “race” has had different meanings at different times and has been used in ways we find offensive. That doesn’t mean there are no differences in the genetic profiles ofthose with largely sub-Saharan African ancestry and those with largely European ancestry. Those differences are obvious when we look at people and there may be differences affecting traits besides just the visual ones. Walling off these potential differences from open scientific investigation is wrong.
I do agree that cultural attitudes matter and that all people must be judged as individuals.
7
This is easy stuff when you're talking in theory, but Kamala Harris never raised a child.
6
One key idea here is that we should end the property tax basis for school funding. All school funding should be state based and per capita distributed.
3
Using research and quantification gives this discussion by Edsall a gravitas not often seen in articles for public reading. A profound tragedy hovers over this discussion on effects of African American segregation. I remember Mickey Kaus writing decades ago about outcomes of integrating schools in terms of maintaining a desired academic culture for the school. Our society needs Research to guide a return effort at integrating our education system and community.
5
Let’s remember what happened in Newark when they tried to upgrade the school system.
Mr. Zuckenberg, governor Christie, mayor Brooker got together to change the schools. Even with unlimited money and political support the schools failed.
Money and busing is not the solution. Parental involvement is
24
What seems most likely is that segregation is primarily based on social class. It is poverty, rather than ethnicity that is the driver of bad outcomes. Middle class people of all ethnicities often live and socialize together, particularly in large cities. In urban areas, poverty mostly has an African American face, while in rural areas, it has a white face. So-called "white flight" may, perhaps, be more accurately viewed as arrival of lower income residents to an area already in decay. It is the decay that induces the out-movement of middle class residents in search of jobs, which makes housing costs more affordable for lower-income citizens. Once started, the vicious cycle continues and may look like ethnic migration, but it is economically driven. This class effect would be more obvious but for the predominance of multi-generational urban poverty among African Americans and the lack of research in rural areas (which are more expensive to reach and considered less policy relevant). All to say, addressing multi-generational poverty would best focus on economic solutions, not shallow ethnic-based solutions; for example, it is well-known that lack of parent involvement in their children's education reduces performance. Why not set aside money to make it easier for parents to participate in schools?
19
@terrance savitsky I taught public school in Broward County, Florida. I found that poorer families could not be as involved in their kids’ lives, because both parents held down 2 or 3 jobs just to pay the bills. Some Chinese families run restaurants and their kids hang out in the restaurant. But that cannot be the solution for all kids.
1
Dont we get much the same results from economic (class) segregation? Most people growing up on the other side of the tracks are poorly prepared to get to the good side, and those growing up on the good side have an advantage in staying there. As long as there are poor neighborhoods with poor neighborhood schools, problems with equality will persist.
10
“Exposure to neighborhood violence..." wait, are you saying that black neighborhoods are more violent? Wouldn't that be racist if Trump said the same thing? And, if black neighborhoods were more violent, wouldn't it make sense for law enforcement to be more on guard in those neighborhoods?
22
@J Cohen:"are you saying that black neighborhoods are more violent? "
Only when it supports his hierarchy of victimology.
Otherwise, yes, it's racist.
Get it?
5
Good to know that being in an integrated school isn't going to increase my child's likelihood of poverty or incarceration. That's not really the standards most middle class or upper middle class families use as measures of success. I speak as a parent who took a chance in sending their kid to an magnet school with a majority of students in poverty mostly black and latino. We lasted 3 years until we had a bored and bullied kid who hated school. We moved to private school. Her teacher was a huge advocate for that since she felt she couldn't give our kid want she needed since the other kids were so far behind. One of the ironies of the situation is that the pricey private school is about 40% kids of color due to a very generous scholarship program. So, if you can pony up $30,000 plus a years you can get your white kid diversity without it impacting their academics (Read the sarcasm please)
24
I'd say good luck finding a "critical mass" of white kids to send to low performing schools, to sacrifice their quality of life "just a little, maybe" for the Greater Good.And if their parents don't want to send them, well, hm, maybe just force them I guess? For the Greater Good? What do you mean the actual number of white kids is decreasing every year? We need more for our minority schools!
We're at a sort of chicken and egg situation with this segregation, to which, of course, Asian students and communities are basically handwaved away. Did the behavior and the culture or the discrimination come first? As the studies posit, they're clearly reinforcing one another, but is the best way to try and break the cycle to desperately shuffle people around? Or should we address the elephant int he room, which is the toxic cultures of areas that self-perpetuates themselves? Ideally, you fix that, and it doesn't matter if schools are segregated or not.
22
Black Americans hold the key to black advancement in this country. It's called the two parent household. Black children are more than 3 times as likely to come from a single parent household than white children. And the disparity is even greater when comparing Asian households. If you are black (or white, Latino, Asian or any other ethnicity for that matter) and you want your children to do well, Rule Number One is to have the biological father be a man who will stick around and help raise and support your offspring.
29
"Integration works, but how do we get it to fly in the face of white intransigence"?
One way is to support Elizabeth Warren in her bid to win the Democratic party's candidate for president.
Senator Warren has a proven history of supporting integration. Her very first law review article, written in 1975, criticized a Supreme Court ruling that made it easier for school districts to stop busing children.
Along with Bernie Sanders she co-sponsored the"Strength in Diversity" act which provides $120 million in grants to support efforts which increase socioeconomic diversity, including busing.
Yes, I support Ms. Warren for President, and this is one of the many reasons why.
One of the major reasons holding back blacks from the full equality they deserve with whites lies in better educational opportunities.
I urge everyone to read Warren's "Higher Education Policy".
Our entire society improves when the educational opportunities for blacks improve.
2
@Richard Phelps. Supporting integration doesn’t mean that whites want the violence brought TO them. It doesn’t mean they want their kids sent to poorly performing schools. And it doesn’t mean you can be forced to live in certain neighborhoods.
2
Over my life I have found that people who live in segregated communities are more likely to buy into stereotypes about race, and those who spend a lot of time living and working with people from diverse backgrounds, do not. This applies to white people with European backgrounds and to those non-white peoples with non-European backgrounds. Strangeness leads to mistrust and false beliefs.
The economic stagnation that has kept people from improving themselves for four decades has kept people separated as they were half a century, ago. Measures like affirmative action and busing to integrate schools are insufficient as long as people find home is homogeneous culturally or ethnically rather than diverse.
4
@Casual Observer In case you haven’t noticed, there is no economic stagnation these days.
2
That's the sum up, as Edsall writes: "The very conditions liberals seek to ameliorate function to build opposition to programs that could improve those conditions."
The vicious cycle goes on. This is exactly the 'American Dilemma' ---to quote the famous book title by Swedish Nobel-economist Gunnar Myrdal. It now allows our racial problems to continue in various forms, blocking progress in many areas.
It's worsened by underspending by govt for education and social supports common to most other democracies. The country that underfunds public schools allows charter schools, and the highest college tuition in the world.
We allow paying for schools by local property taxes that entrenches unequal funding. And let individual states set their own policies, so Americans' rights vary by zip code, and thus 'Equal Protection of the Laws' is contradicted.
Now we witness the US president's direct, blatant racism, which he denies and then accuses his critics of what he's guilty of.
We witness Joe Biden, the Dem who polls highest against Trump, apologizing, finally, after refusal, for his very muddled, hypocritical positions on school integration and busing, and his tolerance for senator colleagues who were fanatical segregationists in our past.
Will all this cause more entrenched racism, that masquerades as something more benign?
Or might it, as Edsall says, "lead to a reaction against separation and segregation? That is what we have to bet on — and work toward."
@Meredith. The article hasn’t nothing to do with Biden.
An integrated school provides a richer learning experience for all. Good school attendance and healthy school lunches help academically. Addressing toxins leading to asthma and childhood illness is essential. Learning is possible but also a challenge.
1
Professor Massey of Princeton tells us that residential segregation is the lynchpin. If sociology were ever the painful elaboration of the obvious, this must be a prime example.
Anyone who took time to watch "The Wire" knows in vivid detail everything each academic quoted here has to say, and more.
I love Mr. Edsall for his academic approach to problems, but reading the academics quoted here validates the jaundiced view David Simon et al take of the academic approach to the problems of race, poverty, institutional and societal dysfunction. In this case, "fiction" is more real and accurate than all the foot noted treatises generated from Princeton to Stanford.
6
People like to focus on schooling as the main means of closing the gap because it nicely feeds into our ideas about meritocracy and personal responsibility. It validates the means by which white people have achieved. It lets us feel benevolent and maintains our position of superiority: "We just need to make black schools like our own, and all will be fine." Also children are by and large easy to sympathize with.
But I would argue the most important thing to focus on if you really wanted to get minorities on closer economic footing to whites we would look at criminal justice - in particular the prosecution of non-violent drug offenders. Putting men in jail decimates these communities and I have real doubts as to whether the "benefits" are worth the costs. But looking at criminal justice involves far less sympathetic subjects, considering the implicit racism in ourselves and law enforcement, and increased tolerance of perceived risk to our personal safety.
All to say - the school discussion is window dressing. Unfortunately that may be all we ever get.
2
@me
No. I said suffer PERCEIVED increased risk and specifically cited nonviolent offenders as those who I want to see left to remain in their communities.
I don't really know what to make of your response except that YOU were super eager to be incensed at the idea of more black people out of jail.
All the children of Poor Parents suffer from that Poverty.
If the majority of students in under-funded school systems
are Poor they are, on the whole, going to do worse on any
Standardized Exam
then the children of Richer parents.
There are far more cases of serious/dangerous disruptions
in the Schools that serve the Poor than serve the Richer.
Brown vs Topeka was a naive ruling and had its own failure
woven into its conclusions.
The Supreme Court should have ruled that all Public Schools
in the State must be equally funded and the facilities made
as equal as possible. And that every child was allowed to
attend their neighborhood school or any other school that had
an open seat.
You don't need school integration, let alone micro-managed
forced busing to achieve school integration as you did in
Boston where Judge Garrity ruled with an iron hand, while all
the while his children did not attend Boston Public Schools, as
the Parents pointed out, so who was he to tell them what was best
for their children and if his plan was for the Common Good
why didn't his children attend the Public Schools of Boston ?
Fund all Public School in the State equally and adequately.
Bring back discipline and remove those students who are
an open threat and intransigent. Allow students to
attend their neighborhood school or any school that has
and open seat.
Stop with all the Social Experiments,
and get back to Common Sense.
7
Where as I don’t believe in forced segregation, I also don’t believe in forced integration. People have the right to live in the best city, state, neighbored that their money can buy. I would hope that people will find the value in diversity and inclusion but I do not believe that government has the right to preclude people from free choice even if it’s a morally questionable choice. As long as people do not use force or fraud against others then they have rights lo live and associate wherever and with whom ever they choose.
21
I live in a majority minority county (where the total number of minority persons outnumbers plain-vanilla white people). As far as I can tell, most of our neighborhoods are mixed. I don’t think you’ll find an all-white ANYTHING in this county. Our schools are very good, because the county puts money and care into ALL of them. I don’t think we deserve sainthood or anything like that for paying for good schools; the county has money and uses it appropriately.
We’re very lucky in many respects. This is a wealthy county, with high property values and relatively abundant tax receipts. So I’m not writing this to boast; I’m writing this to say that integration is possible. It takes money and determination—and fair taxation practices that put revenue where it is most needed. Like any other desirable commodity, integration is not free.
4
The responses to this article raise really a fundamental question "Is there a version of America where minorities are really American citizens." African Americans don't want to intergrate for the purposes of being a part of the white community. We have our our culture and life. What many have been arguing for is equal education funding for all school, or steps to ensure that an equal education is available for all.
The response to article are surprisingly consistent, the answer to the question is no. Americans prefer a "winner take all" philosophy to education and equal access. Racism in this country in an incurable disease, future generations will not be cured of it, the disease will mutate and take new forms.
African Americans need to remove their children from the American Public School system and build their own. Most college educated blacks are graduates of Historically Black Colleges. We need to take that model and scale it down all the way to Pre-K. As a black parent who bought a house in an expensive area for it's school system, I want every child to have the quality of education that mine has. And working within the existing model isn't going to work. America doesn't care about educating black children. Those of us who love them need to build something better for them.
7
The studies Edsall cites interminably are not worth the paper they are printed on.
No scholar would ever generate a study that concluded that segregation was good. These "studies" are foregone conclusions. No university would fund such a scholarly enterprise again, and the researcher would probably have to turn to the American Enterprise Institute or the Brookings Institute for funding.
Integration is good. Forced integration is bad. Forced segregation is the worst--and illegal.
Forget these "hallowed" studies. Scrutinize the example of the most successful nations in the world by whatever set of criteria you choose--GDP, per capita GDP, longevity, literacy, educational achievement, quality of healthcare, quality of life, low criminality. Which nations come up over and over again?
The Nordic nations (Denmark, Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden), Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
These nations support their relatively small, homogeneous populations with universal healthcare and free or inexpensive higher education. Crime rates are quite low.
The world is a living laboratory far more illuminating than an academic study of a small population in a limited region. The United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, and France are all currently struggling with their own version of desegregation. The experiment does not seem to be working.
Focus on equal opportunity and reducing income inequality and let the chips fall where they may.
19
I think that most of us agree that schools with students from diverse backgrounds are preferable to the alternative. Many parents are opposed to busing, not because they object to racially diverse schools, but because they prefer for their children to attend neighborhood schools (which provide cohesion for the community). As of the mid-90's, less than 40% of African-Americans approved of busing as a means of achieving school integration. The percentage was lower for Caucasians (about 20%). If busing is an unappealing alternative, how are local school districts supposed to achieve the admirable goal of creating more diverse schools? One possibility is community-wide magnet schools that attract students on an "opt-in" basis.
6
@RebeccaA I went to fully integrated schools. Busing didn't start until I graduated. But the many negative comments about the total failure of this initiative has the ring of truth to it. There's no question that forced busing had a negative impact on neighborhood schools while making segregation paradoxically worse. The clumsy way it was implemented was a complete disaster. Any parent that could afford to pulled their kids out and put them in neighborhood private schools. All parents black or white, rich or poor want quality education for their children. That's it. All deserve it. Forced busing isn't the way to achieve this. Truthfully forced busing isn't what black America is or was asking for either. They just want their schools on par with suburban academies. The solution then and the solution now is very simple. Public school funding in most districts was and is based on proper taxes. If you live in a poorer district your school will get less funding. That's wrong. First, all schools have to get the same yearly funding done to the penny. Second, the schools that are falling apart need to be brought up to spec. An inner-city school should be indistinguishable from a suburban school. Third, we need magnet schools for those kids that excel in STEM subjects. Fourth any child should be able to attend any school in their district if they have room. This would solve most of the problems that forced busing promised to do but in the end, never did.
10
Bill Brown,
Intuitively your funding argument seems to make sense but you’ll see differences in test scores between schools in the same district with equivalent per-student funding. I don’t think funding differences between urban and suburban schools is the source of the problem and while schools absolutely need more funding, I don’t think it will result in equalizing results.
1
I've always wondered if the simplest way to solve the issue of school funding is to disconnect the current link between local housing districts and local school funding with a scheme that is more equitable. Make ALL funding for primary schools and high schools federally based and distribute them EQUALLY to every student in America. (No more siphoning monies from public schools to charter schools, etc.) This would create a radical disincentive for racially-based housing segregation and perhaps even organically draw parents of every background to different neighborhood schools.
Of course, there would still be some limitations. Parents who could afford private tutoring would do so and some might even contribute private dollars on top of their taxes (in the form of tuition, let's say) to ensure that their child can still claim learning in an exclusive environment for college applications. But that would be extra. Right now, what we need is the bare minimum of funds to be at a level that enables teachers to make a living wage so that they can afford to stay in underserved schools. They currently don't even have that choice, even if they wanted to do so.
3
If we want our students to perform at a higher level maybe the answer lies with Asian immigrants. These students perform better even when immigrant parents work menial jobs. The answer is not necessarily more money for schools but a culture that appreciates eduction. We need to emphasize and make parents cognizant that education is more than attending classes it’s also follow on hard work where parents need to guide and push their children.
18
Interesting that Quillian wrote, "Because poor neighborhoods are disproportionately populated by African Americans, Latinos and low-income individuals". This makes it sound as if simply being a member of one of those groups is cause alone for the problems. Many whites certainly view things that way, but the broader view is that these groups are disproportionately poor and poorly educated. If we can get whites to look beyond skin color, maybe they would want the same quality of education and access to opportunities for everyone.
2
Throw out the current method of financing public schools. Instead of local communities determining their school budgets, let the states allot the fair and equal share for each county, district and community.
2
@Richard: in my state, equal funding for all schools would hurt struggling districts most of all.
6
Racism is a fact: most Americans are racist, both whites and blacks. We need to live together but integration will not work; perhaps some form of separate but equal is the only answer.
3
@n1789
You say separate but equal is the only answer. What would that look like? On the one side the more fortunate and financially secure, on the other the less fortunate and poor? I'm sure Trump would love your idea and build walls all over the country
8
@n1789: Unequal in favor of schools for the disadvantaged. If the best schools physically with the best teachers and programs were located in disadvantaged neighborhoods integration would follow, slowly at first, but inevitably.
1
@Thomas Gilhooley No it wouldn't, many inner city school districts already receive more funding than suburban ones, and no sensible parent would send their kids to those schools regardless.
6
Ending de jure segregation was essential, and a substantial Black middle class has resulted and been able to extend geographic boundaries. But one result is that a Black middleclass leadership group is probably less likely to live among poorer Blacks. I would appreciate an analysis by Edsall on geographic stratification within racial and ethnic groups. That said, the Black middleclass faces residential prejudice today even more severely than the Irish and Jewish middleclass in the past.
1
A lot of academic citations to say what is obvious: this has always been, and continues to be, a racist country.
1
A lot of people continue to blame, their situations on everybody else.
1
Phew, these "reader picks" responses are all just "This is not about race and integration isn't a solution". In the face of statistics in the article that you all ostensibly just read. Which is the point of the article - faced with no repercussions for their own children, white people STILL would rather not integrate.
3
“There is a large body of evidence that shows that African-American children perform better when they move out of high-poverty areas into more middle class, less segregated neighborhoods,” said Captain Obvious.
And this is why the pendulum swung to Trump’s side of crazy.
If you want to tackle “white intransigence” then show me the large body of evidence of white children performing better in integrated schools because the painful truth is that while I wholeheartedly support every child’s right to a quality public education, I’m not going to compromise my own child’s education for the sake of anyone else’s. Couple busing my child to a low-income district with me paying high taxes, high home prices and a high cost of living to have acquired the opportunity for my child to attend a good school in the first place and you’ll know what angry white intransigence looks like.
40
In my city, the poor lived in sections with century old schools. To integrate, these schools were eliminated and schools on the fringes were turned into “magnet” schools featuring specialties like math or the arts. The poor were bussed out of the old neighborhoods. Integration provides a learning experience for all. My grandchildren live rural white areas and I feel sorry for them.
1
"I staunchly support school integration, but it wouldn't work in my daughter's school because...," he said. Or did I say that?
It astonishes me that this conversation even needs to take place. I guess in Canada we're more used to racial diversity. In Vancouver, for example, you see high school kids hanging out with friends of all races.
It saddens me that the US still struggles with such a basic issue because whites fear non-whites.
42
@LauraF
Same is true here, re: multi racial groups of friends, etc. Not significantly more nor less racism than in Canada or likely anywhere else.
But we have a racist president which has emboldened the racists among the citizenry and resulted in the conversation you are surprised is necessary.
7
@LauraF
Canada was the ultimate destination of the American Underground Railroad of escaped black African American enslaved.
Canada was the original destination of many Asian pioneers migrating to North America 13.000+ years ago.
How are the heirs of the brown First Nations doing in white Anglo-Franco Canada?
23
@LauraF Umm - even in Canada (I'm in Toronto) it's very clear that there's a neighbourhood hierarchy of white+asian vs. everyone else. All of the desirable neighbourhoods, with desirable schools are white+asian with everyone else relegated to pockets that are segregated.
42
Oh please, such handwringing and sweated brow over integration - listen it happens when it is natural and doesnt when it's not period. Such arguments and criticism also presume a lot, like but for everyone having completely equal situations there is the presence of racism and abject poverty and destitution will befall the victims. I have seen it first hand, plenty of inner city kids were bused to my suburban school and were surrounded by plush resources and bleeding heart teachers - guess what, they were mot miraculously transformed into saintly scholars -in fact they caused a lot of problems and were a nuisance and threat to me and many of my peers. No thanks - if you want to change the world by all means start in situ and then we'll see what happens.
28
Matthew Desmond's study "Evicted" about rental housing in Milwaukee lays bare the vicious cycle of temporary housing, profit motives, and dislocation in an urban neighborhood. The book helped us to understand, as parents of foster children when we visited many Section 8 apartments here in CT, and worried about lead paint, broken stairways, parks taken over by drug dealers, safe parking and other hazards, while the State deliberated in the courts whether the children should or could safely be returned to live with their birth parents. There were no easy answers.
1
I remember hearing complaints about busing from students of a local high school in town. What they didn't understand was Dwyane Wade went to that school from a poorer town, and therefore all of this town and basketball and philanthropy lovers everywhere did. When people come face to face with people from different backgrounds and interact in positive ways, it's very hard to feel hatred toward them.
School busing was a two way street. It seems that only one way receives prominent attention. Many white students were also bused, away from their neighborhood schools which had served their families for years, to inner-city schools to be integrated with those black students in whose neighborhoods issues of poverty and crime were prominent. A huge amount of work by academics focuses on the experiences during school years and afterward of those black students bused into white neighborhoods.
I encounter little very study about the experiences and outcomes for white students bused to integrate previously all black schools. Not all of them fled to private schools. What happened to them? Is the experience and outcome for one group of more importance than for the other?
20
It appears that your question about the impact on white kids of being bussed into predominantly black schools was answered by the authors of one of the studies quoted in the article. The following is from the article:
“Both white and minority students score lower on high school exams when they are assigned to schools with more minority students. We also find decreases in high school graduation and four-year college attendance for whites, and large increases in crime for minority males.”
21
Segregation is often chosen for many reasons. Poverty and cultural/ language inclusion among the main reasons. The kids in those areas suffer all the negative aspects of poverty: crime, no parents, early birthing, second language learners, zero reading materials in homes, incarceration of guardians etc.,homelessness, Mixing a few of those kids into an area of higher wealth causes those few kids to possibly do better - but often mostly because the guardians are motivated for the kids to do better. Once a majority of the kids are from areas of poverty scores and outcomes plummet for all - it is because of all the variables which surround poverty. Having white or Asian kids in the class doesn't magically fix things for the kids in poverty. It usually means they are taken out of the soup and spiral of poverty. Notice I use the word GUARDIANS - it is because I taught in an area of minority poverty for 27 years and many of the kids do not have parents. They are so, so desperate. It has nothing to do with color. And the demographics are changing - there aren't enough white and Asian kids to go around any more to "Balance" out the children in poverty who often are of color.
12
The evidence and expert opinions assembled in Mr. Edsall's column is disheartening, and the comments I've read (not All but mostly from Reader Picks) are doubly disheartening. So many use the gambit, "Integration is a worthy goal, BUT . . .). It is clear that all the methods and programs developed in the 60s and 70s to achieve racial integration have been, at best, marginally successful. But is anyone advocating a return to large-scale "busing" to integrate schools? There is no way that old-style social engineering programs can overcome racial prejudices and the social engineering that is imposed by economic forces -- reinforced in many ways by our deeply flawed democracy.
I do believe, however, that there is a way out from under the present regime in Washington, D C. Let's all pay attention to the alternatives that are being offered.
This points to the bleedingly obvious need to reform how we fund schools. When it's done mostly with local taxes, a low-revenue district, i.e., poor and often heavily non-white, is going to have less revenue to support their schools. This directly contributes to the vicious cycle Mr. Edsall reports.
But there are African-Americans who get out of this cycle. Let's study what they did to break the chain.
I expect we will find that they harnessed familial resources, ones for which no government program no matter how well intended can replace. I bet they were mostly raised in an intact family with a mother and father at home who disciplined them and demanded that they excel in school and put together plans to get out of the cycle we're talking about. They did this in spite of the legacy of slavery and institutional racism.
To solve this problem we're going to have ask more of our fellow citizens and our government, and more of the people we wish to raise up.
8
"Once a large black population is highly segregated in an urban setting, Massey continued, 'it becomes very difficult to move toward integration because segregation perpetuates the neighborhood conditions that sustain the negative stereotypes.'"
Horsefeathers! White people moving into black neighborhoods is so common that we have a word for it: "gentrification". Whether its the north Manhattan or South Philly, the composition of neighborhoods change. And for all the frothing, the result is integration: black and white people living together in the same neighborhood with kids sharing the same schools.
25
@Charles: the white people who move in by and large don't send their kids to school with the kids who already live there.
6
Racism is a tool of divide and rule for the rich rulers, like anti-semitism, and too useful to be abandoned voluntarily. Today schools are the most segregated since Jim Crow, through the use of private schools. Separate and Unequal rules the land on two planes: class and race. The only effective remedy for both would be to ban any private education. The white children of the rich would have to go the same schools as the children of the working class. Undoubtedly the needed massive funding for education for all would immediately appear. This would enable the necessary movement of students to achieve a representative balance of students, and a massive improvement of the schools. Better schools for All! Ban private schools! End separate and unequal education!
3
@AR
So...your proposed plan to integrate schools is to make all whites of means home school their children? Or will you outlaw home schooling too? While your at it, whites might move away so you better take title of all homes, this should prevent anyone from moving. Should probably take all private ownership away. Take over the means of production. The more I think about your plan the more likely I think that the current crop of progressive presidential candidates are to embrace this.
8
The entire strategy of the GOP Necons since 1980 has been to impoverish the already poor, drive them to extremism, and then use the resulting chaos to argue for more pressure, punishment and prisons.
The same strategy has been employed to demonize relatively secular regimes in the Middle East and to protect the most barbaric ones.
The strategy is so transparent as to escape the attention of only the most intellectually challenged among us. The policy is self-defeating, so U.S. domestic and foreign policy creates no winners, only losers.
4
Trumps call "to go back to where you came from," finds its perfect mirror in his attempts to keep white America "pure" and "uncontaminated" by other racial groups. It is no accident that the four congresspersons to whom he refers are all persons of color. As he sees it these groups (and persons) have absolutely noting of value to contribute to the American mix. His call to 'Make America Great Again" is at its root a clarion call to racism in its most ugly form.
2
integration might be beneficial for blacks but it is deleterious for whites. Sorry, but all the Kumbaya (sp ?) in the world can’t hide the fact that blacks are much more disruptive than whites and Asians (on average), and cannot perform on the same level as other groups at this point in time. Then comes the uproar from the never-married mothers, who are FAR less involved with this
particular child, that their precious kid is being treated unfairly due to skin color. And most importantly teaching must be dumbed down and Asian and white and East Indian kids are bored. Then when advanced courses are established and blacks are rare as hen’s teeth accusations of racism are leveled.
The best approach to solving the racial disparities in academic performance is to have the guts to criticize BLACK behavior where it contributes to poor performance. Studies show that single parent families correlate strongly to disrespectful behavior. When with The NY Times take black fathers to task for producing children they don’t live with ? And bemoan the dearth of black parent(s) at PTA meetings ?
Bottom line — The NY Times always asserts that there needs to be a change in white behavior to make things better. The uncomfortable truth is that changes in black behavior are what is needed.
63
@HBomb It’s called a cycle of poverty for a reason. It’s not merely a matter of holding certain people (black people?) to task for their behavior. Did you actually read the article? People born into these neighborhoods are disadvantaged from the time they are in the womb. The cycle will be broken through policy changes, not merely individual efforts. Just like obesity, opioid addiction, etc. We like to blame all these ills on individual behavior, but it’s not like willpower just disappeared within a few generations and that’s why we all got fat. It’s systems and institutions that govern these things more than individual behavior. I know that flies in the face of the American myth of rugged independence, but it’s a fact. Most people will do quite well if put in the right environment.
6
K-12 school focused solutions like busing ignore the decades of research on child cognitive development that indicate differences start well before our public schools do. Healthy women in control of their reproductive choices, adequate healthy food for infants and children, competent child care and developmentally appropriate early childhood education all help develop healthy brains that can be taught persistence to task, organization and control of impulses and emotion, skills needed to learn ( and incidentally for competent adult workers.) But women's health care is now a religious war and support for working families is too expensive and a "burden" on business so none of these things will get done. Just sayin' - poor black kids did not make any of those "choices."
5
Of course, the question of WHY schools in minority areas are so bad in the first place.
Why? Because there are so few businesses (jobs) and homeowners from which to receive taxes.
Why? Because the majority of the inhabitants are on some form of welfare. The incentives to work, make money, and pay taxes (partly to support local schools) is non-existent. No, I don't blame minorities; I blame the government for creating such a toxic DISincentive system.
Dump welfare, slowly and kindly, but the effects of welfare of pernicious and long-lasting.
11
The road to integrated schools is difficult, but the very first step on that road to better outcomes for all students can happen today; we need to change the story we tell about what constitutes a “good” school. Currently, even my progressive friends refer to test scores and school rankings to decide where to buy a home. In reality, test scores are a reductive, unsophisticated measure of school quality that correlate with income rather than the quality of curricula and teachers. Most troubling is that scores serve as a de facto form of redlining. A more accurate, research-based story recognizes that all students benefit from attending truly diverse schools. Schools where most families lack financial and educational resources struggle to provide a quality education. Conversely, schools where a majority of families are white and wealthy are full of anxiety-ridden students struggling to pursue a narrowly defined path to success. I was fortunate enough to attend an integrated high school in the 70s. At my recent reunion, I noted that classmates of all races and backgrounds had gone on to lead fulfilling lives. I wanted the same opportunity for my daughter, so she attends a diverse school where students learn to value people from all walks of life and appreciate multiple perspectives. The school also offers a challenging curricula and outstanding teachers. While the test scores are average, it’s a great school by any meaningful measure. C’mon people. It’s time to change the story.
3
Solution No. 1 : Raise wages. Forcibly, if we have to.
3
Liz- this is the only solution.
I wonder how long it will take for the realization that shouting, “Racism!”, however gratifying,
Does not improve conditions socioeconomically, for anyone.
4
I am a little older that Ellar from Oregon, but concur with his assessment. In the 60s we didn't ask for proximity to white people, we asked for equality.
9
I work at a school that is Title One where over 70 percent of the children receive free or reduced-fee lunches. The student population is about 50 percent Latinx, 20 percent Black, 20 percent White and 10 percent Asian.
There are schools located in wealthier and whiter neighborhoods in my school district. These schools are majority white - 90 or 95 percent white. These schools don't get more funding from the district than mine does. However, what they do get is donations from parents - who can donate many hundreds and even thousands of dollars to fund para-educators. These schools in wealthier neighborhoods have two adults in each classroom - a teacher and an aide. The aide is paid entirely for by the parents. My school only has one adult per classroom - the district paid teacher. And it makes a huge difference in the outcomes. The wealthy school parents can also purchase extra books for the library and better playground equipment and newer technology for their school. This too makes a huge difference.
10
I attended an international school in Belgium as a child and had no problem with people from other ethnic groups. Very healthy environment, outside of some tension between the Flemish and the French. In the U.S. however, the paltry nature of the social safety net and the oligarchical nature of Republican rule has created a condition of a lot of groups scrambling for the crumbs left by the upper class. I find that people in general self-segregate and are tribal in this country. Vote progressive, America. Stop shooting yourself in the foot.
6
@Eugene Debs
No way - NYC spends the highest per capita on students with abysmal outcomes - and that doesn't include all the social safety net programs.
29
It does not.
1
It's natural and inevitable that families want the best possible education for their children. Here in China, the neighborhood school is a key driver of local property values - families will pay a ton just to leave in small dump of an apartment if the local school is highly rated. And race isn't even an issue here.
I think it would be more effective to require more equitable funding of all public schools. Property values shouldn't determine a school's budget - it should come from a general fund. I know it would be wonderful if white people loved integration and welcomed it in their neighborhoods and schools. I wouldn't hold my breath on that.
6
@David
There are various state and federal mandates and subsidies that equalize funding per pupil across school districts. The Economist did a good series on this a while back.
Many poor districts in many states have the highest per pupil expenditure. As I recall, different states spend more or less, but within states it is largely level.
9
You wrote, "Property values shouldn't determine a school's budget". Where else are the funds going to come from? Even if you have a "general fund", the money still has to be extracted from taxpayers who are willing to pay a lot of money to live where the schools are good. Otherwise, they'll move elsewhere... meaning that there will be fewer funds available.
2
I would be interested in seeing the academic results of low income white schools and low income black or hispanic and asian schools. Control for family structure and school spending per pupil (single parent or two parent). That would point us to know if it is household income or not. There are plenty of high crime low income white neighborhoods in the U.S. -- just not on the east coast near the media.
12
No one cares about poor whites.
They are dying deaths of despair in epic numbers.
Taking the name of the Sackler family off of some museums does not replace the massive theft of wages and self respect endured by the selling out of the working class to create some international billionaires.
Trump, falling life expectancy, deaths of despair- it is all down to the 40 years of wage theft, endured by the working class of this nation, and we are of all skin tones.
Keep ignoring us, we can all read now- some of us even read this newspaper, every day now that we are unemployed.
8
The schools in high crime low income white neighborhoods are terrible.
2
Integration works. Says who? Most people are more concern with quality than race.
15
Are these recurring segregated strata in housing and education really about racism, or is it just tribalism? If we want to equate tribalism with racism, that's fine, but then everybody's a racist! The only thing that will change that is time, not a bunch of academics loaded up with statistics or a government edict. That doesn't mean we shouldn't seek new solutions to the issue, but we need to be realistic about it also. We are just going to have to evolve from some of the things ingrained from our primitive beginnings.
5
Unfortunately, white racism has become entwined in housing segregation with class prejudice. The most segregated areas by race are likely to be highly segregated by class as well. The change in results for whites would be consistent with the way that wealthy, mostly white people have made a very successful effort to garner a greater share of income and wealth in recent decades. At the same time, the old strategy of rich white people trying to pit poor whites and all black people against one another has been revived (and I don't think it's an accident that we've seen this at a time when the successors of the old white Southern Democrats have taken so much control over the Republican Party). It's true that at all income levels, white Americans are very prejudiced, but it's that much harder for them to outgrow their prejudice when it's being fed deliberately.
2
thank you
This article points to the failure of our economic system It is rigged by those who have more opportunity.
Until our Government does something to level the playing field and so long as parents continue to teach their children to hate those not like them this problem will persist.
3
Mr. Edsall, your opinion is full of academic comments and stats to support its arguments. However, in this situation, I believe the academics cannot see the forest for the trees. What I mean by that is if we fix education we will take a big step toward fixing segregation. That is because, well educated poor and minority children will have the tools to move up and out of the social economic conditions into which they were born.
Education, like most things in this country, is all about the money — who pays and who benefits. Paying for educating America's children based on local property taxes is outmoded and not suitable for an industrial/information-age society. What is needed is a national tax that is used to ensure each neighborhood school is resourced equally. Facilities, equipment, teacher salaries, etc. would be uniform across the nation — a level educational field. To pay for equal opportunity education for all I would implement a transaction tax on the sale of stocks/bonds and tax executive bonuses.
My guess is that the biggest objection to equal opportunity education for all of American's children will be the fear of the middle class that their kids will face increased competition for college, jobs, etc. if the pool of well educated kids is expanded by educating the poor and minorities to their full potential.
If America can fix its education problem it will be taking a big step with fixing its segregation problem.
6
In my opinion if we ant to close the achievement gap we need to address support services.
My kids are high achievers because they have a support network that checks in daily to ensure homework is completed, child attends class daily and tutors are available on demand. We eat dinner as a family every night, at the table and discuss current events and personal issues - every day. We address academic issues before they become huge problems and devise studying plans, test prep and needs as they arise. My kids know what it takes to get the work done and they know how to navigate the bumps in the road.
Neither my husband nor I had this support in the home we were raised in and our jobs and education achievement reflect that. Hard work got us into the middle class. To help our kids stay in the middle class we know we need to do more than our parents could or would.
25
Let's be friendly. "It's the economics, Cupid!" We are looking at two distinct issues; integration and economic status. They overlap. From the report: “Blacks and Hispanics continue to live among more disadvantaged neighbors, to have access to lower performing schools, and to be exposed to more violent crime.” From the author: These differences, in turn, reinforce both the race prejudice and the stereotypes that drive many whites to oppose government action to achieve integration. I have amended that: These differences, in turn, reinforce both the race prejudice (observations and opinions of many whites) and the stereotypes (behavior of many blacks) that drive many whites to oppose government action to achieve integration. Then amended it again: These differences, in turn, reinforce both the observations and opinions of many whites and the behavior of many blacks that drive many whites to oppose government action to achieve integration.
I am Irish-American and was born in 1946 in the Bronx. I grew up in an Irish-Italian neighborhood. My parents were from an Irish neighborhood. The Irish and the Italians didn't always get along. Things change. First the neighborhood changed then behavior changed. My first girl-friend was Italian. Only one of my five siblings married an Irish girl. The neighborhood became more ethnically integrated with people in a similar economic status. Integration follows economics. It's the economics, Cupid!
5
As long as there is poverty, there will be issues with parenting, race, and education. Busing and forced integration do little to sole any of those issues in the long term. Sociology 101.
6
Instead of busing kids, why not provide counselors, therapist and good quality schools in every neighborhood.
Many families are plagued by sickness (physical and emotional), addiction and general anxiety all over the country, so the children bring the stress to the school.
Make classrooms smaller and stop the insane idea of grouping kids together by age as opposed to grouping kids by their progress in school.
Back in the 1980's teachers and administrators decided to put kids with challenges in classrooms with kids who were functioning on or above grade level because it was politically correct to make slower performing kids think that they were "just as capable" as the next kid; this was a disaster; it just slowed the entire class down to the level of the slower kids.
Just fix all schools; many schools in big cities are repulsive and unsafe because the schools are old, unsafe, falling apart and just plain unappealing for anything but to run from.
No one can learn in such an environment.
10
The Republicans, starting with Sunny Reagan, artfully pitted middle class whites against even middle class blacks. This left Republics rich buddies holding all the wealth without a fight. Whites, especially rural whites, burn themselves with their attitudes, unable to see common cause with their black and Hispanic brethren.
3
Reading this, it sounds more like a poverty problem not a race problem. But, of course, that would violate Progressive dogma that everything is white racism's fault.
39
@QED
Nope, it isn't due to Progressive's dogma of racism.
It's due to Republicans fear of universal healthcare, a livable minimum wage, adequate education funding, and of course part of it's due to racism.
6
Ugh, whites and their white intransigence. Why can't white parents just accept the fact that their children will experience "little or no harm" from attending schools with more minority children - including (from the article) "scoring lower on high school exams when they are assigned to schools with more minority students... decreases in high school graduation and four-year college attendance for whites, and large increases in crime for minority males"?
22
@frank
Ugh, you generalize like the author of the article. Most “whites” are not opposed to being in school with kids of other skin colors. They are, however, opposed having their kids be in school with kids and parents who don’t value education and civility— no matter what their racial background.
12
Here's how a white parent might view this: An elect group of wise persons, often called Liberals, want to send children from broken homes and broken subcultures to my school so that we can fix them. It's my responsibility, as a white person. The fact that many of those kids will bring behavioral problems that could affect my child in adverse ways, perhaps seriously adverse ways, is beside the point. This is a burden I must bear because of the actions of my ancestors. Who am I to value my child over theirs. A racist, apparently.
53
@BarrowK
If this country wasn't founded on racism, white folks wouldn't have these profound thoughts to think about. Trump, Regan,Wilson. Washington, Eishenhower built a massive highway cutting up minority communities all of them created policies to keep minorities from achieving the American Dream.
I don't want my children being exposed to the thought process of small minded white racist bullies.
So call yourself whatever you want to. Realize I don't want my children to have to deal with yours and the hate that is represented by white America.
After yesterdays sterling performance by the GOP,Barr,and the Racist in charge we all know racism when we see it.
Just live your life without any burdens because I know I am not defined by white people.
4
@BarrowK
Here's how a smarter white parent would view it.
1) We need to provide a livable minimum wage so we can eliminate child poverty, regardless of race. (There are a lot of white children living in poverty).
2) We need to provide universal healthcare so we don't impoverish people due to illness, also a healthy population requires less healthcare and is more productive. ( Both benefit the economy).
3) We need to provide more funding to education, as the US is lagging far behind many other nations on this issue. This reduces crime, increase economic performance.
4) We need to stop teaching our kids that someone who looks different from us is different from us. We lose a lot of learning opportunities through racism.
2
@BarrowK,
Fellow Heel er,
Isn't it curious that the very areas where poverty and poor schools are predominant are the areas where there are liberal politicians who are elected for life; these Representatives are elected for 40 years with no primary opponents.
When I lived in the Bronx, the Representative NEVER changed; he is still a senior Democrat in Congress; 15 years after I moved away.
9
I did not know that the liberal social science academe had such a clear, evidence based understanding of how well segregation works for whites.
6
Such nonsense
First human being do not want to integrate. In the most diverse places, the most liberal, s huge majority live in basically one race neighborhoods, or living on one race streets.
Second, integration does not improve the overall performance of a school. Every school with large poor populations deal with massive distractions every day. Misbehavior, violence, disruption. Go to any school with a large black population and you hear the n-word every hour. Go to any school with a large poor population and you find people massively gaming the system.
We can all have a pity party. But in fact schools would be better off if there were strict performance and behavior standards and those who cannot meet them went into the fields to pick berries and onions
21
“Can’t see find what you can’t see can you?”
Thomas Edsall quotes Stanford race expert Sean Reardon, who claims “racial intolerance (and outright racism)” are on the rise but he’s still “hopeful [that] the long arc of the future
will “bend toward equality and fairness.”
At this point in American history, I would have thought racism would be gone. But it lurks, as Freud said it would, in the dark black zones of an animalistic unconsciousness. The arc of our racism repeats itself. It bubbles up.
We are animals. We are homo sapiens. We are greedy to not only survive but to win. A thousand years of The Golden Rule hasn’t rubbed the sore of gluttony smooth. We will do anything to dominate. We will be racists if that is what it takes.
The Civil War, a vivid display or our animalism. At Gettysburg, we were creatures right out of Charles Darwin’s “Origins.”
Such morbid thoughts! But look—
Fact: the upper middle class do not want Walmart to build stores in “their” neighborhoods.
Fact: Trump will get away with telling four Congresswomen of color, four American citizens, “to go back to your country.”
Fact: Eric Garner whispered in a choke-hold before he died, “I can’t breathe.”
This is Afro-American poet Michael Harper’s poem, “American History:”
Those four black girls blown up
in that Alabama church
remind me of five hundred
middle passage blacks,
in a net, under water
in Charleston harbor
so redcoats wouldn't find them.
Can't find what you can't see
can you?
1
Sounds like access to white folk should be a universal right!
19
Solve the socioeconomic and cultural problems that are persistent in black neighborhoods and maybe then some whites will consider integration more attractive than in abstract.
13
Both poor people and uneducated people reproduce at higher rates than educated people and those who are more financially secure.
The imbalance between those who need help and those who can provide it is becoming greater.
10
Wait a minute! I thought that white people moving into minority neighborhoods was called gentrification.
29
Right there, in the sub-headline, you are incorrect. Integration does not work for most cases. Oh sure, upper class blacks and whites hang out on rich, suburban campuses but for the every day person integration is sadly out of reach. Go ahead with your low-income housing plans that will never be built, your plans to bus kids across town, futile. Lower class black values are the reason. Single parent, drugs, crime. It's a shame that the kids who play together in first grade are no longer together by fifth grade.
13
I have an idea for NYC. Just fix your lousy school system. It's been hideous for decades mostly under Democrats.
15
The NYTimes seems is increasingly the print version of Jerry Springer, deriving it’s material and purpose from highlighting differences between neighbors and stoking resentment.
16
White flight from failing public schools is big in blue cities. In LA, white participation is only 6%. So for a sanctuary city full of the bluest liberals, they still want their children in private schools. Hypocrisy in the tallest order.
28
White intransigence is many times practiced by progressive liberals who most often send their offspring to private schools as Obama did when he occupied the White House. One of the few who walked the talk was president Carter sending daughter Ami to Washington public schools. No hypocrite he.
22
No, it doesn't work. Black students don't perform better. White (and other) parents pull their children and leave the neighborhood. Why do you think ruins like Baltimore and Detroit exist?
22
I can't believe that some of the first comments to this article are using the same lame reasoning that was used to discredit Brown vs the Board of Education. The facts as laid out in the article are not new, they have been established by professional people who keep examining the facts and keep coming to the same conclusion, integration works. You can play the blame game forever but the fact remains that to break the cycle of downward pressure from segregation you have to start somewhere with one child who then may grow up to break out of the trap that segregation and ghettos become and are.
29
@george The evidence shows that it works when poor children of color are sent to majority white, predominately middle-class schools.
But, in many places, there aren't enough white, middle-class kids to make this feasible (like NYC, where public schools are populated overwhelming by black and Hispanic kids).
And it seems there's evidence that when integration goes the other way (white middle-class kids moving to struggling minority schools), it does have negative effects on them academically and socially.
How do you suggest solving these 2 problems?
13
@george
What's more important than what has "been established by professional people", authority by virtue of their academic status as tenuous as it might be in the eyes of the citizen, is whether it--integration--should be compulsory.
Does the state have the right to take a taxpayer's money for public education (a state-controlled collective?) and then compel him to suffer whatever it is that "professional people" choose to foist on him?
11
@Beeze
With numbers you can only do your best as for the other the answer is the same for many problems associated with this, EQUALITY. Until we have equality in school funding it won't change. And for the other tired excuses, equality in rights to vote, equality in employment and wages and just equality in courts. If integration works equality works even better.
3
This article doesn’t touch on gentrification. This process has been used repeatedly in Communities in NYC, and serves toward integrating neighborhoods. Unfortunately, it has taken on a negative connotation. So, that method of integrating is out.
Also, people like to live in tribal communities. We don’t like to stand out. In fact each tribe is most comfortable living in a community where she is among the majority.
Perhaps we should try to invent new types of communities, like one in which everyone is a huge Yankee (pick your favorite team here) fan. We could all go around smiling at each other after a Yankee win, and commiserating after each loss. I’d consider moving into a community like that. We’d only allow in a very few Mets fans, and no Red Sox fans.
Maybe it’s worth a try. Building a community on common ground other than skin color, language, religion.
6
@William Feldman
In Philly most of the gentrification so far has happened in tough white neighborhoods near Center City, neighborhoods that had seen better days. Fishtown and the other "...River Wards..." are examples.
There is starting to some gentrification on North Broad Street, but so far only a few blocks up and not muc h East or West of Broad.
Square miles of North Philly remain rough, rough segregated p[laces.
3
My take is that the best way to reduce 'white intransigence' is to reduce income disparities overall (via a broad-based, bubble-up economic program).
We all tend to work in integrated environments nowadays, and I don't sense that race gets in the way of comfortable social interactions among most people of similar educational backgrounds and income.
Young people, in particular, tend to be gravitating to the same popular culture and appear to have much less problem interacting in a color blind fashion than did my generation (and the generations that came before us).
While there may well be a small percentage of people who harbor inbred criminal inclinations (think of our ever-scheming President as a perfect illustration of one such type), it is poverty that tends to push the majority of individuals down the wrong road, and makes them objects of fear.
I'd wager that most Americans (or at least those not daily inundated by the noxious propaganda spewed by a "southern strategy" fueled GOP) would much rather have Michelle and Barack for neighbors than the Con-Don and his crime family.
I'd further wager that if we could: 1) institute a bubble-up economic program that lifted all boats; 2) eradicated the southern strategy in all its many guises; we would get beyond our historic racial problems within a generation (or at most two).
For, as Oscar Hammerstein wrote 70+ years ago, "You have to be carefully taught".
3
Another article in the NYT’s series
“...How to Re-elect Donald trump....”
28
So, Mr. Edsall, what you're saying the problem really is, is that neighborhoods with a lot of minority folks in them are bad neighborhoods because they have lots of minority folks in them; and it's better to live in a place with more white folks?
Sounds very racist of you.
21
Call white people racists to their faces, then. White people are the problem here, call them out on it. It is stupid to wonder why, when the answer is simply to state the obvious.
Also white people are resentful of 'busing'. Ask them. White people vote racism and racist all the way. Watch how Trump wins again in 2020.
1
Mmmmm
First to comment?
IMHO
A journalist must investigate the literature and write a long expose‘ of:
Antebellum southern response to freed slaves.
Freed slaves response to northern carpetbaggers
The ascendancy of black Colleges to educate black children of freed slaves.
The ascendancy of parallel elementary and secondary schools for black communities
The creation of thriving communities of color with housing and healthcare needs met
Discuss how President Lyndon B Johnson made a deal with southern racist democrats at the time of his “ Great Society “ initiative to summarily destroy the cohesive fabric of black communities.
The KKK was aided and abetted by racism and black freed slaves and black families responded by uplifting themselves to protect themselves.
Integration was not really about a “ melting pot” for blacks acceptance as full voting citizens with inalienable citizen rights of equality.
It was a benign mechanism to destroy black power emanating from black communities of the southern states .
I snowbird to Florida and have been researching the Daytona Beach area response to the civil war and its treatment of a very marginalized Black community there. Only the street names remain.
Liberia Street and Sudan Street etc. In Sanford I spoke to a person from the Black Historical Society. She showed me some beautiful old photos of children with their teachers. Happy faces then before Integration.
Confusing history ..... isn’t it!
Tell truth to power please.
2
Whose willing to bet that Edsall wouldn't send his kids to a majority black school.
33
I've now read at least two pro-busing pieces in the opinion section of the NYT.
Busing is a dead political issue. No significant portion of the electorate is in favor of it.
So what is the point?
If the government had the power to force people to live in certain places, go to school in certain places, work in certain places, have certain types of friends, etc. then there may be some positive benefits to that.
But which segment of the political spectrum believes that the government should have that power?
Which politician is going to support busing as a policy? It would be political suicide.
Again, what is the point?
17
The point?
To discuss reality.
Which, I note, you did not in any way do. What facts are wrong in Edsall’s discussion, please?
1
Residential segregation is heavily influenced by public schools that service the area. A voucher system providing the parents of children with school choices would reduce the incentive to segregate by race. If we were really serious about ending racial segregation we would make vouchers progressive depending upon the mean family income of the area. Under this program a high-income family that lives in a low-income area would get the same increased voucher that a low income family living in the same area. I suspect my proposal is a non-starter because public employees take political preference over low-income children.
1
In the small New Jersey town where I used to live, blacks and whites each made up roughly half of the population. Their average family incomes were very similar.
In the schools, however, there was an “achievement gap” between black and white children. It turned out that the average black child entered Grade One about a year behind their white counterpart in terms of measurable learning. Some caught up, but many didn’t. At the High School level, the less demanding courses tended to mostly black, and these were further slowed by the need of teachers to spend more time on behavior management and less on actual instruction.
There is no question that some black children will receive a better education in an integrated school. Unfortunately, the price paid for this is a worse education for others. There is no getting around this.
It’s all very well to talk about social justice, and to doctor the test results so that every student gets rated as “proficient”. But there’s a long-term cost in public mistrust, and this has deep and far-reaching implications that we are only now beginning to see.
29
@Global Charm,
It seems that many issues that poor black students face in school are the results of cultural differences; back in the 1950-60's when integration was just being enforced, black kids were more motivated and we didn't have such a large variance in culture as is evidenced in cities today; I was that black kid and my family was representative of a poor but motivated black family of achievers; teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers; now, the culture is not suitable for black kids to thrive, in cities.
I was listening to Buttigieg lament that he could not find enough black people to train for police; crime and drugs has left black people in dire straits in some cities.
16
When my husband and I bought our first home in 1999, we decided to invest in a diverse community. Our neighbors were black and white, middle class and poor, and for many years we enjoyed living there. We felt like we were doing the "right" thing.
But there was always an underlying tension. As whites, we were assumed to be "rich" and thus were regularly targeted for theft and harassment. Groups of black teens would frequently block the streets and challenge us to drive by, sometimes flashing guns. We'd try to patronize local black businesses and were treated very rudely, like they didn't want us there. Even when we organized neighborhood cleanups and would pick up trash on the streets, black residents would drive by and purposely throw more trash out the window.
As the number of lower income blacks increased, so did the crime and chaos. Daily fights, break-ins, gunfire, you name it. And we eventually didn't feel safe in our own community, so we left. Our "reward" was walking away with FAR less equity than our friends who had bought homes in non-diverse neighborhoods, even after spending 15 years pouring money into our house.
So do I understand white intransigence? Absolutely. I literally walked the walk. And if I had children, I would never raise them in an environment like that. Nor would I admonish anyone who chooses to avoid it altogether.
56
@shstl Kudos to you! We tried to "walk the walk" in choosing a high poverty school magnet school for our child. We lasted 3 years. I'll never regret giving it a go but I'll never criticize anyone for giving it a pass/
13
The lack of education progress for blacks and Latinos has nothing to do with racism - otherwise Asians and Indians would also be falling behind. In fact, they outpace all other Americans, including whites, regardless of income. The inconvenient truth: it's about the family.
42
There is a big difference between making a performing school in white neighborhood bigger and bringing in kids from other neighborhoods and taking kids from that neighborhood and busing them to what has been deemed inferior ( at least by implication since If it was not so we would not need busing to start with) school and not expect a pushback which than gets put on the Dem store brand label of racism. The left’s social engineers of human souls are usually clueless about the human nature but not being to grasp this basic dynamic really takes a cake. Maybe some mandatory watching of nature series with its ubiquitous scenes of birds feeding chicks and mammals and pups would help.
7
What about religious segregation? Similar bad effects, for both the affected children and the larger society, are found in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community here in New York. Its male Hasidic leadership keeps Hasidic children segregated from the rest of American society and refuses to permit sound education in secular subjects. This forces a large percentage of Hasidic children into poverty in insular (segregated) communities when they become adults.
We are allowing “extremist” religious groups’ leaders to intellectually cage generations of young Americans—thereby denying them the opportunities that Mr. Edsall advocates for Afro-Americans and all our citizens. We are allowing segregation based upon religion not race. Yet the ill-effects are the same. It hinders the children’s rights to self-fulfillment and to be fully contributing members of the larger society.
2
I didn't read a single word about one parent families or multiple children by different father that take no responsibility of their off springs. The arise of “black” only dorms and graduation ceremonies also does not give me much hope for the future of integration. In California, according to the Department of Education statistics on race, Hispanics make up 55% of students in k--12, Asians just over 10%, whites 30% and blacks 5%. If this trend continues, black integration won't be an issue in this state
13
You can’t figure out why Asian and white Americans don’t want their kids in predominantly Hispanic and black schools but point out that those schools are overwhelmingly failing?
Everyone wants their kid in a school that will prepare them for college and if the school is failing, they will move or go private if they can afford it. This is not color, it is access to good schools in a failed education system.
25
There is only one biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300, 000 years ago.
What we call race aka color is an evolutionary fit pigmented response to varying levels of solar radiation at different altitudes and latitudes related to producing Vitamin D and protecting genes from damaging mutations in ecologically isolated human populations
What we call race aka color aka ethnicity aka national origin is an evil malign socioeconomic, political, educational, demographic sectarian historical white European American Judeo-Christian myth meant to legally and morally justify humanity denying black African American enslavement and separate and unequal black African American.
No amount of socioeconomic nor political nor historical opinion posing and pretending to be 'science' can address racial integration nor segragation without defining the meaning of 'race' past and present in America.
Despite my paper and genetic documented white European, black African, brown Native and yellow Asian heritage I am deemed all and only black African American. And five generations of college graduate education, socioeconomic success and stable families has never made any members of my family past nor present white.
See ' The Race Myth: Why We Pretend That Race Exists in America " Joseph L. Graves; 'Dog-Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class ' Ian Haney Lopez ' The Ruptured Diamond ' Barbara Sizemore
2
First let me say I am a moderate progressive and I think Trump is the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War.
Having said that, views like yours will help Trump get re elected.
Integration is desirable if done voluntarily if not it causes hurt on both sides black and white.
The thought that blacks must be forced integrated with whites to achieve a good education is racist. It is like saying blacks are not capable of being educated unless they are with whites and they will forever ride on the coat tails of whites because they are incapable of educating themselves.
NYC (and other cities) did a general version of this in the 1970s and it almost destroyed the city ie it took the great work of MLK gaining equality for blacks and perverted it into blacks are forever incapable of raising their own kids and must look to whites forever for help.
25
Mr. Edsall, you must deeply and profoundly want to lose the next election, if you have dredged up BUSSING -- possibly the most hated Federal intervention EVER -- in 2019, when it has been dead as a dodo bird for 30 years.
21
The ugly truth is that it's not about money, it's about parents.
Interesting that this and many other articles talk only about blacks and Hispanics, conveniently leaving out Asians. Poor Asians do very well while blacks and hispanics don't. So it's NOT about racism or money, it's about parental involvement. This inconvenient truth
24
"Integration works, but how do we get it to fly in the face of white intransigence?"
How has the author managed to blame whites for"neighborhood violence, incarceration, & poor black girls’ teenage motherhood. " ?!
If neighborhood poverty resulted in intergenerational poverty, violence, incarceration, and teenage motherhood, my parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, nieces ,nephews and I would have become violent, been incarcerated ,etc. given that we are the descendants of impoverished Jews who fled the persecution in Europe for the tenements and sweatshops of the lower east side, and whose "welcome "to the U.S. was "No Jews and Dogs allowed."
The same would be true of the descendants of millions of impoverished immigrants, many of whom who faced discrimination upon arrival in the U.S. .
The author has mislabelled parents' efforts to protect their own children,& to provide their children with the best education possible, as"white intransigence ".
Does the author believe the "gifted "programs are a form of intransigence on the part of the parents of gifted children, discrimination, and that children of all intellectual abilities be be"integrated" ?
If the author has children & or grandchildren, have he and his children chosen integration for their own children?If not, why does he expect other parents to integrate their children with the children from neighborhoods that have high rates of violence, incarceration and teenage pregnancy?
33
"Both white and minority students score lower on high school exams when they are assigned to schools with more minority students. We also find decreases in high school graduation and four-year college attendance for whites, and large increases in crime for minority males." Tell me again why any good parent would willingly send their child to a substandard school?
41
Poverty is the root, stem and leaf of segregation, white flight and racial profiling. Why would poor whites applaud aid to poor blacks when none was offered to their children? Why would working class whites risk endangering their greatest financial asset, their home, to stay or move into a chancy neighborhood?
Racism has not suddenly expanded. Economic fear has. Decades of economic turmoil has shaken our democratic foundations. SAFETY is the most basic need of humans and people don't feel safe.
That is Trump's entire playbook-raise the fear level. He didn't invent it. Bush raised the "(terrorist) threat level" every time opinion turned against the war mongers. But Trump is willing to bet the country's existence on his ego.
Clinton won on "it's the economy, stupid". Guess what, it is still the economy. Honestly, Obama was lifted into office by the Great Recession, just as FDR was in 1932. It is odd that the "fiscally wise" Republican Party seems to always push Democrats into leadership by their fiscal mistakes.
There are plenty of Republican fiscal mistakes out there right now-the inequitable tax bill, the soaring deficit, the lack of an infrastructure initiative to list a few.
Republican elitists always win when the poor and working class fight among themselves. Are we going to go by their playbook again?
9
Mr. Edsall, you just wrote this entire article about integration describing only the benefits for blacks when they integrate with whites. I’m an old white man who lives on the black side of town in a predominantly black city. The primary benefit that I have received from integration is that I don’t have to waste my time living with ignorant, suburban whites, and their crushing, fear-driven response to literally everything that happens to them.
Try writing about the benefits whites receive from an integrated neighborhood next time. You might find if you presented those facts, a small percentage of whites would favor integration, not only in theory, but also in fact.
5
White-Asian integration working splendidly though. Fort Lee, Palisades Park, N.J. thriving.
18
Work hard. Be a good citizen. Save money. Maybe move to a better neighborhood with better schools. The only formula.
7
@Frunobulax,
Also, may I add, educate the parents on parenting skills.
1
Nah, they're on their own ...
Integration does work for the benefit of black Americans, for other Americans of color and for the nation as a whole.
The fact that we do not have integration shows how white racists have played upon the fears of white parents who are not racists, but who worry about having to interact with parents from what they believe are dangerous, crime-ridden neighborhoods.
This unnecessary logjam also shows the disgusting refusal of Republican politicians to do the right thing, and the underlying willingness of the Rogers Supreme Court to maintain barriers against people of color.
2
It keeps feeding itself. The younger generation idolizes rap stars, celebrities, drug dealers, pimps, and I just don't get it. I recently watched an interview with Cardi B. I could not believe her lack or eloquence, English speaking skills, and her total embrace of this ghetto lifestyle, getting in bar fights, the constant online feuds with other "so-called" stars. This is who people look up to? This is someone that people emulate? Sure she makes a lot of money. She's popular. Can she fill out a tax return? Speaking as she does (and she definitely influences young people's speech), I would not hire someone that speaks like that. All this adds up to actually moving backwards in your life.
22
@BorisRoberts Show biz people are a class apart.
3
Your story says that both blacks and whites do worse when they go to largely minority schools. And that schools are better and crime is lower in poor white neighborhoods compared to poor black ones.
Fairly or not, that settles the argument for a lot of people.
21
I see that the entire article is focused on black-white with the word "Hispanic" appearing once. I also see the word race and related race words appearing throughout.
You, Thomas B. Edsall write that "Integration works, but how do we get it to fly in the face of white intransigence?"
I think we need at least one column parallel with this one, a column to be written by New York Times columnist - little known as yet - Thomas Chatterton Williams. Here is why.
His first book, "losing my cool: love, literature, and a black man's escape from the crowd" tells us that deep down what made it possible for him to become a highly educated author was a father who saw to it that however cool TCW was at least through high school, at home he read, and read, and read the books his father "made" him read.
His second book, "Self Portrait In Black and White-Unlearning Race" may well present something truly revolutionary and new, the view that if we are going to improve the possibilites for the kids discussed in this article we are going to end the focus on race and turn to focusing on overall improvement in society.
That is what Dorothy Roberts says at the end of her brilliant book, Fatal Invention in a paragraph or two.We have to help all in lower SES classes by providing health care, better schools, and more.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US Se
9
" Intransigence " ? . Apparently the R Word is a lot more prohibitive than the N Word . How can America ever combat the racism that has defeated the promise of her fables ever since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock and whispered " how can we keep those savages away from our settlement ?" .
By refusing to admit a significant percentage of White People remain racist and call it what it is it allows the people who aren't racist to innocently or accidentally support ideas that are racist and therefore make racism an even larger destroyer of equality . Trump just admitted " I'm a virulent racist and they are accepting it and therefore becoming a far bigger problem than he is .
Heaven help us if the leader of the World can promote hate and divisiveness .
1
Reading this was similar to something already researched, done, written and said in the '70s. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And if any left wing Dems are re-thinking busing, step away from that curb. Right up there with open borders and free medical care for illegals, do not go there.
8
Why Asians not included in the discussion? They seem to do quite well with or without white inclusion. Isn't it rather demeaning of blacks and Hispanics to assume that they can succeed only if they are surrounded by whites?
14
@BD
Exactly! This is the essential and rather profound racism of the "liberal" position on this. And, sadly, it informs a great deal if not the majority of public policy on issues pertaining to black achievement gaps.
It's the racist idea that, as John McWhorter stated, blacks are essentially the ONLY group of people in the history of the world who completely incapable of succeeding if there are the smallest of obstacles in their way, obstacles of the sort that every other group of people has easily overcome on their own.
It's a view that takes an extremely condescending view of blacks, and it's representative of our national policy in so many ways!!
5
Biden was correct,that segregation in housing was deeper than bussing ( diverse kids rubbing shoulders at school).
Given human nature, most of us would rather socialize with those of our class... offspring of slaves have to work extra hard to erase skin color, etc.
1
Segregation and the race wars are a huge economic drag on the US, leaving aside the moral reprehensibility. The Chinese will eat our lunch for just this reason if nothing else. All the walls on the border aren't going to help.
2
One small policy change that might help is to stop funding schools through local property tax. In Ontario and all but two other Canadian provinces the education and municipal property tax are separated and the education portion is collected at the provincial level. Schools are then funded according to a formula which assures that schools with more needs get more funding per student. Consequently almost all schools are good quality and properly funded, even in poorer neighbourhoods.
4
@Michael Mendelson
Washington DC schools are very well funded. They do not perform well.
In Philly- all the public schools are funded on the same basis. There is no difference in per student spending. Some schools do better than others. Some schools are safer than others.
Funding can be an issue, but it is not the only issue.
7
Residential segregation is not just a matter of race and racism. Historically poverty & residential segregation go hand in hand. When looking at migration from European countries to the United States you see a pattern of ethnic and economic segregation persisting for generations. Eventually this changed for the migrants decedents who became a mostly homogeneous class based on racial characteristics that balanced out the consequences of minority oppression. This is where structural racism, economic class and income inequality plays their parts. There’s a mythology that we’re a class free society and meritocracy, nothing could be further from the truth. We are a mostly plutocratic society somewhat tempered by representative democracy in conflict between a dominant wealthy minority & the rest of us. Part of the conflict is a historic divide and conquer strategy practiced by the plutocrats of the moment. The playing of ethnic and racial groups against each other by the wealthy for a share of the leftovers it is not uniquely American, it is a tried and true process designed to keep people divided and powerless. Residential segregation is therefore both a cause and effect. It is driven by the structural racism and income inequality in place to protect the economic class structures integrity. This is the ground populism & Trump thrive in, the wealthy plowed this ground and we are the fertilizer. The chaos intentional, distraction the goal and our divisions the consequence. Sad eh!
2
What's wrong with "integration", of course, is that the core of its thesis is compulsion--schools become "leveling" gulags of sorts. The state requires; the state provides--as it chooses, good, bad, or indifferent.
This might work with a Grand Collective agreement, but then you wouldn't need it if it were a Grand Collective. Nonetheless, it traps those who don't want to participate if they don't have the money to send their children to a private school (the avenue for most with money) or those who don't have the resources to home-school their children.
Of course, the only other solution who those who don't wish to participate is the one that has been worked by so many, move to a place where it is not so onerous--though it should be pointed out that the children of Asian-Americans, it seems, succeed in almost any public school environment.
So the real issue is how to convince them not to move and to "willingly" participate.
2
Of the many hundred articles, lectures, and conversations heard while growing up, this is the first time I saw any evidence about the empirical impacts of integration on white children: "little or no adverse impact." But then it says there are. If this subject is important enough--and it is, we have to be brave enough to go deeper. While racism is certainly involved, it's too easy to just blame that. White parents might have concerns, whether legitimate or not, that have to be taken seriously and addressed. The stories I heard growing up decades ago were awful, and growing up liberal (somehow, despite that), I didn't want to believe them. But they were never addressed in the standard liberal response. I very much doubt it was just my experience. It can't remain the subject that no one will talk about publicly, but that continues to be expressed only quietly within trusted circles or indirectly in the voting booth and real estate markets. The only article I've ever seen that did was famously controversial: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/my-negro-problem-and-ours/. I saw this repeated in the next generation when my son went to summer camp and inner city children visited--and I heard from his friends the same stories. It goes on! At the very least, realize there could be cultural differences, some of which lead to serious conflicts. These cannot be ignored. Use the best social science to anticipate and manage these, and try to break this pattern.
9
@Matt Polsky, Parents of white children have valid behavioral issues regarding black students. Lack of respect for the teacher, going too slowly with the subject matter for white children, too much time wasted on the slower classmates. I know. When my daughter was in 5th grade there were 24 of 28 attaining "Honors" rating. When I ask the teacher on parent night why there wasn't 6 A's, 8 B's etc., she admitted they went slowly over the curriculum, then gave my daughter a C on the next test for asking.
5
The author complains of stereotypes, yet he presents statistics that prove that crime and other negative traits are highest in segregated communities, i.e. the stereotypes have some basis in fact.
There is ample evidence that strategic desegregation can be effective in improving the social and educational outcomes of black children. As the author notes, desegregation removes children from the “toxic” effects of their neighborhoods.
White flight is a manifestation of this reality, i.e. by the general recognition of the toxicity of these neighborhoods. Doubtless, black residents in these locales would flee if they had the financial means.
The value system of these neighborhoods is corrupt, and it is the root cause of their misery. Peer pressure sustains it.
It would appear that when these values are “diluted” by other value systems, outcomes improve.
Busing is a clumsy solution to this problem. Why not attack the root cause ?
6
This is a devastating report. I hope it is not entirely true. If White children do worse, even slightly, how do you integrate their neighborhood schools? Even if the common good is served and the Black Children, even greatly, do better, what incentive is there to sacrifice your child's well being for the well being of a child from another "neighborhood/culture"? We can condemn the actions of privileged parents pulling strings to get their kids into Ivy League schools, and we can condemn the privilege of Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and the Trump kids going to exclusive walled off academies, but then we see them as the masters of the universe and our kids struggle to get really good jobs. Human nature is human nature. What this report seems to say is that prejudice seems justified, even if racism is sincerely denied. And it explains one aspect of the appeal of Trump tilting toward a white privileged society.
9
Sadly, little has changed since the days when fellow graduate students referred to the middle-class black neighborhood near the university campus as "the jungle."
I hear from people afraid to take the bus to downtown Minneapolis because "black gangs hang out at the bus stops." Thanks to Minnesota's policy of open enrollment, many black teenagers here "self-integrate" by choosing to attend high schools outside their neighborhoods, and this sometimes involves a bus transfer downtown.
I cannot convince some white people that these are normal teenagers, indulging in horseplay that would attract only amused attention if they were white.
White flight always seemed silly to me. When adults talked about how so-and-so had to sell their house because "the neighborhood is going colored," I would ask, "How can the neighborhood 'go colored' unless all the white people leave?"
They'd answer, "Because having colored in your neighborhood reduces property values."
And I'd say, "But don't property values go down if a lot of people sell all at once? No matter what the reason?"
And they'd say, "You'll understand when you're older."
I'm old enough to remember Eisenhower, and I still don't understand.
It's another datapoint for my hypothesis that fear makes people mean and dumb.
6
@me: Who's forcing? I was just saying that I think that people who "feel uncomfortable" when those of a different race--even other middle class people-- move into their neighborhood are silly.
1
Given the number of kids who appear to attend my quality desirable school district, and are picked up by cars, and driven to other areas, it's not the race or wealth, it is literally the parents.
Those who fudge residency, or scheme, to get their kids a town over to the "good schools" don't dump problem kids on the system...the motivated parents, no matter color or money, send kids who are productive and non disruptive.
It's not so easy to just draw a color line...sadly some parents are trash, and that is the single biggest handicap the children carry with them.
It is said the US school system is extremely good at putting out what is put into them. All the parents who live one town over, but got the kid residency in our nice town, know this, but they aren't the problem parents....
1
I am sorry to inform the public on this matter, but until politicians find it doesn't pay to foment racial tension, this problem won't be solved. That has to do with breaking the backs of the rich people's stranglehold on politics. And that again boils down to campaign finance.
Want change? Deep six the neoliberal wing of the democrats and vote progressive. That means you will have to nix the Buttigiegs, the Harris' and the Bidens. Go with Warren or Sanders.
Or don't whine about the bed you make.
1
The research here acknowledges the elephant in the room: white kids gain nothing measurable, academically speaking, from attending integrated schools. Tough sell.
14
@Sarah A
Incorrect Sarah, they gain a much better economy and society to live in.
Whether you consider that an improvement I don't know, it isn't if you only consider academic metrics however most of us don't live in the academic world.
You've convinced me and everyone who reads your column, Mr. Edsell!
So, let's start with a comprehensive program of integration immediately. We can call it the New Rainbow Deal.
1. Mandatory school busing..
2. Mandatory college student integration. Thus, no separate dorms for people of color, and no eating together in school cafeterias by color.
3. Mandatory neighborhood integration. This is the most important item and the most difficult. It starts with a master plan that numbers each house and apartment in every city, then matches each house/apartment with a random mix of races. The hard part, of course, is where many of us have to abandon our current segregated neighborhood and go to another neighborhood which will be ideally integrated. But, it's well worth it. And I'm sure you, Mr. Edsell, and your readers will be the first ones to support the project. To do anything less would be racist.
4
@me Could be. But I hope that my comment will help them recognize the sad truth: they have no desire to leave their Caucasian enclaves (and indeed would resist vociferously and interminably if such integration were ever proposed (even by AOC)). Rather, they love to talk up such a program and then castigate us deplorables when we honestly oppose the idea. Virtue-signaling is the greatest — and cheapest— virtue.
Demographic change is making a mockery out of school integration. This especially true in our most populous states. Only 23.2 percent of California students and 27.9 percent of Texas students are white. There are no longer enough white students to go around. If students of color can only learn when seated next to blue-eyed blond students, we need to change our immigration quotas. Otherwise, we should concentrate on making schools in which most or all students are “people of color” as good as schools that are predominantly white.
5
"Both white and minority students score lower on high school exams when they are assigned to schools with more minority students. We also find decreases in high school graduation and four-year college attendance for whites,"
This suggests that whites' reluctance to send their children to schools with large black enrollment is rational.
16
Most of these sociological studies, which Edsall in his typical fashion cites in legion, are nonsense.
Rucker Johnson’s suggestion, for example, that integration “can benefit all groups, regardless of race and ethnicity,” is wishful thinking. Empirically, at all levels of education, majority Asian and majority white schools are the highest performing. Integrated high schools will usually have better basketball and football programs. Manhattan’s elite public high schools and Lowell in San Francisco exemplify this demographic.
The joke is that the children of Chinese custodians and cooks can academically outperform the children of wealthy whites. It is no joke. It is all about family and parental involvement. Money helps, of course, but it is not always the great equalizer.
Ethnocentrism is not synonymous with racism. Why should white parents subject their children to a social experiment that may put their education and futures at risk?
By the same token, is not the idea that black students perform better when integrated with white students in and of itself racist? This is to deny blacks autonomy and agency.
The racial divide in America is reflected in the different rates of socioeconomic development throughout the world. North America, Western Europe, and Asia are the most advanced, while Africa and South America lag far behind.
Sociological studies—even those with the imprimatur of prestigious institutions—will get us nowhere if we cannot address the facts honestly.
9
@me
Yes, I have encountered many of them, and what this phenomenon accentuates is Criollo chauvinism in that part of the world. These individuals are almost pure European (Spanish, Italian, German) and enjoy the benefits of their family's wealth and complexion. Many of them study in the best universities in North America and the United Kingdom.
How many of these professionals are indigenous or significantly mestizo?
That is what the Central American migrant crisis is all about. They are not professionals descended from Europeans but descendants of the region's indigenous folk.
1
I teach at a high-needs, segregated school. The students face overwhelming problems and challenges--extreme poverty, absent parents, untreated mental illness, abuse, gangs, violence, drugs, raising or caring for younger siblings, etc. I could pick almost any student at random and identify a half dozen reasons they struggle academically that have nothing to do with the school building, teachers, or school funding.
Would individual students do better if they attended "better" schools (ie a school where many students do not face these struggles on a daily basis)? Of course. Would I ever want my own kid to be bussed to my school and forced to attend it? No. Is this racist? I don't think so.
17
This is a good article.
I wonder if the author could investigate a massive trend that most white suburban liberals probably don't think about that much: Hispanic and Asian, first and second generation immigrants, moving into what used to be mostly black neighborhoods.
Do the black kids get any benefit from that mixing? Because maybe that can be a stepping stone to socializing young black students into what you might call mainstream American culture (which some might say is "white culture" but isn't actually since so many East and South Asians immigrants have adopted it and are completely assimilated within a generation).
Because as I see it, the main cause of the low achievement of urban black communities isn't school funding (more dollars go to school is poor neighborhoods--school funding is progressive)--it's culture they are raised in. One where teen pregnancies, dropping out of school and single mother households are normal.
7
Complete "integration" would mean the dissolution of historically black neighborhoods and communities. Few African Americans are enthusiastic about living in small minoritized enclaves in predominantly white neighborhods or bussing their children into white schools. A black neighbor in our white community sent her son the an HBCU and has been exuberant about the difference it made to his zeal for learning, focus, and confidence. Provide genuinely equal opportunity and resources and racial disparities will take care of themselves.
1
The busing argument goes back 70+ years. IMO, all parents inherently want better lives for their children and (may or may not) know that education is the key to those better lives. In those seven decades, have we improved the quality/efficacy of education? Didn’t the charter school movement begin partly to address the poor quality of schools? We are still arguing about how to improve schools, and yet, in my small city in MA (a leader in education), our students underperform against state standards year after year. In my previous lifetime in NY, I saw the same story about poor schools, poor neighborhoods, poorly performing students year after year. In seven decades, why haven’t we (educators, economists, parents, social policy leaders and others) done whatever it takes to provide high-quality education for all our children?
Either all the “experts” are actually stupid, or there is, indeed, an underlying racism that no one wants to talk about. So let’s talk about it. What would it take to make all of us — whatever our skin color or ethnicity — give up our racist feelings? What would make us choose NOT to believe, at first glance, that a person wearing dirty clothes is dangerous? Do we need to be told — over and over again — that all people have worth?
When Richard Green, The Chancellor of The NYC Board of Education, came to our office to visit my supervisor, he was debating the issue of whether children should wear a school uniform.
Perhaps the cost of the above apparel could be subsidized by The Department of Education for parental households unable to afford one.
Busing - when a married couple from Ethiopia brought their two young children with them on a humanitarian mission to an agency based in the States, one of their daughters was bullied by an 'angelic-looking' classmate, until the older daughter stepped in. They were white.
It might help if there was a larger readership of black subscribers to the New York Times for added input. Based on merit and qualifications, more black teachers to be hired to teach our children, history and geography lessons, a mandatory second language and a heavier emphasis on math and science.
We are in 'America', not Australia, or Zimbabwe. Reading this opinion piece based on facts and figures, it sounds as if The Confederacy won the Civil War and we are living the times of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'.
A revisit to Mark Twain's 'Tom Sawyer' might be enlightening to American children of all ages. Less talk and more forward-thinking would help, and the Rich can send their kids to Swiss schools.
2
@me,
Alas, we will beam you up to the moon this coming Saturday, in celebration of the 50th Anniversary Landing, and this will give you a far better horizon of the privilege it takes to be an American.
"Scholars are continuing to make an effort to understand the motivations of white Americans."
White people want what they want. And, if it's not reflective of what Edsall and Co. wants, they, the White people, are wrong and should be corrected. Hello President Trump.
4
"Both white and minority students score lower on high school exams when they are assigned to schools with more minority students. We also find decreases in high school graduation and four-year college attendance for whites, and large increases in crime for minority males."
This says it all, and explains the resistance of higher income whites to having their children sent to lower performing, predominantly minority schools.
6
What incredibly arrogant policies. It's extraordinarily paternalistic to attempt to help black people by taking them out of their communities, and into white communities.
Some of our current racial segregation is due in part to the legacy of slavery and institutional racism, but not all. Self-selecting into communities with similar people is what everyone is doing these days, and there's no reason to think that they won't continue do so on the basis of race.
But, Edsall presents data that suggest that higher levels of segregation are bad for blacks and good for whites. If so, one would think that we would recognize the right of people to freely associate, and then focus efforts and resources on the communities with problems, regardless of racial makeup.
Choosing, instead, to affirm that members of the black community need to be leave black communities to thrive, is shockingly paternalistic. It's baffling that we're discussing this at all in 2019.
3
The part of Mr Edsell’s column that hits hardest is that desegregation of housing and schools has enormous advantages for black and Hispanic families, but it doesn’t move the needle for white families. In fact, there seem to be some negative consequences. Given that message, it’s hard to get white buy-in for desegregation. Perhaps what needs to be worked on are ways to desegregate society that improve the lives of all groups, and I’m not talking about ephemeral things like harmony, but economic gains like wealth, jobs, educational achievement, healthcare, etc. If we can show every group that an integrated society improves material outcomes for everyone, only the hardcore ideological racist would oppose, and they would be foolish to do so.
6
If I moved to a neighborhood because of the quality of the local public school and then were mandated to send my kids an hour away to a substandard school, where they would be taunted and bullied, I would be incensed. My kids don't need to be guinea pigs for some social experiment.
121
@MJG You are making a number of assumptions which are likely to be untrue. If your children were sent to a substandard school, it is quite likely that improvements would be made to that school subsequent to integration to bring it up to standard. In my city of Seattle, Garfield High School, located in a majority population area, has one of the best music departments in the district. This happened subsequent to integration efforts. And bullying at that school is not any worse than in any other school in the district.
3
@MJG
White privilege is being able to preserve your children's advantages while contributing to the continuation of a system that disadvantages black people's children.
11
@MJG on the other hand, if I lived in a place where the local public school was atrocious, and didn't have the resources to move elsewhere, but was able to send my kids an hour away to an above-average school where they'd have a better chance of getting the education they need to be successful and contribute as much as they can to their community and country, I'd probably be thrilled about that. And if my kid was at that better school and was about to meet people from different backgrounds, well, that's probably good for teaching them to be respectful of others, no matter what.
As far as bullying and taunting goes, I can speak from experience here - that happens in fancy private schools all the time. It's a serious problem and I don't want to minimize it, but it's also not an argument against integration.
10
Thank you for a brilliant article, Mr. Edsall. The statistics are deeply saddening and discouraging. In addition to a colossal sociocultural tragedy, the trend suggests that American industry and business is deprived of the right mix of talent, that for strongly significant reasons, never emerges because of segregation.
I am wondering whether reframing the issue as one about corporate profits-talent linkages might produce some bright ideas and progress. I.e., if the top 1000 American firms thought they could profit from de-segregation, assimilation, education, there might be some sustaining chain. Left to do-gooders, the problem has worsened.
I love pretty much everything that Mr. Edsall writes and this article is no exception. I wholeheartedly agree that better integrating our schools is essential to decreasing inequality, fostering mutual understanding, and healing our divided nation.
However, I am very pessimistic about the prospect of integrating our schools and here's why. Conservatives will generally oppose it, of course, but so will the vast majority of liberal whites and Asians.
I live in world of super-liberal white and Asian parents. These are my friends and co-workers. And if there's one thing that super-liberal parents love, it's diversity. Diversity, diversity, diversity--it's all I hear these days. This kind of rhetoric may lead one to believe that super-liberal parents support school integration. Indeed, most of them think they do. But they seldom actually do. Why? Because for them diversity amounts to upper-middle class kids from different ethnic/racial backgrounds going to school together--each with their own cultural foibles, but all with a shared liberal-cosmopolitan sensibility.
Super-liberal parents certainly don't want their children going to school with large numbers of low-income or even working-class children, because such children exemplify too many of the things super-liberal parents vehemently oppose. They tend to be rough in their manners and behaviors; to eat unhealthy food like--gasp!--McDonald's; and to perform markedly worse in school. So they'll never go for integration.
8
Hmm. The top three comments right now all all oppose school integration, using ideas directly refuted in the article.
The top comment even contradicts itself, saying we need to focus on “broad-appeal issues, like massive income/wealth disparity” and then essentially defines school integration as a relic from the 70s that we need to move past. Yet the article shows convincing evidence that integration boosts minority student incomes.
If this is how the supposedly educated readers of the Times react to evidence showing that school integration is a huge help to minority students and even benefits ALL the kids in the school... well, that makes me sad.
It also helps me understand how far we have to go in this country and why we elect people like Donald Trump: because MY FEELINGS are more important than YOUR FACTS. It all contributes to our resurgent whites-first, wealth-first attitude. This is true even if you didn’t vote for Trump, because if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
3
Thank you, Valerie, for this eloquent and spot-on comment. If you are not old enough to remember it, try listening to Phil Ochs singing "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" to hear your analysis in a nutshell from the late 1960s.
1
I work at a school that is 80 percent children of color yet at least 90 percent white teachers.
There was a recent study done by American University and John Hopkins researchers. They found that black children who had a black teacher before the third grade were 13 percent more likely to attend college. Those who had two black teachers before third grade were 26 percent more likely to attend college. We need more black teachers. Let's pay teachers better and black college students will be more likely to see it as a viable option. If they're behind in their studies, let mentor them too.
Black children deserve to see themselves in their teachers. White students also need to see other races besides their own as teachers. Our schools will be richer for it if we have more experiences and communities represented in the teachers.
8
@Jack Dancer Did you not read my comment. My school has 80 percent students of color and more than 90 percent white teachers. And it is not a high performing school. Everyone holds bias unless and until they examine that bias. White teachers may not expect much from their black and brown students, or as much as they do their white students.... I'd ask you to question your own bias, why do you think we need more white teachers for black students?
1
Isn’t gentrification the opposite of segregation? Gentrification by definition means a breaking up of economic (and often racial) segregation in a neighborhood.
This article suggests the adverse effects of gentrification are overstated: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/07/gentrification-effects-neighborhood-data-economic-statistics/594064/
There are adverse affects like forced evictions that need to be addressed, but I don’t get the general logic of complaining that poor communities have been isolated, then complaining about more well-off folks voluntarily moving into those communities to make them less isolated.
7
@Scott-No, because in places like NYC with a great deal of gentrification the neighborhoods are racially mixed, but white parents still fight to keep the schools segregated, so kids living next door to each other don't always go to the same school.
1
One of the results of gentrification is that the original residents of the neighborhood can no longer afford to live there. They are effectively evicted as wealthier people move in. How does that create a more integrated neighborhood? If gentrification happened along with support (e.g, rent control), then maybe it would be possible.
1
Where study & scholarship is respected by youth or at least given a pass by the strongest & most aggressive in a given community, chances for progress are greatest.
The comparative studies presented by Edsall should be viewed from the perspective of the kids. They largely determine the outcome of the best of planning by their elders in bringing about peace & plenty.
The so-called "entertainment" industry doesn't help.
3
I grew up in Benton Harbor, Michigan, a small city in the southwest corner of the state. I lived through and attended the local schools during the integration battles of the 1960's and 1970's. The city was de facto segregated when I was a child, and the NAACP filed a series of suits to attempt to force integration starting in the mid-60's. Through the mid-1960's there was a wealth of blue-collar jobs, but by the early 70's all those jobs were heading off shore or being replaced by automation. Subsequently, the city's infrastructure and schools suffered, and the high school became overcrowded and dangerous. By dangerous, I mean I saw 2 students shot within 50 feet of me, multiple gang fights, and riots requiring squads of police to suppress. The middle-class suburbs wanted to withdraw from the city district and build another high school, but were blocked by the NAACP's suits. Tactically, attempting to hold middle class kids hostage to get improved schools turned out to be a miserable failure. It didn't just result in white flight; it guaranteed the flight of money from the city, which deteriorated into a hard nugget of entrenched poverty with a kleptocratic city government. I come away with two conclusions: attempting to force suburban parents to send their kids to bad schools is an excellent strategy to achieve defacto resegregation, and nothing is more infuriating than being labeled a racist because you don't want your kids exposed to a dangerous school environment.
38
Hyper segregation is a very old problem. And as Massey and others pointed out, at least in large urban areas it's not like to change.
Since we cannot change the reality of Blackness or Latinoness in these urban areas why not focus on addressing the poverty, poor schools and criminal justice issues instead?
There are numerous interventions that have shown promise. They range from pre-school programs, after school centers, job training and job development. They also include public health initiatives, subsidized wages, and restorative justice programs.
Unfortunately, the only impediment to such a comprehensive anti-poverty effort is white intransigence. White's don't want to live in these neighborhoods, but neither do they want their tax dollars used to improve them.
They will support some efforts, but typically urban areas get $1.00 remedies to solve $10.00 problems. When those efforts fail, as they inevitably do, the Black and brown residents are blamed, not the half measures for a solution.
The real issue is can white consciousness be changed? The data says, yes, sort of, but it takes a long time, generations even and there is always a cost to this long wait.
Maybe there is an ecumenical answer to this problem? As a nation we profess to holding Christian values, though they are in short supply when politicians apply their "faith" to policies.
At least a strong and very public ecumenical challenge might produce a few more dollars from guilt if not virtuousness.
3
A rigged system. I remember one of the NY Times opinion writers pointing out how the inheritance taxes had fallen from 80 people in 1000 having to pay inheritance taxes to 8 people in 1000 having to pay inheritance taxes. As a result, people who benefited from segregation long ago, from the 1890's, through the depression through the 90's, like Trumps father and police and fireman in Boston and New York City and children of Beverly Hills entertainment industry are still benefiting from that rigged system (separated but equal never existed). That helps segregation persist. Black and White, poor white and rich white.
3
Busing does NOTHING to improve overall education or individual schools.
If you bus someone into a "good" school, you have to bus someone else out, to a "poor" school.
What needs to be done is to improve the educational experience in schools and communities that need it. Make no mistake, part of the problem is the culture of the community in which a school exists. If the kids won't behave in class, no learning will take place, for any of the students.
There are many factors influencing the educational culture within a community, and they don't all emanate from the school. Quality of teaching, of course, is a huge factor. Funding has a relatively small influence (you don't need computers to teach and learn). Family situations and community attitudes toward education play a very prominent role. READING to your children, every day, from infancy, has a TREMENDOUS impact on your child's ability to learn.
6
What is not mentioned in the research blurbs presented here are reasons why all black neighborhood schools are failing? The fact is that money is not allocated fairly or equally among schools in cities across the country. Physically, schools are deteriorating, recruitment is neither serious nor rigorous. Support for school programs is non existent. In short, these schools are purposefully neglected. If schools in minority neighborhoods mirrored those in “white” neighborhoods, the story would be different. If a national service program was created for HS graduates during their gap year, a more seamless and less “forced” integration would be possible. Isn’t that what the army does today?
2
@Ted Inner-city school districts often have higher per-pupil budgets than swank suburbs. Tons of money has been thrown at the problem with no benefit. Feel free to waste your own money, but the rest of us would like to see some return before paying more.
9
@Ted Inner city schools are largely failing because the vast majority of those kids who are failing come from single parent homes.
in 2001 Minnesota's Dept. of Education did a study that showed that 97% of the achievement gap was directly attributable to this fact..and not from race or poverty.
That was when Jesse Ventura was Governor and subsequently..the story and data has been wiped from state records..though it's still available in the Star Tribune archives (for a fee).
Unless and until Democrats acknowledge their complicity in enabling a culture and system that drives bad behavior and performance in schools...there can be no solution to this other than the widely publicized annual reports about the huge disparity in educational outcomes due to Race and Poverty.
In Minneapolis Public Schools, we spend 2.5x the amount per student we do in suburban schools.
It's not a money issue.
It's not a "minorities can't do the work" issue.
It's not a race issue.
It's a cultural issue.
Don't get married or have children until you graduate from high school.
Follow that rule..and you have the same chance at achieving the American dream as your white, yellow, brown or black classmates.
4
Let's see those figures, KM. Until then, tell it to Fox News; they'll buy such lies.
1
I am saddened and disappointed to read the number of comments that seem to favor school segregation and housing segregation even more so. How can American society advance when such backward-looking prejudices are still current?
In the past, redlining was an open understanding between realtors and mortgage lenders to steer minorities into ghettoized neighborhoods by denying mortgages elsewhere. This was not a free market choice. Federal agencies like the FHA were also involved. The aftereffects persist to this day.
When schools were desegregated by court order, a war against public education was waged. Class sizes rose rapidly. Politicians began talking about "failing" public schools and began diverting public education funds to private and charter schools.
1
Who are you going to blame when the U.S. becomes minority white in 2045? I'm very happy to live in an integrated neighborhood and I make sure that my kids do soccer and baseball and skateboarding in the various Houston organizations where they are exposed the entirety of Houston's diversity. But I send them to private schools because the public schools are terrible. The local high school recently received a grade of F from Children At Risk; the Middle School and the Elementary School got D's. I will not sacrifice my kids' education for a social experiment.
23
I love opinion pieces by Mr. Edsall, because he gives meaningful, important facts on a topic which informs his opinion on the matter. Too many regular contributors to the NYT Opinion section merely reference other opinion articles, not the pertinent facts concerning an issue. Thank you, Mr. Edsall.
11
@Quinn
He’s one of the best in the business.
I read Friedman's piece before reading this one and I come away with one overwhelming conclusion: Social engineering to improve the lives and stations of everyone of every color and creed is somehow equated with "socialism". (Gasp, the horrors!) Social engineering to insure the continuation of white privilege is just the way things are done.
Somehow it is a radical idea to replace profit driven health insurance with one form or another of single payer' while it is just t rump being t rump (and republicans being republicans) to threaten, and strive, to abolish the ACA while replacing it with nothing. Nada. Zip.
Somehow the notion that treating desperate people seeking asylum in the U.S. equates with open borders.
Somehow we just can't afford to build infrastructure, insuring a growing income base for the vast majority of Americans, but giving trillions back to the already obscenely wealthy is the American Way.
If there are voters out there who cannot see the vast difference in the humanity and intelligence of any of the democrats vieing for the office and the insecure, petulant, so called man currently squatting in our White House then we have a situation that threatens our democracy and our Nation to its core.
Saving our democracy should be up to We the People, and that includes the 4th Estate, but if the stone age base of t rump gets to choose our way we are lost.
5
What drives unequal educational opportunity? Here's my take:
1. Reliance in most school districts upon property taxes. Even in states that depend heavily upon state funding, differences in local property taxes matter.
2. Differences in net worth. Blacks have an average household net worth one tenth that of whites, so they can't afford to move into wealthy school districts or provide as much cultural enrichment outside of school.
3. White mobility. Although it is illegal under the equal housing act to prevent minorities from moving into a neighborhood, whites cannot be forced to move in or to stay. Whites seeking better opportunities for their children and themselves move out.
Racial inequality can persist even in the absence of outright bigotry. Well meaning whites seeking a better life for themselves and their families may not be acting upon overt or unacknowledged racial attitudes, but their choices collectively reinforce racial inequality. This is what we mean by institutionalized racism. It is still racism.
5
Trump and the Republican Party perpetrate racial animosity leading America backward.
We have centuries of institutional prejudice and personal bias confronting us. The Founding Fathers did not know how to end slavery or even their personal racial bigotry. Jefferson who wrote of the equality of all men, did not believe blacks were equals of whites. Our erudite enlightened founders chose to look away, ignore the peculiar institution (slavery) and so condemned a future America to confront their failure.
Many Americans have learned to at least suppress if not overcome their biases. The more educated, the more open people are to accepting others as equals. We have had leaders who have inspired us to see each other as brothers, move us forward to racial harmony. That path is righteous but long. Especially difficult when a president and his party are dedicated to make us fail, set us back two centuries.
Don't look for a quick resolution. Keep your eyes on our ideals to which we aspire, confront the people of hate, let's plow ahead to achieve what the founders failed to do, what we know in our hearts to be true- we are all equals of humanity deserving to live in harmony.
2
@JABarry
These are centuries old problems. To blame this on President Trump or the Republican party is ignorant and unjustified.
Do you know on what continents slavery has endured the longest? The western, white dominated countries ended the practice first. It persisted for a longer period in Asia, Arab countries (where it still exists), Africa (ditto).
5
Experts always talk about how much children of color benefit from school desegregation and being educated with their white peers. They don’t talk about the benefits to white children and how an integrated educational environment is good for them as well. It’s as if we believe that children of color have nothing to bring to the table. Sadly , this undermines the dignity and richness of family and community life in communities of color. A diverse educational environment instills in children the value of multiple perspectives and respect for people who are different from them. Today, many white Americans refuse to acknowledge or even recognize racism and that’s because our educational system has failed them too. As a result, a large proportion of white Americans are racially and culturally illiterate.
7
The solution begins by giving minority communities an equal voice in the political process.
1
We need a law that grants every adult citizen the right to vote. It may take decades but we can do it! What we can't do is force people to exercise their right to vote. They actually have to show up!
1
@willt26: which adult US citizens are not permitted to vote? I don't know of any!
1
Problems described here are mostly the unintended consequences of social engineering in the first place. Politicised teachers unions support forced intergration, bussing of kids, while teachers in these schools often send their own kids to private schools. most parents care deeply about education, some don't. Federal intervention can't change that with top down dictates. Eliminate the political influence of teacher unions by empowering parents with education vouchers they control and can use to choose the school they see fit. Schools will adapt though competition for these vouchers with parents in control not a politicised federal bureaucracy.
5
For profit primary education is as stupid a conservative policy as for profit healthcare and for profit prisons. Vouchers are segregation paid for by taxpayers. Vouchers are anathema to American education. Vouchers are a harmful, sick, regressive, rich get richer idea in a supposed deemocracy.
1
@wcdevins Vouchers empower parents especially the poor ones to get their kids out of chaotic schools. The anathema is schools controlled by layers of political bureaucracy and parents being powerless
I think how we fund school and exclusionary zoning (in my neighborhood in the name of neighborhood character) must change. I live in a historic neighborhood that is on the gentrification upswing. We've been here on and off for 7 years, and seen a lot of change, although I hardly consider myself an "urban pioneer"; we didn't move to a war zone, it was just close to downtown and relatively cheap. Many of my neighbors who moved here in the 70s and 80s because it was inexpensive to buy or rent for a person living on a teachers or social workers salary are worried they can no longer afford it. Houses and old SROs are being renovated and flipped as high end properties. Current homeowners are divided about proposals to replace empty lots and run down houses with small apartment buildings. And of course, nobody thinks their property taxes should ever go up. Few parents send their kids to the three neighborhood schools, which are largely filled with kids with brown skin. We like to see ourselves as inclusive (we fly all the proper flags) but when the chips are down most seem to give in to deeply ingrained prejudice and little willingness to be responsible for positive change - like the mom who frets about climate change yet drives an SUV two blocks to pick up sunscreen at the drug store.
2
I teach in a mostly white, affluent suburban district; in my opinion, segregation benefits no one. My students are highly anxious, entitled and live in a privilege bubble; meanwhile, rigor and standards are flying out the window. Social and racial integration would provide a mandatory eye-opening for everyone -- perhaps lower the "me first", complete lack of empathy scale? What a rigged system we have created ....
8
@jt You think integration will raise school standards? Inner city schools have no standards at all, you think they'll be a good influence on your kids?
2
An interesting, but peculiar, article based on confirmation bias. No mention is made of self-segregation, a process by which religious, ethnic - and racial - communities exist and grow based on the desire to be among one's own.
In many neighborhoods in New York City, for example, one can see the prevalence of deliberate choice for social and cultural conformity. Food, dress, language and music are the glue that hold these spaces together.
The emphasis on the specific issues related to "Black" Americans is not easily applied to the experiences of people of other "colors." Mr. Edsall seems to be oblivious to the life experiences of all Americans who do not neatly fit into the Black-White dichotomy. And even among "Whites," one could find preferences, for example, to live in Italian or Irish or Jewish "neighborhoods." Such distinctions, however, do not fit neatly into Mr. Edsall's preconceptions and do not support his thesis.
One reason Black students can perform at a higher standard of achievement if attending predominantly "White" schools is that no one accuses and bullies them for "acting WHITE." But isn't "acting White" a symptom of Black intransigence?
"Integration," in Edsall's view, in nothing more than a multicolored physical environment. A mosaic needs to be a representation of an image, or it is just a collection of colored tiles. In hyphenated America, the adjective takes precedence over the noun: like likes like. What is an "American," Mr. Edsall?
27
@San Ta
Not sure how I would improve your assessment of the author’s premise. It is spot-on. Intransigence comes in all colors. Cultures are innately tribal or clique-ish, if you will. That is not to diminish integration. Instead it calls to mind the author set out to highlight one particular variety.
9
I am not surprised to still hear rhetoric reflecting racial bias. Humans are an awkward lot, perhaps because of our capacity for language. Integration worked for me and for my children. Since there are more poor white people than poor black people, and since economic disparities are growing, Mr. Trump fears the growing power of diverse constituencies who will resist what he has taken for granted his entire life. In response, he stokes fear in others so that his privilege might live another day. We should not fear him or one another, he is right to fear us--all of us.
1
The education (phony) choice movement has exacerbated the problems with segregation. That's one of the reasons the NAACP passed a moratorium on charter school expansion several years ago. If we want to narrow the achievement gap between white and minority children, rich and poor students, we must strive for desegregation.
Kudos to Bernie Sanders for being the only Democrat who seems to understand this.
5
As of 2016, Asian Americans made up 6.5% of the US population, and growing fast. Why are they not included in these statistics at all?
I suspect that Asians are highly segregated from blacks and Latinos, and tend to live in two types of communities: immigrant enclaves for recent immigrants, and predominantly white neighborhoods for many of the more established people.
23
Trump has played the Democrats and the establishment media like a fiddle. All or mostly all of the news flow and opinion pieces in the paper today will have the actual if unintended effect of influencing the decisive 100,000 or so non-college educated white voters in the Upper Midwest (a/k/a "deplorables") to vote for Trump's re-election, and push him to a narrow Electoral College victory despite a significant loss in the popular vote. Uncle Joe may be able to turn that around, but only is his own party doesn't bury him first.
13
Not only Mr. Edsall's data, but one's intuition tells us integration is the way to go, segregation leads to antagonism and hostility and fuels fear of the stranger. It is my observation, living in a fairly liberal, predominantly white community, that when a dark-skinned person or family moves in there is no problem, they are accepted. The other way around,encouraging whites to move into predominantly black neighborhoods, I see as a challenge. However, one of the elements encouraging segregation can be addressed: forcing all children to go to public schools. I know the word "forcing" strikes the so-called "freedom loving" element of our society, you know, like the anti-vaxxers, but let us not confuse what is good for our society as a whole, with repression of individual liberty: one can't have it both ways (millions of examples). Today, too many people avoid integrated schools by sending their children private schools. This, of course, dilutes the quality of public schools. Forcing one's children to go to a public school is a great way to increase the quality of that public school, just look at that effect in suburban white communities, whose residents readily pass huge school budgets. Sure, it may not solve the community integration problem, but it will provide all children with a wonderful education opportunity, which has to be good for our society.
2
@eclectico Wrong. Forced diversity leads to antagonism and hostility.
2
@eclectico Then rich whites will do what they already do: move to a place where the public schools are as good as private. The people you will hurt are middle-class and poor whites, who will then vote republican, and rightly so.
This country was founded on the idea of liberty, that you have the right to determine the course of your own life. Forcing people to send their kids to a certain kind of school is tyrannical social engineering.
7
To focus on school busing is to miss the point. The point is housing segregation. Without that, school segregation would not be an issue. Busing does not address the housing question. (That makes Harris's attack on Biden's busing views a cheap shot, conflating her personal experience with the larger underlying issue.) The busing policy was driven by 1960s research claiming that educational benefits accrued to black students by virtue of sitting next to whites. This was no more than a conjecture without empirical support. In any case, the learning benefits pf schooling come from the quality of the curriculum and instruction, which suffer in schools and neighborhoods that are economically and socially deprived. Busing wasn't and can't be a remedy for this situation. The must-read on this topic is Robert Sampson, Great American City--on Chicago.
3
While present-day spending may be equal, it is hard to imagine that school located in communities which have been underserved for years don’t have disadvantages that have compounded over time in the physical infrastructure, etc.
It is also easy to imagine that it may be harder to recruit and keep teachers when the streets in the area are perceived to be dangerous.
I wonder if some in poorer neighborhoods would vote to have a share of a newly built school in a wealthier area. The bus would be less of a time suck if it were point-to-point, and there would be a second geographically defined area for parent-teacher conferences to be held, so that no one is out of the loop because the distances are unmanageable. The community could also have a continuity and be able to expect this school to serve them for decades.
Parents in the wealthier areas would likely advocate for school standards and donate to fundraisers, and shouldn’t have the concerns about safety that seem to be a primary sticking point for integration. Also, their kids would have the advantage of having a shorter travel time to school.
I’m not a parent, a teacher, or a historian, but I wonder if we really tried enough versions of this to know if it could work.
It might also be useful to end anti-investment strategies which are thinly-disguised attempts to protect a neighborhood's character even when it is impoverished. New York's recent experience with Amazon was case in point. Pulling people in works, but you have to want them around.
4
Thank you for writing on this crucial topic! As a teacher, I’ve seen these dynamics play out first hand!
In particular, I’ve seen the dynamic where families (and teachers too!) overestimate the impact of kids of color. They generalize a situation in which half the students are students of color into some sort of nightmare scenario where their kid is the ONLY white kid. I’ve seen that weird mental leap/elision in parents (I’m thinking of the ugly debates over recent NYC diversity plans) and colleagues (mostly in philosophical debates about changes to our school, or our dream/magic wand fixes to education) many times, and it’s helpful to have it named and quantified.
Also, I appreciate the survey of viewpoints at the end. The zoomed out perspective is more helpful than so many articles that just write about one outcome/direction as though it’s certain.
3
Edsell makes some points worthy of conversation. The headline on this topic was catchy. I have another catchy headline having to do with legal and illegal immigration, especially the out of control illegal immigration at the border that the Democrats said was "manufactured".
When THERE comes HERE, then HERE becomes THERE.
Watch out what you wish for NYT readers!!
1
No parents want their children to go to undermaintained schools in violent neighborhoods. This is true for urban pioneers who move into urban neighborhoods. They send their children to parochial or private schools. It is also true of professional black families who chose to live in segregated areas but don’t like the schools. A good example is the Obama children.
Busing is a bandaid approach to the much deeper problem of poverty. In all of the articles about busing nothing is mentioned about other programs to increase the achievement of poor students. How is the Harlem Children’s Zone program doing? Is the prebirth-to-college approach making a difference? The Obama administration supported the HCZ effort, but I imagine the Trump administration isn’t. How about some updates on how it’s working.
20
@GiGi
I agree! "How is the Harlem Children’s Zone program doing?"
NY Times, please report on that. Hugely popular to report on 10-15 years ago. Today? Crickets. Why?
2
@GiGi: Perhaps if the middle class white people hadn't all fled, the schools would still be good.
Parents who don't care about the education of poor and/or dark-skinned children need to remember this: In a couple of decades, those kids you don't care about will be adults at the same time as your precious little angels.
It's up to you to decide whether those adults that your grown children interact with are well-educated and productive or semi-literate and unemployable.
1
White are only 10% of New York City's public school population - not really enough to 'go around' to integrate all schools. About half the student population are newly arrived immigrants of which the Asians are excelling beyond all others. Asian revere family & achievement. To better the school performance of inner-city African Americans change has to happen in parental expectations their children, and more discipline is required to persevere through learning & studying.
40
As long as mainstream media continues to repeat the complaints about Joe Biden by what is hilariously referred to here as the "far left" (AOC and her squad would be solid, conservative upholders of the status-quo in most other western countries): he represents the past, he's insufficiently "woke", he's insensitive to minority issues, he's too willing to compromise with Republicans, etc., Biden will continue to decline in the polls. There's little chance either Warren or Harris would defeat Trump, despite their current polling numbers. It's most likely that both would end up going down in a McGovern-style debacle. Remember, Nixon and Agnew were creepy characters too as opposed to a decent man like McGovern, but they won re-election in a landslide. Let's hope Democrats, woke or otherwise, actually wake up and settle for a cup of Joe, instead of some other, fancier but less popular beverage.
5
My take from Edsall's column is not consistent with my experiences. Statistics are boring to most of the general public, as you can bend them to fit your own needs. I have lived in areas that are mainly white and some that are integrated. Some of the people do well with integration, others do not. One of my black co-workers was talking about an apartment complex that was integrated where he lived. (very close to where I lived) He said "some of the people that live there, still think they are in Detroit" referring to the police being called for excessive noise after hours (9 PM). He also stated that they should be more grateful for the opportunity their parents are providing: Quality schools and clean safe environments.
I believe it all starts when a child is young. Quality Pre-school is one of the most important places where manners and learning how to get along, learning that books are fun, and getting the basics is the best start for kids to be integrated with one another. It should always be on a bus route so that all children could attend. I also believe handouts should be given to their parents to show what is good parenting and encourage good parenting.
3
I think Edsall, as always, makes some great points, and very thoroughly supported.
In 2019, though, is it as simple as white-black? Most of the best public schools, i'd bet, have significant Asian populations. Why isn't their perspective factored in here? Do they typically support integration? otherwise, the line of reasoning here is too simplistic.
22
May I suggest a quite politically incorrect solution: Separate but equal?
I'm 70, and I've watched generations of attempts to integrate simply not work. How many more generations of Black American children and adults are we going to subject to the consequences of these repeated failures.
I don't believe Black American children and adults need to integrate with White Americans in order to be successful, regardless of the transient successes of busing. I fully believe that with adequate funding and support, a predominantly Black school can produce successful children. I believe predominantly Black communities can sustain asset values and safety. Black Americans have, when left alone, achieved such schools and communities in the past (Sadly, they were often destroyed by Whites.).
I applaud communities where White and Black Americans can live together. This is the ideal. But let's not punish current Black American children and adults for Whites still resistant to integration.
Perhaps, in the future, when both Black and White Americans are on socio-economic parity, they will then choose to integrate. But if not, at least our Black fellow citizens will be able to live the full and satisfying lives all people can attain when given the chance to do so. Bluntly, Black Americans do not need White Americans. But all Americans benefit from as many successful Americans as possible. Let's at least demand that America for ourselves. Let's be intelligently selfish.
25
@Robert Henry Eller
Thank you. Black people are just as intelligent and capable as any other ethnic group on the planet. They aren't slow children who need to be treated as society's special project.
Fight every instance of provable racism and discrimination, get criminals off the streets so that they aren't intruding in the daily affairs of law abiding people, and allow Black Americans to flourish.
4
I’ve always wondered why black children need to sit next to white children in order to learn. I’ve always wondered why black schools can’t be as good as white schools or why black neighborhoods can’t be just as nice. Black churches don’t seem to need white worshipers.
75
@Zero
Because the white schools probably have better teachers, better facilities, better libraries, and so on. It ain't rocket science.
3
When the loudest proponents of integration refuse to participate themselves, people are rightfully skeptical. Until I see politicians bussing their kids to poor inner city schools, I'll continue to exercise my freedom to choose what is best for my family first and foremost.
74
With all the brilliant forward thinkers at the NYT as well as a city that prides itself as liberal, one would think their public schools would not be racially segregated - but they are.
Must be due to the Russians sabotaging their efforts.
7
There are communities in America where racial diversity is considered an asset; where children attend integrated schools and achieve; where white people don’t leave because they have black neighbors and instead invest in their homes, participate in organizations, and strive to maintain a racially and economically mixed environment. The city I live in, Cleveland Heights, and neighboring Shaker Heights, OH, are not nirvana. We are urban communities and we have urban problems that we struggle with. But we also give the lie to the notion that families don’t choose diversity (they do); that flight based on economics and/or race is inevitable (it isn’t); that property values tank in diverse neighborhoods (not necessarily); that black and white kids can’t thrive together in public schools (they do); and that we are unaware of the fact that we represent the future of America (we aren’t). National columnists should seek out places where “integration” - a 60s term for a worn-out goal - is working, where diversity is a strength, and where we are creating vibrant, multicultural, engaged but far from perfect communities.
4
Shaker Heights is the location for a famous study seeking the explain the presence of a large black/white achievement gap in their well-integrated schools. The children in the study all came from low crime, integrated, middle-class+ neighborhoods, yet the black ones still trailed the white ones academically by a large margin. The researcher (John Ogbu?) concluded that peer group pressure to not “act white” was largely to blame.
So, no, the Shaker Heights example doesn’t really support the educational benefits of integration as much as you think it might. That doesn’t mean there are no social benefits, of course.
6
@Judith Simpson: Cleveland Heights -- an inner ring suburb of Cleveland Ohio -- is a pathetic, failing urban district rated "F" by the state, and designate as in "continuous failure" by every standard.
Also, it is horribly segregated, with black only schools in the north section and mostly white schools in the affluent western section (Roxboro). The city has lost 20% of its population in the last 20 years -- and the schools lost 50% of students.
It also has some of the lowest property values in Cuyahoga County, a totally corrupt city government and the highest taxes of all the suburbs in the county -- and the worst schools, ranked 4th from THE BOTTOM state-wide.
2
"whites substantially overestimate crime rates "
Sorry for raising this topic but the issue was real and is relevant.
During the busing scheme instituted in Detroit I had white friends who were routinely harassed and assaulted for being white while attending schools other than their designated neighborhood schools. This also occurred where neighborhood schools were overwhelmingly African-American. This was the case in my neighborhood on the near east side of Detroit (Chene Street area)
The parents of the white kids were usually poor or lower-middle class. They were of limited means and if they could move it would be to a nearby suburb. They're the folks the NYT OP-ED writers seen to think have brought these problems on themselves by not voting Democratic.
Generally their experiences never made it to any crime statistic or heart-wrenching photo op in the NYT. Edsall continues to ignore this part of the equation. As long as he and other "social justice" advocates continue to look at the subject of racial integration in the this light and not acknowledge the problems I've mentioned we'll make no real progress on racial integration. Many Americans are not honest with themselves regarding the top of race and integration. And I'm not talking about Trump supporters.
None of this detracts from the tragic experiences of African-Americans in this country.
And there's no dog whistle or Southern Strategy to it.
Now back to hammering on the folks in flyover country.
81
@Jp. thank you for your perspective!
7
@Jp
As a child in the mid-1980's, I attended a Midwestern school that had been integrated through ongoing busing.
In our town, the academic gap between the average white and black 8th grader was (and remains) roughly 6 grade-levels [almost the same as Kamala Harris's hometown of Berkeley].
The Ground Truth was that almost no classes were actually integrated - the white kids received instruction at their level of academic preparation and similar for kids who were bused in. I'm not sure how it could have worked any other way.
I was only assaulted once but witnessing a dramatic rise in schoolyard violence did leave an impression on kids like me and some of my local peers; it wasn't a tradeoff-free experience.
An important complicating factor is that it was both a racial * and * socioeconomic integration exercise.
When facing 'white intransigence', how can one tell which of these factors dominates their thinking?
I now send my kids to a great independent school with a high percentage of minority students (among the highest for similar schools), and my continuing comfort level as a parent is heavily influenced by the relative homogeneity of academic preparation, home life stability, and socioeconomic status. All of the parents are invested in their kid's futures and the gaps are nowhere near as obvious.
Obviously this isn't a scalable solution for the society at large, but maybe crossing two gulfs at once is a lot harder than many are willing to admit.
16
@Diogenes:" the white kids received instruction at their level of academic preparation and similar for kids who were bused in. "
What about the white kids who were bused to majority Black schools?
4
What if all schools were properly funded and staffed?
It seems that would be better accepted than forced busing.
5
@billd The wealthier parents will continue to donate to their schools so their kids have an edge: more books for the library, more aides, new play equipment, the latest technology. These are perks that the schools in poorer neighborhoods will not be able to afford. The field will continue to be uneven.
2
@billd Some of the highest funded schools in NY and NJ are largely minority and underperforming.
An underfunded school is harmful on multiple levels. But funding alone won't solve a lot of problems.
20
@Talbot
True. I work at a very well-funded urban school with a majority-minority student body. The money that's wasted is incredible. It is spent on the wrong priorities.
3
We have it all wrong rooted in a deficient and skewed teaching of human history
The Ancient peoples of the world in Africa, Middle America and even the Native Americans in our own country are our Elders and the longest survivors. They have much to teach us. They are the First World.
We are the latest edition, the adolescent still learning how to survive and measure use of our natural resources. We are the Third World!
3
@One Nurse This is nonsense. Ancient peoples all over the world, including in North America, did as much damage to the environment as they were able to, they just weren't able to do as much as we can because they didn't have the technology. When humans arrived in North America there was a mass extinction of large mammals.
We have nothing to learn from Native peoples, especially those in the Middle East. We're not going back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, there's too many people on the planet. The future is more sustainable technology, not primitivist woo-woo.
3
@One Nurse....If those people had been so smart, why had their civilizations not advanced in a similar way as the Europeans?
2
What nonsense. Every human, today, descended from the same amount of ancestors as every other person did. We are a single species which evolved from a common ancestor. We are all equal inheritors of the past.
Our schools are racially and economically balanced. The children of parents with multiple degrees from top 10 universities sit in elementary school classes, full time, with the kids of low income African American mothers who have lived for generations in welfare. The teachers make it work.
By 3rd grade, the first year of standardized testing, after 4 years of focused attention to the detriment of others, those AA students almost entirely fail to meet state standards. By 11th grade, less than 5% meet state standards. This result is the same as at area schools where 80% of the students meet that economic/racial profile. Sitting next to kids whose parents expected more seemed to have zero impact.
57
The articles' premise is that the advancement of blacks is the responsibility of the overall society, i.e. whites, and that forceful government measures are necessary for blacks to advance. Mr. Edsall does not explain why recent black immigrants do far better than native U.S. blacks. Nigerian immigrants, for example, have a per capita income far above the national average. The answer seems to be that traditional values like family integrity and hard work are necessary to advance. Malcolm X, for example, made that very point; he like the great black abolitionist Frederick Douglas only demanded fair treatment as individuals. Mr. Edsall falls into the sad trap that so many liberals have wandered into, i.e. that blacks can advance only through the benevolence and assistance of whites. Ultimately, individuals only value what they have achieved on their own.
132
@Alex The author does mention the effect of lead on the children, without describing what that does to their learning ability other than the allusion to violence occupying the time more than learning. He neglects the effect of lead on the parents.Also neglects the effect of being born addicted - even mild fetal alcohol syndrome impairs learning ability for ex.
If he is making the case that these are all special needs students...he needs to note that parents who are voting with their feet are not racist, but rejecting full inclusion.
My district is full inclusion. When that started, acheivement fell to the 5%ile nationally. The teachers simply can't differentiate at that level of instructional need, so decided to teach just enough for a 'pass'. Parents walked off -- and the staff was happy because it pushed the district into Title 1. There are no longer any unclassified children from literate familes... the teachers put their own children in private school or moved to a district with literate familes. No one whose family has been literate for centuries is going to lose their literacy because the public school only offers 'adequate' classes to unclassified children, which don't lead to a reading level high enough for enlisting. They want 'appropriate' classes back, and voted with their feet to get them.
6
Unfortunately opinion columns like this are part of the problem - if I was a young white liberal mom I would find nothing in this column showing the upside of my child attending a racially diverse school where whites are a minority.
It is true that integration effectively "solves" the educational achievement problems for black students, but there is no similar upside for Whites. Whites don't do worse and that's good to show people, but they also don't do better - so if I'm white I'm thinking why take the chance. And once you throw in real concerns like home values tied to the perceived quality of the school - it is even more problematic.
And to a certain extent anyone with kids attending schools on the coasts or in urban areas in the south and mid-west will tell you that this is really yesterday's concern. As NY has shown there is an army of recent "legal" immigrants from Asia, India and even some African countries studying hard and ready to take all spots in selective magnet schools and colleges reducing the number of spots available to whites and of course eliminating such spots for black Americans. And what does one say about that kind of diversity.
46
@VJO I wish I could like this 1000 times.
7
@VJO: for liberals…as long as white people suffer and decline,and lose opportunities…it's all good!
9
@VJO
"..reducing the number of spots available to whites and of course eliminating such spots for black Americans..." .
No. While the spots available to whites are reduced, Affirmative Action prevents the "elimination of such spots for black Americans."
6
“Lead by example” is a good rule to follow for integration. Much of the integration rhetoric emanates from the upper reaches of the political, academic, entertainment and business worlds. I strongly doubt any of these people send their children to public schools with large minority populations.
If the Obamas, Trumps, Pelosi children and grandchildren, Kennedys, Clooneys, etc sent their kids to truly integrated public schools instead of elite private schools, the public would follow. Instead, most people just see hypocrisy at the expense of their children’s safety and education. Nothing has changed since the 1970’s.
34
@Padraig Lewis
One exception: The Carters sent Amy to neighborhood public schools in Washington. Another example of the good behavior of that admirable ex-president.
2
@Padraig Lewis--Given their nationally important positions, and the extreme danger involved, these people cannot do what you suggest, which is just silly, anyway. I think the best thing would be to require all regular citizens' children be required to attend public schools, only. That would improve them, immediately. Just like the draft. Rich and poor alike. Everybody goes in, except the disabled (not LIAR/CHEATER/COWARDLY tRump.) That would stop the wars.
1
@Padraig Lewis: If NYC didn't have a racially segregated public school system the OP-ED pieces here might carry some semblance of credibility.
2
Americans do not need numerous sociologists repeating the same message that they have known for many years that living in a "toxic environment" is difficult.
The most constructive actions for individuals to better their lives are
1. obey the law and avoid a criminal record
2. don't abuse alcohol and drugs
3. get the best educational and work skills possible
4. don't have children until you can support them
5. be hones, work hard and save as much money as you can
6. don't consider yourself a victim since that gets you nowhere
These actions are necessary to improve the chances of success in every country in the world.
69
@jck pretty good advice.
The author is drawing a cause and effect relationship which is far from proven. There are so many factors which effect success that it is absurd to assume that sitting next to White children is the key. East Asian children don't seem to require integration in order to thrive. There can even be good cases made that integration harms far more minority children than it helps. Kamala Harris was the smartest and best of her childhood community and she was the Black child who was taken out and bused to a White school. Wouldn't her presence and the efforts of both her highly educated parents have been an asset to he children of her local school. The argument that segregation allows the unequal allocation of money is just as spurious. In NYC, we spend far more money on education for Black and Hispanic children than on White, unfortunately the money is often wasted and stolen by corrupt and incompetent administrators.
42
A great article, but it contains statements that don't seem reconcilable. Black kids benefit from attending integrated schools while whites aren't adversely affected, but whites in segregated schools do better than whites in integrated ones?
Whites only "perceive" that housing values drop as blacks move in to a neighborhood, but South Cook County home values have dropped by a third while values in nearby areas have risen?
Clearly we as a society are failing black kids, and most of the issues: unequal school funding, neighborhoods that devalue education, disruptive students, and etc all seem to be the result of housing segregation.
But how are we ever going to end housing segregation when blacks with incomes of $60k choose to live in areas where the average income is $12k, and whites automatically flee any area that shows any sign of becoming mixed?
21
Do blacks choose to live there or do they face discrimination in other areas.
1
I had a hard time reading this article after reading the statement of a sociologist, "Because poor neighborhoods are disproportionately populated by African Americans, Latinos and low-income individuals, the efffects of poor neighborhood environments tend to compound existing forms of individual disadvantage." I couldn't stop wondering why the sociologist said African American, Latinos and low-income individuals. Poor people live in poor neighborhoods no matter what race they are.
Why the separation? Poor neighborhoods have poor schools.
Poverty seems to be the constant, not race. That certain races are poorer than others seems to be where the problem should start being investigated. Are people poor because of their race?
If so, is that because they go to bad schools? Sounds like a Catch 22 thing is going on.
42
I work at a school that is Title One where over 70 percent of the children receive free or reduced-fee lunches. The student population is about 50 percent Latinx, 20 percent Black, 20 percent White and 10 percent Asian. Unfortunately, most of the teachers are white - at least 90 percent white. Two of the lunch ladies are black. The other lunch lady is Latinx.
We need more black and brown teachers. Schools like mine need to recruit them. They need to mentor them. There need to be incentives for black and brown college students to major in education. It is mind-boggling that the students at my school don't have teachers who look like them.
There are schools located in wealthier and whiter neighborhoods in my school district. These schools are majority white - 90 or 95 percent white. These schools don't get more funding from the district than mine does. However, what they do get is donations from parents - who can donate many hundreds and even thousands of dollars to fund para-educators. These schools in wealthier neighborhoods have two adults in each classroom - a teacher and an aide. The aide is paid entirely for by the parents. My school only has one adult per classroom - the district paid teacher. And it makes a huge difference in the outcomes. The wealthy school parents can also purchase extra books for the library and the classroom and playground equipment and technology for their school. This too makes a huge difference.
The field is not even.
4
@Jude
How are you going to recruit more "black and brown teachers" from a pool of inadequately prepared students?
Nurturing, competent teachers of any ethnicity can help students of any ethnicity more than indifferent "brown and black teachers."
Case in point. Black undergraduates at my graduate institution avoided a black professor from an African nation because this individual blew them off at every turn so that he could focus on his scholarship. Even worse, he had contempt for them, which he chose not to hide.
Another case in point. I offered to tutor a black female student once a week so that she could pass my course. She refused and indicated she would take a course with another professor, a very "nice" woman. Last I heard, this student was participating in a high school tutoring program. But the high school teachers ended up tutoring her, because her skills were so weak.
Both events are true.
Moral of the story? Less emphasis on complexion and more investment in interest and ability.
44
Sometimes poorer schools can enlist the aid of parent volunteers in the classroom. My granddaughter’s school does that and my daughter is able to volunteer one morning a week.
5
@Jude
Districts shouldn't allow that situation. Any money raised privately should be split equally with each school.
4
The problem outlined here is described as segregation, but the story is that middle class people do not like poor people moving in, especially poor minorities. Being poor makes it hard to get a job and being minority and poor is much worse.
The solution is simple, end poverty. The barrier is a culture that believes success comes from hard work. A culture so rampant that you hear it whispered in the inner city, while successful members of minorities (Clarence Thomas) conveniently ignore the poor and disadvantaged.
10
@Gary
“The solution is simple, end poverty”
Perfectly true - please explain how.
@Gary
So, hard work is not a factor in success?
1
The racially divisive thrust of the Trump campaign, the makeup of the Roberts Court and the Biden candidacy all make me doubt that our society will move away from segregation in the next 50 years. The power and privilege of whites is increasing and that reinforces my doubt.
The most important statistic that reinforces my pessimism is that in 2016, 54% of white women rejected Hillary Clinton and voted for Donald Trump. Given the chance to elect the first female president, they chose to elect the most blatant racist ever to run for president, more racist even than George Wallace.
The notion that de facto segregation can be distinguished from de facto segregation has led to the rejection of bussing as a remedy for school segregation. The rejection of public housing from white suburbs and urban neighborhoods shows beyond any doubt that government responds to the racist demands of white citizens.
Integration will never be achieved until our society recognizes that government action, at every level of government, reinforces white privilege.
2
I agree. It’s not a hopeful situation. I was active in Civil Rights in the sixties, when I estimated the interlinking problems could take a decade to remedy. At this point I have less confidence that there’ll be a solution in my granddaughter’s lifetime.
1
@OldBoatMan
re: Hillary - she was a terrible candidate; if anyone 'got her number' better, it was the 54% of women who could see through her deceit and coyness. We can do better. A women will be President someday - just not her.
2
Most Americans understand that "toxic environments independently predict the intergenerational mobility of black and white children." This has been well known for many years.
Individual Americans of all races and ethnicities strive to live in the best "environments" possible.
When forced to do otherwise, they object and resist not due to "racism" but rather due to self interest and to benefit their families.
The term "racism" is so overused to smear and silence others that it has lost all meaning.
95
While I am fully aware that racism and segregation exists in America I also believe that the most important thing to do now is to fight poverty.
If you take skin color out of this article I believe there is still a huge segregation between those that have and those that don't.
Fight poverty and you will automatically help those in dire circumstances to get an education, a decent job, access to affordable health care. It will improve neighbourhoods, and it will allow those stuck together in poverty to improve living in their neighbourhoods.
The segregation effect will decrease as it isn't about white people living with black people, but more about moving into neighbourhoods with real opportunities and a good life.
17
Segregation/integration of children in school in the U.S.?
This is the perfect subject for discussing the paradigm of the left in America with respect to race and why so many whites are fleeing to the Republican party. The left views differences in performance between races entirely through the lens of an economic/socialistic paradigm, and that indeed it's racism to suggest any other reason for differences in performance, therefore the races/ethnic groups which are underperforming can only be underperforming due to lack of resources and oppression by the dominant race, which is the privileged race, not at all far removed from a cake eating aristocracy, and justice can only be served by redistribution and undermining the power of the dominant race.
In America, in sports, when a white player fails against a person of color, of course it would be absurd for the white to blame his failure on racism, that he has been oppressed, but in the larger world, the American economy, if the reverse happens, a person of color underperforms, the only reason can be that the person has somehow been oppressed, experienced racism, and that the playing field must be leveled, a fair competition must occur, the privileged white player must stop his unfair tactics against the person of color.
This left wing paradigm is why third world failure is blamed almost entirely on white colonialism and why the left says the U.S. should just accept illegal immigrants.
Integration in such circumstance?
59
@Daniel12
It depends on the sport. If the sport has objective and clear rules like swimming, sure. But athletes do complain about unfairness and bias in sports where the judges’ subjective tastes determine the winner, like gymnastics. That’s why gymnastics judges in the Olympics all have to come from different countries; otherwise athletes from the same country as the judge would have an unfair advantage.
The economy is more like gymnastics than swimming. There are no clear objective rules for determining who wins. Imagine a gymnastics competition where almost all the judges were black, many of them had a history of racial bias, and the winners came out disproportionately black. I think a white athlete would reasonably assume such a sport was unfair.
Another thing—if whites’ superior outcomes were really due to intrinsic merit and not the rules being stacked in their favor, they would not be afraid of job market competition from immigrants.
10
@Daniel12
I remember watching an interview years ago with a leader of one of the big LA gangs. He was a man of incredible poise. He was charismatic and everything about him said Leader. Which he was. Of a criminal enterprise.
In a different place his skills might has gone in more productive directions. He would probably be a senator now. (Not sure that’s more productive, but it’s not prison.) Surroundings do make a difference.
4
A stunningly lucid example of fact-free racism and uninformed opinion.
3
Simple reality is that most people regardless of color prefer to live and associate with people who are most similar to themselves. That’s always been the case throughout human history and will continue to be. Not really debatable.
Government regulation, like force busing and prohibition, have unintended consequences and often make the problem worse, to the degree there one. I truly believe the African community itself is going to have to fix this problem from within.
39
@Shay
I am waiting for the day, a black person takes interest in my Latvian / Irish background : )
2
Mr. Edsall offers a long, depressing look at segregation and the negative impact on people of color and the opposite for whites. We took generations to get to this point and will need substantial effort to get out of this hole.
The difference between old-style Jim Crow and our current predicament, however, is the ability to vote by both liberal whites and people of color who share the goal of racial justice. Granted, gerrymandering and the Electoral College are impediments, but they have been overcome in the past.
Until we can elect people committed to balancing the benefits of our economy and the virtues of our liberty little is going to change. Otherwise, we will continue to move farther away from “a more perfect Union.”
2
Busing schoolkids to achieve school integration will require transporting millions of minority kids from cities to the suburbs, and millions of white kids from the suburbs to urban schools.
Most urban minority parents are likely to approve of busing their kids to high-quality suburban schools. Most suburban white parents are highly unlikely to approve of busing their kids to low-quality urban schools.
During the TV debate Kamala Harris made a huge mistake when she suggested federally-mandated busing of schoolkids to and from cities and suburbs to achieve integration; if this is part of the Democratic Party platform in 2020 we are doomed to a second Trump term.
30
Why does this column conflate family, social and economic drivers of poor outcomes with "racism"?
Here in northern Appalachia, there are towns and neighborhoods within towns that feature disproportionately high rates of poverty, single-parent families, drug abuse and crime.
Housing is disproportionately low-quality and fast-depreciating. Adults typically have lower than state average educational attainment. Students from these towns/neighborhoods perform poorly, on average, on statewide proficiency tests.
When new people move into the area, they avoid buying in these towns and neighborhoods. Why? Safety concerns, lack of social opportunities, not a good peer group for children and downward pressure on real estate values.
Sounds a lot like the "racially segregated" areas Mr. Edsall writes about...
But guess what. These towns and neighborhoods are 100% white. No people of color.
Racism is obviously not the cause of the kind of segregation we see up here. Intergenerational poor choices, poverty and bad outcomes are color blind.
231
@Stuck on a mountain
I appreciate your points here but it goes deeper than that.
The cultural problems - including a disdain for education and inclination towards fighting - appear to be at a peak within parts of the urban African American community. Thus the miserable educational attainments, prevalence of fighting, and comments to that effect in NYT. Most of our high schools are rated a 1 out of 10 academically.
More particularly, as a tutor I see some of the poor white kids that you are referring to in Rochester. And they are doing ok or better in our majority African American schools.
Until there is a revolution within the African American community - perhaps making education a priority on par with basketball - then nothing will change. And it is extremely unlikely that NYT will cover any of this cultural dynamic.
46
@Stuck on a mountain
Can confirm this: I come from a developing country that is 100% white and has all the same problems - after you remove the race factor, you see that these problems in fact correlate with poverty and nothing else.
11
@Stuck on a mountain The author does not conflate anything. He states up front the study is about black, brown, and low income individuals. "Because poor neighborhoods are disproportionately populated by African Americans, Latinos and low-income individuals, the effects of poor neighborhood environments tend to compound existing forms of individual disadvantage."
Yes, Appalachia has 100% white areas with grinding poverty and the same issues as poor urban areas. But it remains true that a far greater percentage of African American and Latinos live in poor areas than the percentage of whites.
12
What a remarkably warped expression of what drives the current racial divisions in schools and neighborhoods. The Democratic and union public school construct in the vast majority of communities requires you to send your students to the local (district) public school. School choice, charters, etc have been the hallmark of school reformers and largely Republican politicians whereas the most racists of all policies is driven by Democrats and unions. There is no other part of society whether it is where you want to live, healthcare, use public parks and recreation that REQUIRE you to avoid sending your children to other neighborhoods for school. To then suggest that a solution is a trickle of busing is absurd. The argument that choice is not acceptable because not everyone can get to the better schools is a nonsense argument that pits perfect against good to shutdown a necessary reform. Every student should have the right to apply to any school and be accepted by lottery is the min first step. Instead of clubbing biden over debates while being silent on solutions, Harris and the Party should be promoting school choice, charters and other reforms.
15
“Both white and minority students score lower on high school exams when they are assigned to schools with more minority students.“
So, if the above is true then why would Whites want to attend intergrated schools?
Increasingly I see fellow Whites who just want to have our own schools and communities where we can peacefully raise our children with our own values and culture. We don’t need any more ‘diversity’ or forced integration. That is what we think is best of White well-being.
58
That is white supremacy, alias racism. Own it. Own Trump.
4
@Matt M it's not "white" necessarily. Children in predominately immigrant (Asian, Haitian, etc.) schools benefit from the stronger academic environment. I saw this personally with my "white" daughter.
1
There’s actually scant evidence that intervention works or more accurately the forced kind that High Liberals seem to advocate for.
One natural experiment is the Move to Opportunity program where welfare recipients were moved to affluent suburbs. The study showed it had no impact on math or reading scores. It did improve the mental health of girls though. https://www.nber.org/mtopublic/MTO%20Overview%20Summary.pdf
12
Overestimate or not, violent crime rates are still considerably higher in black and hispanic neighborhoods than they are amongst the general population. Is it really bigoted if people don't want to move to areas with comparatively higher crime rates? I mean even think about policing- black police officers were more likely to shoot black suspects than white officers. If we want to solve the problem, why don't we tackle the crime issue to improve the image of these communities so this doesn't happen? It's not rocket science.
And housing notwithstanding, it's been pretty definitive that bussing really does nothing to solve the problems of these communities in the grand scheme of things. "Black students perform better in white schools." Well yeah, no kidding. Your school funding is tied to your zip code, so a predominantly white, suburban school is going to have more cash than a black inner city school. Black students put into predominantly white schools or into colleges they're unqualified for through affirmative action still underperform other students because their home situation hasn't been solved.
So what are you going to do when you realize the problem is at home, and not the white man's fault? Solve the funding and school quality problem! Don't make this out to be white bigotry when it's a case of government inefficiency, and needlessly create discord. But hey, it garners votes for some political out there.
27
@Joshua:"Overestimate or not, violent crime rates are still considerably higher in black and hispanic neighborhoods than they are amongst the general population. Is it really bigoted if people don't want to move to areas with comparatively higher crime rates?"
No it's not bigoted or racist.
2
Broadly speaking, the author and his sources conclude that white people don't want to live with black people. Their data appears valid and the anecdotal evidence of our lives probably supports their observation. They're fairly pessimistic that anything will change white attitudes, and by implications, black socio-economic trends.
The only constituency in this intractable matter whose lives can be changed for the better is black children. They are the human beings who are penalized to being born into single parent poor families and brutalized into dysfunctional behavior by the crime, violence and hopelessness of their surroundings.
They are disadvantaged and as the economy becomes more "digital," education is the only way for some to break the cycle. We know white people and Asians will benefit. We fear blacks will not.
Ironically, another reality that the authors' data appears to indicate is that if black people are to improve their quality of life through education, they need to live more like successful, middle class white people. Move to the jobs. Value the teachers. Keep a stable family life. Don't do stupid things.
Those are the values of successful white middle class people. Those identified by the author as supporting integration in principle but not to the point of risking their children's education or home equity.
These are the people who were the strongest allies of the NAACP in the civil rights era. If you want change, you need to win them back.
17
President and Michelle Obama did not send their girls to the public schools in Washington, DC.
Was their goal to help integrate elite, largely white, private schools? I don’t think so.
I think the truth is that the Obamas wanted a quality education for their girls, didn’t think the DC public schools could provide a quality education, and could afford the big bucks necessary to pay for a quality education at a private school.
The idea of a establishing a federal mandate to bus kids to and from urban and suburban schools, which is what Kamala Harris really was talking about during the debates, is politically toxic.
No one who has scrimped and save to rent or buy a home in good school district will tolerate having his/her children bused or re-districted to a lower-quality school. This fear is what caused white flight from the cities to the suburbs decades ago, and will lead to Trump’s re-election in 2020 if the Democrats keep bringing up busing.
The answer to this issue is to ensure that all public schools—urban, suburban and rural—are brought up to the highest standards.
74
Efforts at integration have failed because well meaning progressives have gone about it the wrong way. They write things like “Exposure to neighborhood violence, incarceration, and lead combine to independently predict poor black boys’ later incarceration as adults and lower income rank relative to their parents, and poor black girls’ teenage motherhood,” (Robert Manduca and Robert J. Sampson). Then they essentially say “so to solve it we want to spread these problems around.” Then they wonder why they’re opposed.
.
Two things need to happen instead. First a mending of the persistent racism in how cities are run. Investments need to be watched. Community Policing needs to grow. Representation in City Hall needs to be looked at. Cities are notorious about investing millions in their mostly-white, up and coming neighborhoods, while allowing streets, police stations, and schools to crumble in poorer areas.
.
Second, we have to use gentrification to our advantage, rather than fighting it. Instead of putting effort to bringing back forced busing (or its successor, HUD’s “moving to opportunity” program), we should focus on identifying neighborhoods that are starting to gentrify and investing in long-term affordable housing there. Then, the school administrators need to reach out to the white gentrifiers to get them to send their kids there.
.
These are two of the most important things I learned in my 2 years as a Super Neighborhood President in Houston.
10
Hmm, makes me wonder about gentrification. Yes, some white people refuse to let people of color into their neighborhoods but plenty of white people, usually young and not terribly wealthy, are willing to move into minority neighborhoods because of low real estate costs. So perhaps there is a way to integrate neighborhoods by having white people move to minority neighborhoods, rather than the other way around, that improves the neighborhood without pricing out minorities? I know this sounds crazy and insensitive, as minority neighborhoods are worth preserving and aren't usually the crime-ridden cesspools that fail their children that some people always assume them to be. But perhaps we should explore a way to use gentrification as a tool to better society and strengthen communities? Just brainstorming ...
7
@Louis James
Current progressive dogma opposes gentrification as it displaces the incumbent population and raises property values and hence rents and other costs.
5
Newsflash... People of similar race/ethnicity/class etc. around the world almost without exception seek to live in enclaves comprised of those similar to themselves.
This shouldn't be a surprise. Rather than playing social experiment with schools, perhaps addressing the issues within certain communities head-on and without political correctness is best.
11
@Brian in FL
I am not sure where you get your information but all good people know that all other humans throughout history have lived in harmony and peace with those who are different from them.
It is only "whites," with their white supremacy, white fragility, white tears, and now, according to Edsel, their "white intransigence" who uniquely prefer to live amongst people with whom they look alike and share a common language, culture, religion, values, etc.
The basis for busing is essentially racist: that black children benefit from attending schools with whites because.... well that's the part that is poorly explained. Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, which was cited in the article, attempted a redistricting plan that basically sliced off parts of the white and Asian suburbs and moved them into higher minority schools. The articulated argument by some supporters of the plan was that white and Asian parents are more involved with their schools and won't put up with poor results due to bad teachers, administrators and facilities. What awful message does that say about black parents? Needless to say most of the plan was shelved.
17
@Chris: if you accept Mr. Edsall on that -- that poor black kids must "rub up against" superior white kids (and teachers) daily to absorb "white values" -- you essentially believe that all black people are INFERIOR and must become "more white' to succeed.
1
All this sociology makes my head spin, and not in a good way. Poor minority neighborhoods generally have more crime, violence, run-down housing and public facilities, and less economic opportunities. This would seem to be a problem that needs to be fixed in these neighborhoods. Solve those problems and who cares about segregation. Blaming "white intransigence" is silly.
19
You can talk about the benefits of integration until you’re blue in the face, but it will never change the minds of residents in our New York suburbs, where middle-class black and brown people are routinely steered to certain communities starved of good schools and other resources. Suburban school districts could easily be consolidated, eliminating duplicative services and saving taxpayers millions of dollars, but race keeps them from doing so. Within a 50-mile radius around The Times’ headquarters, we are probably more segregated than in the Deep South.
5
@LIChef: It's more fun to hammer on flyover country.
True science relies not on subjective cost - benefit analyses but experiments to compare results. If skin color discrimination is the cause of the problem, you would find it across all samples of those who differed by skin color. Thus, busing would also be necessary for those of South Asian (notably those of Pakistani and Indian) origin who have skin no less dark than most of those who self-identify in academic research as black. In the case, of South Asians, we find that they are over-represented in high-performing schools and wealthy neighborhoods. In fact, they exceed those identifying as white in terms of average incomes. If racial discrimination is the cause of school segregation, how is that possible?
16
A big part of this is the way we find schools mostly at a local level. Poor neighborhoods mean poor schools. We talk a lot about these schools but we don’t actually put the effort and resources to make them better. If integration works it is because in an integrated system you cannot lower the deprive the poor of an education without depriving the rich of an education, thus it doesn’t happen. Another solution is to have a federally funded school system that maintains similar standards across the nation.
2
I am pessimistic about any efforts to equalize opportunities given the experiences in my home state of NH where economic segregation persists despite a series of lawsuits won by property poor districts.
The vicious circle you describe is Southern Cook County IL based on RACE is identical to the vicious circle we have in NH based on ECONOMICS. In NH, affluent, well educated parents avoid a purchasing ANY home in a property poor district with a critical mass of children raised in poverty. Instead they purchase a more expensive home in a district with college educated parents. Why? Because the property taxes they pay will be identical and they know that their home will hold its value and their children will attend schools with better teachers, better facilities, and a "better peer group".
The way to address economic inequality is obvious: impose a progressive income tax and increase business taxes. This would provide the funds needed to improve the schools in less affluent communities and in turn improve opportunities for children in those communities and improve the well-being of those who live in property-poor districts.
Alas, affluent parents and businesses oppose ANY form of broad-based taxes designed to "redistribute" resources to those in need.
Broad-based taxes that could provide the resources needed to help those in need has been shelved in favor of "policies that emphasize individual choice and responsibility".
Live free or die- but only if you can afford it.
5
Statistically, I am curious how the researchers disentangle the impact of "classism" versus "racism". What if people are try to live in the richest neighborhood they can with the highest performing school (regardless of color) and strenuously try to make their kids associate with the richest kids they can, and marry the richest kids they can, making them as upwardly mobile as possible, and that such "class" motivations could be as strong or stronger as racist thinking about skin color, and that skin color is being used as a proxy for wealth. Everybody wants their kids to "rise" and since so much of our society (like college admissions) is a seen (or might actually be) a zero-sum game, the scramble for upward mobiilty is generating segregation as a side effect. Just wondering.
4
There is no question that we become what our peers are, but integration will not be accepted by the White Public .We cannot force integration upon the White public especially where their Children are concerned.
The answer is to give tax incentives to Industries to set up their businesses in these impoverished areas,These industries can be subsidized to teach new skills to their employees, that will offer high wages & a better life,
Yes, there are many hurdles to jump over when you are in a high crime area, but there has to be a sincere effort to help the innocent in these areas.
4
My first impression upon reading their article is that it is perhaps impractical to integrate rich and poor neighborhoods, with or without racism. And gentrification merely moves the poor somewhere else. Would it work to disperse this concentration of poverty? One thought I had is to prevail upon the evangelical Christians. For examples, suburban churches could sponsor families from the inner city, allowing them to escape to the suburbs. Such a Sponsorship would include a house and a job paying a living wage. If enough churches did this, perhaps some progress could be made. A similar program might be set up by state and county social services.
@Ron Bartlett What’s the math? A few hundred thousand dollars for a suburban house times hundreds of houses. Jobs paying, say, $50 thousand per year, year after year, for hundreds of transplants to the suburbs.
What church could possibly afford this? Many churches already struggle to pay for housing and salary of their clergy and related personnel.
And I don’t think taxpayers would vote for similar programs from state and county social services, which are already over-burdened and under-funded.
2
I went to a relatively well integrated high school - the black population, at about 35%, matched the demographics of the school district. But what it meant in reality was that the school was heavily segregated by academic program. There were almost no black students in the honors courses, and the votech and non-academic courses were largely black. We did not even have gatekeepering - anyone who wanted to take an honors course could - but still there was massive segregation. How does that get addressed?
55
@csgirl - Many school districts are dealing with this by doing away with separate honors level classes. By the time students enter middle school, students have a wide range of achievement levels and their academic needs cannot be met in a single classroom. This will drive more families from the public schools.
4
@csgirl
You assume that was unjust. Democratic politicians usually propose that all children be able to go to college, without considering how appropriate that is for each of them. You label your school segregated. Perhaps. Also may be that the students were placed according to their capabilities and fit.
"The charts also show that for whites there is little or no adverse impact in shifting from a disproportionately white school to a diverse school." Oh really? Mandated diversity was the icing on the de-industrial cake that has led to the Republican party of Trump in which rumors of conspiracies have become the threshold of rage. Proceed with caution.
7
Mr. Edsall, your opinion is chuck full of academic comments and stats to support its arguments. However, in this situation I believe the academics cannot see the forest for the trees. What I mean by that is if we fix education we will take a big step toward fixing segregation. That is because, well educated poor and minority children will have the tools to move up and out of the social economic conditions into which they were born.
Education, like most things in this country, is all about the money — who pays and who benefits. Paying for educating America's children based on local property taxes is outmoded and not suitable for an industrial/information-age society.
What is needed is a national tax that is used to ensure each neighborhood school is resourced equally. That is, the facilities and equipment used in poor neighborhood/rural schools would be funded and maintained at the same standard as schools in wealthy neighborhoods. In addition, the tax system should ensure that salaries, benefits, training and re-certification for teachers and principals would be uniform across the nation.
There are many way to achieve equal funding for all neighborhood schools by changing how education is paid for. My favorite would be a transaction tax on the sale of stocks and bonds along with a tax on executive bonuses. With leadership America can fix its education problem and take a big step with fixing its segregation problem.
9
@old soldier
Poor people pay less in taxes than wealthier people. That hasn’t improved reading and math skills of struggling students. A two parent home does improve student performance. It’s an inconvenient truth.
28
@old soldier - The only problem with this theory is that many low-income areas already spend huge amounts of money on education, higher than the wealthy suburbs.
15
@Shamrock - you’re mixing apples and oranges. And cherry picking a stat. A common approach by those who are looking for reasons to do nothing as opposed to solving a national problem.
It's easy to say that kids should be bussed. However, there are times that doing so means a significant longer commute for children. Commuting, especially for younger kids, can take a significant toll on childs well being. Remember, school buses don't have bathrooms or air conditioning. It also means that when parents need to carpool or pick up their kids early they too need to travel longer distances. This could be onerous for parents with limited transportation options or for those who don't work near the school. At the end of the day, bussing is a cost benefit analysis: are the added stresses to families of sending their kids to an out of neighborhood school worth the sometimes major inconveniences?
5
Yes they are, as thoroughly demonstrated by this article. Cost Benefit analysis is fraught with ethical and methodological problems that make it an inappropriate approach to complex human issues if this kind.
1
Where I am, in Philadelphia, the suburban white districts spend more per student. Where is that not true?
@Kevinlarson: says someone from Canada,which has no black people and is all white/asian.
This article makes me feel so sad and also guilty. The point of the piece is not to ignite a public policy debate but to call out "white intransigence." The evidence is clear that integration works, both in education and in housing. So, why are we not integrating? Not because of a failure of policy or any particular political party or leader. But because of a failure in ourselves, because of our implicit biases. This should be a call for individual action. Maybe that means not fleeing an integrating neighborhoods, or perhaps moving to a minority majority neighborhood. Regardless, the solution lies in changing ourselves. The sad part is that I doubt I have the will to change myself.
1
@Mark Don't feel bad. Very few, if any, have the will or the foolishness to move to an area that is less safe and provides fewer opportunities for their kids than their current neighborhood. Taking care of one's family may be a bias, just like breathing. But it's certainly not a failure.
4
@Chaz
Out of the hundreds of comments on this article, yours is the only one with an ounce of common sense.
People (even white people) don't make decisions for their children's future based on their "hate" of other people, but based on their love of their own children.
Isn’t a “good school” simply the how good are its students? If so, why would anyone want to send their children to a school with lower quality students?
Similarly, who wants anything but a quality workforce if you are the employer.
I know the definition of quality can be tricky, I guess you just know when you see it. If people don’t perform their jobs well, it’s not a quality workforce, if a student doesn’t preform well, it’s not a quality student.
22
I'd be interested to read (and maybe Edsall is the person to write) an intelligent discussion of the relationship of the critique of gentrification to the persistence of racial and economic segregation of housing in the U.S. The evidence is clear that outcomes for Black families moving into (higher income) predominantly white neighborhoods are positive. Does the same effect hold when a number of higher income whites move into predominantly minority neighborhoods? If so, is the critique of gentrification functionally reactionary? And (taking the other side), how can we envision income diversification of poorer neighborhoods without massive displacement of poorer residents?
6
One cannot truly evaluate and fully contextualize the insightful data you present without stepping back to the origins of residential segregation in our country. Contrary to popular belief, racial segregation in America is not the result of private decisions by private individuals, but is the direct result of government action. Thus, the lingering economic and educational harm outlined here is a direct and intended result of government directed residential segregation to deny blacks the opportunity to live in neighborhoods with jobs, good schools and upward mobility.
In Richard Rothstein’s (excellent) book “The Color of Law” he painstakingly outlines how governments at all levels used racially discriminatory policies to deny blacks the opportunity to live in neighborhoods with jobs, good schools and upward mobility — even in some instances, destroying integrated neighborhoods and forcing their inhabitants into segregated ones. I’ve included the NYT piece covering Mr. Rothstein’s excellent book below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/books/review/richard-rothstein-color-of-law-forgotten-history.html
6
@Don, Well there has to be people in the government right? And those people were elected, right?
1
@Ryan: The unfortunate truth — as we continue to see today — is that elected officials don’t always reflect the will of the people which your comment seems to suggest.
The beauty of Mr. Rothstein’s book is the clear evidence he provides where certain principal government actors subvert the will of well intentioned whites to integrate residential communities — e.g., by invalidating property sales from whites to blacks, by the FHA refusing to insure loans to developers that intended to develop integrated communities, by actively uprooting previously integrated communities to redevelop segregated communities, etc.
1
The ideas you reference in your article are not new and the problem is not "in part" based upon racism. It is entirely caused by racism. In 1975 the NJ Supreme Court rendered its first Mt. Laurel decision finding that exclusionary zoning laws prevented minorities from living in many NJ suburbs. Forty-five years later, notwithstanding the legislatively created Council on Affordable Housing and numerous subsequent court decisions Northern NJ remains completely segregated. Now that the Supreme Court has taken harsher measures to integrate these communities, many towns are resisting. I have attended municipal meetings where hundreds of residents appear screaming their objections to laws that will bring in "inner city residents" or "people who don't have our values" or "families with children that will harm our young" or, as the most honest will state, "minorities." The objectors buzzword protestations fail to conceal their underlying sentiments. Everyone knows what they mean- they don't want Blacks or Latinos in their schools or in their town. Trump's vicious and factious spirit has not lead to a reaction against segregation. It has encouraged racist resistance and emboldened those who espouse continued separation. America has regressed. Trump has expedited the regression. He must be voted out of office.
9
@Disillusioned
If Trump is the cause of all of today’s racism, what about the 8 years of the Obama administration? Did he improve or change anything? No, except whites “proved” they were not racist by voting for him. They didn’t racially integrate their neighborhood any more or less. Money, family values, safety and common experiences talk, not the color of ones skin.
2
@Disillusioned: TRUMP caused this?
Bussing was dead by the 80s, hated by everyone -- even blacks.
Trump was not President in 1975.
1
" ... how do we get it to fly in the face of white intransigence?"
I submit that it would help if you could dispense with the illusion that it is white intransigence that is the problem. It is a natural human instinct to see government interventions as tyrannical. Indicting all whites as a suspect class in a government-led manhunt doesn't make sense.
Debates over the relative presence or absence of racism as a motivating factor is clearly a harmful distraction. Of principal importance is the need to communicate the benefits and advantages to be conferred by the program and the checks that will rein in the undeniable threat of governmental intrusions on civil liberties.
29
@Sequel
Not sure what your talking about, a lot of rant. Racism is the root cause of most major issues in America. I know you won't acknowledge that fact. Hence we continue to live in an America filled with Denial.
I am optimistic. I think younger affluent white people are more willing to live near minorities than past generations—thus, we have gentrification. The reversal of white flight and the revitalization of urban downtowns has been a major feature of the last ten years. Many of the neighborhoods considered most desirable in my city are now pretty racially mixed, and I think most younger buyers would consider racial diversity a plus, particularly if the minorities in question are relatively affluent.
5
This article, while it makes great points, missed something. Wealthy neighborhoods in school districts that have both
Thriving and struggling schools are now creating their own little towns. Voting to create a city, that has a separate board of education and taking their tax dollars with them. Subtle segregation, further crippling the poorer schools. They want their tax dollars to go to their children’s schools, as opposed to pooling the funds. I watched it happen in the metro Atlanta area.
As we hope that integration would improve things, there is an increasing trend to separate. We’re not even discussing homeschooling.
7
@Elaine, I lived in Atlanta. There are two tracks through high school, AP and McDonald's. You get what you aspire to, and my kids took the AP classes route. Now, you can dilute the AP courses so that more students pass them, and you're cutting your own throat when students from your HS can't get into UGA.
20
@Elaine
maybe....but it is also being done in the reverse in Hartford, CT, where the city has been trying to 'absorb' the surrounding suburbs.....how's that working out? Whites are leaving these suburbs and CT in general - WHY? It could be a combination of this 'suburb grab' by Hartford and / or the because of the dire fiscal condition of Democrat-run CT. Hard to tell. Lots of Progressive voices with a questionable understanding Economics - not so many conservatives to balance out the thinking.
2
@Ryan
You just don't get it. You have not done any real homework to understand what has gone on in America for the past 3 centuries.
Whether we like it or not, we have to come to grips that racism is systematic from the ''top'' all the way down.
Busing children back and forth is a minor solution.
What needs to happen is there to be social housing (anywhere - especially in the suburbs) where people of ALL color, background, etc,, on the lower end of the economic scale can afford to live in areas where their kids are not bused for long stretches.
Sounds simple enough, doesn't it ?
It's a chicken and egg thing, where what comes first ? How can the people move into such neighborhoods if all of the amenities of government are geared ONLY to the white classes there which want to raise up the drawbridge ? (much like America itself)
OF course it takes voting in such measures, but if there is not a constituency to do so, then things are not going to change. It takes a top down approach from the state/Governor level to mandate that change, and offer a simple fix such as social housing.
Then they will come.
2
A very difficult issue. I have lived in several states in the northeast but have seen very little neighborhood integration. Black neighbors are the rare exception. White residents biggest fear is crime. Their view is that people moving out of the inner cities bring crime with them rather than trying to escape it. Sadly, the gangster persona of music stars and some young people reinforces these prejudices. Other minority populations were able to “blend in” much more easily. We have to stop fearing and mistrusting each before we can truly integrate.
11
@Nepa1952 I think we’ll truly have integration when the levels of black physical intimidation, crime, violence, and murder drop to levels of other ethnic groups. And when an education and hard work are respected by the black community. And when the blatant misogyny of that community ceases.
5
@Nepa1952, No white people care about crime but that is not the overriding factor here. White people are afraid they kids will act like black kids and not care about school.
3
Good discussion IMO. I have held this belief for decades, that people believe in and want integration and diversity-just not at their expense and certainly not at the expense of their children. (I was a child in the 70s and while we were not in an area experiencing busing, my relatively liberal parents were staunchly against sending a child across town to any school when there were schools we could literally walk to, and part of the reason they bought in our neighborhood.) Somehow that contradiction-yes, integration is worthy but I am *not* going to disprivilege my own child in it's name-has to be resolved before this can really move forward. Because the next step for white parents is going to be private school, whether they canreally afford it or not.
12
"Lower performing schools" !?
A "school" is not a separate entity that "performs lower". If kids leave school and go home to parents -- or a parent -- that doesn't have a book in the house, has TV on all the time, cell phones that are constantly texting each other, does not insist that their kids do their homework, etc., etc., what can one expect when the child re-enters the school the next morning? A miracle transformation?
Home is where it starts. A low performing home leads to a low performing student that leads to a low performing school.
Plenty of poor kids in generations past from low income neighborhoods achieved great things because the majority of the families insisted that their kids take learning seriously and thus the schools became a serious place to learn and teachers were accorded respect.
No one is blind to the ravages of poverty on minority communities, but you can mix and match school populations all you want, but if a child is leaving school and returning to a home where no intellectual stimulation is happening or encouraged there will be little, if any, improvement in the child's chances for a better future.
It begins at home...period.
223
What if there are homes that do have parents who help with the kids education as much as they could but still have to send them to the same bad schools? Should they be doomed despite their intention and work?
22
@Jon I think you illustrate a basic fact that is almost always missing from grand, well researched, overarching, often mind numbing analyses of the segregation problem. The responsibility of parents to encourage, in fact to insist on the importance of education and to create at least a minimal environment at home for a child to have a quiet place to study and learn. One of the hallmarks of many middle class and upper class parents is a focus on how their child is doing scholastically. Most school age kids would much rather ignore homework, watch TV or text, tweet, etc. We were all children. Who preferred fractions and diagraming sentences to playing with friends or zoning out in front of some devise?
We are all aware of the challenges lower income families face. They are often overwhelming. But if history is any reminder and African American, Hispanic and other poor Americans are waiting for White Americans to risk their child's education on the vagaries of integrating successful schools they are going to be disappointed. There is no issue of greater importance to any parent than the safety of their children and the privileges their parents believe they have afforded them through their hard work and tax dollars. As was stated in the article, most liberals support integration but ultimately end up in the NIMBY arena when their neighborhoods begin to change "too much". Minority groups are going to have to fight for their own cause. Some success is always possible.
42
@Jon...thank you. As an urban high school teacher what you so eloquently wrote is the topic of teacher dialogue all day long from September to June.
8
Show me an educated, middle class parent who sacrificed financially to live in a good school district who is eager to have their child sent on a long commute to a poor-performing school elsewhere instead. "Intransigence" has nothing to do with race, but with the normal parental behavior of seeking the best opportunity for one's child. Parents WILL voluntarily subject their kids to a commute to a lackluster neighborhood for a magnet or specialty program, as demonstrated by schools like Mark Twain or Bronx Science.
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@Working Mama
"Scarified financially." Funny how people define being wealthy enough to afford to live in an upper class neighbourhood as a "sacrifice." Try working two jobs cleaning toilets for minimum wage to get your kids a meal. That's sacrifice.
3
@617to416
"Sacrificed financially." (Darn autocorrect.)
2
Option 1- School funding zip code/ location agnostic and determined and distributed at the federal level. Base amount to fund infrastructure and per pupil amount.
Question 1- does the concentration of low income in rural areas have the same impact/ restrictive future opportunities as urban poverty?
5
The more I read the NYT these days, the more depressed I become.
Faced with the existential crisis that is Trump, do we focus on class-based, broad-appeal issues like massive income/wealth disparity, progressive taxation, affordable housing, food, health and education --issues effecting everyone without regard to race or gender or sexual orientation?
Nope, we revive the busing wars of the seventies.
I'm not sure we can survive four-more-years, but it's looking increasingly as though we'll get a chance to find out.
No wonder Democrats --including me-- don't like guns; give a Democrat a gun and he proceeds immediately to shoot himself in the foot with it.
272
@Len Safhay
The leadership of both parties, and the media, are terrified that a Warren or a Sanders could get the nomination and lead a nationwide debate on economic injustice & political corruption, things most of them owe their careers to. Identity politics & culture wars are the remedy.
38
@Len Safhay
I too am depressed reading the NYT (and especially the comments). But to me, what's depressing is that too many liberal whites say they want change but are unwilling to accept any disruption to their comfortable lifestyles to effect change. Trump whites (the majority of whites) are full bore racists now. The vast majority of non-Trump whites, however, seem unwilling to suffer any inconvenience at all to end racism in America. Some are willing to talk about race, but then resist real solutions that would force more integration. Others prefer not to talk about race at all, finding it divisive and claiming we should focus on the economy instead.
For Americans who aren't white, however, race and racial inequities are a huge problem. They are, therefore, a huge American problem. But most whites don't want it to be their problem. And that's why I despair that the problem will ever be solved.
14
@Martin OMG you are right! I've been trying to figure that out and you are the only one who makes sense on this. Whoever you are, thanks.
3
A MODEST PROPOSAL?
Is it possible that the recently allowed gerrymandering programs contain the tools for salvation here? Could laws enable or require that these various programs and techniques be used to create voting communities that reflect the median or average characteristics of communities? The challenge of equal representation may be within reach of tools which were developed to perform its destruction. If extensions and corridors so common in gerrymandering were inclusive rather than exclusionary . . .
1
The article repeatedly refers to “segregated, underfunded “ schools, as if the two are synonymous terms that always exist as a unity. Many of the worst segregated schools actually receive far more funding than the average school. See nyc Newark and Los Angeles schools for example and compare their budgets to, say, westchester county. Perhaps what white families realize what researchers don’t which is that school funding is, in many cases, a red herring.
43
You have answered your own question: the best way to make money and get rich is to live in an affluent area where everyone is an educated professional. The schools will be good, crime will be low, and taxes will be low. It is not surprising that people are eager to live in places like that, and insure that they stay that way.
Well, what about helping others, people who don't look and act like us? That's not the way human nature works. Religion used to demand that we help our neighbor, but nowadays the more affluent segment of the population has discarded traditional religion and replaced it with environmentalism or feminism.
11
Yes, integration works, both to educate the kids bused in, and to broaden the understanding of all of the kids about each other.
However, forced busing took white kids out of good schools, and bused them at considerable inconvenience into bad schools in dangerous neighborhoods where their performance collapsed. How do you expect the parents to feel, if not "intransigent?"
Voluntary busing like Kamala Harris experienced is common in my home town today. A large part of our high school is bused in from underperforming schools in a "school choice" program, many from Pontiac over 20 miles away. We have a volunteer program to help kids who can't easily get buses, and for those who must wait to be picked up. They are very welcome, and actively helped.
In fact, we've got a waiting list, and every classroom if completely filled. Our elected School Board encourages this, to general approval and re-election, because it gets State funding to offset this, and our town had gone from lots of young families to lots of retirees and not enough kids to fill the schools we'd built, although now it is shifting back again as such things do.
There is a vast difference in kinds of busing. On this, Biden is correct, even though on many other things I don't like Biden.
BTW, kids exposed to this busing have more nuanced reactions than just reduced racism. They see good people and bad. Not all who come in are good, even though most are great. Bad and segregated neighborhoods damage some kids.
19
@Mark Thomason, you also raise an important point, in regard to the academic studies presented here. The Berkeley study certainly is built around the voluntary busing that took place there versus locations where government-mandated busing took place. I would certainly think that students (and parents) who sacrifice to get to another school quite distant from their neighborhood school, would also be outliers in terms of performance (both graduating and putting in the work to raise their test scores)
4
@Mark Thomason
You make the most sense of anyone on this topic.
1
Where are the stats on Black Church attendance, military service, two-parent family households of multi-generational college graduates (usually from HBCUs-Historic Black Colleges and Universities), membership in fraternities and sororities, and business owner families, which starkly correlate with even greater differences in measures of educational, income and other measures of social mobility with their less successful neighbors? And such first generational “model residents” in minority communities often live in racially segregated black and Hispanic neighborhoods by choice. Black and Hispanic veterans, for instance, living in predominantly minority neighborhoods are often prized by corporate employers, as are sorority and fraternity members. But their children often are college graduates who live in integrated communities. The paradox is that a past voluntary segregated social membership among familiars seems to facilitate later successful racial integration. Generational segregation and poverty associated with single-parent dependent families show none of the generational family connections of the individuals to organized and established black institutions above.
15
@Bayou Houma, and where would such studies be published? Academic journals rely on peer-reviewers who remove anything that counters the prevailing view found in their own past publications.
4
@DoctorRPP
See the works of the late Harvard Prof. Martin Kilson on elite university recruitment of black students during the 1970s; “Black Brahmins” by the late sociologist Adelaide Cromwell Gulliver; the works of Thomas Sowell on black education; and several other scholars since E. Franklin Frazier’s 1950s studies on the black middle-class. Stephen Fox’s biography of William Monroe Trotter and the late 19th century black middle-class in Boston is also useful. But there is a large and growing literature on the black American middle class of the 20th century too numerous to include here.
Simple math shows that meaningful integration cannot occur in urban schools without busing in millions of suburban students.
In fall 2018 there were 1,135,334 students in the NYC public school system, only 15% (170,300) of whom were white. There were 1,840 public schools (including charters), with an average of 617 students per school. (NYCDoE)
The tiny percentage of white students means that the closest NYC can come to integrating its schools is to place an equal number of white students into each City school, which would mean an average of 93 white students and an average of 524 nonwhite students per school.
The Mayor and School Superintendent believe that mixing white students with minority students is the only way to improve educational outcomes for minority students, but I don't think 93 white students per school is enough to accomplish that goal. (And it’s an insult to suggest that minority students need exposure to white students to improve in school.)
This shortage of white students exists in virtually every city, and attempts to force integration by busing or by re-zoning school districts will make further white flight to suburbs and private schools inevitable.
There are simply not enough white students to spread around NYC or other cities’ public schools.
The solution to the problem of variable student outcomes is to acknowledge that residential and economic segregation exist, and focus efforts and funds on improving education in ALL public schools.
29
@Mon Ray
I could not agree more. Part of the success of the GOP is in appealing to suburbanites desire to provide quality education for their children. This will not change because sociologists write scholarly papers (I’d like to see the data for some of this as sociology is not known for its scientific rigor) about the benefits of diverse schools. Democrats would do better to champion good schools for all. Urban schools DO succeed when they offer unique programs, but this is because they are selecting for motivated pupils, something I wonder if the scholars are accounting for.
If you want good schools everywhere, you have to start much earlier than school age and you have to start in the home.
6
Very difficult issue.
I don't think the focus should be placed on better funding for schools and make all schools outstanding - although taxing authority should follow the growth in tax base and not allow higher incomes to secede from community wide responsibilities. Studies I have reviewed show the real correlation with school performance is socioeconomic level, not per pupil funding. It's the value of two parents at home having the time and interest to go over school work with their kids. The only approach I have found that shows improvement in this area is mentoring, which is a major commitment.
Housing - from my observations we are clearly re-segregating today based on our unequal economic structure and income disparity. Communities mandating some percent of affordable housing in new developments have trouble keeping the units affordable after the first buyers and it ignores older existing developments. We need to address income disparity or all this tinkering around the edges won't ever achieve the racially fair system that we are after.
7
Thank you for a great review of the important sociological research on this topic. It makes me proud of my profession. But I wonder if we are missing some important possibilities. Are KIPP Academies still working for impoverished children? Can they be expanded? What is happening with Harlem Academy and other programs shown in the documentary, Waiting for Superman? And the most important variable of all--how do we get the best possible teachers in classrooms for all our children?
10
@ClarieceL
Getting good teachers into classrooms for all our children is an incredible challenge. Good teachers want to teach , and prefer to teach good students. Good teachers don't want to spend all their time dealing with discipline problems, paperwork, and incompetent administrators. Good teachers will respond to economic disincentives by quittinq, but are unlikely to be attracted to poor working conditions by cold hard cash.
People who respond to finanacial incentives are unlikely to be good teachers, certainly not for long.
8
@ClarieceL
And how do we give parents the best support in raising children? The years from birth to school age are incredibly formative. The less stress a parent has to undergo and the more positive, stimulating, nurturing attention a baby/toddler/child gets from parents, the more successful the child will become because its executive functioning will be better. How can we reduce the stresses of living in poverty so that children are raised in a way that helps them achieve success? After all, it’s hard to provide those things when living in poverty and low socio-economic conditions. The excellent book How Children Succeed sums up much of the research that illustrates the correlation between the environment in which babies and children are raised and their future potential. How can we support parents living in poorly performing areas during those important developmental years? Parent mentoring and nurse home visits have shown success, but is not widely used because it is expensive. People love to claim that better schools and teachers will fix the problems, but the problems start way before school even begins. We need to start turning our attention to the roots of the problem, not the leaves.
3
@Deanna
Best comment so far. Crummy schools are just the symptom of a much bigger systemic problem.
3
It almost seems too obvious to say it, but poverty is a much worse thing for the poor, whatever their color, than segregation. Yet it almost seems we have a taboo against discussing ways to get rid of it. It isn’t as if poverty were, in such a rich country, an inevitability. The laws allowing segregation are mostly gone; but the laws allowing poverty are unquestioned. Most other wealthy countries have nearly eliminated the widespread, dangerous poverty we see in the US.
105
@Martin
No, no other country has found a way to buy their way out of deep cultural ruts.
By the way, how does economics explain the successes of poor African American athletes?
Many people incorrectly believe that federally mandated busing to achieve integration would be only one-way, from urban schools to suburban schools, as if all or most urban minority kids will be bused to the suburbs.
However, the fact is that in order for busing to work it would have to be two-way, with millions of minority schoolkids bused from city schools to suburban schools, and millions of white kids bused from suburbs to urban schools.
This is why so many suburban residents oppose mandatory busing, not because their schools will receive some minority students, but because to balance things out some white students will have to be bused to urban schools, which parents of all races generally agree are of lower quality than those in the suburbs.
Further, if busing were only one-way, from cities to suburbs, the taxes of suburban residents would have to go up to pay for additional teachers and classrooms, which is never going to happen. Nor is it remotely likely that cities will give to suburban schools the money the cities save by closing schools and laying off teachers no longer needed because the city kids have been bused to the suburbs.
If the Democratic Party makes federally mandated busing of students a plank in its 2020 platform, we are doomed to another term of Trump.
99
@Mon Ray -- Yes it did go both ways, and that was a big part of the problem.
However, no it did not have to be that way. The bad schools could have been closed. Michigan is now doing that.
That leaves the problem of why some neighborhoods should go without good schools, either having bad ones or having none at all. The why is about funding.
Bad schools often spend a lot per student, but if you check more closely, they are spending it to patch up ancient school buildings and similar extra costs.
They also have extra expenses associated with putting a school in a place that is dangerous for children, in order to protect them and their teachers and staff.
Yet most places including Michigan have used property taxes to pay for local schools. Rich neighborhoods have expensive properties, and thus no trouble raising money by property taxes. Poor neighborhoods have property that just isn't worth much, and can't support a tax base.
This was supposed to be fixed by "equalization payments" from State funds raised by taxes that reach actual money. Of course, later lawmakers tend to cut that, cut it again, and complain about it always. Schools get thrown back on a tax base never designed to support them, that was supposed to be supplemented and now isn't.
10
@Mark Thomason
Maybe the tax base for schools should be done by the County taxes. Take the $$ for schools out of the cities hands and put them into the broader base of the county. Let the county disburse the taxes onto the individual schools in a per student basis. That might take the governor and state legislature out of it and bring it closer to home. It is easier to get of the county government than it is to get rid of the state government. Divide the school board in Detroit to say for x amount of students per board. That way places like Detroit would not have such a gigantic district where the suburbs have a much smaller district. A much smaller school district would be more effective.
1
@Joy B. Except that in a place like St Louis, the county and city boundaries do not overlap, by design, for these very reasons. Cities in the county, with much higher property values, fund all the schools in the county, which do not include schools of the city of St Louis. Never underestimate the powerful’s ability to define geography to its own advantage.
"There is a large body of evidence that shows that African-American children perform better when they move out of high-poverty areas into more middle class, less segregated neighborhoods." Yes, but who are the children moving out? My guess is they are ones with families that believe in education, are willing to invest in the children and have the financial means to do so. In other words, perhaps there is some statistical self-selection going on here that would influence the findings.
191
@JM
Families are more likely to believe in education when they have the socioeconomic resources to afford it. This has been known for generations. This is what Edsall is writing about. The idea that people are self-selecting failure en-masse is nonsense.
11
@JM, this self selection is definitely taking place in the voluntary busing cases, such as the one Kamala Harris refers to from here own childhood. I think these studies are clearly greatly effected by whether they are using data from government mandated busing versus voluntary.
3
@JM
Racism is elitism. It is the privileged looking down their noses at the rest of us. It is the sense of wealth entitlement, that the wealthy are better and more valued. That people of color are easy to identify and much less represented in the upper class, makes them the main target for association with poverty, even though more white people are actually living below the poverty line in the U.S. We are trending toward more racism as the elite fight to protect their right to wealth. Because to accept that one has no right to more wealth than one can possibly spend while others suffer in poverty would mean having to accept that we are in fact all equal and deserve equal protection not only under the law but to opportunity.
7
If we don’t live together, we will vote separately, and there will always be politicians to exploit that separation.
What happens in the voting booth, starts in the neighborhood.
12
One proposal, a step only: state wide school budgets and the elimination of local school boards, which would also reduce local property taxes.
13
In NYC in the 1980s there were many landlords of numerous large apartment buildings who--after Fred Trump was sued for discrimination--used real estate agencies to 'filter' their tenants. They would grudgingly rent to tenants of color but charged them a higher rent than white tenants.
Again, these landlords took less $ than allowed by rent control in buildings and neighborhoods that were fully integrated in Brooklyn and Queens. Such 'overt segregation' is missing from this editorial.
4
The only way to deal with residential segregation is to integrate neighborhoods, and the best way to do that is to require new construction to include affordable housing assigned on a truly random basis to all who qualify.
3
In the 1960s I did some of the first school integration research on busing black children from urban public schools to elite white suburban schools. Stresses on the black kids (travel time, hostility, overt racism, increased academic competition) were substantial, but worse was that the urban schools had not remotely prepared their students to compete at the same grade levels as their suburban peers.
Integration is a worthy goal, but:
1. Assuming that mixing black kids with white kids is needed to improve the black kids is insulting and demeaning.
2. Mixing students of very different academic abilities will force teachers in the elite schools to teach down to the lowest common denominators, which will short-change the better students.
3. Given the large performance gaps between elite and urban schools, the former will need to provide substantial counseling and tutoring services to help the incoming students try to catch up with the higher-performing students and to help under-prepared students cope with the stresses of a more demanding academic environment.
4. Parents of students who are forced to attend low-performing schools will likely consider switching to private schools or relocating to the suburbs, thus reducing even further the number of white students in the school system.
The answer is not to try to spread the relatively small numbers and percentages of urban white students proportionally across all urban schools, but to improve ALL urban schools.
137
@Mon Ray
Points 2 and 4 became my personal experience when I sent my children to diverse city schools in Portland, Oregon. The schools performed so poorly due to the extreme needs of minority children there was nothing left for my regular and high-achieving kids). We ended up busing our own children to private schools across town.
Many of the problems are more cultural than racial and will require more than good intentions by people like me. My now adult children who are parents have decidedly settled in suburbs and small towns in Oregon and Wisconsin to provide quality education for their own children. They consider my efforts quaint and well-meaning, but ultimately wrong-headed.
24
@Mon Ray
I don’t think it’s demeaning. Learning how to navigate affluent white circles is an extremely important life skill, which is best learned by being near affluent white people.
By analogy, many schools like to have some foreign exchange students. Is it insulting and demeaning to suggest that local kids will get a better education if there are foreigners there? Obviously not; they’ll benefit from learning about a foreign culture (and the foreign students will benefit from learning about our culture).
8
@Mon Ray. Your lecture is ahistorical. Integration clearly works as was visible in Charlotte and Raleigh, NC in which robust mechanisms were in place. Did you even reed any of the research? The research shows that high performing students are not harmed when put in integrated classrooms.
7
Perhaps you are missing the forest for the trees. Many extremely poor populations, with poor or no education, have risen through strong family values and dedication to their children's future advancement through hard work. The prevailing society was one that was valued and the ultimate target. You cannot strive without hope.
When I was at CCNY in the 60s we were studying how to strengthen the nuclear family in low income families in the neighborhood. How far back do you go? To the infant? To the new parents? To their parents? The conclusion was employment and hope and that led into the circular argument of which comes first - the education or the work. The most haunting book at the time was Tally's Corner, or Streetcorner Men. Might be time to revisit that research.
15
@me Funny how family structure is rarely mentioned in these "studies."
15
This topic is dear to me because I went to and benefitted from an integrated public school in the Bay Area. I cannot think of one of my white friends who were hurt by going to this school. Many of us are no less successful than those that went to the expensive Catholic schools in the same area. The attendance at the private schools was driven by the perception that athletics were better and the schools were safer. While the athletics were good at the private schools, part of the reason was that the schools would pick the best athletes and encourage them to go there. Sometimes the best athletes were black. So, the private schools only wanted to educate the minority students who they thought could help them win football and basketball games.
As this essay points out, and as I have seen in person, if whites want a safer society then they need to get over their unevidenced fears and allow for more integration in schools. Strangely enough, the immigration problem is also driven by unfounded fears of other groups. Study after study shows the benefits of immigration, but just like the term busing stand for racism, so does the phrase "ICE is just following the law." Ultimately, Americans are scared of immigrants for no good reason except their own fear of other people that they don't understand.
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@Anthony
‘unevidenced fears’ ? You’re kidding....right ?
5
@Anthony: immigrants are those here legally. They have no fear of ICE.
You mean "illegal aliens".
What we hate about liberals is that they abuse LANGUAGE to lie and deceive others and force their point of view on the rest of us.
ICE is just following the law -- that's TRUTH.
4
The data you cite show that kids do better when they *live* in better neighborhoods, not when they get bused in, like tourists, only to return to poverty-ridden ones with all the attendant problems, at 3:00 PM. And it says nothing at all about integration, per se.
And while white "intransigence" in the face of forced busing --in large part because it also meant some of their own kids got bused *out*-- remains strong, the places where white families head for the hills the moment a black family moves into the neighborhood are becoming mercifully more rare; were that not so, there would be insufficient data to study.
You're usually pretty spot-on, Mr. Edsall, but when you proceed from opening error and misstatement you're done before you start.
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@Len Safhay
Actually, the minority and disadvantaged kids do better. Most evidence suggests it does not hurt (and may help) the more affluent white kids. I do not think Mr. Edsall made an error.
1
@Len Safhay: I note Mr. Edsall does not where HE lives or where he sent his own children to school (or maybe his grandkids today).
Dollars to donuts, it was not some majority black, poor area nor did he let his kids go to a underperforming inner city school.
1
@JSK
You missed my point...
"There is a large body of evidence that shows that African-American children perform better when *they move out of* (my emphasis) high-poverty areas into more middle class, less segregated neighborhoods..."
In other words, it could well be that busing has benefits for both black and white kids. Or not. It could also be that integration, per se, has something to do with said possible benefits. Or not.
The reason we can't know from this essay is that the study Edsall cites *does not examine either issue*, but rather that kids do better when they *live* in a better neighborhood, which is about as surprising as reporting that the sun rises in the east.
That's the error I refer to; misusing/misunderstanding data and thus generating a non sequitur argument from it.
4
The presidency of Donald Trump has only served to exacerbate the underlying problems of racial-societal segregation. Indeed, if his support base of approximately 40% is to be believed, then the national thrust of racial separation appears to be increasing—and the immediate results can be seen in the rancorous divisions we see playing out on a daily basis. A single individual—the current president—is driving the questions of race and fairness. How can this be possible to ignore?
There has been no legislation of substance passed in the two Congressional delegations since Donald Trump’s election. That means that his iron grip on the Republican Party is so solid that no member dares to oppose him—and the result is that there is no call for infrastructure investment anywhere in urban America—the home to most black Americans. This is no accident.
The president’s appeals to racial divisiveness and its deleterious accompanied stereotypes simply work to gin up not only the hate—but the absolute fright—that is necessary to keep the warning sirens against integration wailing its shrill end-of-the-world warning about the dangers of accepting a multi-cultural society.
By keeping minorities segregated from whites, the president and his party and his supporters push the narrative that the greatness of America can only be achieved by a return to the harsh and unforgiving credo of white supremacy.
Absent a Trump defeat in 2020, he will be proven correct—to the lasting harm of all of us.
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@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
Trump/political fantasies galore.
Look up the "Ballou High School" scandal. That happened in D.C. in the wake of 8 years of Obama and also local Democratic control. Look at the commitment - or lack thereof - to education expressed! And that is representative of the inner city educational rut that many African American are stuck in (I see it Rochester on a weekly basis).
Now look at the educational (black/white) gap. Has that in any way closed under Democratic leadership? The irony is that in old school segregated schools - like Dunbar in D.C. - they had high achievement averages.
Places like Rochester have done backflips to try to boost African American achievement and it has not worked.
So much for progress.
3
Proof that it works is not a requirement. We don't require proof that it works to have mixed age groups, mixed genders, mixed nationalities. What is the definition of "works", after centuries of slavery, exploitation and extermination of native polulations ? We have human experience morality and history, and don't forget that novel and sticky concept of "freedom". Using government policies to separate ethnic groups isn't freedom, or respect, or equal opportunity. The current effort seeks to reserve freedom, respect and access to equal opportunity (which does not guarantee equal outcomes) to some ethnic groups only. Lack of freedom and respect can appear to work too, by giving the appearance of a docile and peaceful society where the individual is repressed, isn't North Korea something that "works" from their point of view ? We don't have to prove that respect and human rights for all "work". They are one of the basic blocks of morality and human decency..
5
I wonder how many times it needs to be said that family socioeconomic status determines so many elements of what is termed success (quality education, future work and income).
Like Mr. Edsall says, generations of scholars have recognized this.
One if left with the conclusion that large swaths of the American public do not care about this. Worse, significant portions of the population like it that way...even if they will not say it to a pollster.
No public show of scientific data is going to change this dynamic. Maybe some public shaming has a shot, but that is questionable.
What is clear is that for anything to begin to re-address these age-old problems we have to change the dominance of Republicans in the government. There is no denying that congressional Republicans--under fealty to Trump- will attempt to block any fix to the problems.
This is not to say that both parties have not contributed to the historic failures we see, but given our two party system, only one now stubbornly and systematically stands in the way of any correction.
24
@Stephanie Wood
While I understand the serious and corrosive problems of income inequality, it does not mean that the two parties are currently identical in willingness to tackle some of the problems discussed by Mr. Edsall.
Sure, both parties have been none too good in the past, but the modern Republicans will obstruct everything to do with social contracts.
3
@JSK - The party of the affluent professionals is the Democrats, not the Republicans. It's these well-off liberals who live in all-white suburban towns and send their kids to Ivy League schools. They may say Trump is an evil racist, but they're not going to tolerate anything that personally impacts their lives.
2
@Jonathan
My sense is that you are wrong. Still, the upper 10% are causing a great deal of problems for the rest of the country: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/ .
Having said that, your sense of partisan affluence appears backwards: https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/economic-demographics-republicans/ .
3
How do you make it work?
Start with being sure that there is no win/lose scenario. If you consolidate schools - think of it as redistricting not busing - then you need to provide adequate resources to the school that must grow.
You need to make sure that no one is redistricted out of a high performing school into a low performing school to make room for consolidation.
A win/win scenario - the school grows, the funding follows, no one is displaced,has a shot at working. Consolidation that comes with increased population, no resources, displacement of people who located specifically for a certain school and get moved out to make room for consolidation will increase resentment, tension, backlash.
It is white intransigence and racism when a community fails to share under any circumstances. It is normal human resentment when people are told they lose what they worked for, by government fiat. Look for a win/win scenario instead.
16
@Cathy
I agree with PNBLanco that we need to eliminate local funding; I would go further, fund all states through federal income taxes as so many developed nations do. That is the way to eliminate inequalities between poor and rich neighborhoods as well as poorer states and wealthier ones. When all schools provide equal resources, the middle class will move to neighborhoods with housing costs and more integrated communities will develop.
I agree with Mon Ray that busing as a solution would have to be two-way. I remember lots of anger about the toll of long commutes on children during the era of busing to integrate schools. Many parents also want their children to engage in after-school activities. Insufficient resources in some schools and long commutes make busing unlikely to work.
That said, we need to develop systems that encourage integration and especially integration in accelerated coursework. All students, white, Asian, Latino, and Black, benefit from familiarity with individuals from other communities. In our diverse America, one might argue that it is even an issue of national security that we fight prejudices and build cross-cultural understanding. You have to know people from other cultures to really do that.
2
@Cathy, My kids are never, never going to a substandard school so that you, or some other administrator, can make numbers and statistics seem right.
13
@Ryan,
'Kids' do not need to go to school, and yours can frolic merrily on the greens of The Alps with an excellent goatherd to look after them.
1