This article is misleading. It states that "performance for everyone" improves when under-performing / poor / urban school students are integrated into wealthy / high-performing / elite / less-diversified public schools. This is simply not true. In reality, many under-performing urban schools lose their top performing students, who often move to better schools - either on merit of need-based scholarships, or on their own, once it becomes clear to them and their family that their potential warrants (and can earn) additional resources. This is part of what creates the "tracked" system of public schools. In NYC, the selective public schools like Bronx Science merely formalize this process - weeding out the higher-performers from the lower-performers based on standardized test scores. That's not to say the tax base of a school doesn't affect the quality, it most certainly does. And that's also not to say that Bronx Science students don't benefit from extra funding compared to the schools they leave behind - they certainly do. But it DOES mean that the debate is not so simple as "everyone improves when you mix them all together." No matter how you measure diversity, whether by race, or income, or test scores, or anything else - what matters is the academic aptitude of the students sitting in the class rooms (nature or nurture debate irrelevant). Ask any teacher, and they will tell you the same thing - there is a higher track math class and a lower track math class for a reason.
27
“The change would include a two mile increase in some bus commutes”. The argument of two miles is too far of an additional commute? Give me a break.
This is not about racial divide; this is about the division of economic prosperity. The oppositions parents are from a diverse set of racial backgrounds: White, Black, Asian, Hispanic. The stark contrast among the opposition and “minority” families are the income proportions.
The parents of the opposition of school integration blindly present themselves as privileged families that believe their zip code represents the health of their children’s success; they fear that integration with poverty-stricken students will dilute their sheltered, privileged children’s upbringing, when in reality, it will help prepare them for the real world.
If these parents were so concerned about the allocation of student body demographics and family income, maybe they should send their children to a private school.
5
Ms Goldstein states "A growing body of research suggests that bringing students of disparate races and social classes together can boost children’s test scores and help them develop empathy." When I selected the link to see all of this research, I was taken to a site dedicated to integrating schools within Stanford. That is not a growing body!
After Biden was attacked by Harris during a debate, even the NYTimes had to admit that busing did not work. It is outrageous to see this happening in the US today. I would never allow my kids to be bused away from the local schools where we live, were we moved deliberately because of the schools.
The idea that integration creates empathy is also a joke. Quite the opposite, especially when disruptive students cannot be punished or removed from a class. Talk to kids that have gone through this, and stop using data that is collected and analyzed with extreme bias.
Busing does not work! What does work is to fund schools equally, hire good teachers, and allow those good teachers to actually teach vs. coddle and discipline the few students in the class that perpetually interrupt class, disrespecting other students and the teacher in the process. Being black or hispanic doesn't mean you're not as smart as anyone else. Why is it assumed that having white and asian kids in class with other minorities improves learning for all? It does not.
39
What do other diverse cities like Toronto or London or Frankfurt or Singapore do?
Oh, they have tests every 4 years to match to an ability-level focused ES, MS and HS.
Oh and A-levels for those who test well enough to move on to the final 2 years of high school.
Oh, and trade apprenticeships for those who cannot master the academic materials or literacy.
Here we are bussing kids around to smooth over average test scores and race composition in huge county public school districts. Did not hear ONE word about how effective the curriculum is, teachers, parental involvement, college or real world readiness, absenteeism, graduation rates, ESOL issues.
Didn't Milwaukee do Chapter 220 for 20+ years and then cancel it? That was a bussing and school choice program.
20
What is wrong with mixing everyone together and teaching down to the lowest common denominator? Why should higher-performing students be allowed to excel among themselves, when other students don't have the same ability? This is why highways have speed limits FAR BELOW the speed at which some drivers could safely drive. We don't select the top 30% of drivers and build them their own highways with 100MPH speed limits, do we? No. We make the highways open to all drivers, and we set the speed limit low enough so that the lowest-performing 30% of drivers can most safely get from place to place. Higher-performance drivers might feel disadvantaged, but what is the other option? To leave the lower-performance drivers to take the bus? As a society, we have an obligation to cater ALL SERVICES to the lowest common denominator. And that means ALL SERVICES must be diverse, to ensure that the "lowest common denominator" is found equally in all environments. We have a long way to go in this regard. People who resist are the same type of people who want their own personal highway where the speed limit is designed just for them. Or want their kid in a math class designed to challenge them based on their ability. This is wrong. Services should be for all people, mixed together, always. The slowest among us should govern our pace, and we should accept it.
6
This article is a bit one-sided. The "stiff resistance" is not because we don't want our schools desegregated. It's because the plan makes no sense. They want to move my kid from the elementary school bordering our neighborhood, to one that takes 15-20 minutes to get to. Both schools have the same demographics, so it wouldn't change anything. National affordable housing expert Rick Jacobus said that a housing plan like Columbia’s, is just focused on downtown renters, and lags behind other affluent suburbs. He notes next-door Montgomery County or across-the-country King County, Washington, are national models that both address the issue across their entire geography. But he acknowledges that such efforts are usually confined to areas near public transportation. The affordable housing in Howard county is clustered in Columbia. In fact approximately 92% of it is in Columbia. The issue is lack of public transportation among other things in this county. But the point is that of course we now see an imbalance in schools. I don't think the answer is to disrupt families lives, children need stability. The answer is to solve these design flaws.
11
If I move into an affluent neighborhood I want my kids to grow up with other like minded parents. It’s just the way it is.
21
I hate segregation. We are almost as segregated in Cincinnati as we were years ago, far worse than Howard County, it seems. Some Cincinnati schools have no white children at all! Others have few blacks. We have high schools with no AP courses! But I also hate the busing idea. Not fair all that travel time. Nobody would like that! Wilde Lake does a lot better on AP courses and on the racial mix than certain schools in Cincinnati. I say Find Other Ways to bring income and racial diversity! Prosperity for all in this rich -- and poor -- country is what we should work for, it seems to me, not expect the public schools to take all the heat.
2
I grew up in Howard County and graduated from Centennial High School ten years ago. As a woman of color, I could go on and on about the benefits of diversity and why we shouldn't disregard the students of color in Howard County.
Instead, I'd like to focus on the racism in the comments section here: it's fascinating reading these comments about parents not wanting their children to attend "urban" schools with "fractured families" and from "the wrong side of the tracks." Wilde Lake High is a gorgeous school across from an interfaith center and down the street from the Columbia Mall, which is considered the city center.
Yet, the mere presence of a larger black/latinx community and slightly lower test scores leads NY Times readers from around the country to assume that it's deep in the ghetto. These racist dogwhistles are the very reason why Howard County leaders need to fight to diversify the schools. Maybe the NY Times readers could have benefited from similar consideration when they were still attending primary school.
14
Sharma is making the argument that his attitude isn’t racist. He also mentioned that he’s a son of Indian immigrants. The caste system/casteism is still rampant in India. It’s probably one of the most racist/discriminatory systems in civilization. Of course, he wouldn’t have any influence from those attitudes.
4
"Color blind."
Not then, not now, not until a very very indefinite futurity.
1
What objective, statistical data support the notion that white and Asian kids are helped academically by increasing the numbers of black and Hispanic kids they go to school with? It has always seemed a left-wing pipe dream.
23
Newsflash, even liberals are racist when it comes to protecting any advantages for their own children. If we want racial economic justice in this country it will mean knocking out some of its inherited entitlements, and will also require a major investment in early education for the disadvantaged.
It's not rocket science, just sound German engineering.
https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/nov/25/what-can-we-learn-from-the-great-german-school-turnaround
3
That whole article is turned from political games to a racism. Most affected kids are not from very rich families of Asian immigrants. Chinese, Indians, Vietnamese, Africans are protesting against cruelty of the County's government, which destroying lives of our kids, moving their away from friends and activities. Just put yourself in their shoes and imagine how stressful it will be for kids to move. The officials, who make those decisions have to be impeached immediately! Because they go against their voters, taxpayers and against our future - our kids.
4
I have taught at Wilde Lake High for over 20 years. My own child is a proud graduate of Wilde Lake, and many local teachers enroll their own children here. Teachers know Wilde Lake is Columbia's best kept secret. And as a member of the Maryland Professional Standards Board for teachers, I also know that Howard County attracts the very best qualified teachers in the state, and there are no bad schools in Columbia. Additionally, Wilde Lake's demographic diversity is its greatest strength, as our student body represents the widest economic range in the county, and includes students from 80 nations speaking over 40 languages. My own kid got a wonderful education here, as will the new students we enroll next year. We will welcome them and their families into our Wilde Lake community and enjoy their discovery of the rich educational opportunities we provide.
While we look forward to restoring neighborliness in our vibrant community, I do think many people in Howard County enjoyed the WildeCat football team's upset of the River Hill Hawks in the 3A state playoffs last week. Welcome to the Wilde side, Hawks!
16
"Longer commutes to school, they argued, would mean less time for students to do homework and to sleep. Some children would be severed from friends they had made in earlier grades. Low-income parents with inflexible jobs would be hit the hardest, and would not be able to get involved in their children’s schools."
I'm sympathetic to this argument. There's a private school down the road from us that's on my way to work, has small class size and a lot of kids from our neighborhood feed into it. I don't look forward to paying the tuition but the other mid school/high school is out of my work way and we don't live close to that neighborhood. There's a beautifully built public school but it's the same size as when it was built: 1950s. They've packed the kids in there.
Sometimes I think all this fighting could be quieted by building more schools within neighborhoods. Parents would like their kids to go to schools close by in their neighborhoods with lots of room to handle new kids each semester.
4
Desegregation is a good idea. It will help keep our communities strong and our democracy vibrant. However, to achieve it by busing kids around is not a good idea. More mixed income housing with better job opportunities with better pay is the answer. Everything comes back to economic inequality.
10
@Kate Income inequality begins with education. The key issue is how do you make opportunities better for the existing children of low wage earners without simultaneously hurting the existing children of middle/upper wage earners?
Self-selection is a key issue, one cannot address the damage done to a child by parents who just don't care within a 8-hr school day (eg Appalachian families who spend 16 hrs a day reinforcing the message that education is a waste of time). Letting those who want a good education self-sort into a good program, without forcing those who don't (sadly) have the home support to be in the same classroom may be a solution.
Elizabeth Warren talked about this in the 2 Income Trap (middle class competes for resources by bidding up house prices in good school districts, a voucher for a good school may get the same result without overpaying for housing). Unfortunately, she is now opposed to vouchers (which means those who pay a high property tax are going to fiercely protect the resources they purchased for their kids).
2
Want to destroy the public school system? Force kids into bussing, All schools will lose families that can afford a private education. Who wants their kids spending hours a day travelling to and from schools?
16
I think parents of children in better-performing schools are really afraid of transferring students being disruptive or not interested learning. The fears stem from time taken away from teaching/learning to disciplining.
21
Ah yes. The bob and weave of white fragility begins as evidenced by many of the comments on this thread. But let's be real. The parents who push against long bus rides wouldn't be sounding that alarm if the destination were a fancy private school with a fair complexion. Consider the message we send to our kids, white and black, when we are complicit with segregation.
8
@Sasquatch Totally disagree with your comment. I think it's racist. So let's be real. The very good private school is right down the road from our house and half way closer than public elementary, middle or high schools. And yes we can afford it as well but we specifically chose for our kids to go the public schools and be in more integrated and diverse environment. Additionally, if you think we dislike proposed high school because it's not "good", you are wrong. There is nothing wrong with this school. I would love for my daughter to go there if it was not 3 times longer distance that to our current public school.
I hope this controversy will show Liberals everywhere how misguided they are. These are people who would normally see racism and white privilege in EVERY racially lopsided outcome. But they have a very different view when they see the situation up close.
With first-hand experience they see that higher test scores are a result of a competitive environment where parents (of any color) are pushing their kids and the schools to do better. Invoking "segregation" as the culprit just minimizes the real segregation that people suffered in the past.
As in most cases, forced diversity is just optics. Real change has to come from within one's own community and culture.
15
River Hill is the ONLY village in Columbia without affordable housing. (There are 10 villages in Columbia.) The lack of housing diversity in River Hill goes against the values which Rouse set forth for Columbia a little over 50 years ago. Ironically, River Hill is finally slated to build affordable housing yet the superintendent's plan has this polygon going to an elementary school with a high FARM rate. There is a lot more to this story than kids being sent to WLHS from RHHS. This is a very small portion of the students potentially being moved. I wish Ms. Goldstein focused more on the impact of developer's campaign donations over the past few decades. Politicians continue to be influenced by developers while putting aside the impact to the community. As Andy from Vermont said, as long as housing in America is segregated, public schools will suffer.
11
As long as housing in America is segregated by race and class then the public schools will struggle to accomplish their mission of providing an equitable education to all American children. We continue to reap the consequences of red-lining, suburban flight, gated communities and other methods of separating Americans from one another. Jonathan Kozol wrote about this problem with his book 'Savage Inequalities'. Is a beloved community still possible where we live together, work together, play together and go to school together?
70
@Andy Davis
My goodness, you are so right. We can't---as adults---choose homogenous neighborhoods, homogeneous friends, hire homogenous employees and then expect our children to wham, suddenly be for diversity overnight. Its just too much to put on children. We need to start with the people in the mirror, as Michael Jackson told us.
8
@Andy Davis We do live together, work together, play together, and go to school together. We just do it within our neighborhoods. That's how it should be - you afford to live in a good school district and make the sacrifices to do so; regardless of the color of your skin.
10
Nothing better than seeing liberal hypocrisy at work. And also a note to the “education experts”. Placing students from different communities side by side only works if they are of the same academic level. Otherwise the segregation continues at the level of the school class. Note I did not say dumb down the academics nor intermix smart and dumb in the same class. First bring up the academic achievement in the “poor” schools by providing remedial programs. This must include discipline for the incorrigible and removal of the mentally handicapped from mainstream classes. You may then find that forced busing is neither needed nor desirable. Long bus rides and social isolation are not a myth. They are harmful. Why so much youth obesity? Look no farther than long bus rides for dubious social engineering purposes.
10
There are several reforms currently underway in education that make parent's more wary of integration plans.
1st are the discipline reforms. Someone did a single-factor regression (variable was race) and found that minority kids were suspended or expelled more often (they didn't run regressions on single parenthood or trauma a child may have experienced). Policy-makers attribute discipline to race rather than class disruption. The proposed solution, so far, has been to relax discipline. Which means that less learning can occur in a classroom if kids are allowed to disrupt the entire classroom, 1 student can diminish the learning of an entire class.
2nd is the movement to eliminate gifted programs or selective enrollment programs, usually based on similar social goals. Now, if students are unprepared for class (algebra teachers have to spend time on basic math concepts, slowing down the advancement of the rest of the algebra class), they slow down the progress of the rest of the class.
It is natural for a parent to have concerns about putting their kids in a sociological experiment, one where the results won't be known for 20 years. It is biology to care more about your own child than a neighbors, and trying to force parents to put aside the concern for their own genetic descendants is not going to end well. A lion will protect her own cub more fiercely than another cub in the pride.
17
My kids attend an elementary school and are zoned to middle and high schools that would be effected by the redistricting plan. Many parents from the school oppose the plan, but opposition is based on the chaotic way the process has been carried out, the haphazard splitting of historically contiguous neighborhoods with no real benefit to the unsustainable overcrowding at the school, and increased travel/transport costs (walkers at one school would be bussed to a school many miles away and passing multiple other schools enroute).
In regard to equity, none of the proposed plans would have any significant effect on the socioeconomic make-up of our majority minority neighborhood school. This has been a poorly planned process that would negatively impact students. There must be change to address the serious overcrowding and growing equity concerns of the district. The current proposals are not the way to do that.
12
I guess I'm one of the liberal people from Howard County who is against the redistricting. The proposed redistricting plan lacks detail and has many gray areas and gaps.
Unfortunately, none of the proposed redistricting plans will fix this divide. Having first hand experience with the largest socioeconomic experiment in recent history, the Soviet Union, where I lived for the first 21 years of my life, I wish people will learn from past precedent. The poorly planned redistricting plan will fail miserably - the same way the Soviet Union did.
It's common sense for children to attend the school closest to their home. It's common sense to let children walk to school if they are within walking distance. It’s common sense to reduce the busing distances in order to combat climate change.
The BOE needs to address the lowest-achieving schools first and do so incrementally.
Instead of pouring money into additional buses, spend it on:
-- Renovating current schools
-- Building new schools
-- Allowing kids from overcrowded schools to go to schools that have capacity
-- Adding advanced programs like IB and AP to school curriculums
-- Providing additional funding to under-achieving schools
-- Extending tutoring and mentorship programs to the students who need them
-- Establishing scholarships
-- Providing workshops to educate parents on the best ways to motivate their children
12
I ask this question every time I read an article like this on. Why are the schools with Black or mostly Black enrollment not given the same rigorous academic studies as White schools? Why is the answer always busing? And don’t tell me about property taxes. Make the distribution equal for all. Busing is just an excuse, as it has been for years, for politicians to avoid treating Black schools the same way as White schools. It is about time this discrimination stops. Maybe there is a kid sitting in one of these Black schools right now, who if given the same opportunity as White kids, would be the one who finds the cure for ALS.
9
@Doris Keyes , the reason has nothing to do with discrimination and everything to do with the fact that black US high school students perform at significantly lower academic levels than white ones. Putting children with 6th grade reading levels into AP classes doesn’t work, and many majority minority schools have too few students performing even at, never mind above, grade level to justify a large number of high level classes.
12
The way this article is framed is extremely unfortunate and borderline irresponsible. As someone who grew up on both sides of Howard County, this article misses the mark on SO many key points and oversimplifies and very complex issue.
I grew up in a very low income area of Howard County for the first 10 years of my life. I was fortunate enough that my family to move to Clarksville where I attended River Hill High School.
Sure, I considered myself lucky to attend a great high school. But, by definition, it did NOT make me privileged. I never felt that I was above anyone or had special treatment. Being a "privileged white male" is 100% about how your parents raise you and has NOTHING to do with the school you attend, or the community you grow up in. The comments to this article and the way it was framed... painting our entire community with a very broad brush, is extremely disappointing.
This article assumes that currently there is no integration in HoCo schools. It makes this assumption solely on socioeconomic stats and skin color of the student body. How trivial is that? This article tries to preach the moral high ground while also falling victim to its writer's clear prejudice. I welcome anyone to sit at the High School Graduation ceremonies and watch the kids who cross that stage. It is a very diverse group.
This redistricting plan was NEVER about diversity or re-integration. That's why people all over the county opposed it. Very disappointed in how this was framed.
13
A person with a high IQ will do well in school no matter where it is. The presence of poverty is not the determining factor in life.
4
This article doesn't cover a critical issue the Howard County Public School System (HCPSS) has struggled to address over the last decade: HCPSS's poor coordination with the Howard County Council has enabled unchecked housing development and population growth. Redistricting students around in HCPSS schools is an automatic event every two years to relieve severe school overcrowding. As it stands, HCPSS schools, serving one of the wealthiest counties in the US, in total have 222 portable classrooms installed. In addition, HCPSS data projects enrollment growth of 6,700 students over the next ten years.
7
Ironically, we have long lived in an affluent, well educated enclave on the border of the River Hill catchment. Children here, though, have attended Wilde Lake for years. When we first moved here, we felt the district was cheating us as high taxpayers. There was a put up and shut up attitude and because there were so few children in our neighborhood we were powerless to change the situation. We soon became aware of the not so subtle racism of the Howard County schools and their administrators. Wilde Lake had no classes in Latin or Art History, and district officials' response when questioned about the obvious inequities would defend their bad choices with the code, "Wilde Lake is the 'urban' school. So now it is reassuring to see that someone is finally confronting the issue. Oh, and in the end we were not dissatisfied with Wilde Lake one bit; our children excelled and prospered because they were exposed to a diverse environment. Wilde Lake had far better art, music, and theater instruction than any other school in the district and its forensics program was first rate. When you explore the list of distinguished Wilde Lake alumni (published on its Wikipedia page) and compare it to River Hill and other Columbia high schools, it's obvious that it's the most distinguished Howard County school.
62
I live in a well-off suburban town that is currently fighting over our elementary school distribution--should three schools (all in need of repair) be winnowed down to two schools (saving money 2<3). I am for three schools to continue as I am for children being able to walk to school if at all possible. Our town also has children who are voluntarily bussed in from Boston and I always feel for these kids who lose so much of their day to transportation to and from school (not that would be any different in Boston as it is a school choice mess but...).
Clearly I'm in the Improve not Move camp but there will always be inequality in schools because even with equal funding, the local well-off parents will contribute their personal monies to fund extras. We need to raise the baseline of funding as well as get certain communities more involved in the education of their children. I understand that not all families have the time to volunteer in the classroom or give generously to the PTO but if they are able to inculcate an attitude of the utmost importance of education that would help all schools immensely.
3
Your neighborhood school should be of superb quality and more than acceptable to attend. We shouldn't have to rely on the property values of the homes to determine the opportunities a child born into this world has or have to rely on busing in any sense to provide said opportunities. Somebody always gets left behind when we have to resort to this. We need to equitably fund all schools and ensure they have highly trained teachers and resources they need to support the students in front of them.
4
The integration battle has been going on for more than 70 years. Surely, by now, research has been done studying the effects of integration on formerly "white" schools. We all know that minority students do better in integrated schools, but how do the students from the formerly segregated white schools do, once the schools are integrated? Do the white students also do better, or are the parents right? It's been over 70 years. Why don't the parents know?
7
@Scottilla , Thomas Edsall had a recent column (just after the Kampala Harris busing flap) that showed that there was no real benefit to white kids from busing. The comments also provided a lot of anecdotal data.
10
I had to laugh about the "too long a bus ride" argument. I was in a newly-desegregated elementary school in Arlington Virginia in the late 60s: I was bussed across town to the formerly black school. Surprise: I made friends there. If I could do a 1hr bus ride at 5 and 6, surely these high school kids can.
Now I live in Germany ( in the rural northeast) where school starts at 7.30 in the morning. And guess what? Some kids leave the house at 6 am to get to school on time.
America seems good at whining these days and reluctant to even the playing board.
4
Prediction: once you integrate the buildings, people will start to notice the disproportionate numbers of white and Asian kids in higher level classes. Soon there will be a move to “detrack”, mixing kids with high school level reading skills with those who struggle with 6th grade level material. This is happening in many places across the US, in the name of equity. A previous commenter mentioned Oak Park, Illinois, another consciously integrated community.
That level of academic diversity in the classroom means that no one really gets the instruction they need. But it looks equitable in photos!
At an all black school (full disclosure: I’ve spent my career teaching in such schools) academic achievement is not tagged as “white”; in one that integrates richer whites with poorer minorities, it will be, simply because of the achievement gap found on all academic tests. For whatever reason, black student trail white or Asian ones by multiple grade levels by high school. That dynamic will turn black high-achievers into “race-traitors” in the minds of their black classmates, and make them feel like outsiders in the high level classes that have been newly integrated with whites and Asians.
19
I can't tell you how many Save The Redwoods fund raising wine and cheese gatherings I attended out on folks Redwood decks here in California.
Those giving Lip service to Diversity would rather just provide more money so their schools can buy and use the Empathy Curriculum from Denmark than have their own kids attending schools with poor kids and learning empathy in real life.
6
The length of the bus trips proposed as obstacles can't be serious. When I went to a high school in a rural, centralized school district, the trip was 50 minutes or more - all over country roads. We arrived at 8 am. There were late buses to take them home - a student could still stay after school for sports, for theater, for music, whatever. No one talked about student stress or burnout. These objections have to have a different basis to have any validity.
1
My daughter bought a house in the expensive River Hill section of Columbia, MD, SOLELY because of the highly rated schools. The homes in the River Hill section cost - in most cases - hundreds of thousands of dollars more than similar homes in the Wilde Lake section. Now, the Howard Co School Board Intends forced busing for one of her two children to much lower rated schools. So one kid stays in great schools, while the other is supposed to be bused miles away. Sadly, my daughter and her family will move from River Hill, rather than allow her straight A student to attend a poorly rated school. Meanwhile, the Howard Co School Board is going to blindly decimate the home values in River Hill in their quest to force children to attend schools many miles from their homes.
13
So sad for your daughter that she overpaid for a house based on the school boundaries at the time of purchase. And so sad that they would have no option but to move to an even more rarified part of an already affluent area to achieve their goal of educating their child at a “public private” school. Education policy should not be based on propping up property values of homeowners.
The real fight for people seems to be in preventing boundary changes. I suspect most people who grumble about the changes would ultimately send their kids to the re-zoned school and everything would turn out fine. As for “poorly rated,” and “many miles away,” Wilde Lake hardly seems to be either of those.
4
@Carol Slicher Howard County has one of the best public school systems in the country and many families choose to spend extra to live here to get their children that education(including my family). It's naive to assume though that just because you purchased a home, that your kids will remain in the same schools while you live there. I have lived in the same house in Howard County for 11 years and over that time my 2 daughters have gone to 3 different elementary schools because of redistricting due to newly built schools. It's inconvenient, but there's nothing I can do about it, it's a decision made by the school board.
The only way you can guarantee your children go to the EXACT school you want is to pay for private school. That is what I'd recommend to these River Hill parents who feel they deserve special consideration as opposed to the rest of us in Howard County who accept school board decisions.
2
Rationalize this any way you want but it still comes down to white v. "the others."
2
As a graduate of Wilde Lake High School, I couldn't be more proud of the incredibly diverse, academically rigorous school. If you look at the alumni, you'll see billionaires and entrepreneurs; actors nominated for academy awards, playing on Broadway, and winning numerous regional awards; multiple best-selling authors; journalists, including one many of us likely hear on NPR every day; many university professors, doctors, and lawyers; and countless of others who have made significant contributions through their jobs and community activism. Only in the incredible wealth that now characterizes Howard County (the third wealthiest county in the US) would Wilde Lake be considered a "ghetto school." I just wish the parents who are overly focused on test scores would take a step back and think more broadly about what a real education means.
11
Hypocrisy in America, which is why Trump will be reelected. Not happy about it, but i live in the real world. Selfishness and greed trumps (pun intended) everything else.
2
The young women pictured appear to be bi-racial. How does this reality affect student ambitions and outcomes.
1
I find the comments here almost as instructive as the article itself. The African American community needs to accept the fact that it has no real allies. Other racial groups who benefited and still benefit from the civil rights struggle aren’t willing to work with us to address the structural racism that is still ongoing in this country. African Americans need focus our efforts on building up our own educational system for our children separate from the existing public schools system. We’ve gone from separate but equal, to integrated and unequal. It’s insane to keep asking people who don’t care about you for help. It’s obvious the existing property tax based public education isn’t going to be the solution. Building something is.
7
“Mr. Brade, who is black, acknowledged “the divisiveness this whole process has created.””
The process, equalizing education, didn’t “create” racism, it just “revealed” it. It pulled back Columbia’s mink coat to expose the stinking, rotting, reanimated corpse of racism, and spewed its infectious spores to a whole new generation. Talk about showing your true colors.
Ironically, parts of Columbia were black communities before they were “developed” into “liberal enclaves”. Hm.
2
What an extraordinary bunch of white hypocrites. I imagine very few of these white Maryland adults or their children socialize with people of color, so they are basing their stance on stereotypes and ignorance.
Two miles more bus commute is not too much to ask of students when they will learn just how wrong-headed their beliefs are about people of color. Schools are for educating, and that doesn't mean book learning only.
Americans are known, at least in Europe, Canada and Japan, for their fear of travelling to other countries. They lack basic world, or even U.S., geographic knowledge. Most never leave their home state.
And this fear and ignorance starts in places like these Maryland school districts, where white folks prefer to live a bland, ignorant and vanilla existence rather than find out the riches their immediate world, and the greater world, has to offer.
4
@Lilou
Aren't Asian considered "people of color" in the USA? Because if they are the children socialize with them every day.
What the River Hill parents (white , Asian and other minorities) don't want is their children going to a less challenging school in an environment that could be damaging to them.
11
@Sara Andrea -- as to whether Asians are "people of color" depends on where you live in America. Clearly, these River Hill Asians consider themselves white.
Those River Hill parents have nothing to fear. They, and those like them, direct the flow of tax dollars to schools. If their kids go to what is now a minority school, and help integrate it, don't you think the parents will fight for tax dollars to be directed toward those schools?
Certainly, they have no motivation, at the moment, to fight for schools that teach primarily people of color. But if their children went to these schools, perhaps the schools' budgets would increase.
But more importantly, these white folks could put their words into action. It's futile to tout racial equality, then do everything possible to quash it. It would be good for their kids to learn about people with darker skin tones than theirs...it's education.
I lived in California, am white, and had many good friends in Compton, at that time, known for its bad reputation. Well, while I was the rare white face in the neighborhood, Compton is quite lovely, with beautiful houses and people. It's not a land of gangstas and drugs and guns, it's a town full of traditional, family people, hard-working.
I imagine the River Hill folks have never befriended people in the other school district, hung out with them, visited their homes, gone to lunch with them...so they're judging on their mind's image, not reality.
2
@Lilou "Certainly, they have no motivation, at the moment, to fight for schools that teach primarily people of color. But if their children went to these schools, perhaps the schools' budgets would increase."
See, that's the funny thing. Do white peole have some kind of special power to advocate for their chuildren? Is it too much to ask the parents of the current River Hill students to stand up for their kids? Do white people have to fix everyone else's problems?
8
What an extraordinary bunch of white hypocrites. I imagine very few of the adults or their children socialize with people of color, so they are basing their stance on stereotypes and ignorance.
Two miles more bus commute is not too much to ask of students when they will learn just how wrong-headed their beliefs are about people of color. Schools are for educating, and that doesn't strictly mean book learning only.
Americans are known, at least in Europe, Canada and Japan, for their fear of travelling to other countries. They lack basic world geographic knowledge. Most never leave their home state.
And this fear and ignorance starts in places like these school districts, where white folks prefer to live a bland, ignorant and vanilla existence rather than find out the riches their immediate world has to offer.
1
Since when did it become gospel that the only way for your kid to get a good education is if another families kid gets a worse one?
7
The article manages to craftily avoid the subject, but the opposition to the Equity in Action plan has a lot to do with the high level of gang-related violence at the Wilde Lake High School. This story is a typical example: https://patch.com/maryland/columbia/alarming-increase-violence-wilde-lake-hs-principal
14
To show solidarity with people who aren't as privileged as me I have stopped being involved in my child's education. No help with homework. No reading. A conscious denigration of education. We focus, instead, on being tough, not fronting, and street smarts. There are many ways to close the achievement gap. If liberal whites, as a group, did that the difference in test scores would close dramatically. The problem is the racism.
8
It's nuanced, well-researched analyses like this, and the even more nuanced, thoughtful comments from intelligent NYT readers, that lead me to subscribe to, and digest in detail, your excellent newspaper. Thank you, NYT.
The reality is that the western end of Howard County that surrounds Riverhill High School is not liberal. You can drive around and see all kinds of Trump signs in that area. I have lived in Howard County for 27 years and worked in the Riverhill area as well as the Wilde lake area. The people who live near Riverhill are very wealthy and act entitled. What the Riverhill parents don't realize is that all of the schools in Howard County are excellent. My children went to Wilde Lake High and had a great education..and benefitted from a more diverse school that reflects the real world. The parents from Riverhill are doing their children a disservice.
8
What is the benefit to the River Hill kids supposed to be? All I saw was something about developing "empathy" and they could do that with projects and fundraising. Disrupting their lives, friendships and expectations by busing some of them to another high school is no small matter. How do they pick the kids who are expected to make this sacrifice? It's not going to seem fair to them.
12
The root cause is that people chose to live in segregated areas. (choice could be economically constrained or consistent with cultural norms - still it's a choice). With neighborhood schools the norm, they now have segregated schools. By choice.
So are we saying we should not allow people to choice in where to live and where to send their kids to school "for the greater good"? The "we know what's best for you - better than you know it" mentality is what gets many liberals in trouble (and there is such hatred for the elite).
8
Poor people have little choice of where to live due to the lack of affordable housing in this country. How is it that there was little or no affordable housing included in the expansion of this county? Probably due to NIMBY. Integration doesn’t just happen when there is not a level playing field and extreme income disparity.
3
I'm pretty sure that if the proposal is approved, most of the parents of the River Hill students assigned to Wilde Lake would send their children to private schools.
Here in Chile you can apply to any school in your city, you are not forced to attend one near your house. The selection process has recently changed but when I was child (eons ago) my parents chose to send me to a private school even when it meant that they had to make an economic effort to do it. I would have aced the test/interview to any public school (I'm sorry if it sounds bad but it's true) but they thought that there were things outside the academic that would be hurting my education. From a infrastructure inferior to what a private school could offer to a much poor cultural capital of my classmates, a public school wasn't really an option.
How I see it, the student from River Hill bused to Wild Lake would have the quality of their education hurt for the same reasons that my parents didn't chose a public school for me. So their only real option would be private school but in their case (unlike mine) it would feel like changing the rules in the middle of the game. And the ones who would suffer are the children.
4
The privileged fighting hard to keep their privilege. It is ironic that this mostly white and rich area is also very liberal. People defend equality, criticize structural racism, oppose Trump, and all that. So, on paper very decent people. But, at the end of the day, when it comes to making things more just and equal which require ending their white privilege at least on public schooling, they all strike back to reclaim their privilege. The real face behind that mask of civility, neighborly smiles, and political liberalism. And a sad reminder of why white privilege is here to stay and why we will never be a just country.
157
@Mike There's a difference between wanting to make the world more equitable (by for example, by paying more taxes, to create jobs that will help the impoverished portions of Baltimore) and sending your kids to a school where they won't be challenged because the average student is reading two grade levels below their previous school.
Here's my soft prediction: if the schools do integrate, the wealthier kids (mostly white) who are sent to the mostly-minority school district will often end up tracked into the Honors and AP classes, simply because of their socioeconomic background -- they have more access to tutors, more educated parents, etc. That will go on for a while. Then there will be debate about that: "Why are Honors classes so white? Is it racist?" The school will decide to remove the Honors classes and stop tracking students. Classes will become less challenging for the top-performing kids, and the same white parents will pull their children from the districts entirely and send them to somewhere more challenging -- either by moving houses or by going to private or parochial school.
I think you can ask people to sacrifice a lot of things, but not their kids' education. Lecture people all you want; this is how they're going to react, which means there has to be a better solution to educational inequity. I think you can solve poverty easier than you can "solve" parents wanting the best for their kids.
130
@Mike Except that in this case, it appears to be just as many Asian parents, especially Indian and Chinese, who are protesting the move. What is their white privilege?
81
I'm not sure why you are mentioning white privilege. any rich person of any race can move to good school districts with high property values. So what you are really describing is economic privilege. But isn't that the point of capitalism? Earn more money, and then your family benefits??
58
Is it really "hateful" to say "“Certain families and communities do not have strong values in healthy family structure, high expectation on education, or firm beliefs in raising kids with good characters”? This is undoubtedly true of "certain families", and at least arguable about "certain communities." Anyway, 50+ years of failed central planning ought to tell us that, whatever the source of the problem, more government intrusion is not the solution.
56
Your point surely shows a racist attitude. How dare anyone say some communities don’t have good values. Show’s that you don’t have good values.
11
@Katya Surrence
Are you seriously suggesting that families are basically the same everywhere, that there is no such thing as an absent father, that child neglect occurs at the same rate in every community, that criminal behavior is uniformly distributed throughout every city, that being a parent is so simple that a 17 year old girl with myriad personal problems can do just as well as a stable married couple? This is not a racial issue, but liberal extremists can only see race.
23
@Katya Surrence My friend was ridiculed for being a strong student and taking AP classes where she was one of two students of color.She was acting white a great sin .Now she is a nurse and her tormentors are single moms on public assistance.I know this is just a story.
13
I live in neighboring Montgomery county in Maryland, where 2 of my children are enrolled in the public schools. I myself grew up in Florida in the 1980s and was bused from the suburbs to other schools in order to address some of the school districts imbalances. My parents never questioned its merits or felt compelled to speak of some implicit merit they had gained by purchasing a home somewhere.
As a parent now negotiating this hypocritical world of NIMBY folks who think they somehow earned for themselves and their children a better path of education through home ownership, I have recognized firsthand how selfish, biased, intellectually dishonest, and privileged people can be, even though they claim to be otherwise.
It really doesn’t come as any surprise that people are generally disappointing. What is surprising is how entrenched people are in their beliefs to think that a 1600-square foot house is worth $200-300k more than another home just across a street, specifically because of the schools it is zoned for. The values and formulas feed on racism, parental fears, and community stereotypes. These artificial boundaries so obviously reinforce the sociopolitical problems that these communities and schools find themselves faced with. Busing is a red herring. Stakeholder input is often just code for inaction.
60
My parents have lived in a single family home in Wilde Lake since the late 60s; one of the reasons they moved from the neighboring county was the mix of races and creeds. I went to the local elementary and Wilde Lake high school in the late 60s and mid 70s. EVERY kid in the neighborhood and beyond went to Wilde Lake which was not only integrated but full of extraordinary students, many of whom went onto attend elite universities and are extremely successful. Our schools were so integrated that I had no idea the rest of the country was segregated. We all benefited from the mix of races and affluence; the wealthier white kids just as much as the minorities.
45
I'm black American and do not support busing. I'm strongly in support of parents working with administrators and teachers to create good schools. I attended an all black school in NY and I wouldn't change that experience for anything in the world. Yes, there were challenges, but overall, I loved being in an environment that fostered my growth and development, so much so, that I was able to gain admission to the ivy league.
In my opinion, it is best for black American children to receive their primary education via home-schooling or at black well run private schools.
42
@Dia the propaganda against busing has been effective indeed. In truth, it was eliminated not because it wasn’t working but because it worked too well. This was a way to level the playing field in a way that improves all schools. Formerly mostly black schools saw massive and almost instant improvements in investments and equality of outcome. And that’s the rub. Many northern white liberals didn’t want their children to actually have to compete on merit on a level playing field.
However, for the students, their families of all races there was not only a higher quality of education but also more understanding and lifelong transracial friendships.
That’s what really killed busing in America. The fact that it worked. I don’t now nor have I ever bought the lie that black people are somehow unable to create quality schools. In truth those with control over the purse strings find ways to short change schools their children don’t attend.
8
@Dia it is ironic that you are quite right, but you are right because of built in racism in American society. With the money from property taxes going to schools, more expensive neighborhoods will have better schools. Thus the concept of equal education in America is flawed at its inception. Many black parents who care about education do exactly what you suggested, as in a wealthy neighborhood, a black child may be deemed inferior from the start, snd many educated black parents just don't want to deal with the issue. Overall, it's a sad state of affairs.
4
As parents, we form deep attachments to our schools and the impact they have on the lives (and potential for success) of our children. I believe education is a public good that should be distributed equitably in a community. However, this fight that is playing out in Maryland is also unfolding in Oakland, CA, where the school district is proposing to merge a wealthy hills school with a poor school in the flats. I applaud the efforts of school districts to intervene and alter the problematic legacies of structural racism and white supremacy that continue to benefit (mostly white) affluent parents, but I fear the wrath of these parents as they organize to protect their "exceptional" children.
7
Long term this is why we need more Planned Parenthood clinics. The least able to parent should be incentivized not to be parents. Let's give out $250 federal tax credits to every woman having an abortion. That will lead to a lot less poor children in school. Let's try that for twenty years. We tried busing over 50.
18
Apparently this qualifies as hate speech according to the NYT: “Certain families and communities do not have strong values in healthy family structure, high expectation on education, or firm beliefs in raising kids with good characters.” - sorry, that’s called a fact, but then again in this day and age facts are hateful
21
Change ‘certain families and communities’ to Blacks and Hispanics as implied, and tell me that this is not racist.
1
Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter sent Amy to public schools while he was president. Just a reminder.
2
Meditation is better for poor children than desecration? Replacing old coded language with up to date coded language shows a sense of history? Really.
Alissa Drake on the other hand sounds like a really smart and thoughtful person I wish I had had that much upstairs at her age.
Whichever way this dilemma is resolved, please do not bring back busing children to and fro for a 'balancing' act.
Busing was wrong from the moment some smart alec thought it out.
4
The question that I always ask is- how many high level Times employees attended or sent their own kids to economically integrated schools? Very wealthy people can be insulated by their money and connections. Those on the edge of the middle class can more easily fall into the abyss. Yes there is some racism but there is also fear for their own kids. Asian students have done very well although the pressure can have negative consequences. In theory diversity is great but not always actuality.
10
@Retired Teacher
You are right. Asian students (even very poor Asian students) have done well because they have a family and cultural environment that encourages hard work, learning and respect/good behavior. What middle and upper class parents don't want is their children exposed to the influence of children coming from families and communities where just the opposite is the norm. This is not due to the race of less privileged children but a common consequence of poverty and can be seen in poor communities of all races around the world.
10
@Retired Teacher
You are right. Asian students (even very poor Asian students) have done well because they have a family and cultural environment that encourages hard work, learning and respect/good behavior. What middle and upper class parents don't want is their children exposed to the influence of children coming from families and communities where just the opposite is the norm. This is not due to the race of less privileged children but a common consequence of poverty and can be seen in poor communities of all races around the world.
1
Our kids should go to the school nearest to home. All schools should be of equal quality. And I don’t mean equally bad. I mean if there are public schools doing well then that should be the mark of quality and we should improve from there. Classes offered extra activities offered quality of teachers. If special cases or problems exist then the school should be given resources to deal with those special problems. If someone doesn’t like what the public school in their neighborhood has to offer go to a private school. That is the choice.
3
I’ve lived here for 20 years. Dr. Sharma can pretend all he wants that his opposition to redistricting is based on concern for uprooting poor students. That’s the lie you have to tell not to look like a racist. Race is the reason there is so much opposition to redistricting here. Race and race alone. Liberal credentials do not inoculate against racism.
Anyone who lives here knows that every village can be reached in mere minutes. We’re not talking about hours of commuting from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Wilde Lake High School and River Hill High School are 4.9 miles apart, an 11-minute car ride and a normal bus ride. So, clearly the distance argument is false. It’s race. This time, however, white residents who oppose redistricting can find solace in the fact that wealthy Asian parents and wealthy black parents craving assimilation and acceptance stand with them.
7
Parent here of 2 AA kids-(physician,lawyer)who did the whole journey from elementary through to RHHS. Now, I hear from them, how much negativity they experienced as minorities in this school system. Their narratives speak of the undertones, not necesssarily from their peers, but, from some of the teachers .
It is all well and good to try to bus and diversify, but if the people in authority already believe these kids are not up to par....what's the use?
I say give each school in Howard County the same economic
privileges that are afforded to the likes of the RHHS community.
4
School segregation in 2019 is just as bad as it was before the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. It’ll stay that way until there’s a change in the way American education is run because the better off will never voluntarily allow the less fortunate to go to school with their children. Racism also plays a huge part in ensuring that American schools are the most racially segregated on the planet.
Then you throw in the hatred and contempt that South and East Asians feel towards Blacks and Hispanics, to end up with a truly toxic mix. So much so in fact that it wouldn’t surprise me if Trump exploited that issue to impact the Black vote and win reelection.
Perhaps in spite of himself George Wallace was a prophet. American segregation certainly does seem to be forever.
1
Racism is a reality and yet it's taboo to admit. I attended Wilde Lake Middle School in the 1990s and while the school had a good mix of both white and black children, the kids of different races mostly self segregated. And no, it wasn't self-segregation based on family income or academic performance. I had friends from low- and high-income areas, yet none were black (the hispanic and asian kids hung out with the white kids); the few black girls in the advanced classes had their own cliques separate from the non-black girls. Of course the adults were aware of the racial dynamics, because there was no way to miss it. Merely desegregating schools isn't enough to surmount racial boundaries. And yet, I've been screamed at and called horribly insulting for my opinion that there's racism in the community.
(P.S. - at the time, no one from outside River Hill wanted to attend that high school. It had a reputation for being a place for spoiled rich kids.)
2
Dana Goldstein does a lot of good reporting here, along with some standard (and occasionally amusing) politically correct observations. She writes that "A growing body of research suggests that bringing students of disparate races and social classes together can boost children’s test scores and help them develop empathy"; she doesn't mention that crime by young blacks in Baltimore has lots of people scared. She also notes that the first child born in Columbia "was a poignant symbol of the community’s professed values"; oh, if only those benighted bigots of Columbia today could see the beauty of biracialism! The plain fact is that young black people are seen as likely to worsen these schools, and it's the plain thesis of papers like the WP that such a supposition is a paranoid fantasy of vicious racist whites (or -- we have to laugh here -- Indians). Keep writing this way and you'll have Trump for another four years.
7
Our entire educational system is failing. Smart women don't have to be teachers, or nurses, or secretaries anymore. As a 1971 high school graduate I had first rate educators, who could survive on their salaries and live where they worked. Expectations are low, today's "A" was a "C" thirty years ago. The curricula have been dumbed down, all the way through to graduate programs. U.S. science and math scores are disgraceful. I've heard professors in medical schools complain about students who aren't prepared. Face it. We're a nation in decline. An Idiocracy.
7
Year after year, whites vote overwhelmingly Republican and the minority that don't only support integration when it doesn't mean resources aren't diverted from a system that grants their own children a leg up in the competition to succeed.
If we are going to end economic racism there are two prices we have to pay that most privileged Americans oppose. First, is to invest in education reform that prevents disadvantaged children from falling behind, which requires a steep investment in intervention from the moment they are old enough to go to free pre-school.
When this is successful, as Germany has already proven it can be, the privileged will have to accept a world in which their children have lost their birth right advantage.
When whites make this investment we will have proven our true dedication to racial justice as a nation. Don't hold your breath.
2
@alan haigh
My spouse works in an urban school Many disadvantaged black children are born with serious developmental and cognitive disabilities as the result of poverty, poor maternal health, and other factors. These disadvantages are largely intractable once the child is conceived and born. The collective disadvantage of a lower income community is further compounded by one parent families, lack of supervision at home, poor nutrition, excessive screen time, and illiteracy.
When he was in an urban classroom, over half of his students - in a mainstream class - had cognitive disabilities. That is an IQ under 75. The other half had mothers who set them in front TVs all night or let them roam the streets while mom went clubbing. Many of them lived on diets of candy, soda, and cheetos. Many had 5-6 siblings. Almost all had been exposed to violence. None had bedtimes.
No amount of school funding can get the same test scores from a classroom like that as they get from a classroom where the children all go home to two physically heathy, married parents from whom they have inherited high IQs, who feed them properly and put them in bed by 8, who make them do their homework and teach self regulation, and who have been reading to them since they were babies.
The solution to poor education outcomes in poor communities starts with birth control, maternal health, and changing the culture from within.
Everything else is just rearranging expensive chairs on the Titanic.
20
@A F Except that Germany managed to do it with their disadvantaged children. You just mentioned inherited IQ's, which may be at the root of your analysis.
Please think about that- how much do we really know about inherited IQ's? Connecting that comment with birth control is sounding like eugenics.
If you decide the problems are too overwhelming to address you are part of the problem.
3
@A F
Agree 100%
1
There is truth in saying poor discipline leads to poor work habits to poor results. Mixing a small amount of red paint in with white paint will produce pink. A large amount of red paint will produce red paint. Nobody wins with this solution. Think of a better one.
9
Busing is not the answer to this particular problem. The only thing it will do is drain much needed resources (expensive buses, fuel, driver salaries) away from academic and art and music programs. The worst aspect is that it will disenfranchise of poor and working class parents from involvement in their child's school, which is a huge factor in how well a student does. There is no way many of them, who rely on public transportation, are going to be able to travel tens of miles to get to needed parent-teacher nights and other school functions. I lived through such a disastrous idea in elementary and middle school in northwest D.C. when they initiated busing. The outcome was an unmitigated disaster for all. This well meaning idea fails to address the real need which is to lift the socioeconomic status of the working poor and adequately fund their neighborhood schools and give the schools much needed ancillary resources such as counselors, mentors, tutors, parent outreach and after-school programs like sports, music, and art. Busing is not the answer and is, in a way, a paternalistic white-liberal sentiment that the only way for "those" people to achieve is to be around white people. It's kinda racist in its own thinking. Black and brown people don't necessarily need white people to complete them and to fulfill their lives. They only need the fair playing field, adequate and needed resources to live their lives and achieve.
10
I wouldn't want my taxes paying for people who aren't paying the same as I am.
Where's the fairness in that.
5
I think we underestimate the ability of children of diverse backgrounds to interact, socialize, and learn together. The expressed fears of parents in many instances are real in their minds but in fact only misperceptions. The truth is that we have many children...rich, middle class, poor... who are problematic socially, emotionally, and educationally and no one wants their children with them. And that segregation has been turned into one of color and economics. No one allegedly wants to "sacrifice" their children's futures even as they underestimate their children's resilience and abilities. What a social dilemma!
5
As a member of the first graduating class of Wilde Lake High School in 1973, all I can say is that I feel very sad that the ambition, legacy, bold experiment of James Rouse has come to this. He must be turning over in his grave.
1
If we had a national health system, it wouldn't matter so much that half the students were poor. If we had better minimum wage laws, maybe they wouldn't be poor in the first place. I don't blame parents for not wanting to bus their kids to worse schools. The thing is, that's the remedy that's left if you can't fix the inequality through more direct means. I think it ultimately is a symptom of the broader loss of our social functionality.
3
Please affluent residents of Columbia. Be brave, do the right thing. Look to the benefits to your child of integration. Even if it means your child drops his or her economic standing in the world 5 or 10% they will get exposure to people of other backgrounds and a wider view of the world.
2
And your basketball, football and track teams will improve too.
1
@George Williams This country over values sports and undervalues intellectual achievement, IMO.
1
I sent my kids to a high school that was 50-50 whites and Hispanics and had 45% on free lunch. Parents from a well-off district nearby competed over variances to attend our high school. It was known to be high quality for high achieving kids.
My kids were in lots of AP classes, swimming, and academic clubs. And integration For them did not amount to much. Top white students tended to self-segregate. They got a great education. But the advantages of integration were pretty illusory for them.
The good news is that they’ve got a chance at Harvard. The bad news is that integration was a lot like segregation.
7
You cannot force some kind of absolute 'equality' on people.
NY suburbs are a case in point. You have a multitude of Cities, Towns and Villages around NY. Most have their origins going back one or two centuries. Each entity has its own local government, police and fire departments, and school systems. Some of these villages and school systems are quite small. Consolidation would make sense and cut costs. It will never happen.
People are willing to pay more in local taxes to maintain control over local government and schools. The affluent pay high taxes for 'better' services and schools. The high taxes in themselves serve to screen out the less affluent.
Changing school funding will not make things any difference. 'Wealthy' areas will voluntarily contribute funds for 'their' schools.
Homes in 'wealthy' and 'poor' areas will retain their inherent differences which will be reflected in price. In fact changes in school funding may make expensive houses worth MORE.
You're actually seeing 'gentrification' coming to the suburbs as NYC parents are moving here when their children start school. 'Starter houses' in 'good' school districts are now over a half million. But that's still cheaper than private school tuition in NYC.
An unfortunate irony: if these protestors went through the integrated and diverse educational system that they’re denying these kids, they likely wouldn’t be nearly as opposed to such an idea.
The chain has to be broken at some point, but it seems NIMBYism wins out for now.
5
One area that hasn't been emphasized is for people to come together and require a more balanced percentage of affordable housing options for low income families in the areas that now have disproportionate concentrations of higher income. A recent N.Y. Times article indicated that research has shown this is an effective way of encouraging success of children who have grown up in low-income families. Those opposing the de-segregation might throw some of their focus into actively working for more equity in their own neighborhoods in this way.
If the average added distance each way is 2 miles as stated in this article, then the arguments of the time and distance creating severe hardship are really insufficient.
Certainly, being able to have continuity of friendships between children over the years by having the same classmates both in school and after school is helpful in the case of both communities and proximity of contact makes things easier for busy parents.
I don't know that 'requiring' different communities to 'integrate' is the solution. Proposing an externally imposed, enforced mixing of cultures and economic classes of people is in a way artificial. Will this action really result in positive integration, mutual understanding and respect? Right now, it sounds like students and parents from both communities feel threatened, and some have overt hostility about one another, and views that reflect stereotyping of others that comes from living in separated communities.
3
Magnet schools work better than busing. Don’t move students. Make schools in poor neighborhoods better and parents will bring their kids there willingly. Otherwise, parents will pull their kids out of public schools.
It is time to rethink education. We are stuck in this traditional rut of large brick and mortar structures that feel like prisons. There should be different options. Small satellite campuses where kids can take online courses with proctored exams, and options for students to only take core classes if they want (math, reading/language, science, social studies). Many take art classes outside of school and participate in team sports not associated with school. There is a lot of duplication and the day is too long for these kids. This would reduce class sizes and allow teachers to give more specialized attention to kids who can’t afford extracurriculars.
As our population balloons and diversifies with different languages, parent work schedules, etc...the standard one-size-fits-all approach just isn’t going to work anymore. It’s not working, now.
12
I'm so glad to live in Connecticut where we have town school districts.
I have no problem paying more taxes to financially support school districts in low income communities. I think we have a duty to do so. I also support building and welcoming well placed affordable housing in our town. I welcome diversity that happens voluntarily.
That said, growing up in a tight knit, cohesive community, where parents know each other, where kids can walk and ride bikes to their friends' houses after school, where participation in after school activities is easy and bus rides short, is more important to a happy childhood than diversity.
I am sorry. It goes against modern orthodoxy, but it is.
Human beings are made to live in cohesive, small communities. We aren't numbers to be shuffled around for either Progressive Social Projects or Corporate Efficiency, and treating human beings like that a big part what has led to conservative populism all over the West.
People cluster in small communities with those to whom they are similar. It's one of those intractable realities, like the reality of Men and Women, that progressives want to pretend doesn't exist, yet with all the programs in the world it will refuse to go away, because it is part of who we are.
Instead of fruitlessly fight that tendency - which won't be erased - why not work harder to ensure that all communities, especially low income and minority communities, have the resources they need to thrive on their own terms?
15
In one word: NIMBY.
I've seen my fair share of NIMBY in my well-to-do neighborhood in MA which is lauded as one of the most progressive districts in the nation. Its test score is consistently high on the chart. Student body is majority white and asian.
During the good times, everyone touts the METCO program (free busing in kids from nearby low-income families to study for free). In recent years, when student enrollment numbers spike, there's need to reduce class size by either increase in property taxes (to build more classrooms, hire more teachers), or reduce the numbers of METCO numbers (since it has always been the understanding that METCO would only use "under-used" resources).
Parents start chafing about the high touch (costs) required by the METCO students. Although there's still a minority of parents (those true progressives) wanting to preserve METCO as a means to maintain diversity, a large majority of parents/voters decide that when resources get scarce, something has to give, and that "something" is METCO, in the hope of maintaining education quality (less special needs budget, higher test score, less busing budget) and preventing further tax increase.
I'm of two minds. I don't care for the "progressive" label, but diversity in student body does lends better student perspective. When resources get scarce, touch choice have to be made. Can we afford to be altruistic? For those NIMBY parents, their answer is to send METCO students elsewhere. Rather sad.
8
@tiddle
You have a good school district.
Your community generously allowed non-residents to make use of underused facilities.
Because you have good schools more people with children are moving in.
Your facilities are no longer 'underused' and are needed by taxpaying residents.
As much as some might want to do good for others, they do not have the right or legal basis for continuing a program that benefits non-residents. Frankly your community made it easy for the school districts sending their children to you NOT to do what they should have done. You may have hurt them by reducing the count in their schools - the basis of state aid.
If you personally believe in the benefits of diversity you can move - and profit from your good schools when selling your house.
2
In the 1950s--when I was ten, an aunt and uncle who lived in a wealthy Boston suburb,adopted me in order to help my single-parent Mom struggling to raise us in a New England factory town. In that gritty place, my achievements had more to do with delinquency than academics. I hit a jackpot of opportunity that helped me ultimately become a better human through that move. Yes, I had enlightened guardians, but a school filled with academic peer pressure and opportunities to turn "failures" around meant a lot. May more kids get lucky.
10
I am a retired high school teacher. We bused students beginning in the 70's. It did not work as it was intended. Our schools and neighborhoods were irrevocably changed. Minority students did not have the expected outcomes and, only decades later, as voluntary school choice by the students themselves became an option, did any success begin to modestly occur. It is a sad reality, but reasons cited for opposing it are valid. We saw it destabilize both the schools and the neighborhoods they served and behavior of the students being bused was a huge part of why it failed. You can't just move kids and hope for the tide to raise all boats. It doesn't.
25
I am so glad I went to a private school.
These administrative skirmishes, however they're reconciled, distract from the spirit of learning.
8
Gosh, liberals being hypocrites when it comes to their own kids and diversity. I'm shocked, shocked by this behavior!
16
Responsible parents study school districts while house-shopping. Some target a single school district. On top of that, when it comes to their schools, people resist big changes. Sure, some are racist. But more just don't want to gamble with what they thought was a sure thing.
Segregation is unconstitutional. That's non-negotiable. But integration doesn't have to happen overnight. The law says it has to happen with "all deliberate speed." In Howard County, the question isn't whether to integrate. It's how fast. You can't force change if lots of ordinary parents have taken to streets. But you can't let racists have their way. As with so many things, there is almost certainly a happy medium. And, while Congress seems to believe otherwise, there are no rules against compromise.
7
@michjas How is segregation unconstitutional? What about freedom of choice, freedom of association, pursuit of happiness?
It’s about parents, not schools or teachers. Parents who care about education - that’s what matters. Busing doesn’t work. Try that again and you will see white flight like you ain’t seen it before.
17
I don't think objections to school integration are primarily about education. I think they are primarily about dating. I don't think college is primarily about education either. It's primarily about marriage. It's about who kids get exposed to, versus who parents prefer that they be exposed to. It's about whom young people might like or love, whom they wouldn't if only they didn't meet. It's about who goes with whom to the prom, and about guessing who's coming to dinner. As we all know, and have known for many years, a smart, privileged kid from a family that cares about education is going to learn, get into a quality college somewhere, and do just fine regardless of the high school they attend. The desire for a "good education" is a smokescreen for maintaining social separations for which there is no other "justification" than the squeamishness of busybody parents.
9
@Joe
Parents have a natural interest in their kids marrying and settling down with a solid partner who shares their values. Founding, maintaining, and growing a strong family has been one of the most basic of human desires for almost our entire existence. Almost every functional human society and culture revolves around the maintenance of family life.
I've never known a parent who didn't care about their kids' dating lives, or celebrate when they got married and had babies. It's the most natural thing in the world; even postmodernism and American individualism can't beat it out of people.
And yes, parents also have an interest in keeping their kids from both dating and having social relationships with kids who could be a bad influence. A bad group of friends can literally kill your child, at the very least it can lead to very unhappy outcomes. A bad boyfriend or girlfriend can lead to emotional damage, abuse, out of wedlock pregnancies, and STDs.
Why wouldn't parents be concerned about who their kids are dating and socializing with? It is a parents' JOB to steer their kids towards healthy relationships and away from toxic ones. And while toxic relationships and dysfunctional people can be found at any socio-economic level, they do tend to be clustered more at the lower end, and it is much easier for parents to know who their kids are hanging out with in tight knit communities where everyone knows each other.
7
@A F
"And yes, parents also have an interest in keeping their kids from both dating and having social relationships with kids who could be a bad influence. A bad group of friends can literally kill your child, at the very least it can lead to very unhappy outcomes. A bad boyfriend or girlfriend can lead to emotional damage, abuse, out of wedlock pregnancies, and STDs.
Why wouldn't parents be concerned about who their kids are dating and socializing with? It is a parents' JOB to steer their kids towards healthy relationships and away from toxic ones. And while toxic relationships and dysfunctional people can be found at any socio-economic level, they do tend to be clustered more at the lower end, and it is much easier for parents to know who their kids are hanging out with in tight knit communities where everyone knows each other."
THIS. It's why my parents chose a private school for me and why these parents are fighting this proposal. To keep they children as happy and safe as possible.
3
isn't the bigger story that 1 in 5 school kids lives in poverty in one of the wealthiest counties in the US?
20
The issue is economics not racial diversity. Balance the economics inequality between schools by measuring funding by the student family income guaranteeing that less advantaged schools have better facilities, teachers, staff and programs and then let the students decide where they want to attend and how long a ride they will suffer.
7
What would work is to place gifted, highly gifted, and other magnets at schools, rich and not rich, to encourage voluntary and mixed socio-economic and ethic enrollment, not forced movement of live bodies. Why not invest in buy-in into higher quality educational offerings across school districts?
6
@Steve Bell
That is what Connecticut has done, with mixed results.
1
I don’t want my kids going to school with a lot kids raised from fractured families who value education a lot less than I do.
Is it the fault of those kids that they’re being raised that way? No. But it isn’t my kids’ fault either.
We like to pretend it’s budgets, but 90% of educational success comes from family focus on education, quantity of reading material in the house, etc.
42
That is the heart of why it fails, Henry. Parental values, involvment in their kids' lives, strong support and guidance are essential to a kid's academic success, and if, for whatever reason, it isn't there, you can't create that by moving kids around, but you certainly can assure you will lose the stability of the system itself. Just look at the failure of busing in cities decades ago. You are up against "culture" and people take it as an insult to say that the behavior that emerges from it in some families is the cause of failure to succeed academically. It is. Hard as that is to hear. As MLK said ages ago, it's the content of character that is essential and creating opportunities for kids. Voluntary school choice through magnet programs, not wholesale busing brings some success.
I experienced busing and its effect it in real time throughout my career. It doesnt work for all the reasons people are expressing.
18
Once again they are trying to integrate via school busing. History will repeat itself and whites will start sub-par private segregation academies. The quality of education should not be tied to a zip code nor to a mailing address. Untether school support from property taxes; move it to the state; and change support to all schools can be the same high quality.
20
@Linda Bell
Even better is to tie the tax benefit to the student and his/her parents. Let them attend the school of their choice, and we will see education reform in a hurry.
4
Many people (me included) choose to buy their house because of the location of the schools their kids will attend. I can’t imagine my husband and me being able to both work full time outside our home if we hadn’t bought a house located 12 houses from our elementary school, that has an on-site aftercare program, for our 3 kids. We researched and bought the house for those reasons before we were even expecting our first kid. Dropping off and picking up 3 kids (in different locations when they’re not all at the right ages to be in the same school) everyday and dealing with traffic would significantly negatively impact our quality of life. Buses don’t help when you need before- or after-care.
In our case, anger over this plan really would be about the busing, and have nothing to do with the composition or reputation of a different school.
25
As I recall, Maryland has much of its government at the COUNTY level, including schools. This means a school district will cover a much larger area than states where schools match local boundaries. Howard County seems to be about 22 miles by 12 miles.
You can legally bus WITHIN a given school district. You can't bus across district lines. A county in Maryland may include many very different communities but it is still one school district.
Wiki says Maryland has only 24 school districts Missouri, comparable in population to Maryland has 567 school districts.
That seems to confirm that Maryland has only a few county based school districts.
Frankly it seems that these schools are being penalized because of the structure of the state school system. You would not even be thinking of busing in other states where school systems are much smaller and community based.
4
@cynicalskeptic
I think this is one of the reasons New England has the best school systems in the country. It is a lot easier for people to support high taxes and feel civic pride in the local public school when it is run at a town, rather than county, level, and parents are treated with respect as partners rather than obstacles for the agendas of distant administrators.
A town level district, with neighborhood schools, has administrations that are far more likely to know parents personally and treat us as neighbors and the FIRST educators of our children.
This isn't just about school boundaries, but also other aspects of the school. I've seen articles lately about activists on school boards in county districts in Maryland and Virigina trying to implement very left wing curricula on sexuality, with no parental opt out, and treating objecting parents as obstacles that just need to "get in line." I can't imagine that happening in a town district in Connecticut. Our school board and principals just don't treat us like that.
When school systems are too big and impersonal, parents seek out private schools where they have more control, as is our right. That is a dynamic you see more in the south compared to the north. Though race plays a part, I don't think it is just about race. It's about parents wanting to be respected as the first educators of their children, and a county level district makes that difficult.
6
It seems like a ham-handed plan: moving over 7,000 current students to another school usually farther from home - almost guaranteeing opposition.
What about reducing financial equality between the schools now - and changing the zoning over several years, so that current students can finish where they are, and future students are assigned more equitably?
15
When it comes to one's children, protective instincts take over.
Hillary Clinton crusaded against charter schools, accusing then to siphon off gifted children , needed to be in public schools to ensure an equal, and enriching mix
But when it came to her own daughter, she enrolled her in a expensive private school.
Unlike Jimmy Carter, who send his daughter to public school .
27
It's the family values you bring to school, and are reinforced at home, that determine a students success.
The board won't do a darn thing without a court order if it wants to be reelected.
When it comes to parents, ''Mine first and above all " is the rule.
6
This issue is a microcosm of the much larger global issue that threatens humanity’s future. If we can’t figure out how to share our resources in a sustainable way, we are doomed.
Think I’m exaggerating? The Pentagon has started preparing for climate change.
Next time you look at all the night stars, take a second to wonder why we’ve never encountered a more advanced civilization. Every civilization that reaches our level of technological advances faces a crucial survival test. Can we figure out how not to destroy ourselves? What do you think are our chances of passing this test? Now, how do we structure our schools to increase our chances?
63
@Cordelia Applying Occam's Razor suggests that the reason we haven't seen a more advanced civilization is that they don't want us to see them. A good bet is that they want to watch this instance of the Great Transition - from biological intelligence and life, to AI dominance - and our knowledge of them would spoil the natural-history case study. In any case, let's not make a mess of the human future.
4
@Cordelia
The problem that will kill the human race is climate change, or nuclear war, or AI, and moving kids between schools is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
12
@Ted
Don’t listen to the hype. We are nowhere near having AI that can threaten humanity. Our advances in the past 50 years have been largely due to hardware and data sets. We will need a huge leap that is not yet visible on our horizon in order to have real AI.
As for the other issues. Diversity in schools helps build critical thinking. You learn early on that tribalism and binary thinking is lazy and just plain wrong. Diversity also helps build empathy for others. Even for those who may be quite different from ourselves. We need more of both if we are to tackle our global issues, make educated choices, and survive.
It might be too late for you to benefit from diversity. But it’s not too late for the next generation. The question is: do we have the foresight and generosity to give them more than what we had?
16
Then make sure elite colleges give those bused students bonus points on their college applications for spending one to two hours on a bus every day and for contributing to economic and racial diversity. Guarantee their (liberal) parents that their child’s future as they see it will not be compromised in any way, and those parents will get on board! (At least they will get their child on board the bus.) Call them (liberal) hypocrites or parents who only want the best for their children, you choose.
10
The fundamental issue is that public education must be nationalized. It is absurd that a child's access to education should be based on the value of real estate in her hometown.
265
@Kevin Washington, D.C. has a system run by the federal government. Average per-student expenditure of $18,000+ per year. The federal government itself has declared it one of the worst school systems in the US.
43
French person here : sorry being nationalized does not change the fact that your zip code impacts the quality of your school. You can’t imagine the address black market in Paris with expensive subletting just to be zoned to the good school.
50
@Kevin
NY, NY has the most segregated school district in the country, which could be corrected by moving attendance zones a couple of blocks. The fundamental issue is that wealthy Democrats do not want their children going to school with "those children."
21
Both the criticisms of the policy and the criticisms of the articles description of the events rest on the same fallacy: That integration is about fixing schools.
For the parents in this community, they argue busing is just a band aid for failing schools. For the commenters in this section, they see the idea as antiquated, or they argue that black and hispanic students don't "need" white an asian students.
But no one seems to understand that integration has inherent educational value. Its about benefitting students, not just benefiting a given social group. Even if the composition of these schools was 50/50 white and black, there would still be a benefit to promoting economic diversity as well.
Economic and racial diversity matter. I can tell you that as a student from Tulane, where 60% of the students come from the top 1%, economic diversity impacts peoples world view and belief systems. Without it, people fail to understand the myriad of factors that influence economic success. unfortunately, due to Americas history of racism, and the frequent destruction of oppressed group's capitol, this often translates into subconscious forms of racism.
I was bussed an hour each way to my high school. it wasn't that bad. Stop focusing on all the minor inconveniences. Realize that integration isn't just about social engineering. It's about using diversity as a tool for students, one with amazing social and academic benefits.
192
Sounds like you’re more interested in indoctrinating students with a partisan political view than you are in student welfare.
53
@Jared raff
Just do the math.
As of 2018 about 36% of HCPSS students were white and about 64% were non-white. Even if it were somehow possible to divide all the white students equally among all the schools in the country school district, an average class of 25 students would have 9 white students and 16 non-white students; that is, whites would be a clear minority in all schools and all classrooms.
Politicians quickly learned in the 1970s and 1980s that busing students to achieve integration was a quick way to be voted out of office, and social engineers learned that whites would make almost any sacrifice to keep their kids in high-performing schools, even if that meant paying for private school or moving to a different town.
The practical reality is that the answer to underperforming schools and students is not to move students around like pawns on a chessboard, but to improve all schools in the district.
62
@Ted Because not being racist or stereotyping and excluding people because they are poor is partisan? Maybe if there was a political party built on racism and bigotry. Good thing that doesn't exist, right?
20
“The virulent opposition in an area that its founder once declared to be “color blind” shows that the issue remains deeply divisive among liberals when it comes to their own children.” Liberal hypocrisy hasn’t changed in 60 years. Let the excuses and the foot dragging...continue.
82
@B. Night
The most important factor in student success/achievement is the family structure, which you caanot change by bussing students. You can take the horse (student) to the water (good school) but you cannot make the horse drink (study). My school district in West Orange NJ, was "integrated," by the introduction of lots of "affordable apartments some 40 years ago. In the process, the district ranking dropped from one of the best in NJ to below average. Compare that with Milburn and Livingston, who both remain in the top 10. Home values have suffered as a result as well, despite services such as trash and snow removal being better in West Orange than in say Livingston. These decisions have unintended consequences with respect to real estate values... and have dubious effects on student performance.
If you actually want the students to perform better, for far less, invest in making it possible for their parents to live together in a healthy and supportive environment.
4
Dr. Sharma’s comments reveal what those who understand racism know to be true: racism is both insidious and fluid, quick to morph and fit itself to different circumstances. In fact, it becomes even more dangerous when a “woke” community of progressives is faced with something like integration. Many otherwise kind, intelligent, perceptive, liberal people will skillfully talk around and through racism to conceal their own racist intent. Don’t the carefully crafted talking points on this group’s webpage prove that to be true? How about the meticulous arguments about how lower-income children of color would suffer from this plan?
Anti-racism is a long, challenging, messy journey, and it happens day by day. This article clearly illustrates that so many of us can believe - or make ourselves believe - that we’ve already traveled it, when in reality we’ve only made superficial changes to make ourselves appear more progressive.
12
As someone who considers herself deeply progressive, it’s very painful for me to read about allegedly progressive parents who don’t want to desecrate their schools. Despite arguments to the contrary, the benefits of integrated schools are well-documented. I think opponents who consider themselves progressive risk veering into hypocrisy.
I live in an “historically integrated “ town. As a result of a lawsuit the Montclair public schools were rather successfully desegregated in the 1970s - after an awful lot of hard work on the part of black and white parents who conducted literally hundreds of “living room conversations” in homes across the whole town.
Today, 50 years on, we still brag about our integrated schools. As a parent whose children both graduated from those schools, I’d say we do a better job than most. But I wouldn’t call us a success story. Integration remains a difficult and painstaking process - quite literally, I believe, a block-by-block job.
I think this article highlights the need for broad and inclusive community-wide conversations with every single stakeholder. Every parent, student, teacher, administrator and voter should have an opportunity for constructive dialog with proponents of the desegregation plan. Their questions should be answered and their concerns addressed.
It’s a tough process. Not everyone will agree with the merits of desegregation. But I believe that progressives do themselves a disservice if they don’t even try.
5
@Mary Beth Rosenthal
Your Freudian slip is revealing. Democrats do believe that integrating their children's schools is desecration.
2
My children are part the group who will be moved to Wilde Lake from River Hill. I am not against the idea, River Hill is not all that and Wilde Lake is a good school. Logistically things will have to change, now my kids can walk home. At Wilde Lake I’ll have to figure out how to get them home while I’m at work and they stay after school for sports and activities. They will have to wake up at 5:30 the latest to catch the bus, their school friends won’t necessarily be their neighbors, etc etc.
A big issue that is driving my neighbors and I to oppose this is we just don’t trust our County Executive. The CE ‘s children are moving to River Hill, high donor neighborhoods weren’t touched and politics and corruption has found its way into this.
For example: almost across the street from River Hill a large farm is being developed into 55+ housing units. If desegregation was an issue why not make that property into affordable housing and move families to River Hill? Does developer money have anything to do with this? Who paid who how much?
Bottom line: no one is pure in this debate and it is not as simple as most seem to make it.
50
So why not fight against those things you list as unjust instead of the school changes?
In our zero-sum, winner take all society, I understand the parents behavior. However their petty, selfish actions writ large are destroying the US. Integration and affordable housing are the two most important issues of our time.
As a teacher in a segregated, low-income school, the number one success factor among student is peer group. Successful student hang out with other successful students. They model the behaviors of the group. Talent is distributed evenly among the rich and poor, but opportunity is not.
The local opposition is using their power to “lock in” their privilege rather than compete fairly. The parents are trying to “pull the ladder” up behind them. I might do the same thing, but that does not make it right.
Some of the opposition proposals like moving teachers, parental involvement or equalizing resources are really distractions at best and blaming the victims at worst. Teacher moves are usually blocked by the union. Parental involvement at school is over rated. And the resources in any Howard, County school far exceed those in Baltimore or DC.
The most difficult problems of our time are: integration and affordable housing. I would like to propose a couple of solutions. We could offer some financial incentives like scholarships for Wilde Lake students, diversity training for River Hill parents, and extra points on College Board adversity score or the most valuable of all: a lifelong friendship with a member of another race.
3
@chris
Oh for cryin' out loud. You made basic child care into a social injustice. How is caring for one's kids a means of "pulling the ladder" up on poorer people?
Do poor people lack any and all agency? Can we expect them to do nothing to help themselves? Asians come to this country poor, yet they became the most represented group at Stuyvesant, even over the people who allegedly "lock in" their privilege.
And do you think having the government forcibly take opportunities away from some people and give them to others is "competing fairly". Do you think the "woke" Left's view of the world is 100% correct? Do you think most Americans agree with that? Who gives you the right to pick new winners and losers?
22
Speaking from experience, long bus rides mean no time for sports, no time for theater and drama, kids getting unhealthy, kids getting home late just in time to do some homework, kids getting stressed out, too early in their lives. Personally I feel that when children go to school near their home, while this is not always perfect, there are many advantages that Are lost when they go to school further afield.
107
Sounds like the exact case, a good case for the other side thank you.
3
@Al Storford
The two schools mentioned in the article are only 4.5 miles apart according to mapquest.
16
@Al Storford
How many public schools still have extracurricular programs other than sports? Would you agree that if every child were to attend the public school closest to his home, that more schools should be built in densely populated areas? That per-student funding would be the same for all schools, not based on property values? That funding for universities would take into consideration the ratio of public school graduates admitted? Your experience is not representative of anything but your own experience. Don't generalize from it.
5
Columbia, where diversity is a motto, not just a phrase.
1
One of your readers is wondering what problem is school integration trying to solve. Oh not much-just systemic rascism that condemns a large part of the population to future failure. Studies have consistently shown that mixing students at different levels helps the lower performing kids without hurting the higher performing kids. Those who say that there's no proof of the benefit of integration are simply wrong.
16
@jonr Please cite one real study which shows that other students are not hurt by lowering standards. A real study. Not a reporter's bias.
17
@jonr "Oh not much-just systemic rascism that condemns a large part of the population to future failure."
If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you somewhere. Some people have it harder than others, true, but last I checked we're still living in a mostly free country (try being a Tibetan or a Uighur in Communist China if you want to know what REAL oppression looks like) and we have a thing called free will. In any event, not sure how playing musical chairs with kids helps poor kids.
17
A lot of parents choose to buy a house based on the school their kids will zone into. It’s unfair on them to have the bait and switch. Those with means will just choose private schools. Those without will suffer from a less ideal public education that they never signed up for.
Instead of this forced social engineering that hurts children and punished those parents who prioritize education, why not invest in improving poorer performing schools? If the goal is better education for everyone, it seems like that’s the way to do it. Let the good schools be even better and let’s make sure the schools that aren’t there improve their standards. We shouldn’t be about the lowest common denominator.
35
research shows that students who attend diverse schools do better, not worse. the real question is: why are parents working so hard to prevent their children from participating in diverse schools that have been shown to promote their long-term success.
14
@Sophia A key part of the context of this debate, which is perhaps not as highlighted as it should be in this article, is that the neighboring city of Baltimore which has some of the most funded public schools in the country also has some of the most underperforming. Officials of Columbia are wise to realize that investing in underperforming schools in such a direct manner may likely be unsuccessful.
2
Will you pay the higher taxes needed to pay for improving the low-performing schools?
2
White and Asian parents who are resistant to having their children bused to a school with a majority black or brown or low income population with lower test scores have only one concern: they do not want to see their children’s opportunity to attend as prestigious a college as possible compromised in the interest of achieving diversity. Why should their child be the sacrificial lamb? To counteract this, perhaps colleges should award these white and Asian students bonus points in the admissions process for making the sacrifice.
91
@Ann
Ann, I think you have nice intentions, but I think the experiences for those who’ve been subjected to this approach are net value negative across all categories. The politicians who baked up this scheme in this in this day and age simply haven’t done their homework.
8
@Ann They already do. Check out College Boards Adversity Score
1
@Ann. Wow. Bonus points? Let’s integrate schools but make sure to preserve white privilege.
12
Opposing school redistricting on the grounds of longer bus rides and students having to change schools is not racist. 95% of parents vote for their kid's personnel benefit. Few of us will vote for the benefit of society at large. This is why school redistricting is so difficult.
18
This issue dates back to at least 1992. Here is a little history on the efforts to ensure socio-economic and racial equity in Howard County Public Schools:
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-01-24-1993024054-story.html
2
An awful lot of NIMBY from these supposed liberals.
11
78 y.o. guy, glad to be getting off the planet at the right time. Trump is bad enough. This is a chronic Real Estate problem, not to be solved in your lifetime.
4
Untether schools from real estate! White flight and NIMBYism is very real. If upper middle class believe the quality of education is reduced (because of less prepared students changing classroom dynamics) they will put their kids in private schools. Our country is divided by economics that allow segregation to persist. There are not equal neighborhoods and there can’t be equal schools if they are tied to the neighborhood. Funding from property taxes should be averaged across all public and public charter schools in a district or larger area. Admissions should be based on location, academic/talent merit type factors and actual open enrollment should be available. This might change where the good schools are and who can attend them. Presumably it would give a larger base of children opportunities to succeed.
18
To all the commentators pillorying those parents who want no change for their children, maligning the parents for fomenting structural racism, deriding them for not having your selfsame revolutionary anti-bigotry zeal. These people invoke the defenders of the corrupt regime who fought freethinkers who lacked “revolutionary enthusiasm.” If you don’t have my values, there’s something wrong with you because my values are pristine.
6
As a person directly affected by this process, I can say that issues involved are more complex and difficult to comprehend for someone who is not a resident of HoCo. The key objective of the redistricting process is to reduce overcrowding in schools, however, in this case, it is also mixed with a political objective of social equity. This created an untenable plan that forced students to go to the farthest county schools with bus rides lasting longer than 30-45 minutes each way. Leaving very little time for any other activities. For high schoolers it meant leaving home around 6:15 AM ..sleep-deprived and returning no earlier then 3:30 PM. One can imagine how the rest of their day will go. For several communities, it meant breaking up the community on arbitrary lines and sending next-door neighbors to different elementary of middle school. For the fund starved school system, it meant an additional hit of $2million in transportation costs. While county could move around teachers, assign additional resources to underperforming schools at far lesser costs. It's unfortunate that media and leftist organizations gave it a color of racial opposition while pitting African Americans, whites, and Asians against each other. Under the plan, everyone suffered, poorer families even more !!
40
I grew up in Howard County and went to River Hill. This is a misleading comment. River Hill is a 10-15 min drive from wild lake. Anyone can look on google maps. Many kids live closer than that. So the extra travel one way really shouldn’t be that big of a deal.
And yes sure the students are sleep deprived already. They were when I was there and this busing won’t do much to change anything in terms of that. The school system could say just move the time high school starts. Something they should have done a long time ago.
Another thing worth mentioning. Almost all the communities in Columbia have section 8 housing. My understanding is that it was intended to create more economic integration. The one community or at least one of the few without section 8 is river hill. While I believe that is supposed to be changing it is no coincidence that river hill since it started 15 or so years ago had no section 8 housing.
Ultimately Columbia is a suburb of Baltimore. A city with a long racial history of segregation. Rouse vision was to create a community that would be different. And Columbia was inviting to blacks, whites, and recently a large immigrant community. It was also known for being welcoming to mix race couples. Not at all common when it started. This version of columbia is worth fighting for. Let’s live up to that ideal.
5
@Sharad B I grew up on MD'S Eastern Shore and I can't help but think what hypocrites you people are. As I remember shore schools were given the least amount of money in the state and we were looked down upon by you western shore elitists. Because we have the least population there are only a handful of schools per county which meant intergradation was automatic. Deal with it.
@Ben Engelberg totally agree with you. However lot of walkers will now be going by bus, that means waking 45 mins - 1 hour earlier to get on the bus which will take 30-45 mins in morning traffic going to fort meade. Secondly affordable housing problem is created by developers and county officials why ask kids to move school because of that.
1
I feel for the teachers. They are stuck in the middle.
As someone who has moved now to a very diverse country, not the US, I no longer believe in "diversity for diversity sake". There are groups that practice domestic violence in the name of "their culture" or "child labour" or treating women as their property, or tolerating big male egos with incompetence and corruption, etc. These are not cultures, it is pathology.
Just as individuals are not at the same level of enlightenment, neither are groups.
Long, long way to go.
People should stay in their groups for awhile and evolve before trying diversity experiments. Otherwise, everybody devolves to the lowest elements in every group.
26
I feel for the teachers. They are stuck in the middle.
As someone who has moved now to a very diverse country, not the US, I no longer believe in "diversity for diversity sake". There are groups that practice domestic violence in the name of "their culture" or "child labour" or treating women as their property, or tolerating big male egos with incompetence and corruption, etc. These are not cultures, it is pathology.
Just as individuals are not at the same level of enlightenment, neither are groups.
Long, long way to go.
People should stay in their groups for awhile and evolve before trying diversity experiments. Otherwise, everybody devolves to the lowest elements in every group.
2
I remember James Rouse speaking about the future of Columbia back in the late 1960's. This is not the future he saw; but, the future is never what we think it will be.
4
This is how we got Trump. When you choose to self segregate you aren't thinking about your kids. The real world as a whole is filled with a lot of different races and though it might feel right to live in an area where everyone looks like and thinks like you it will be damaging to you and your kids in the long run (especially if you want to be successful). You can't hide from the "others" forever and neither can your kids. When they go to college, the military, or a real profession they are going to be faced with people that are different in any way imaginable and if your child hasn't dealt with anyone of another race or creed by the time their an adult they already start the "Real World" they'll be at a very big disadvantage compared to those that are more "open".
11
@Baker Actually the world is full of successful people who spent their entire lives in a one culture environment.
2
Integration works. Let the program go through.
17
Being a first generation immigrant, from 50 years back, I find the views of people like Hemant Sharma to be devoid of understanding of the history of the U.S. Frankly, I find his efforts opposing redistricting to be appalling.
102
@Krishna Myneni As a child of Asian immigrants, I am proud of the courage Dr. Sharma has displayed by taking time away from his practice and putting himself out there in the public sphere. Righting bad decisions of the past should not be at the expense of any children. A more collaborative approach to expanding opportunities to those disadvantaged by the status quo would gain community buy in and be more effective than forcing families to leave schools they have chosen.
39
@Jewelia I’m curious whether Dr. Sharma took the time out of his schedule to help dismantle the structural inequities in the school system prior to this proposal. Did any of these wealthier protesting parents make donations to the booster groups at those other schools since they must have recognized the structural inequities before? What was not mentioned in the article were the decades of back room politics that created this problem. Many of our greatest civil achievements in this country have, indeed, been about righting past wrongs. So spare me the high-minded rhetoric about harming children. I’m not at all saying that I would be happy if it were my child but it’s disingenuous for anyone to argue that the organizing and protesting is on behalf of the underserved kids. And let me tell you that the moment rich white and Asian kids get into a less resourced school and parents complain, money that the lower income parents have been begging for, WILL BE found. Just ask the urban gentrifiers.
21
@L Actually, the real problem is that Howard County public schools are broke; new schools need to be built to alleviate overcrowding and teachers are being cut, even in the blue ribbon schools.
Sorting students by race geographically is a distraction. Like rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic.
Ignoring hundreds and thousands of concerned parental testimony, refusing a voter referendum on the issue of redistricting homes by SES, and targeting the highest scorering students to attend the lowest performing schools is anti democratic at best, dictatorship at worst.
20
For all those parents who want their kids to go to only the best school I have two words: private school
18
@Warren For those who want ALL children to go to the best schools I have three words: Ban Private Schools
5
you must have missed the point that experiencing diversity within your educational experience has been proven to lead to better outcomes long-term for all participants. yes, the lower income students benefit but the higher income students do too. being around people different from yourself is itself a learning experience. sheltering your kids from the real world does them a disservice in the long run.
3
@jim
Define "better outcome." That's a sincere request. Do you mean better character development, or better chance at admission to an elite university? Are you talking about personal growth or professional/academic success and financial success?
4
Over 25 years ago when my daughter was five years old, as a parent of a child in a Howard County Maryland elementary school, I conducted a study on the socio-economic and racial diversity in Howard County Schools. I warned the Howard County School Board that the way they were drawing school district lines was resulting in disparity in the schools. At that time, in 1992, the School Board was drawing the lines so that one school might have .5 percent low income students (based on free and reduced meals) and virtually no minority children, while in the school next door, the numbers were such that 20 percent or more if the students would be low income, and the racial mix would be much higher. Inevitably, test scores and other indicia varied vastly from school to school based on the socio-economic and racial mix. Examining the lines closely, I concluded that the school district had essentially gerrymandered the school district to ensure the very high performing schools remained almost entirely white, and had no low income kids. At the time, I proposed redrawing school districts to achieve better balance. It has been a very long time coming, and the disparity is much worse today, but I am glad the School Board has finally decided to do something about it. I warned then and I believe still that the alternative would be to create ghetto schools.
25
How thoroughly depressing -- as someone who grew up in Howard County and attended Wilde Lake High School, it's disheartening to read this, but perhaps unsurprising. Maybe the biggest irony of all, is that in the mid 90s when Wilde Lake was being renovated and rebuilt, the students there ALL attended River Hill High School -- the entire school was bused to River Hill before it became its own school. So, it's hard to see how taking a bus to one or the other school could possibly be an issue. I remember prior to this time period, intense redistricting debates which were often couched as based on differences in curriculum with Centennial High, but even then, those of us who attended Wilde Lake knew this opposition was also skittishness about the fact that 40-45% of the school was African-American, foreign-born and students of color. Wilde Lake was an excellent school then, and I can only imagine it is now. As a white, middle-aged adult, in the current climate we live in, I feel grateful every day for getting the opportunity to go to school with so many amazing classmates from all sorts of backgrounds. The truth is -- in the world we live in -- understanding the widest range of people by being friends with them, going to school with them, playing sports together, living nearby, is the best preparation for adulthood and our future world. I benefited for sure -- equity benefits everyone. I hope Columbia figures out how to return to -- at least some -- of its original values.
85
We really need more Wilde Lake High Schools - and others like it. It was eye-opening once I left Columbia, MD as a young adult and realized not everywhere was like it.
3
Maryland schools are extremely segregated racially and socio-economically. While the state's county/school district model would seem to provide a reasonable way of balancing enrollment among schools, historically the opposite has happened. So, what is happening in Howard County is nothing new, except the current superintendent has been more candid about his aims, which has probably forced the opponents to be more candid themselves. Meanwhile, politicians, especially those representing white areas, fear voter backlash from redistricting. The solution: Build new schools in crowded areas to relieve the political pressure and the concentration of students. The result: More under-underutilized school buildings, more segregated schools and ridiculously high local education costs and corresponding high taxes. Interestingly, this latest redistricting fight in Howard County has been triggered by construction of a new high school to serve predominantly affluent areas developing east and north of original Columbia.
7
As a student who lives in an economically privileged area, yet lives in a district with a variety of economic backgrounds, I believe that these parents seem to misunderstand the impact that this will have on their children’s educations. Parents defending their “high achievers” will see little impact on the quality of schools. For goodness sake, the “disadvantaged” neighboring school provides 25 different AP classes. 25!!! Their kids will be just fine.
33
This isn’t about creating diversity in classes but trying to give minority kids better educational opportunities so they have a chance to escape the dire economic conditions created by structural racism. Shame on Asians for joining this chorus of hypocritical white liberals.
12
@Jeff The Chinese American Parents Association offers free after school tutoring to students who need lunch subsidies so they are for increasing opportunities. What they are against is kicking Asians out of high performing schools to lift average test scores elsewhere.
8
@Jeff What better educational opportunity? Try attending one of these inner city schools and see how much learning the teachers can get in, not a lot. Even in the best schools, American academic curriculum is sub-par to first world countries. If they start moving kids to worse schools, those kids will be deprived of mediocre education and will end with even a worse education than before. There should be a standard curriculum nationwide, with a bar set high and financial allocations to schools should not be based on local taxes, then you might see a difference.
8
@Jeff So why not just improve the schools where the kids are?
Poverty and all that goes along with it cannot be solved by moving children like chess pieces to assuage the guilt of the liberal school board. It's not fair to students or families. Where are these "studies" anyway that say forced integration is beneficial? Where has it been proven?
52
@Melissa M., do you consider increased empathy to be beneficial? Because it seems obvious that it's easier to empathize with people you interact with on a daily basis.
4
@Leonard I consider spending more time reading books and solving differential equations more beneficial than watching TV and socializing on the smart phone. Empathy has nothing to do with this.
6
One of the outcomes of a desegregation lawsuit by the NAACP in Minnesota was the formation of a new school, whose students would come from eleven districts: Minneapolis (predominately black students, more than 50% below the poverty line) and ten suburban districts ringing Minneapolis, mostly white and middle class.
We were the exception: white, middle class, Minneapolis residents. Both of our boys attended this middle school (grades 4 - 8).
Because the school was founded as an experiment in integration, their eighth grade classes included significant time and energy focused on race. That experience was foundational for both.
Forced integration breaks down stereotypes, forces real interaction with the other, and results in better human beings.
Human beings are tribal. It's not one of our better qualities. This is an opportunity to break though another barrier. I hope they don't squander that opportunity.
25
@Bob Aldrich You used the word "forced" a lot, with implied approval. Think about that. What about freedom of choice?
1
Stress from riding a bus? Please. It sounds like the wealthy parents don’t want to participate in creating a more equal society. They are being bad role models for their children.
18
Not stress, but time consumed that can not be spent on more fruitful activity.
11
The unrelenting effort at destroying good schools for the questionable benefit of some students continues to go on unabated in the NY Times. Questionable, because there is no real proof of its benefit, only wishful thinking and pseudoscience.
97
@Shadai I agree. I believe that the larger problem is the 'elephant in the room' (no pun intended). Children from single-parent households always struggle in school because education is not a priority.
20
@lucytru Please rethink your grotesque stereotypes.
8
@lucytru It's not about single-parent households. It is about education being a priority and about not seeing teachers as babysitters.
10
What is so surprising or troublesome about parents trying to preserve their children's access to good schools. There is no suggestion in the article that the school district devotes greater resources to the schools in the affluent parts of the district, so if those schools are nevertheless better, it's probably because the students arrive better prepared to learn as a result of their home environments or because the parents are more involved in the local schools. As a parent, I would fight to preserve those advantages.
93
Usually, education funds are generated largely from property taxes. If you're in a place with low taxes due to low income, your school will have fewer funds. I'm not sure if this county is any different, but it seems like they're trying to untie educational opportunities from the local tax revenue. The article admittedly did not explain this point very well, so I can't say what the logic is. The young girl they interviewed implied that her "ghetto" school actually wasn't that bad. It's disturbing to see some of the racism at play. Even comments like "they're all good at sports because they're black" implies that the black students' athletic talent had nothing to do with effort, passion, or character. Things that could translate to academic success with proper guidance.
3
@Jmart
Guess again. Plenty of poor urban districts spend big bucks per student but have really poor outcomes in terms of graduation rates, test scores, and behavioral issues. Must be those awful teachers, huh? Or just maybe, could it be that too many kids are being raised by someone who is not ready or able to be a parent? If a person who doesn't have it together has kids, guess how the kids are likely to turn out. Schools are being asked to do too much.
25
In New Jersey we have Abbott districts which are low-income districts that actually get much much more funding than high-income districts. Yet it turns out that throwing money at the problem isn't the solution either.
23
Sometimes I wonder what school integration tries to solve. If its a difference in quality of education then isn't the problem that the there is a large difference in tax base and hence the amount of money that the school district spends is vastly different? Hence quality of teachers, facilities etc and hence the overall quality of education differs? Couldn't the problem be easier solved by raising the amount of dollars allocated to the poor neighborhood school to a much higher level? In effect this is what integration does, it moves a student in a low dollar school district to a high dollar school district and visa versa.
12
being around people different from yourself has been shown to provide real educational and life outcome benefits to students. forcing them to go to a school where most of their classmates have a similar socioeconomic and racial background as they do does them a disservice. the students are clamoring for change. it's the parents who don't get it.
2
I'm in the county next door to Howard County and a boundary assessment is underway. A correction is in order for sure in our county as well as and I don't really know what the answer is, to be honest.
I know that my area of the county is incredibly over crowded and over burdened with the high needs of low income students vs a different side of the county that is not either one of those things. For example, there are elementary schools on the white, wealthier side of the county with just 2 classes for kindergarten where as we have 11 kindergarten classes and have given up the computer lab, art room, and music room to be classrooms. Or, in our high school, nearly 60 percent of 10th graders failed the 10th grade English exam require for graduation vs. less than 5 percent in the wealthier, whiter school across the county. Those that fail have to complete a project to be supervised and graded by staff. Does my high school get more staff to oversee those projects? No. Just one small example repeated hundreds of ways each day in our schools.
I pay the same taxes as my brother on that wealthier, less crowded, less burdened part of the county. And, yet, I love my neighborhood schools and wouldn't change that sense of community and pride for anything. My middle-income children go to school with a wonderful mix of students in terms of race and SES.
I don't know the answer.
15
“[The protesters] preferred to talk about other people’s children — those with less advantage — who they believed would suffer under the plan.”
Why didn’t the reporter talk to parents who support this initiative? Are there actually low-income parents whose children attend Wlide Lake that don’t want their children bussed?
7
If white liberals aren't appeased, they will move or enroll their children in private schools....Hopefully it doesn't get as bad as it is in New York, where there aren't enough white public students left to truly integrate...These liberals aren't necessarily rascist, but they expect privileges due to their wealth..Their children should have better schooling because they have more money, pay more taxes and live in a better neighborhood...Kind of sad.
2
Yes, that’s called capitalism. I also expect better housing because of my wealth, better cars, better vacations, better clothes, you get the idea. What’s your alternative? Denying people the right to spend money on their children?
42
No Ted, what people with money should do is spent their money in private schools, and leave public schools for those that don't have money. Instead they dump crazy amounts of money, because is cheaper to pour money in a public school in their block, where they can walk or bike to school; than spending money in a private institution. In short because capitalism, white privilege, class, you name it, there is a group of people that wants everything good for their kids in public schools, but at the same time denying the same kind of schools to other children. You want an alternative? lets make all public schools the same. Good experienced teachers, good food, good buildings, good art, language, science, and music classes, I can assure you that nobody would complaint.
4
@SF or Sweden by the bay
That makes absolutely no sense. Some people spending THEIR OWN money to support their local public school does NOTHING to hurt other public schools. In NYC, for example, all public schools get the same funding per student and schools in poor areas get additional public funding. So your argument makes no sense.
What does make sense is that if those rich parents put their kids in private school, or move to a different city, the area loses their private money and maybe also their tax dollars, which helps NO ONE.
What this really strikes me as class jealousy and rank socialism -- an example of some people don't have nice things so NO ONE should be allowed to have nice things. That's not America.
25
A person buys a house in a neighborhood knowing specifically what the school zones are. This causes some homes to be worth more than others. People pay more to live in the zone with the better school, or pay less to live in the zone with lower performing schools. Why not try and bring the poorer schools up to a higher standard? A little more money for school upkeep, teacher bonuses to lure better teachers to the lower performing schools? That beats busing any day.
40
@bart But this is exactly the problem. Why should a child get a better education because his parents can afford to pay for a more expensive house? Under your scenario, if the poorer schools do get better, then the richer people will move there and drive the poorer out. But the point is that ti is not the fault of a child or teenager that for whatever reason their parents are not rich. It is probably not the parents' fault either. In fact, not being rich is not a "fault." We would have a much better society if people didn't "buy" advantages for their children.
3
I spent 3 years in Baltimore as part of my fellowship training. I had a great time but realized quickly it was no place I wanted to raise a family in.
I made friends with many great people that lived in these suburbs (Columbia and Ellicot city) and had sxhoolage kids.
While not as darkly blue as inside Baltimore, many of these people were politically quite liberal.
I must say there was a lot of hypocrisy between their stated beliefs and how they behaved regarding their children.
This was even more severe in Baltimore itself where the public school system is horrendous. Most of these rich liberals would send their kids to private school. This is despite their high tax rates and the city spending more per student on education than most of the country.
17
Think about it for a second: some school board gets to decide your child’s experience? based on a high minded wish?
While we’re at it, let’s move votes around the state to achieve the constitutional requirement of equal representation. The rationale for that is stronger and the cost is less, but we would never think of it.
We should stop thinking of kids as resources to move as needed.
Move the money or the teachers, but respect the kids.
28
@we Tp "some school board gets to decide your child’s experience? based on a high minded wish?" How do you suppose district lines are drawn in the first place?
3
This is a repeat of my hometown in Michigan in the early 70's. "Bussing" was the divisive issue then too. I was in elementary school. The ballot proposal passed. I was in the white school and got to stay. The poorer kids from the housing projects were bussed to my school. I can say with certainty that the academics are right. I grew up not knowing the difference. Those kids were my friends. Race and class differences meant very little to me. Empathy is for real.
43
@David Schools are supposed to teach academic subjects first, not empathy.
10
No, I strongly disagree. Schools should definitely teach empathy along with academic subjects. It is more important to have empathy to live and work in a society than to know calculus. Look where it got us, with our current president who does not seem to understand anything but self interest.
7
@S.A.S.S. Architect
Our current president doesn't know calculus either, so I doubt he would have learned empathy at school even if it had been taught. He's also a sociopath he's incapable of empathy anyway.
But thanks for candidly admitting that the Left would rather destroy academic excellence than not get their way.
5
This shows the hypocrisy of liberals who espouse desegregation programs as long as it is not their kids schools being desegregated.
This has been the case since desegregation began in the 50’s.
Northeastern liberals were boisterous about desegregating southern schools but when the issue moved to the northern suburbs the liberals took up arms to stop it.
And these liberals have always used the same excuse “I don’t want my kid to have to travel for miles on a school bus” instead of being honest and saying I don’t want my kids going to school with “those” kids.
212
@John Gilday: It's a difficult subject. As a parent whose children were able to walk to their elementary, middle, and high school, I really appreciated the accessibility. My husband was bused an hour each way to school when attending school in Alabama during the '70s, and he does not recall the experience fondly. It had nothing to do with his school or his classmates, just the bus ride. His frustration with long commutes led us to choose a home within walking distance of his employer when we moved (from Howard County of all places) to Colorado. Eventually, he took a new job and began working from home. The resistors are not necessarily bigots. It may really just be about the long bus ride.
44
@John Gilday
There is a sea of difference between not welcoming and integrating “those people” into your neighborhood/schools, and not wanting your kid to be bussed to a school that is known for its low performance. Most white liberals would be happy to see their new neighbor is a person of color, but might not be excited about their kid (especially a sensitive kid) being forced to adjust to an environment less conducive to their education and personal growth, in the name of equality vis-a-vis an unproven social experiment. Lots of people here are calling that hypocrisy; I call it a line in the sand that only the most progressive of liberals are comfortable crossing.
57
@Allison The article states the difference in bus ride length would be two miles. Do you still argue it's all about the "long" bus ride?
18
In school, you have to do the work to get an A. If you slouch off, or do no homework and test poorly, you may end up with a C or D.
If you come from a family that watches your grades and makes your education an important part of the nightly discussion, chances are you'll do better- that is your family's culture.
Teachers attempt to get everyone's attention in class to teach them how to study, how to learn, and how to take a test. Assuming there are good teachers in all schools, with the same textbooks in the same town, the difference may be the student's work habits.
Are they doing A work or C/D work? Is anyone at home on top of those grades, demanding more, and is there a family culture of prioritizing education in the home?
Is busing the student with the same textbook going to change work habits? I think we know the answer.
Education begins at home. Change the family culture, not the bus route.
73
@mainesummers, so private school is actually a waste then. It's just family culture that determines everything.
1
Is it uncouth to point out (from the pile of hate mail) that 'characters' should be singular?
2
@Patrick Sullivan For many parents in affected areas, English is a second language.
1
@Patrick Sullivan
Is is uncouth to point out that everything you disagree with is not “hate”?
7
Children and parents who are comfortable with their schools, usually neighborhood schools should be allowed to attend them. Those schools should not be used as a "remedy" for children living elsewhere and performing at a lower academic level. The remedy is to occur in their own neighborhoods. It's their parents, their families, their teachers, their schools where the responsibility lies for making a remedy occur. To do otherwise is to relinquish the responsibility from those who should own it.
40
I recommend reading "The Color of Law." It may influence how you think about responsibility. Or there is a very good animated video summary narrated by the author on YouTube.
2
@blgreenie, who draws the district lines?
@Anneke
You mean the kind of responsibility which says, "white people alive today are responsible for stuff that happened going back 400 years ago, which is why black people today aren't responsible for anything they do, since everything bad that happens to black people is white people's fault."
I don't agree with your kind of responsibility. It's not supported by facts and logic, for one thing.
11
I live in a county near the one in this article, and my children attend a school with a high FARMs rate. We do not match the majority economic or racial demographics of the school. Has that had any adverse impact on my kids’ education? Not at all. Are my kids happy/thriving/being challenged at their school? Absolutely. Adults seem to forget that kids are kids, regardless of how parents may view themselves in relation to others. These school boundary issues come up in my liberal county, which has a rich/poor divide. I find it offensive that people who I’m sure would support integration in theory are so resistant to it when their own kids are involved. It’s also “funny” how people can hold very liberal and sympathetic views on immigration, but would never be okay with their kids actually attending school with low-income immigrant children.
Arguments I’ve seen against school integration are (1) that it only benefits the poor minority kids, not the rich white kids (not wanting your kids to be part of a “social experiment”); (2) longer bus rides; and (3) having to make new friends. To those I say: (1) one benefit would be that hopefully your kids wouldn’t be as racist/classist as you are if they actually had to go to school with kids who were different from them; (2) specific to this article, but applicable elsewhere, a longer bus ride by two miles is not a big deal in the exurban sprawl of Howard County; and (3) kids are resilient and change classrooms and schools all the time.
31
@Anonymous
We moved from Bethesda to Silver Spring to escape the toxic culture on that side of Montgomery County. We didn’t want our kid growing up with that influence.
12
As a former Columbia resident, who attended school there through high school in the 80’s, the discussion about Rouse’s plan and vision is inaccurate and misleading. Clarksville is not part of Columbia. The same housing density and land covenants did not apply in other towns, like Clarksville - which back then was still mostly rural.
Ironically, there was very little busing at all back then, as Columbia was neighborhood- focused, with an emphasis on walkability.
Then, like apparently now, the concept of socioeconomic diversity was built into the way housing was constructed in Columbia school districts.
I can understand not wanting your children to ride the bus for several hours a day - admittedly I have no solutions. But I am forever grateful that I went to a school where almost 1/2 the students looked nothing like me, and regret that my children didn’t have the same experience.
12
@TMJ Rouse also limited housing subsidies to approx. 12%. Later, Columbia schools experienced test score decline when rates of subsidized students soared up to 50% to 60% and the middle class fled.
5
Does anyone ever consider doing something about poverty instead?
39
@Carol , very difficult to do when even the supposedly most "liberal" and "progressive" members of Congress, from safe seats in "blue" states, still support trillion-dollar military Keynesianism such as Lockheed's F-35 fighter jet and trillion dollar, intervention-first, regime change wars all around the world. Yes, even Bernie Sanders and Democrats like Patrick Leahy put the military Keynesianism of the F-35 fighter jet ahead of the health and home values of their own constituents (including the low-income and immigrant refugee demographics they pretend to care about). And many Democrats, such as Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, etc., were part of the decisions to continue the $6 trillion plus "Forever" wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other regime change actions in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, etc. When the money is going toward destroying and rebuilding other countries, there is not going to be money for fighting poverty at home.
15
@Carol In Howard County, per pupil funding in Title 1 schools actually exceeds that of high income schools due to wraparound services (i.e., paras, food, medical and dental care, ESOL, pre k etc.).
6
@GRH @Carol - what GRH said. In our political system, both parties have been bought out by oligarchs and corporations. Democrats are comfortable addressing social injustice to a point, but they're very wary of even bringing up economic justice, as is much of our media, which is owned by a handful of oligarchs. Although Bernie Sanders has been among the top 3 contenders for the nomination for a good while now, from the way our news outlets ignore him you'd think that the current leaders were Biden, Warren, and Buttigieg. Essentially, when it comes to things like raising the minimum wage or bailing out people who lost their homes during Wall Streets last meltdown, establishment Democrats and Republicans alike prefer to offer "thoughts and prayers" and move on. You know the old saw about how Americans don't see themselves in terms of class difference? That doesn't just happen. The wealthy spend a lot of money on propaganda to make it happen.
2
Improving poorer schools sounds good as a solution until you realize that won't happen until the affluent and politically empowered parents have direct skin in the game in the form of their own children. That simple truth explains why making school quality high and equitable across the economic and racial spectrum remains elusive after decades of effort. Parents cannot consider this problem in anything close to a dispassionate fashion, so while 2 hr commutes don't sound like the right answer, making every demographic in a community vested in the success of every school of that community is a must and that means full racial and economic integration.
14
Wait, so rich parents have to fix schools now? Do rich parents need to fix the sewers as well? Repair power lines after a storm? Isn’t that stuff that our elected representatives and tax dollars are supposed to take care of? I owe nothing to the public school system — the system is supposed to serve me and my kids, not exploit them for political points.
26
@Ted Imagine benefiting disproportionately from a political and economic system and thinking you owe nothing more to it than a poor person in the same system does.
7
@Ted you seem to have misunderstood what a democracy is.
4
The best schools should admit by examination. That way, the best students will take it on themselves to be bussed 2 hours each way if that is what it takes. Meritocratic mechanisms like the SHSAT is the worst way to assign students to schools, except for all the others.
7
@B Examination scores are affected by what you know, and whether your parents paid for extra tutoring.
Not a good way to promote diversity in race or SES - but then, that's what is being fought against...
5
The solution is free preschool for every child in the US.
But this means money so instead we will continue to ignore the children that will never make it in the first grade since they did not make it in the preschool.
Never think that the countries that do the best with their children are the countries that make free preschool for every child.
9
@Bob S Howard County offers free pre k to those who qualify for subsidized lunch.
1
According to the article, "The average bus ride for students throughout the county would increase by two miles each way, said Brian Bassett, a district spokesman." This shouldn't mean two hours a day unless the bus routes are extraordinarily complex.
11
We need to get away from the idea that Black and Hispanic children need to be around Asian and White children to succeed. They don't.
Better to spend the time and money to balance all schools- throughout the country- funded by the Federal government. Removing local control would foster the idea that every child needs to be given the basic -chance- to succeed.
Think about this: A poor Black child cannot be expected to succeed if he/she is placed in a dilapidated school building -with outdated books and learning equipment while living in a poor neighborhood. Sending this child to a "richer" school isn't going to change their fundamental problems he faces. In fact, it may make them worse as we are ignoring economic and family structural issues.
True, separate, but equal is a terrible idea, but separate and unequal is an even worse idea.
Another problem? Most people have no desire for diversity. Do ignore those who yell the loudest for diversity changes- for they are often the ones most oppressed.
Fact: Most people have no desire to live/work/play or pray with people who do not look/sound/think or pray as they do.
Don't believe me? Look around -your- neighborhood. Look at -your- friends and co-workers. Then look at the numbers.
If by chance you do live in a "diverse" neighborhood and was given the chance to live in a neighborhood where people who thought, looked, sounded and prayed as you do...
Would you move out?
Once again, the numbers prove that you would.
13
Maybe there are other ways, other than bussing, that this community could implement to achieve diversity. It seems like they truly value diversity.
Maybe some white families would consider moving to black neighborhoods, and vice versa?
25
@NotKidding
All this talk about diversity is a red herring. These are resource issues, not racial diversity issues. The politicians are just pawning off their jobs along paths of least resistance. Time for them to go.
5
@NotKidding Well, it's pretty easy for the wealthier whites to choose to move to less privileged areas, because thats a huge part of the definition of privilege: choice! But it's not too easy for low-income people of color to just move up to a "nicer" upscale neighborhood -- if they had that choice, they probably would have already done it.
5
@NotKidding As someone who grew up in the neighborhood and whose mother still lives there, this isn't really the issue. Wilde Lake is a majority white neighborhood with expensive housing (about $350,000 - 750,000 for a house). The issue is that most of the housing is occupied by people whose children graduated from college long ago. There are less expensive apartments and townhouses, and they are far more likely to have children of high school age.
4
I was bused in Miami from my neighborhood school I could walk to. It increased by commute to school by about an hour and a half. It was one of the most important experiences of my life. What I learned from attending George Washington Carver made me a better person, a better citizen, and a kinder human being. It's easy to be scared of change or reluctant to have your kid get less so another kid gets more. But busing is worth it. It creates a more civil society.
25
A quick read, and I’ll side with those against. If the county likes the model of that community, then let them roll up their sleeves and create another one. Yes, a lot of work. Kind of like the thinking and balance the community puts into their success. And by the way, busing?! That’s 1950s era thinking, right? Get those politicians sone help, and if they refuse to understand they need a much better approach, vote them out!
Daniel
Real Estate Agent, MD
13
It'd make more sense to "bus" the money and resources around more evenly and leave the kids to attend the school of their choice. Spread the wealth and opportunity, not the kids.
28
You make too much sense
1
I live in Howard County and I don’t recognize the place described in this article. Those few racists do not represent the people who live here. Whites are a majority of county residents, but our county executive and many of the people who run the county are black and other minorities. Nor is opposition to the redistricting mainly or even substantially about racism. Parents of all races whose kids will end up going to schools other than their closest school oppose the plan, which was rolled out without much public input. This is not 1970’s Boston, though this article strives mightily to create the false impression that it is.
49
Wait, I was told the people on the coasts were enlightened and the ones from the interior were racists.
Now you are telling me liberalism tends to become less so the closer it gets to home?
16
These limousine liberals are all for integration until it involves them.
55
Personally I don't have strong feelings about the racial composition of my children's schools, though all things being equal I think everyone benefits from a diverse student body.
However I have very strong feelings about the quality of the education they receive, and would not want them to be sent to a school that provides a worse education for any reason, including in the name of social justice. They only get to go through school one time, and I do all I can to make it a good one. No one is going to care about my kids as much as my wife and I do, so that's our first responsibility.
But I would support providing additional resources to underperforming schools, bringing other kids into my kids' schools or other measures that have a chance of success, even if it costs me more in taxes.
23
Thank God for parochial schools.
23
... Hemant Sharma, a pediatrician, father and representative of the opposition group. “The children who will be harmed most disproportionately are those in greatest need,” he added.
Have you asked the parents whose children would be bused what they want?
16
It's heartbreaking to see a high school student who can't afford a new pair of jeans.
2
The GOODY-TWO-SHOES will have to decide which is the most important goal: An excellent education, or emotional empathy! One can't have both. Empathy, like white doesn't rub off...remember forced busing...
4
I'm totally in favor of integrated schools, so as I read this article, at first I was siding with the ones who want to bus students to different schools. But when I read that bus rides could be as long as two hours each way, I flinched. How could any parent choose for their child to lose four hours a day? Is no better plan available? I don't see the parents who object to busing as necessarily racist. I think they want what's best for their children--including having some free time that's not spent on a bus.
32
@Marilyn Martin The article says that the average bus ride will be extended by 2 miles each way, not 2 hours..
9
@Marilyn Martin I think you may have misread, it's an extra two miles, not two hours. They definitely won't be losing 4 hours a day to this plan.
5
“The average bus ride for students throughout the county would increase by two miles each way, said Brian Bassett, a district spokesman.”
1
"shows that the issue remains deeply divisive among liberals when it comes to their own children."
Us conservatives knew this already. We are honest about why we do not want under performers in suburbs. Liberals will toe the line and virtue signal until it comes to their school distinct then suddenly theyve 'worked hard' and want families who 'value education.' Same with low income housing.
33
This is simply politically correct social engineering. It is not racist to purchase a home and expect your child to go to the neighborhood school. As far as improving test scores goes it would take a psychometrician to explain what the results actually mean and the validity of many assessments is questionable
Very simply put the article cites improving test scores. It is true the low performing child benefits. If your child performs at an average or better level there is no measurable academic benefit to having their lives disrupted by riding a bus. As an aside there is some research to support the concept that changing schools is an educational deficit
Ultimately people will vote with their feet and move to neighborhoods where they are not victimized by ill advised school boards and there hired Superintendents
51
@Patrick.
It's not racist unless your reason for purchasing a home there was to get away from schools with kids of other races.
10
@DC Look at the Howard County Public School System website (www.hcpss.org) and click on individual schools to see the pupil racial percentages. Most Howard County schools are quite diverse.
1
I don't know enough about the situation to comment other than to say that if the plan goes through, demand for private schooling in and around Columbia will increase. Previous comments here have outlined why.
13
The author is surely aware of but fails to present relevant statistics that are readily available on the Howard County Public School System (HCPSS) website:
As of 2018 about 36% of HCPSS students were white and about 64% were non-white. Even if it were somehow possible to divide all the white students equally among all the schools in the country school district, an average class of 25 students would have 9 white students and 16 non-white students; that is, whites would be a clear minority in all schools and all classrooms.
Politicians quickly learned in the 1970s and 1980s that busing students to achieve integration was a quick way to be voted out of office, and social engineers learned that whites would make almost any sacrifice to keep their kids in high-performing schools, even if that meant paying for private school or moving to a different town.
The practical reality is that the answer to underperforming schools and students is not to move students around like pawns on a chessboard, but to improve all schools in the district.
25
Funny how Americans boast so much about virtue/acceptance and condemn others about it, but as soon as the time comes to put their money where their mouth is, there's nothing but excuses and resistance.
22
In a program that has existed for nearly 30 years, about 20% of the students in the Whitefish Bay Public School system are transported from Milwaukee. It is my understanding that it has been a success with many of the transfer students attending college after graduation.
2
@Zipster How many students are bused from Whitefish Bay public schools to Milwaukee? Zero, I imagine.
Now you see the problem described in this article.
7
"Games People Play." Many People of all different races and colors like to keep up academic standards. Its not exactly accurate to say its the people of color against the whites in all cases. Not every difference of opinion, values and academic performance is racism.
11
I support this move if it helps develop empathy. Entire swathes of the country have a totally warped view of certain races. They claim that every person of a specific race is somehow privileged, treated better by society, and has more (unearned) opportunity.
They say those things and then claim to be anti-racist. They fail to see that their entire premise is racist.
7
If you want to break it out even further, you can mostly likely guarantee Asian students in either schools have the highest averages across the board.
8
@HistoryRhyme I'm from Clarksville. If you read the proposal, the children disproportionately swapped to a middle school w the lowest test scores and highest disruption rates are Asian from a school that is the reverse. Yet another scheme that permits collateral damage to Asian Americans. Educational quality is a legitimate concern and the real problem is thr school system is too broke to build new schools and hire enougj teachers.
7
One thing that never seems to change in "education improvement" plans is "top down" design by non-classroom teachers and politicians, with (as in this article) no input from actual teachers. My impression of education administrators for the most part is they did not like classroom teaching and/or were not very good at it, but they do like their "non-teacher grade" salaries and being "the expert" on how to improve the system.
An inverse pay parity system between administrators and classroom teachers would be a very good place to start improving a school district, with the teachers assigned the poorest performing group of students to receive the highest salaries.
14
Just wondering why racial quotas always have to be shoved down everyone’s throats? What if parents and students like the school in their neighborhood? Also keep in mind that most neighborhoods are already incredibly segregated. We need to do more to tackle the root of these problems.
16
@CP The redistricting has focused on socio-economics not race (although there is a correlation for a lot of historical reasons).
3
@NCSense If I understand the law correctly, race-based redistricting is illegal. Therefore, Howard County is using socio-economic status as a proxy for racial rebalancing.
Most parents in HoCo recognize that some redistricting is needed to relieve the worst of the overcrowding, but are opposed to 1) long distance busing (and it's not the 2 mile moves, it's the non-average 5-7 mile moves on very congested roads that are drawing opposition 2) turning walkers into bus riders 3) separating traditional neighborhoods/communities 4) moving current high schoolers. Yes, there are some whose opposition to the redistricting is based on prejudice and bigotry,and others who are worried about their property values (which have been demonstrably affected by past redistrictings), but most are concerned with disruption to students' and families' lives. Howard County is very diverse, but our county council has allowed development to proceed unchecked. Meanwhile, the effort to include affordable housing in the developments was bought off, so there's a mismatch between affordable housing and schools with extra seats. People are angry that the board of education is ignoring the wishes of so many in the county, including those of the lower income neighborhoods whose children will be bused further away to help raise the poverty level at the western, more rural schools. They're upset that their opposition is being labeled as racist.
6
Why not just make it voluntary? I am sure there are more than enough woke left-liberal parents in the DC area Montgomery County suburbs who will be pleased to form sustainable carpools and shuttle their white children to these new schools where they can help to raise test scores and become better and kinder people from the diversity that they will experience. Or they can engage a private bus. That is one of the most liberal areas in the country!
25
My parents bought a home in the 70s when Columbia was mainly middle and working class and diversity was promoted as the vision of Mr. Rouse. Columbia became an affluent part of Howard County from the 70s to 90s. Since the mid 90s the population of Columbia and the surrounding subdivisions Howard County has changed in both class and ethnic composition. There are other factors as well as societal changes that are in play with why this redistricting plan is causing so much protest. I hope and pray that name calling, stereotypes and labeling will not ruin the education system in Howard County.
8
Nobody wants their kids bused longer distances than the neighborhood school.
11
. The average bus ride for students throughout the county would increase by two miles each way, said Brian Bassett, a district spokesman.
@Farmer I have a bridge to sell called Brooklyn Bridge. You could spent an hour+ on busing if you are not average.You leave your house at 7:15 to walk to the 7;30 bus it is only a three mile ride but makes 10 stops and arrives at school five after 8 you are late and interrupt the class. 2:15 you leave the school catch the 2:30 bus and home at 3:15 God forbid you do anything after school like sports.By the way the school in your neighborhood is only 3 blocks away and the parents spent premium on the hose because it was close to the school.
7
As a HoCo resident, I find the opposition deeply troubling. It seems that they are fearful of losing value in their homes and do not understand education policy. The lack of respect they have displayed at the school board meetings is embarrassing to our entire community. Standing on Rt 108 in their matching shirts with their matching signs, with their Annapolis lobbyist and threats of a lawsuit, they are simply proving the point of income inequality in the county. The damage they are doing to the children who attend Wilde Lake and Oakland Mills is shameful.
29
"...the issue remains deeply divisive among liberals when it comes to their own children."
The same can be said about liberals and taxes. Increase taxes.....as long as it's not MY taxes.
12
That’s a sweeping generalization that makes me wonder if you actually know any liberals. Every liberal I know is absolutely fine paying more taxes as their income increases.
1
@LN
Then why are the Attorney Generals of liberal States like CA, NY, CT suing to remove the $10K cap on State and Local Taxes (SALT)?
1. Liberals are fine with paying more in SALT just as long as they can claim the deduction on their Federal return.
2. High income CA residents (i.e. newly minted liberal SF Bay Area millionaires) are leaving for low or no income tax rate States for a reason.....they see no end in CA raising taxes.
Liberals are "known" by the actions they are taking
5
The most racist places I have encountered have been the ultra liberal bastions. Boston comes to mind actually. It’s full of liberals who intellectualize about diversity and tolerance but are usually the first to cast askance looks at blacks or Hispanics when they are in the white areas.
44
You make an unhappy point. But in the late 60s, when I attended Brighton High School, African American students could attend schools outside their neighborhoods. They got MTA passes so they could commute for free. My graduating class, 68, elected a person of color who was not from the neighborhood as class president.
When I was a Boy Scout in a troop that met at the Faneuil Projects, the Scout Master was African American. Of course, Brighton was working class. And, of course, only blue collar people are bigots. Yes, the rich convince us that those with no power are responsible for all that’s wrong in the country.
12
@N A lot of the of the people who apposed school desegregation in Boston were from the Irish community.
Thank goodness parents are protesting this social engineering. The whole point of residing in a particular area with its schools in mind is to be able to enrolling one's children in those schools. Parents across the country are mobilizing against this so-called "desegregation" — they're not fooled into complacency.
30
I don't live in or anywhere near Columbia, Md., but as someone who singlehandedly integrated his grade school on the opposite side of Kansas City, Mo., from where he lived starting in kindergarten - my mother wanted me to have the best education I could get in the public schools, and I wouldn't have gotten that at my overcrowded neighborhood grade school on the black side of the city - I have to wonder whether the parents have asked their children how they really felt.
Do the white parents not think we blacks hear what they really think? That when push comes to shove, they really don't want to integrate? That their fears trump what might be their own children's hopes? That, after all these years, they still consider all of us inferior?
That's an insult to me, my mother, and many others like us, including parents and students at Wilde Lake High.
87
@Sandy Smith "That when push comes to shove, they really don't want to integrate?"
From what I hear in the comments this is not about fear of integration or superiority. The fear is about the safety of their children, and the quality of the educational process. It takes a single bully to destroy the class. And there seems to be no issue with (dark skinned) Asians, who likewise refuse to send their kids to substandard schools.
The question here is why black schools are substandard and how to improve them by honestly addressing the issues, not trying to sweep them under the rug by diluting the problems.
37
I don't get it. Why not just use the money to improve the school that needs more facilities and better outcomes? Why are they not funded in the same way? Why assume that the poor black kids need to be 'better influenced' by the rich white kids to learn? Education isn't just about test scores and university entry, you know.
How very odd American education is.
33
@Flossy Both schools are part of the same school system and receive the same funding per student.
4
@Flossy
Actually it's the "rich white kids" who benefit from a diversified student body.
“Certain families and communities do not have strong values in healthy family structure, high expectation on education, or firm beliefs in raising kids with good characters.”
I’m sorry, how is this “hate mail”? I know there is an undertone that some would call racist, but it doesn’t have to be. My (white) parents moved our family when I was 5 from a predominantly white, working class township to a racially diverse, largely immigrant town adjacent to it. They chose to move our white, working class family, even though the new town we moved to had much higher property taxes, and yes, some condescending rich folk, because of the good schools made up of non-white students that came from a healthy family structure with high expectation on education and firm beliefs in raising kids with good characters. The predominantly white township that we moved from did not have a great school system, with uninvolved parents, who generally did not value their kids’ education.
Was my parents’ decision to move then motivated by “hate”? And are they racist against white people for preferring the school system with a greater composition of non-white immigrant and first generation students?
26
It is now as it always has been: it’s much easier to tell other people what to do than it is to do it oneself, especially where one’s children and/or property values are concerned. The realists amongst us understand that but everyone else feigns shock that parents with kids at a high performing public school would protest against those kids being re-assigned to a failing public school or having low performing students flood into the best school(s) in a District. It’s the same thing that happens when local governments try to turn an area zoned for single family lots into multi-family housing. Those on the wrong end of that stick will not be happy. Notice it’s never places like Chappaqua and other wealthy enclaves that face these issues.
15
Howard County resident. The article paints a very diverse community in a bad light.
This is a fight against a bad plan, not a fight against inclusion. Subsequent plans introduced by the board, and supported by most of the initial opposition, achieve similar strides toward socioeconomic diversity while moving half the kids and not creating 45+ min bus rides. The community overwhelming wants better balance, but it has to be thoughtfully executed.
The initial plan had one group going from a school less than a mile away to the 7th closest school. That’s not a supportable plan.
21
@Nathan perhaps the most liberal town I know is Oak Park, Il. They recently voted to get rid of tracking in the high school - mixing the gifted white kids with the black college prep kids.
Many white families are selling their homes.
11
@Mick F thats unfortunate. Howard County school district is luckily the most diverse school system in the state of Maryland. We don’t have a racial diversity issue. My neighborhood is full of white people, black people, Indians, Koreans, Muslim people, African people. I can’t identify the race of half the people on my block, nor do I care.
But, we do have pockets of low income housing which leads to concentrations in community schools. We are also one of the most wealthy counties in the country which leads to concentration of wealth in some areas. In some of those lower density areas, they’re actively adding low income housing.
We need SMART rebalancing now, we need new schools to open to deal with ongoing capacity issues (which are coming) and we need smarter community development. What we don’t need are kids going to the 4th and 7th closest schools.
2
How about the Board creates a super-funded over-the-top magnet high school loaded with all the academic bells and whistles possible and the best teachers for miles around. Make it a big school with a beautiful building that every kid wants to attend and every parent wants their kid to attend. It could be diverse simply by drawing lots from applicant pools consisting of different socio/economic groups.
Ah, if only the law would permit it and the community would try it.
2
@Emile , that’s been tried in many areas, starting in the 70’s. They were called magnet schools and if they had solved the segregation problem, we wouldn’t be reading this article. Parents rightfully care far more about the quality of the people inside the building than the quality of the facilities themselves.
7
@Emile This has been recommended by many but the school system is broke.
2
I see they are bringing back busing. Why not? Nothing like a regress to the failed policies of the 1970s to harm students in the 2010s.
21
@Concerned Citizen No, it failed because of the problems lower class students brought to the classroom such as disciplinary, etc.
9
One of the reasons people choose to buy homes in certain towns or neighborhoods, and pay the tax man accordingly, is so their children can attend a good school. Why should these parents have to pay for the failings of other towns' school systems. I wouldn't want my child on a long commute by bus to an underperforming school in a bad neighborhood. It's not families' jobs to sacrifice their children to support school administrators' PC obsession.
70
People like their local school. People like a safe school. People don't like long bus rides to mediocre schools.
A five year voluntary phase might work. Key word is volunteer. Put in a great Astronomy or Physics program in the school you want people to go to.
Or, lower the school tax proportion of local taxes to any family who voluntarily chooses to attend a school where the district wants to balance something.
17
@Jim B. Smart
Creative thinking: create economic/academic incentives to create change.
4
Due to a zoning quirk, my parents house was in a separate school district from those of my neighborhood friends. A new school had opened up in "my district" and to my surprise, I was ordered to report to that school that Fall, while my friends continued at our
old school.
My bus ride was 55 minutes each way. I was the first to be picked up and the last to be dropped off. I became good friends with Mr. Edwards, the bus driver, as we spent twenty minutes each way being the only two on the bus. Going to school in the dark and getting home in the dark from November to March did nothing
to help me as a person.
Use the money spent on busing to improve the weaker/poorer schools and get over the notion that you have to attend schools with "white folk" to get a better education. What you have to do is study and what the schools have to do is support those kids who want to study.
150
In the 1960s I did some of the earliest integration research on busing black children from urban public schools to elite white suburban schools. While stresses on the black kids (travel time, overt racism, increased academic demands) were substantial, much worse was that urban schools had not prepared their students to compete at the same grade levels as their suburban peers.
School integration is a worthy goal but:
1. Many blacks find the assumption that mixing black kids with white kids will somehow improve the black kids to be insulting.
2. Mixing students of very different academic abilities will force some teachers in high-performing schools to teach down to the lowest common denominators, short-changing the high performing students.
3. Given the large performance gaps between high- and low-performing schools, the former will need to provide major counseling and tutoring services to help the incoming students try to catch up with the higher-performing students and help under-prepared students cope with the stresses of a more demanding academic environment.
4. The parents of many students who are forced to attend low-performing schools will switch to private schools or move away, thus reducing even further the number of white students in the school system, the well-known “white flight” phenomenon.
The answer is not to try to spread the relatively small numbers of white students equally across a district or county, but to improve ALL schools in the district.
199
@Mon Ray
Have you considered that your research is antiquated? Because I can tell you the arguments you've made here certainly are.
One, school boards should not make decisions based on the threat of "white flight". The idea that a school board shouldn't do things because of what rich people might do is ridiculous.
Next, there is a whole body of research to suggest that mixed-level peer groups actually offer benefits to high performing students. Its why most teachers now have some type of differentiation plans in their lesson, which include having high performing students help their struggling peers. This gives these students a chance to enhance their knowledge of a subject by taking ownership of teaching others, as well as gives them valuable communication and social skills.
But most importantly, who says these kids will be so much radically worse? Yes, is does say test scores are worse, but I see no reason to assume that their is such a major gap in learning capability. You might say the need for busing proves they are much worse. Yet that ignores the fact that integration has academic value beyond helping failed schools.
Check your implicit biases, and the value of your 50 year old study, before you act like an expert on contemporary academic issues.
15
#4 is exactly what happened in my city. We moved here a year ago and were told that anyone who can afford to send their kid to private school does, much to the detriment of the public school district. It’s lost so much funding they are closing multiple schools at every level, forcing the students who attend to be bused to the remaining campuses.
26
@Jared raff
"The idea that a school board shouldn't do things because of what rich people might do is ridiculous."
Yes, the school board shouldn't at all consider whether its actions will cause wealthy people to leave the district, causing a reduction in the local tax base, which will ultimately mean less money for the schools.
24
Simple solution. Rank teachers, put the best ones at Wilde Lake where the poorer resources are surely now.
5
@Ray Pretty sure most teachers will resist this plan, even if there is some sort of “combat pay” or salary increment associated with the new assignment.
By the way, teachers generally can’t be “put” somewhere; they have free will and a substantial degree of choice as to where they work.
11
Lets be clear. Rich parents don't want their kids going to school with poor kids. And they have excellent reasons, or so they think: this will detract from those all-important test scores. Nothing will change their minds, unless you can show them this is not the case. They don't care if the average test score is improved, they care about their own children's test scores, period. Selfish or human, it is the case. They'd rather pay taxes to help the poor than send their kids to school with them. So tax them!
13
What is the problem with working to get the poor kids up to speed?
The problem Zejee, is that when most efforts are turned to lifting the weakest links in the class, the high performing students are left doing work not commensurate with their abilities. It benefits the weak students and does nothing for the advancement of the achievers. High school flashes by in a comparative blink and no tuned in parent wants that precious time used for the remediation of other people’s kids. Might sound mean but it’s true and those rich enough to go private will vote with their feet.
14
A lot; not alot.
3
"The average bus ride for students throughout the county would increase by two miles each way, said Brian Bassett, a district spokesman." Given that only 12% of the students are affected by this that means that the average increase per affected student would be 16 miles or given my commuting speed , 30-40 minutes EACH WAY.
18
I live in Howard County and am the parent of a child in Elementary school. This article is frozen in time. The school board voted 5-2 not to move forward with Mr. Martirano's plan and instead introduced their own plans after the public hearings already closed. The impacted families have no chance for public input or hearings whatsoever.
We live in a diverse majority minority neighborhood. It has housing ranging from condos under $200k to much more expensive single family homes. My child is zoned to attend Wilde Lake High School and we are comfortable with it. We chose to live in this neighborhood and county in spite of long commutes with jobs in DC and VA because we believe in its values. The state and local tax rate adds up to close to 9%, but few complain as a good education for all is a cherished value here. My child is exposed to friends, classmates and play dates from an amazing variety of backgrounds.
Despite all this we were added to a plan by the board in the last minute and all affordable homes moved to elementary and middle schools miles away. We are left with almost no say in something so impactful. Despite all this we have not resorted to crude or hateful pushback and have chosen to be respectful in spite of complete lack of due process. This is true of many many parents in the county.
Reading this article is truly disappointing. Reducing all of us to hateful, privileged, class obsessed types does disservice to so many parents trying to do the right thing.
230
@UPsky
Do the math.
About 36% of Howard County public school students are white and about 64% are non-white. Even if it were somehow possible to divide all the white students equally among all the schools in the country school district, an average class of 25 students would have 9 white students and 16 non-white students; that is, whites would be a clear minority in all schools and all classrooms.
Politicians learned in the 1970s and 1980s that busing students to achieve integration was a quick way to be voted out of office, and social engineers learned that whites would make almost any sacrifice to keep their kids in high-performing schools, even if that meant paying for private school or moving to a different town.
The practical reality is that the answer to underperforming schools and students is not to move students around like pawns on a chessboard, but to improve all schools in the district.
12
@UPsky I'm also a Howard County resident. My kids went to one of the more diverse Columbia high schools and received an excellent education. I, too, was disappointed in how this article portrayed local residents though I understand how this type of issue can divide communities.
7
These kinds of changes will always be controversial. All parents want the absolute best for their children, even if the process of providing the best for their children is not fair to other children. Also, people in general hate change and generally assume change makes things worse. I have never seen a school redistricting plan that some parents didn't fight as if their children's lives were on the line.
10
@Saturdayschild “even if the process isn’t fair to other children”. Yeah that’s not true of all parents. Some parents do want their children to have unearned advantages at the expense of others who actually need it and would benefit. That’s true. But that’s not a universal that all parents are like that. Good people want the best for their children but not if it means stealing from others just because of their race. Let’s be honest. This is aunt Becky of the subs.
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I find this situation astonishing. I grew up in Columbia and attended Elementary through High School there. I went to Centennial, but lived across the street from Wilde Lake High where my brother attended. It was and is a good school! Edward Norton went there and was a friend of my brother's. I can imagine what he would think of what's going on there now. Columbia really has changed if the people who live there now oppose the effort to rebalance the schools. I don't think it would have been an issue when I was a kid. I took a bus across Columbia to attend Owen Brown middle when I lived in Jeffers Hill. I took a bus from Wilde Lake to attend Centennial. What's the big deal? I go back there every other year or so because my brother and sister still live in the are, but it has seemed different to me each time over the last 20 years. It is a sad thing to see how the attitudes of people there have changed from what they were. It's really sad because it seems like the soul of what Columbia was has been lost.
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@sucram65 Why did you attend Centennial rather than Wilde Lake?
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One assumption of integration plans, though well-intentioned, is that schools in poorer communities cannot be improved, and therefore must be abandoned as hopeless. I’m sure integration proponents don’t want to face that notion, but there it is. The consensus seems to be that students must be sent to better schools because the schools in their communities can’t be improved. This is a fatalistic, and incorrect, idea.
If a school district is willing to augment financial support for schools in lower income neighborhoods, willing to think outside the box, and committed to holding staff accountable for results, student achievement can and will improve. These things are not inherently difficult to do, but in practice tend to become problematic precisely because neglect was how ineffective schools got that way.
One model is the Clovis Unified School District in California. It can be easy to say Clovis, a suburban district, isn’t representative of economically disadvantaged schools. Clovis, though, became a magnet for parents who wanted good schools precisely because it achieved good results across the board. It must also be noted that Clovis has significant pockets of lower income students, and in some cases schools with high percentages of them. Yet those schools are held to the same standards as the rest because a laser focus on measurable results helps every student.
Giving up on poor schools isn’t an appropriate solution to the issues they face.
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@Marshall Doris
Well there maybe exceptions but the research does show that pouring more fundings into schools with impoverished students doesn't produce a significant increase in educational outcomes, while integrating them across class lines does seem to improve them.
While it may be unpalatable to say that poor schools can't improve themselves, it would be unfounded to say that simple funding augmentations would solve this problem and any sort of significant organizational changes would reduce the children to guinea pigs, which also often impedes any sort of institutional momentum building which is required for things like schools to work.
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@Marshall Doris how is bussing new students into struggling schools, improving their resources and access to well to do parents and their check books “giving up on poor schools?”
Busing has been tried and controversial, often because it has not taken the socio-economic feelings of the children in the different schools into account. They form friendships, bonds, and affinities that busing can sever. Does this improve an individual student's willingness to learn?
It seems to me that the heart of the problem is one of distribution of educational resources. Do all of these schools have access to the same level of resources regardless of the demographic composition of their student populations? And what about teachers and the student/teacher ratios? How does the county propose to improve the learning environments of the schools in lower income neighborhoods? Busing won't do this.
If it is only about mixing students of different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds in order to achieve the semblance of a more balanced student population, what do the students have to say about this? Have they been asked? Have they participated in public discussions about their schools and communities?
Students from lower income and mixed race communities might feel at a significant disadvantage when sprinkled among populations of predominantly white or Asian student populations that are more affluent. Who will be there to help them integrate into these different student societies? Who will help them adjust psychologically to meet different expectations and educational challenges?
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@bkbyers, Class segregation starting with children is a sad thing, and produces ill effects in many ways. Yet it is a different problem than poor school performance, that is, the failure of schools to teach and help socialize children. I wonder who benefits from confusing the two problems, both pretty bad in themselves.
Why must we try to right our communities ills on the backs of chldren?
Problems that Adults have not begun to solve are being turned into an experiment on Children--
it must be acknowledged that there could be some unforeseen ill results..for all the good will that starts it.
Right at the start, the issue is identified. An area designed to be more egalitarian, as it grew,
"newer housing developments did not include many affordable homes" - proper Zoning could have prevented that. Are they fixing that now?
Creativity, and forward thinking is preferable to
experimenting by playing with children's lives!
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@Zeke Black, The students are sadly being introduced to the racial tensions while the real problem is how how effective schools are helping children learn.
I lived in this Howard County for 8 years and sent my children to the public schools, including River Hill High School. I have been following the redistricting effort and spoken to friends about it. There has been no effort by the proponents of this plan to get the community to support it.There are 12 high schools in Howard County yet Ms. Goldstein only mentioned two of them. If the student bodies of all 12 high schools aren’t identical, racially and socio-economically, does this mean the schools aren’t integrated? This plan was rolled out at the end of August, the Board of Education is scheduled to vote on it next week, meaning there has been approximately 3 months for the community to give feedback on a plan that will drastically alter expectations of school assignments. Finally, it is unclear what portion of the county population supports this plan and why there is a rush to implement it for Fall 2020 without considering other possible avenues of remediation.
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What the article fails to mention is that the Superintendent’s plan includes non-sensical moves such as sending children from a school less than a mile away to an elementary school that was the 7th closest.
Subsequent plans put forth by the board of education, and supported by most groups who opposed the superintendents plan, make similar strides toward socioeconomic diversity without forcing children to sit on buses for 45 mins each way.
The author also pick out the few racist letters vs the thousands of not racial letters to frame the article in a way that paints a wildly diverse community in a bad light. This isn’t a fight vs inclusion, it’s a fight against an idiotic plan the superintendent put forward.
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@Suzanne Bee
The author of this article is surely aware of but fails to present relevant statistics that are readily available on the Howard County Public School System (HCPSS) website:
As of 2018 about 36% of HCPSS students were white and about 64% were non-white. Even if it were somehow possible to divide all the white students equally among all the schools in the country school district, an average class of 25 students would have 9 white students and 16 non-white students; that is, whites would be a clear minority in all schools and all classrooms.
Politicians quickly learned in the 1970s and 1980s that busing students to achieve integration was a quick way to be voted out of office, and social engineers learned that whites would make almost any sacrifice to keep their kids in high-performing schools, even if that meant paying for private school or moving to a different town.
The practical reality is that the answer to underperforming schools and students is not to move students around like pawns on a chessboard, but to improve all schools in the district.
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@Suzanne Bee I grew up in Columbia, MD and I remembered that my high school Centennial was mostly Asian and White. We had African Americans in our school but they were mostly from upper middle class professional families. There was diversity but not much economic diversity.
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