I’ve been posting a hell of a lot of news and other people’s work. This is good, it’s important stuff. But, honestly, it can be a bit dry. And we need to share more, you know, like people. This can’t be just a curated newsy site.
The point of IntegratedSchools.org is to call up the voices of parents choosing integration, to talk with parents who are thinking about sending their kids to integrated/integrating schools, and to share ideas about how to do this well. With all the holy-segregated-hell that is about to break loose with “school choice,” this is more important of a conversation than ever.
So, it’s ambitious of me (and I am bound to fail, apologies in advance), but I am committing out loud and in front of you and right here and right now, to writing at least once a week… Or one of us will.
One of us? WTH? Yes! IntegratedSchools has been growing like mad over the past few weeks! We’ve added more badass parents and have grown a few more chapters and contact people in cities across the country. I’ll let them introduce themselves… (Anna, Colleen – you’re up!)
This work has been born out of my frustration with what I have seen in my neighborhood, and from frustrations that others have written about. And while I mostly feel excited to do the work to organize, it’s so damn grueling. A few weeks ago, I was sitting on my roof, looking at downtown LA in the distance, reading some pretty hateful anti-integration comments, smarting about the grant I didn’t get, and doubting this whole damn project. I woke up the next day, excited to throw it all away and spend some time on pinterest (how friggin’ hard is it to sew slip covers for your crusty old sofa?) only to find emails from moms who DO actually give a shit and want to work (KB, MN — are you public here yet?). So the pinterest tab gets closed…
This site is an ugly mess. There are so many people to reach out to. I’m working on the book club curriculum and resources page. The logo and branding needs work. I have piles of topics I want to write about. My couch will wait.
I FRIGGING LOVE YOU. I AM IN. ALL IN.
Just curious about your take on school choice. The traditional, neighborhood school my son attends qualifies as LAUSD’s #1 whitest school (School Data Nerd website), reflecting zip-code demographics. It’d be awesome to switch it up by offering a magnet or lottery option (such as affiliated charter) but past inquiries into adopting different models have gone nowhere. My daughters benefit from choice via SAS permit and magnet program. Our residential secondary schools have similar demographics to the schools my girls attend. We toured one charter, at my daughter’s request, and it seemed to have similarly ethnically diverse demographics, too, just lousy facilities. However, our residential secondaries don’t offer the unique programs that attracted my daughters. If we couldn’t access these public school programs, my husband would advocate for private schools (the most segregated school option) or for moving — family discord would result. The “nuclear option” where I live isn’t school choice, but district choice — aka White Flight. I agree with putting the kibosh on district choice. But am all in favor of school choice. Yes, I know that magnets, while ethnically more diverse, fail to equitably enroll English Language Learners and students with disabilities. And yes, “choice” draws more motivated, savvy families who are better equipped to navigate complex systems. So there is work to be done. Compelling kids to accept long bus rides simply to diversify schools didn’t work. But allowing families to choose long bus rides in pursuit of interesting programs seems to be popular. We have seen disturbing historical trends in my greater community: abandoned public school campuses that fall into disrepair due to White Flight. If expanding choice via interesting programs can prevent that, then isn’t that a net gain for the greater integration movement?
right… it’s so complicated.
school choice ‘tends’ to lead to greater segregation in general. that’s been shown time and again (and if not greater segregation by race, certainly by income and access to transportation, etc.). so in that respect, choice is problematic.
BUT, if we as parents en masse intentionally include integration in our list of priorities for our kids’ schools, then choice has the *potential* to increase diversity.
magnet programs have done a great job for desegregation in many places (indeed, as i am sure you know, the whole mandate for magnets is deseg) but they have also created a sense that we have to get all-the-cool-shiny-stuff for our kids. then, by extension, the schools without these programs become just “not good enough.” and then those “not good enough” schools are left to children who don’t have choices.
but this intense need that many of us parents feel to get every last so-called-advantage for our kids also drives me a little crazy. of course i love my kids more than anything but i also know that they will be okay, strong and excelling, anywhere (until they aren’t… in which case changes must be made). but the narrative of get-all-you-can undermines the kind of civic mission of public education.
i am facing this issue head-on right now and have a lot of conflict about it. my 8th grader is looking down the barrel of high school and our local school has a really great magnet as well as a “just school” regular track. so, do i get-all-i-can for my kid in the magnet (which is probably “better” in some ways) or do we just simply send his butt to school… I firmly believe that he will be fine either way. but still, but still…
charter schools are a slightly different story and i have very mixed feelings about them in general. (and also, the charter school debates are super rancorous and i don’t want to get mired in that). there are some charters that are very explicitly working to build intentional integration — esp. socioeconomic — and that is fantastic. (i read the other day about a charter in detroit with such a mission who, because of lottery-admissions and because it has a good reputation, is having struggling to keep its diversity and is well on the way to becoming, despite their best intentions, a pretty white/affluent school). i also know that many charter schools are a kind of release valve — where white/affluent parents go to avoid real integration… as Hannah Nikole-Jones says, a curated kind of diversity.
there is some really exciting work being done around the country for controlled choice — whereby a designated number of spots are held for students of color/economic disadvantage. (and magnets operate similarly but only use white/non-white as a tool — not socioeconomics…)
regardless of how i feel about choice, its what we have. the majority of integration WILL be voluntary. and so it’s up to us to change the stories about what makes a school “good” and what kind of adult we are raising…