Figure 1: The Opportunity to Learn Campaign produced this info graphic, illustrating the theme of school closures in the country. Visit their site for alternative policy to use in lieu of closures.

When a school closes in a city, we know it means students traveling further to more crowded, under-resourced classrooms. Who are these students enrolling in a new school this fall? On average, they are black, Latino, and regardless of race, are even more likely to come from a family whose annual income is below the poverty line.  In Chicago, our shifting population and Chicago Public School (CPS) closures means a change in school for almost 50,000 children this September – the largest school closure by an urban city in history.

Chicago

Through pioneering innovative strategies to achieve balanced integration in this city of neighborhoods, Chicago still has areas with a high level of housing segregation. Neighborhoods and its schools can be composed of students of mostly one race.

As we see from the Opportunity to Learn Campaign info graphic above, black children are currently 43% of CPS classrooms, and 88% of students whose schools are closing. Low-income children of all races make up 94% of the children effected  in these closures.

As African Americans move into the suburbs, out of traditional neighborhoods, the population of these neighborhoods decline. So by this theory, the closures are disproportionally effecting black children because black children attend CPS schools and their families are moving to new neighborhoods at disproportionate rates compared to white children. Overall, there are less children of all races in the city, with the population of 5- to 14-year-olds decreasing about 22 percent since 2000.

Make demographic sense? Sure.

Even if children’s school closures are supported by population data, the fact remains that 50,000 children will have the challenge of a new school and a choice not made by them or their parents.

Systematic racism is sometimes the byproduct not of direct hatred but of outdated policy that reinforces segregation; lack of reevaluation that perpetrates discrimination. Schools are anchor institutions – they unify groups, providing communities with structure and consistency, allowing for social events, volunteer opportunities, a pillar that stands the test of time, remaining in the community as businesses and residents ebb and flow through the neighborhood. The impact of their closures on a community cannot be measured strictly by a bottom line.

Especially not a bottom line not able to be quantified. CPS says the closures will mean savings in the budget- though no finite numbers are agreed on, as renovation costs, teacher lay-off savings, and building resale value are all in flux.

CPS cites the reason for the closings – a decline in attendance at those schools, the population decrease, and under-performance. The mention of under-performance immediately begs the question of underfunded. Mayor Emanuel’s office has stated that the closures will mean more efficient and stronger academic programs.

 
Where do we go from here?

When schools close, families usually have few options other than the public school absorbing their closing public school. Some students whose schools are closing are put into a lottery, and if selected are enrolled in that school – generally a higher-performing school than their former classroom.  For the children who aren’t pulled in that lottery, they make a further walk or bus ride to another school. That’s a lot of pressure on a kid from a low-income family who probably hasn’t even started algebra yet. A new school not only means an emotional and psychological change in their lives, but the walk to school can now look different; longer on a cold Chicago February morning, past  a vacant building, or across gang lines. The city has responded with the safe passage program, designed to recruit community members and crossing guards along the new routes to school.

Hopefully the schools of the future will improve and support the students throughout their whole journey of their education.

By Christina Scordia, Housing and Communications Research Assistant

It’s tradition

Wilcox County, a blue collar farming town 160 miles south of Atlanta, integrated their classrooms thirty years ago, with Georgia state legislation stalling their implementation of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Since Wilcox County High School integrated, there has been no school-sponsored prom. Though integrated classrooms are now the norm, some extracurricular activities are still operating under the banner of separate but equal. For over forty years, tradition has gone like this- white parents and students organize a private, whites-only prom. Black parents and students organize a private, blacks-only prom. Homecoming dances, too.

Residents and alumni have noticed, of course. School officials say they have no control over the proms since they are private events. Some say its just old habit, or a matter of preference – does the DJ spin hip-hop or country tracks? (Maybe LL Cool J’s and  Brad Paisley’s current collaboration, “Accidental Racist” can bridge that musical dilemma.) Others say its just the culture, tradition. “If there’s something that you’re born into,” says a black Wilcox County HS alumna, “you think it’s normal.”

Culture or discrimination

Throughout the county, preserving cultural traditions is a keystone of our human experience. Through culture we orient ourselves in the world and relate to our community and beyond. When traditions uphold an agenda that limits another human being’s freedom to enjoy the world, the cultural tradition could benefit from a reexamination. The way something has always been done does not justify maintaining it as the way it should still be done. Modifying an individual’s viewpoint to embrace a healthier acceptance of the whole can begin with an external change – opening a classroom to black and white children, hiring a woman to be railroad worker, installing a wheelchair accessible ramp. Our country has seen these opportunities in our past, and last month, in Wilcox County, Georgia, students saw an opportunity in their present.

Students make the change

A group of Wilcox students said it didn’t make sense to them to not attend prom with their friends. These guys and girls shared laughs on sports fields and in classes during the week, and on weekends around town and at each other’s kitchen tables. They didn’t want to separate the proms because that’s the way its always been done. They didn’t want to celebrate their high school milestone without their friends because their friends had a different color skin. Last spring, a white girl and black guy, two seniors who’ve dated since their freshman year, couldn’t attend each other’s white and black proms. “Just bring someone else to your prom,” they were told. Someone white. Someone black.

This year, the students held a desegregated prom, or as they called it, an integrated prom – or just, prom. “We are all friends. That’s just kind of not right that we can’t go to prom together,” said one girl on the planning committee. Maybe in a few years, a “segregated prom” will be a tradition that exists only in history. The Wilcox County High School prom itinerary sounds like a traditional prom in American culture – a Parisian masquerade theme. Tuxedos, ball gowns, a catered buffet. The students added a new tradition to their celebration – a unity toast.

Get a reaction

This move by the students has seen overwhelming support, as the majority of citizens and media see this as a step forward for this rural Georgia town and our society. Republican and Democrat lawmakers in Georgia have voiced their support of the integrated prom. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has not, and seems to be focusing on the political aspect and not the human aspect of this matter. Deal has said he won’t publically endorse the prom as encouraged by NAACP and other advocacy and political groups, saying the prompting by these groups is for their own political agendas. Wilcox county school superintendent issued the following statement: “I fully support these ladies, and I consider it an embarrassment to our schools and community that these events have portrayed us as bigoted in any way.” This statement has since been removed from the school website and had been replaced by a statement about the school’s plans to consider hosting an official prom in 2014 school year. One of the students leading the prom planning committee says she plans to help next year’s graduating class keep the new tradition going, providing support so its easier for them.
The point of this story that resonates the most with me is where the change is coming from – not from the lawmakers, but from the students themselves. They observed a racist practice in their personal, everyday life and decided to make the change to correct it. Wise steps.

By Christina Scordia, Housing & Communications Research Assistant