increased their academic
achievement.
However, just a half-hour
north in Baltimore, eight
“opportunity” schools have
been beating the odds with
excellent student
achievement in their overwhelmingly minority and
poor settings. Why?
Teachers and administrators
say it’s the high expectations
and substantial support.
In New York, the economic
and racial divide is especially
notable. Gary Orfield, the
co-director of UCLA’s Civil
Rights Project, said recently,
“In the 30 years I have been
researching schools, New
York State has consistently
been one of the most
segregated states in the
nation. No Southern state
comes close to New York.”
And Oldfield thinks a new
path is necessary. “Decades
of reforms ignoring this
issue produced strategies
that have not succeeded in
making segregated schools
equal. It is time to adopt
creative school choice
strategies to give more New
York children an opportunity
to prepare to live and work
effectively in a highly
multiracial state.”
It’s vital that we provide
services so that children
come to school ready to
learn, and are in buildings
with equal resources, and a
feeling of safety and order.
Investing in all children is key.
It’s costly to meet special
education and ELL students’
needs. But so is ignoring all
but those easiest to teach.
The open question – whether
maintaining economic
segregation makes failure
inevitable for most students,
despite exceptions like the
selective Medgar Evers
College Prep.
If it takes a village to raise a child, it may take
a resolute community to create healthy
”villages” for children. Poverty is one very big
elephant in the room, and another is racial
segregation.
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