the hopeful struggle: Educational Apartheid adam renner
In a not-so-shocking development, the Supreme Court by a (not all that surprising) 5-4 margin voted to overturn Jefferson County’s four decade old desegregation plan on June 28, 2007. I mean to argue here, as a result, that educational Apartheid is just around the corner. Re-citing an excerpt from Justice Roberts plurality opinion, which appeared in the Courier Journal, our local Louisville newspaper, he argues, “The parties and their amici debate which side is more faithful to the heritage of Brown [v. Board of Education, 1954] , but the position of the plaintiffs in Brown was spelled out in their brief and could not have been clearer: ‘The Fourteenth Amendment prevents states from according differential treatment to American children on the basis of their color or race’ What do racial classifications at issue here do, if not accord differential treatment on the basis of race?” And, later, “The way to stop discrimination based on race is to stop discrimination on the basis of race.” Said another way, the way to handle racial injustice is to ignore that racial injustice happens. If we don’t think about it, maybe it will go away.
Of course, this is ridiculous, and mean-spirited. Aside from the fact that the plaintiff in this case ultimately won her appeal in the Jefferson County system, getting her child into precisely the school she wanted, demonstrating that the system worked, Justice Roberts and the other concurring justices have taken drastic steps now to erode the civil rights of the marginalized/disenfranchised/oppressed in order to serve the interests of the dominant racial group. It took just a little over 50 years to get a case (Brown) to the Supreme Court to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson (which began “separate, but equal”)—the Brown case, by the way, having probably more to do with attempting to win the Cold War, convincing Global South nations, who are predominately non-White, to join with the capitalists who demonstrated their racial tolerance with this decision, rather than any kind of racial justice for Black school children. Now, it has taken the conservatives just a little over 50 years to scale that decision back with the overturning of Jefferson County’s desegregation plan.
Jefferson County In Jonathan Kozol’s latest sobering profile of American education, Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, a lamenting follow-up to his earlier work, Savage Inequalities, he illustrates the retrograde process many public school systems have undergone related to an imbalance in racial composition. His critique of these pre-Brown-like-segregation systems was balanced, ironically, by rather effusive praise of the Jefferson County system, which attempted to keep this balance in check. I doubt Kozol’s next profile will offer as much ebullience since history has demonstrated the path Jefferson County will likely take.
Though this course is not pre-destined, it seems a likely course to me and others since the status quo and the path of least resistance will lead toward racial separation. While hope still exists, which I will talk about below, many critical and uncomfortable discussions need to follow this decision—discussions which we have been reluctant to have, complicated, and perhaps illustrated by, de facto residential segregation in Louisville. Since we generally choose to segregate ourselves into neighborhoods based on race, we tend not to shop together, go to church together, meet each other on the street while we’re out walking the dog, etc. School, then becomes one of the only formative places by which folks might mix, racially. Perhaps, no longer.
Before outlining the proposed solutions offered by the talking heads in Louisville, it is important to understand one other issue about Jefferson County, which has not entered the public debate, at least that I have seen. After Hurricane Katrina, The Brookings Institute compiled a report on neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. A neighborhood is characterized by concentrated poverty if 40% or more of the families in that neighborhood live at or below the poverty line. Berube and Katz, who completed the study, identified New Orleans as ranking 2nd in the nation in concentrated poverty. Louisville was ranked 3rd. This is a crucial piece of demographic information that I sense has been swept under the rug. This is perhaps best evidenced by statements made by the director of student assignment in JCPS in the July 1 Courier Journal. Quoting the article, “Such plans [involving assignment by socio-economic status] might be hard to manage, partly because family incomes change.” As well, “Those plans are less effective in districts like Louisville’s, where most students are middle class.” I think the sentiment and the mis-read of the situation in our county speaks to why a broader discussion must be held. Aside from the director’s non-recognition of concentrated poverty in our community, the same article goes on to show that 61% of elementary students, 56% of middle schoolers, and 45% of high school students receive a free or reduced price lunch. You might also guess that a disproportionate number of Black students in our county, 71%, receive free or reduced lunches as compared to 31% of their non-Black peers. (For a closer look at statistics, you might visit www.courier-journal.com/desegregation or www.jefferson.k12.ky.us/).
Proposed Solutions On June 29, the day after the decision, the Courier Journal ran a series of articles about possible ways forward. Four propositions were offered:
On paper, of course, each proposition has its possibilities. The problematics should also be apparent, particularly given the lack of critical discourse around social justice (specifically as it relates to social difference) and the hidden-in-plain-sight issue of poverty in our community. To claim that we care any more about kids who are poor than children who are Black is to begin from a faulty premise. As much as we claim to be “colorblind” (which I don’t believe most people are) or that we want to live in a “colorblind society” (which only ultimately serves the “color in power”), we also fancy ourselves as a “classless society,” one in which everyone is middle class (evidenced, in part, by the director’s statement above). 37 million people officially living in poverty (at a poverty line of $18000 for a family of four, so more likely 1/3 of our total nation living in poverty if we were to use more realistic figures), 46 million people uninsured, tens of millions more underinsured, a growing amount of upside down mortgages, and steamrolling consumer credit debt should speak to us otherwise. We live in anything but, nor anything close to, a “middle-class society.”
Why aren’t we morally outraged? What we are not talking about As I shift from the reporting and the research into a more critical and reflective analysis based on my own research and experience, I want to ask why we are not more morally outraged at decisions such as this. While it is possible that we may still surmount considerable protest to this decision and the general malaise within which we find our country and no-child-left-behind education system, I remain worried when the school system, who thought they would win this case, claims the decision as a victory for our county. (I wonder what a loss would have looked like?) As well, I remain worried when some powerful members of our Black community have not displayed the kind of outrage I suspected might be forthcoming.
What I know is that our academic achievement gap in Jefferson County mirrors the widening academic achievement gap across the country. While all students are performing better (a debatable improvement to say the least given teach-to-the-standardized-one-size-fits-all-test practices in many school systems), studies indicate (Educational Trust, 2001; Holloway, 2004; Lee, 2004; Billig et al, 2005; Cronin et al, 2005; Dobbs, 2005; Snipes and Waters, 2005; Johnson and Kitsonis, 2006; Mayer, 2006) that Black students are performing better slower than their White peers; thus, in effect, worsening the gap. Likewise, studies also show the widening gap along socio-economic lines. All of this is exacerbated by the current trend to privilege the economic purposes for receiving an education (making our kids more “globally competitive”) and to devalue the socially responsible purposes of becoming a critical citizen (making our kids more “globally cooperative”). Jefferson County is no different in this trend, having just received $30 million dollars from General Electric to prop up math and science in our school curricula. Of course, there is nothing wrong with improving math and science in school, but if this is not met with a commensurate amount of the arts, social sciences, and the like, then I think we have done our future a disservice. In any event, given that one’s economic viability in the future is closely tied with educational achievement and attainment, a worsening achievement gap for children of color or children who are poor, predicts a widening (already despicable) wealth gap.
Along with not talking enough about the achievement gap and the structures/systems that perpetuate racially- and class-based inequality, school systems prefer to promote anecdotal books like Ruby Payne’s A Framework for Poverty, which explains what poor people are like and how we can get through to them, rather than requiring research that shows how poor folks were made poor and how the waning middle class might help keep them there. (See the winter, 2006 edition of Rethinking Schools for one critique of Payne.) Part of the reason we don’t want to hold conversations about race and class is because we may become implicated, if only by association, with the oppression of others. Since we want to hold onto the notion that we might be a good person, it becomes much easier to blame the victim for their poverty or the injustice caused them rather than understanding that oppression and oppressive conditions are connected to privilege and privileged conditions. If you live in a privileged condition, you are connected to someone who is not (here and abroad). You cannot be privileged if someone is not oppressed. What would the word privileged mean, then? There cannot be a middle class if there was not a poor class. What would middle class mean, then? And, why would we strive to be middle class?
As well, white has no meaning, unless there is black. So, to ignore race can only benefit those who hold racial privilege. Of course, it is interesting that race is completely arbitrary. It is a socio-political construction that has no basis in biology. Thus, the system, and the people within it, come to a negotiated understanding of race and what it will mean socially and politically. Race is made up, then, but we treat it as if it is real. And, it has real implications for those who are not White. Individually, we want to consider the content of one’s character. But, structurally/systemically we are socialized to understand race (and class) with a priori assumptions (that we take as fact) that are imported by a capitalistic system that privileges (and is run by) White folks. Until we can understand and acknowledge, as my friend Dr. Milton Brown suggests, that we might still be good people who work in a bad system, then our progress to treat this as an individual, case-by-case matter, will do little to overturn a system that does not work in the favor of non-White and poor citizens. This Supreme Court decision has hampered this possibility even further, voting for something closer to Apartheid schooling rather than socially-just education.
Reasons to hope One might think, based on what has preceded this final section, that this is an odd heading with which to conclude. Nonetheless, I do remain hopeful. Cornel West draws a distinction between optimism and hope. West argues there is no historical evidence related to matters of social justice about which to be optimistic for the future. Instead, he claims we should be hopeful because hope requires our fullest, most critical participation to bring about the change we want to see in the world. Count me in as hoping.
Undoubtedly, at worst, this decision could prove to be a harbinger for (among other similar decisions and current issues) the death knell of our waning democracy. Without a compelling public education that helps all our children become critical consumers and citizens, we might as well live in a fascist state (which some argue we are tantalizingly close to). At best, this decision could marshal the sensibilities of a critical cadre of educators, social workers, health care workers, activists, attorneys, business leaders, etc. to stand in resistance to the injustice that is becoming our nation’s public school system. We need not suffer one additional setback to make the picture any clearer. What is happening to our children—both rich and poor, white and black—is transparent enough. To claim this decision as anything but a resounding defeat to racial justice in this country is to make a mockery of the struggle that has led to this historical moment. To think that some socio-economic system of school assignment will do anything more than the system we already have in place, without some serious truth-telling and willingness to engage our deepest core around racial and economic justice, we are fooling ourselves. The data suggests that we don’t really care about children who are poor, either.
While critical, I am hopeful about our new superintendent, Dr. Sheldon Berman. Although the hiring process was somewhat contentious, Dr. Berman, nonetheless, brings a sensibility of social justice (as a founding member of Educators for Social Responsibility, www.esrnational.org) to the system. We could use a heavy dose of some of the tenets of ESR As well, we also have a wonderful example of a majority Black high school in Jefferson County, which provides a compelling education for both non-Black and Black students. Whether or not we will be able to create several such successful high schools is a matter for considerable debate. Also, along with my partner, I currently work with a burgeoning group of progressive educators, social workers, and community activists who are already engaging this struggle in our classrooms and in our communities. I would gladly link our work with any other groups who are enjoining this same struggle. (Likewise, I would also invite conversation from folks who might find no fault with the current status quo in order that we may both listen and be heard; hopefully, then, expanding the dialogue.) Finally, I am also buoyed by my affiliation and work with international groups such as the Rouge Forum (www.rougeforum.org) and The Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed (www.pto-web.org), who are working diligently for a more equitable future for all the world’s citizens.
In an LA Times opinion piece a few days before this decision, Edward Lazarus argued, “Although they may have disagreed about Brown’s parameters, most Americans coalesced around the decision as a national symbol for our belated rejection of racism and bigotry. Using Brown as a sword to outlaw affirmative action of any kind would destroy that worthy consensus and transform it into just another mirror reflecting a legal and political culture still deeply fractured over race.” As Allan Johnson, in Privilege, Power, and Difference, claims, there can be no healing until the wounding stops. Likewise, paraphrasing Malcolm X’s provocation about so-called progress, he reminded us that although the knife in the back of African-Americans may once have been six inches, that it has only been removed a couple inches, means several inches of knife blade remain in the back. This decision makes a mockery of Brown and may shove the knife in further.
Therefore, count me as a protestor in resistance to any decision we come to as a community or a nation until we can begin to dialog more critically about the injustices that plague us. Rearranging the furniture in a racist or classist box may change the scenery, but it does not change the box or the ideology that informs it. It’s time to recognize that educational Apartheid may re-visit Jefferson County if it hasn’t already. It is time to begin the difficult dialogues and critical conversations with the entire community. It is time to better understand privilege and oppression. It is time to be honest with ourselves about racial, economic, and residential segregation in our city. While I’m sure we can point to instances and particular places where this is not true, it is not true, generally. Until it is, all our children will suffer. I resist this with everything I have as an educator, recognizing my own hypocrisies related to race and class privilege. I challenge others toward this resistance and invite the dialog and possibilities, understanding that how and what we teach, along with how we organize our schools may have to change, drastically. Social justice, once again, resides at the back of the bus. I cannot accept that dehumanizing condition any longer.
To conclude, in order to move beyond a theoretical call to action, permit me to offer a few suggestions for how to move forward (presuming that we have one year before we must change the school assignment plan):
If critical conversations similar to or such as these, however, are deemed more than our school system or civic leaders are willing to engage in, then I must question their motivation related to racial and economic justice. If more of the same is to be foisted upon our children and families then our only option is protest, resistance, and a work stoppage among teachers, teacher educators, and all other citizens concerned about the future of our children and our nation. We must work toward constructive solutions with a moral outrage, accepting nothing less than the dismantling of educational Apartheid.
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