The New Segregation

Great Debates
1

So I’ve been dropping off my 16-year-old, 2-grades-behind-in-school biracial nephew at the new Career Center where he’s supposed to study for a “Standard High School Diploma” (read GED) at his own pace while learning a trade so that he will be “employable” later on. Which all sounds pretty good for students who “can’t” succeed academically in regular public school – until you actually visit the place and you see that there’s like five white kids in the whole school.

To me this is just politically-correct segregation. The students are recommended for placement in the Career Center by the guidance counselor of the school where they’re failing. They call up the parents and “suggest” that the kid may be better off at the Career Center. Funny how every white parent who was called must have decided to say “No”.

Am I wrong?

2

It is an absolutely true historical fact that some schools have been accused of racial steering and that some smaller number of schools have been actually proven to have engaged in that practice (There is an ongoing belief, with some basis in fact, that steering goes on in schools where the racial component is non-existent and the steering is arranged by class, not ethnicity.)

Now, whether that is the case at your nephew’s school is still open for discussion. Do the kids in the mainstream schools come from two separate (and already reacially segregated) locales where the kids from the poorer schools who tend to do less well are primarily black? In the mainstream schools, are the classes overwhelmingly white (as if the majority of black kids are shunted out of the mainstream, disproportionately to their demographics)?

You may very well be witnessing pernicious racism. Alternatively, you may be witnessing the last, best hope of the school system to repair the damages of racism or classism that occur outside the schoolyard.

3

With the info you’ve presented, we have no way to know if you’re right or not. Jumping to the conclusion that it’s racism may be a bad idea.

Incidentally, “the old segregation” hasn’t gone away either.

4

The kids at this particular Career Center come from five area high schools whose official demographics are as follows:

Gaither - 60% White, 26% Hispanic, 8% Black
Freedom - 52% White, 19% Hispanic, 22% Black
Sickles - 68% White, 20% Hispanic, 6% Black
Chamberlain - 48% White, 21% Hispanic, 26% Black
Wharton - 42% White, 21% Hispanic, 30% Black

Average of the above schools - 54% White, 21% Hispanic, 18% Black

Average of all Hillsborough County schools - 45% White, 25% Hispanic, 22% Black

I don’t have official demographics for the Career Center but it appears to be very roughly 50% Black boys, 25% Black girls and 25% Hispanic girls.

5

This has gone on for years, but it’s not always racial in origin. I was a white student in an exclusively white school in the early 1960’s. My mother was a single, divorced mother with six children. From the seventh grade, couselors spent a great deal of time convincing me that I should go to vocational school, despite the fact that I had been an “A” student up to that point.

Well, what the hell, who knew? I was just a kid, got off the college track and into the shop classes, ending up working in a factory. I started taking some technical courses at the local community college, and eventually decided to try for a four year degree, but because of my poor high school preparation they forced me to take the SAT’s.

If you want to feel out of place, try taking the SAT’s at the age of 30. I ended up surprising the college by scoring over 1400, and was accepted for a bachelor’s degree. By that time I had a wife, and two kids, and a mortgage, and it took me ten years to finish, but I finished, and with honors.

Do I resent the son of a bitch that made me waste 20 years of my career, that put me in a position where people who were in diapers when I graduated high school were at the same level as I was when I started? Yeah, maybe a little, but you can’t let it spoil your life.

Actually, once my kids got into college I got a big career boost because all my colleagues had elementary school children that sucked up a lot of their time and I pulled ahead, so I’m pretty much where I would have ended up anyway. No harm, no foul.

6

Academic tracking has long been associated with racism and classism. When I was in middle school, I was placed in a remedial track although it was obvious from my grades and test scores that I was an above average student. If it had happened just once, I would have been willing to throw it up to a simple accident. But it happened twice, so’s I’m suspicious.

There could be a number of things happening in the OP’s situation.

  1. Less academically inclined Black and Hispanic kids are shunted into the vocational track while equally able white students are expected to make it through the more elite college prep curricula. This would indicate racism.

  2. Poor kids regardless of race are shunted into the vocational track; it just so happens that these poor kids are black and hispanic. This would indicate classism.

  3. The problem isn’t minority kids getting shafted into voc-ed but rather white kids being kept in more mainstream programs where they don’t belong and then go on to fail. It may be that the parents’ of minority kids are more realistic (or less ambitious) and are less interested in competitiveness than the parents’ of white kids. This would indicate cultural differences.

  4. Minority kids are more likely to have difficulty in college prep programs. This might indicate cultural differences between minority and white students.

7

I don’t know CHtT, but according to the limited information you provided in your OP, HELL YES YOU’RE RONG!

You are pretty quick to throw a race card. How many white kids are failing? How many white kid’s parents were called? Since it is not entirely clear whether the CC route is mandatory or elective, given your use of “suggest”, I will go out on a limb and view it as elective. Perhaps more of the white parents who got calls, thought about a different route? A good ass kickin, etc. Who knows? And what color is/are these guidance counselors? And NO, it should not matter, unless of course you choose to believe in this segregationism.

At least there IS a CC available to help kids who want to help themselves. Is there heavy tuition or is it mostly supported by the taxpayers?

8

Well, I did go to public school all my life and I remember plenty of white kids who were failing. I do think it’s great that failing kids are given other opportunities, but I still have to wonder why, if the schools are about 50% white why this Career Center appears to be about 2% white.

The CC route is entirely elective. The Center is part of the public school system and is funded like any other public school.

9

There are racial problems in our society, we can’t expect a government institution not to reflect the reality of it’s constituency.

Lately I have become convinced that what seperates the upper classes from the lower classes is their genealogical record. Slavery just about obliterated any genealogical lineage of most Black Americans, and these realities determine the environment they are born into.

Something really sad that I heard on the subway was this black guy talking to this white guy randomly. They talked about sports, and then the black guy out of the blue said something about how a white guy was more likely to back a brother up than a black guy was. I don’t know how true this is, because I’ve met a lot of white guys that’ll stab you in the back, but most of my friends are pretty upstanding and trustworthy. I’ve also seen a “Keep your head down” sort of mentality amongst black people I’ve met.

A guy I know said that his Mother always told him not to trust a Caucasian. Now the public school system is oftentimes seen as a caucasian institution, and there is a certain antagonism coming from both ends. This of course doesn’t mean that black people or white people are smarter, simply that a white person is less likely to have an inherent problem with the system that he is thrust into because it is “his/her” system.

From a class perspective, a white suburban middle-class student is more likely to have parents willing to go to bat against the system on their behalf. Suburban white parents have lawyers much more often than poor kids of any ethnicity.

I grew up in a poor area south of Albuquerque NM, that was basically 33% hispanic, 33% white and 33% Aboriginal American and 1% Other. I didn’t really feel I had the support of my parents, in fact I felt like my step-mother was likely to be antagonistic toward me in favor of the system, so I largely kept my head down and just tried to get through it, even though I had the capability of being an A student, I didn’t really care, I did just enough to graduate with my low C average. My freshman class of 400+ graduated at around 250. People of every represented ethnicity dropped out. My little sister still hasn’t gotten her GED, and she’ll be 20 in October, we’re white, and she had a much different experience with the system, where she felt that my parents would back her up, in fact they transferred her from school to school trying to find one she’d take to.

I think it relates more to the level of antagonism in one’s relationship to the system. For me I knew that the only thing that mattered was whether or not I had my HS diploma. For my little sister she is still caught in something of a no-man’s land within that system. I mostly thought my teachers and administrators were idiots, and knew that I’d be moving to New York City, which I did 3 weeks after I graduated. Even though there was very little to engage me in the school, I knew that achieving a C average was the path of least resistance. I am one of a handful fo people from my HS class as far as I know that have left New Mexico.

It’s about being a product of your environment and the willingness to transcend that. There are people all over the ethnic spectrum that have been able to transcend it and people all over the ethnic spectrum who can’t.

You can easily find a skewed demographic of white people that live in Suburban Cubicles drive minivans and work in dead end middle management jobs their whole lives. They are the product of their environment, and never really stretched what that means.

To me it seems simple that a system designed to teach white kids would be more easy for white kids to navigate. I don’t think the answer is so much racism in the schools as much as it is the inability for former slaves to assimilate into that culture. In my opinion, the answer lies in the genealogy of the culture more than the genetics. It’s about being cutoff from one’s ancestral lineage and the damage that does to the continuity of community around you.

Erek

10

Racial segregation in schools is going to become a hot issue soon. It’s just too pervasive to not become public. Some example from my life:

A young man with straight A’s, all through high school (including all language classes) is denied admission to any four year public colleges. His crime? He took half a year of English as a second language, which doesn’t count towards your required four years of Enlgish to get in to a CA four year public college. He was a prodigy that managed to learn fluent English only a year after immigrating here. But no matter how smart you are, you can’t get in to a CA public college if you don’t speak English by 14.

A brilliant Brazilian kid gets a 5 on his caculus AP exam, and yet leaves high school to work in a low-wage trade. Nobody thought to tell him that he was college material, that there was such a thing as financial aid, and that he really needs to take the SATs. His parents were very religious didn’t get out much, and didn’t speak English. They simply had no idea he could have a different life here even if he didn’t have thousands of dollars for college.

A kid that is born in the United States and speaks perfect English is placed in a English as a second language class in high schoo, presumably because he is Latino, ruining his chances at a four year college. He has to fight his counselor to get in to regular English classes.

A high school forces kids receiving subsidized lunches to eat in a seperate part of the cafeteria than those purchasing their lunches at the counter. The demographics of the school are such that nearly all the subsidized lunch students are Latino, and the rest are white. This school did not pass it’s accredidation based on this.

Latino kids are routinely automatically placed in ESL or reform (basics, essentials) classes. Nobody thinks to ask them if they want to be in honors. Once you get locked in or out of honors/college prep/reform in middle school or early high school, it’s very hard to change tracks. Getting a 4.0 won’t get you in to honors classes. Only taking the previous class will. And in regular and reform classes, there is often no information about college given (as opposed to honors classes where assignments are based on SATs, AP exams, and college application essays). Often their parents don’t understand the school system and don’t know that they can fight for their kids. And counselors are often too overworked to look at kids as individuals and fight for them. I’m sure the situation is probably pretty similar for a lot of Black kids.

11

The kid is two grades behind and is failing miserably. What do you expect the teachers at the other school to do with him?

And about race. Maybe you should be asking why all the black parents are saying “Yes”, and the white parents are saying “No”? Because if it’s like you say, they are recommendations and suggestions, not requirements.

12

I seriously doubt this is the case. Can you back it up with some relevant cites?

13

Even if he can’t get into the UC or Cal State system directly from HS, he can still go to community college and transfer. Of course, some CC campuses give better chances for transfer to the four year schools than others. The best CC in Bay Area I know of right off hand is DeAnza/Foothill, which isn’t very accessible for very many economically disadvantaged students. Still, getting into the best CC program he can to maximize his transfer prospects is better than giving up.

14

Both the University of California system and the California State University system have guaranteed transfer admission agreement programs with a number of the California’s community colleges. My participation in that program was the avenue I used to enter the University of California. I was also accepted to one CSU campus but I elected to attend the UC.

15

More information on the TAA for my alma mater.

16

I have no problem with the Career Center concept, I think it’s a great idea.

Self-segregation is still segregation.

17

And in an even more interesting twist, when immigrant/first generation/minority/SES disadvantaged kids do get into the honors programs and succeed, everyone mentally redefines them as “white”. I teach at an amazingly diverse public high school, both in terms of class and ethnicity. I teach in the AP program, and am constantly faced with the attitude–from my fellow teachers–that I teach all “neighborhood” (our euphemism for rich, white ) kids. Nothing could be further from the truth: the top ten of this year’s senior class includes at least four kids from single parent homes, several kids who qualify for free or reduced lunch, and at least four kids whose parents are immigrants/have limited English (Bosnian, Gudjrati, Spanish. We are diverse!). Hell, many years we’ve had illegal immigrants in the top ten. We are a good school, so our top ten is nothing to be ashamed of–the rest of the top ten is filled in with wealthy white kids who often have fancy private school educations up until high school and whose parents have provided every advantage they can–and the advantages of a parent who can tutor you, not having to work yourself, and a consistient, clean atmosphere to study in are considerable).

But when I mention these kids to teachers who accuse me of not seeing the big picture and of teaching in an Ivory Tower full of “neighborhood kids”, I always get confused looks and remarks like “I never really think of her as hispanic”. Part of that is because these kids are good at mimicing WASP–and that’s not a bad thing to be able to turn on and off at will. But part of it is that the image people have of “hispanic” (or “refugee” or “public housing kid”) is often “sorta dumb, maybe tries hard. Not successful on the same terms as the neighborhood kids”, so when confronted with someone who is successful on those same terms, it is easier to redefine them as “honerary upper middle class white” than to actually shift perspective.

And it’s not just white people that do this. I’ve talked to my students about this: one girl is often mistaken for Asian by other hispanics, even though Asians are almost non-exisitiant at our school and we have a 50% Hispanic population. Another girl talks about how other hispanics at school who don’t know her always assume she can’t speak Spanish, because she is in advanced English classes. “Successful” implies “white, middle-class” in everyone’s mind, and it keeps these kids from serving as examples to anyone. I don’t know the solution to this problem, but it is something that I grapple with.

18

He should have gone to summer school to make up the semester of English he missed. Would have taken him 3-4 weeks. Or, as other people say, he could have gone to CC and transferred up. His life was hardly ruined.

The other stuff I’ve heard and seen happen in real life - except for the segregated school lunch thing. That’s just bizarre.

19

When students are first earmarked as “remedial” and placed in remedial tracks, this is exactly the time when parents must chime in and say something if they feel an injustice is in action. If you wait too long, it can be damn near impossible to get your child away from that stigmitizing label.

What I think what happens is that minority kids often have parents’ who aren’t aware of how the system works. You just found out your kid is in basic English? Well, that’s no biggie because you took basic English and you came out fine. And maybe you don’t realize that other kids are taking advanced and AP English, and that these kinds of courses are important if you want your kid to go on to college. Maybe you think the fact that your kid goes to a crosstown, predominately white school ensures that he or she is receiving top-notch education, and that requesting anything “extra” (like placement in an honors class) is pushing your luck.

I remember what happened when I found out that I had been placed in a remedial track in the 7th grade. The schedule came in the mail before school started and I noticed my homeroom started with a strange number (one that I knew belonged to the “dumb” team). But I didn’t tell my mother right away, not until orientation when I could be 100% sure that I had been placed in the remedial track. The moment she heard my complaint, she called up the school’s registrar and raised hell until I was put into a “good” homeroom. It took a few days of sitting in the “wrong” classes but the new schedule finally came. My mother knew good and well the racist implications behind tracking and knew how detrimental it is. If she hadn’t been so educated and strong-willed, my life may have turned out differently.

But I think she’s in the minority amongst minority parents, unfortunately. My mother has always had a sense of entitlement. People think this is a bad thing, but in my case it wasn’t.

The remedial track in my middle and high school were predominately black. Most of the white kids were, to use MandaJo’s term, neighborhood kids. Once they graduated from middle school, a lot of the white kids went on to elite private schools in the area. Perhaps white parents were more vigilant about keeping their kids out of the remedial track than black parents because they valued education more. Or maybe there was a perception that white parents would become angry if they found out their kids were receiving an “inferior” education and would pull their kids out of the school system. So the registrar (who knew students’ race and residence–it was marked on our schedules) would automatically put white kids on “good” teams even if they deserved remedial or “average” offerings. (I can testify that more than a few of my white classmates were lousy, often disruptive students…but they were also the ones the teachers would say were bright, just lazy).

If a black parent threatened to pull their kid out of school, no one would care. Most of the black students were bussed anyway; we were pretty much seen as interlopers as far as the school was concerned. And what better way to create the illusion of “quality” education than to keep certain classes (the elite ones) predominately white?

Yes, even now I’m bitter.

20

Yes, but the point is that I had a choice to go to a four year college or junior college. He didn’t have that choice, essentially because of his race.