Black parents are not bad parents. But I think they may be less entitled parents. They may not insist on things form the public school system that white parents might get pushy about because they have learned that the system ignores them.
This is a lesson that many asian parents have learned to a somewhat lesser degree, their non-essential concerns are not taken as seriously as the non-essential concerns of white parents. This changes with SES but for most poor asian families, the differences are stark.
Meanwhile white parents get pushy because they have learned that the system wants them to be happy, even if they’re not rich.
In the 5th episode, one of the black students talks about not being able to participate in the after school programs because they were in French. And another thing to note, some white parents made their own deal with the principal to bring the French education program to the school. This wasn’t something that was discussed out in the open with the involvement of all the parents it was something that was done behind closed doors.
From the podcast, the white parents wanted to continue the French program that their children had in elementary school. These kids came to middle school with a foundational understanding of French that the black and brown kids did not possess. The French program was not put into place to benefit the black & brown students it was specifically put there to attract white students.
Also, most of the students at that school were already bilingual. So understandably, they weren’t attracted to a program that would force them to learn all their subjects (science, social studies, math, etc.) in yet another language.
Imagine being a white kid who has taken French since first grade, since you attended a private school that offered that instruction. Your parents decide to enroll you in the neighborhood middle school now that they’ve got a French immersion program. You can finally walk to school! And you quickly realize that none of the black/black kids in that school are in your classes because they can’t speak French. Why wouldn’t you come away thinking you are smarter than they are? After all, you will likely assume that French lessons in elementary school are completely normal–just like art and music. If you can’t speak French by the time you’re in sixth grade, you must be stupid. Or you’ve received an inferior education. Or both.
All of this totally goes against what integration is supposed to be about.
Local funding for public schools is wildly variable, and there are overall trends demonstrating that there are overall racial and income/wealth-based disparities.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/02/26/696794821/why-white-school-districts-have-so-much-more-money
If you look at the study it ignores the federal spending that is targeted to poor schools and thus the story is worthless like most other NPR stories.
Federal funding has the inherent problem that the federal govt. needs to make sure the funding is not just being used to replace something that the state or local govt would be paying for and would essentially be used as just a way of reducing a state or local budget instead of causing a positive impact. However, federal accountability causes paralysis on the part of school systems over what they can spend their federal money, and they end up spending it to prevent the loss of federal funding rather than on what they think is most effective. The net result is that federal funds are less efficient than particularly local funds. There has been some very recent reform to try to tackle this in a more intelligent way, but I’m not sure if it has been demonstrated to have closed this gap, and even if it did we probably wouldn’t be seeing any change in outcome at this point.
Some of it is explained here: