The Montclair School Integration Task Force proposed a new plan to the Board that would keep Montclair schools integrated, but move away from the current use of race as one of five total criteria for assigning students to schools. Since 1977, Montclair has desegregated its schools this way. However, in 2007 the Supreme Court ruled that the assignment of students to schools based on race was unconstitutional.
The Task Force, which has conducted studies throughout town under the leadership of the Kirwan Institute of Ohio, has come up with a "zoning" method that they feel will keep the town integrated, but not violate the Supreme Court ruling.
From the Township's website:
Under the new plan, the township would be divided into three zones, labeled Zone A, Zone B and Zone C. (Such zones were conceived by the Task Force for public school enrollment purposes only, and would not replace existing township or ward delineations.) Students would then be assigned to schools according to zones determined by census data, including household income and Title 1 status (eligibility for Free and Reduced Lunch), with all three zones represented in every school..The Task Force noted that representation by zone would be affected by "baseline percentage," meaning that a certain proportion of students from each zone would be assigned to every school.
Because Task Force members proposed that existing school assignment criteria also remain in force, they acknowledged that racial diversity "within a 10% plus-or-minus range" in each school was expected, though not guaranteed
How do you feel about the current integration system in Montclair--think it's important or do you prefer a neighborhood school system? What are your thoughts on this proposed sytem?
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Comments (18)
This is so comical!
We can't decide school assignments based on race. So, hey! We'll decide your "zone" based on race and then decide school assignments based on zone!
Voilá!
Hoo-ray for loopholes!
(Now if you'll excuse me; I really should stop typing. I need to convince my doctor that my fingers are in... um... "chronic" pain and all this typing isn't helping my case.)
Seems to me that a purely random selection process would result in a level of integration that satisfies the 1997 court order.
I'm not familiar with all of the history surrounding Montclair's schools. I would assume the the schools in which minority students were most heavily concentrated had fewer resources and may have been inferior to the "mostly white" schools back in the day. And it is likely that the desegregation order was successful in leveling the field over the last 30 years. Based on my experience across the elementary schools over the last 4 years, I can't say that I see any difference in the quality of the elementary schools today. So aside from putting in place any mechanism that satisfies the 1977 ruling, why spend so much time on this?
One important clarification: under the proposal developed by the School Assignment Task Force, the district would continue to take into account race in school assignment. But instead of looking at a student's race, it would consider the racial and socio-economic demographics of his/her neighborhood of residence to ensure that children of diverse backgrounds are represented in each school.
This approach is consistent with current federal law, our longstanding state integration order, as well as community sentiment (as expressed in recent focus groups with Montclairians) that racial and socio-economic integration of our schools remain important in producing global citizens.
As for random selection processes, research undertaken by the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University (which provided consulting services free of charge to the district) showed that Montclair schools would quickly resegregate were we to return to neighborhood schools. The school assignment policy works in tandem with parents' choice of magnet schools to ensure that the schools remain integrated, as required under our state administrative order.
Tanya Coke
Co-Chair, School Assignment Task Force
Looks like the town (finally!) looked at the Supreme Court ruling from a couple of years ago and decided maybe it was time to comply with the law. Good work task force! I think they've found a legal and sensible way to comply with the law and ensure what many of us in Montclair tresure: fully integrated schools. I have a question I'm hoping someone can answer: Is Montclair still bound by a "desegregation order"? My understanding was that it expired, but I've never been able to get anyone to clarify.
This new idea is still race-based and unequal. if you are formulating zones based on race and then giving certain zones with a largely minority population preferential treatment it is still a racist system.
Imagine if the same zones were used in other ways. Let's say zone 1 is largely minority and we had a different town pool for zone 1? Or different drinking fountains for zone 1 residents?
It would rightly be labeled racism and there would be justifiable outrage.
Imagine if George Wallace himself had dreamt up the "zone" system to racially unbalance the schools? Would his argument that that it is not racial inequality hold much water?
The notion that this zone system is somehow not racial selection and somehow not unequal treatment of citizens under the law is a farce.
AMEN!! The fact that you might live right across the street from a school, but aren't allowed to attend said school is simply ridiculous. Give parents the right to send their children to their neighborhood school and the right to enter a true lottery if they opt-out. This would nullify the current racist lottery. The task force, in a CLEAR attempt to circumvent the spirit of the law, has come up with a clever "change" which is little more than a change in semantics. Neighborhood schools would:
1) allow children more time for homework and other after school activities instead of sitting on a bus. For some this is well over an hour a day.
2) simplify and save time for parents
3) allow neighborhood friends to go to school together
4) get children walking
5) SAVE MONEY!!! Busing children 5 miles across town, who could otherwise walk to school.
Nishuane and Glenfield on the south side of town are clearly in predominately black neighborhoods. Both are Excellent schools. I went to Glenfield and my brothers went to Nishuane. They have a larger percentage of blacks than the other schools even with the current system. BUT, that's OK. Again, these are great schools!! And, if you don't want to send your kids to school with their friends in the neighborhood, then enter the lottery. Aren't we supposed to move beyond race? Isn't that what Martin Luther King Jr. asked us all to do? Has anyone ever heard of judge not by the color of one's skin, but by the content of one's character? It seems we are still too afraid to trust each other and cannot let go of historic prejudices. If we can, I believe we will continue to be integrated and may even all be happier. It is racist to think that schools, jobs, ANY organization should have an exact representation of each ethnic group. Because, unless it is merely by coincidence, then it means that we are not looking at individuals, but are still only seeing colors.
Hm, interesting viewpoint, '72... I thought we could all agree no one wants to go back to segregated schools, since out of convenience that's what we'd end up with.
I also thought they were going to start using reduced lunch eligibility to determine diversity, and that they try to achieve classroom diversity by gender as well. They don't want a classroom with 20 boys and 2 girls.
A completely blind, random lottery might work but only if ALL kids are put into the pool for ALL schools. If there were a lottery for each separate school then you could conceivably have very high numbers of one demographic group putting in for their nabe school, thereby excluding everyone else simply by volume.
"Preferential" treatment happens if one option has a clear advantage over another - if one grammar school is a thousand times better than the rest and only certain individuals get into it then that is patently unfair. However, I don't think that's the case here - all our schools are equally good, IMO - and shouldn't go back to being one-sided either. I would rather my kids meet people of all kinds, not just the type who live on our street.
In a perfect world, everyone *would* be judged only by their character. Sadly I don't think we are there yet, unless everyone wears a bag on their head. Discrimination is bad no matter who you are, but it is still prevalent.
"I thought we could all agree no one wants to go back to segregated schools, since out of convenience that's what we'd end up with."
Are you saying that anyone who doesn't buy into this plan wants to "go back to segregation" ?
A little unfair, don't you think Kay?
The real dirty little secret in such plans as is being proposed is that it is necessary because the powers that be don't trust minority parents to make the "right" decisions.
If, for example, we had a race neutral lottery whereby any parent could choose any school in the district. Minority parents might opt for the nearby school rather than a farther away school.
Such a system would be fair and equal but parents might then make choices based on their own needs and desires and not an approved social policy.
And we can't have that.
RoC, maybe I am just jaded but I have seen and heard comments even to this day that make me think this way. Sorry to say. I'm no more interested in a nanny-state than you are, except when it comes to people who run stop signs and make right turns on red from the center lane. (I feel like I am driving in Tijuana, sometimes.)
Of course, let's say your scenario plays out and we end up with segregated nabe schools - by parents' choice. Then what would happen if some schools perform better than others, the blame game will start anew. And with NCLB and AYP not seemingly going away, isn't the district obligated to ensure even distribution and performance of everyone?
What was the original reason for the desegregation order? Was it because the mostly-black schools were not performing as well, or because they didn't have as many opportunities as the other schools? Was it because of racial imbalance? Wonder if we can find that out somehow.
And what is the root cause of poor school performance? I'm sure people have studied this. Whatever the reason, can we address it without making it a racial issue?
I think the dirty secret is that behind the veil, people believe poor black kids don't do well in school. While we are now learning that funneling money to a poor performing school doesn't always work (see Abbott), I would hope as a society we could agree that *all* kids ought to have a fighting chance? And if that means someone has to decide what's (hopefully) proven to be best for the kids, is that so wrong?
"Of course, let's say your scenario plays out and we end up with segregated nabe schools - by parents' choice. Then what would happen if some schools perform better than others, the blame game will start anew. "
As long as parents of any race have equal opportunity to move their kids to the "good schools" this should take care of itself.
"I think the dirty secret is that behind the veil, people believe poor black kids don't do well in school."
As a group they don't perform as well. It's called the "achievement gap". And we should work to close it.
"And if that means someone has to decide what's (hopefully) proven to be best for the kids, is that so wrong?"
If we're allowing school districts to place students based on race, yes, according to the US supreme court it is "so wrong".
The Zones will become self reinforcing. If Zone A is the lowest income zone, then property values will drop, wealthier residents will be replaced by the poor, rentals will increase in number and slowly (perhaps not so slowly) we will create a Montclair ghetto.
If Zone C is the highest income zone, its exclusivity will immediately be detected and real estate transactions will reflect this fact.
The zones, their boundries, their implicit meaning and their stratifying effect on Montclair will become a fact of all real estate transaction.
Everybody will talk in code though.
Just for the record, I think these "income zones" are a bad idea, a very bad idea.
Please don't brush off my objection to having official income zones. For each zone there will be boundary areas. Property values will be affected by which side of a boundary your home is placed. There will be much politicing in preparing the zone map. And it will be vicious. This is a bad idea--and a dangerous idea. Sort of like modern day redlining.
These boundaries that would be drawn under this plan become real, and defining.
To Kay and Chris:
1. The town is still under a valid state order to maintain integrated schools.
2. This order arose from a desegregation lawsuit that found that schools were not only segregated by race(100% white in northern areas of town; 97% black in the South End) but that South End schools had inferior resources across the board. The magnet school design we have now was devised as a means of integrating the schools and equalizing the resources.
3. The zones aren't a return to neighborhood schools, but a "corrective backstop" to the choice-driven magnet design, which does the primary work of integrating the schools. The zones are a means of ensuring that, after the parental choice lottery is run, a minimum number of kids from each geographic zone in town (determined by racial and socio-economic demographics, including # of FRL kids) are represented in each school.
There is no inherent benefit or disadvantage to living in one zone over another, since a roughly equal number of kids from each zone would be represented in each school (similar to our trash pick up zones: everyone has a zone designation, but what day you get your trash collected doesn't affect your property values one bit).
4. The PTA Council has made an excellent short film on the history of our magnet schools called Our Schools Our Town; you can view it at www.montclairpta.org.
"As for random selection processes, research undertaken by the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University (which provided consulting services free of charge to the district) showed that Montclair schools would quickly resegregate were we to return to neighborhood schools."
Tanya,
What the heck does Spicoli's mention of using random selection process have to do with returning to neighborhood schools? I don't see how one has to do with the other at all. This sounds like a red herring by someone trying to defend a weak position.
Regarding a random selection process, I can only imagine the outrage if all of the helicopter parents in this town had absolutely NO say in where their children attended school. Oh, the horror. And what would be the point of a magnet school system then? The schools are always working to improve their theme (as they should) so that they are not the school that nobody wants--I think the system brings a healthy dose of competitiveness.
The same schools go to lottery ever year, though, but this year it seems that more people than usual got their first or second choice.
I don't have a problem with the zoning system as a back-up and I think Tanya's explanation/reasoning makes a lot of sense. It seems like it will help ensure SES diversity in the classroom because this certainly is a town with a large SES range.
Tudlow, I had heard that of late, the district had been granting more placements by folks who wanted their neighborhood school, and therefore the populations are becoming unbalanced.
If the lottery was absolutely and completely random, the outcome would vary year by year but wouldn't it meet the mandate? In other words, if we have an incoming class of say, 300 Kindergarteners (not including sibling placements), what is the likelihood that all the high income kids will get placed in the same school? The lottery could be run such that all boys are put in one hopper and all girls in another. When the grammar school does its analysis and comes up with, say, 20 openings, they pick 10 boys and 10 girls. So every year, the demographics of that incoming class would determine diversity, not race or economics by an arbitrary person at the central office. Roc, what do you think?
Tayna said:
"The zones are a means of ensuring that, after the parental choice lottery is run, a minimum number of kids from each geographic zone in town (determined by racial and socio-economic demographics, including # of FRL kids) are represented in each school."
Now I am confused. If the parental choice lottery in "Wealthy Zone C" results in everyone in that zone picking a certain school, how then will that ensure diversity? For example - say Watchung has 20 openings. There are 30 kindergartners in the surrounding neighborhoods (Zone C for argument) and all are white. All 30 families put in for Watchung. What happens next?
"a roughly equal number of kids from each zone would be represented in each school"
Not unless you use the zone to rule people Out of their first choice, first.
If we have zones, then the parental choice lottery should probably get tossed out entirely and the selection process in the 20 kid class scenario would amount to 6 kids (3 boys, 3 girls) from each Zone (+2 from random selection I guess). Wouldn't that ensure diversity?
Otherwise I don't understand the the logic of the zone in relation to parental choice.
I think it's patently unfair when race is used to determine anything, good or bad. But how can we comply with the Court Order without doing so, or creating zones (which are determined by race!)??!
OH and by the way, how can these zones be determined without pinpointing who lives where? I don't like the idea of some census-type person coming around and saying, a wealthy black family lives there; a middle class Hispanic family lives in that house; a poor white family is in that building; etc. Are you kidding me?
Look at the township Refuse map - *that* certainly isn't going to promote diversity!
I'm a little late to this discussion, but as a parent of an incoming Kindergartner for next fall, how does one find out which zone they have been assigned to?