Petrilli Misreads the Charter School Integration Debate

Photo courtesy of Jose Vilson

While one appreciates Fordham’s Mike Petrilli for arguing that racial and ethnic integration in charter schools is as worthy a goal as it is in other aspects of American life,  there are a couple of problems with his overall argument.

The first? He involves a false assumption not based on evidence: That charter school operators aren’t necessarily interested in integration. This isn’t the case. If anything, as evidenced by National Alliance for Public Charter Schools President Nelson Smith’s response to Gary Orfield’s latest report decrying segregation in charters (or to be more precise, the latest study coming out of his Civil Rights Project at UCLA), charter school advocates definitely think integration is important. This is also true in the fact that most charters are open-enrollment, lottery-driven schools which are open to all comers so long as the children and the parents commit to being the active players in education decision-making they should be.

Petrilli also downplays the role of state charter legislation in fostering the segregation he and Orfield mutually decry. (It could be worse, of course: Orfield and company pretend this doesn’t even exist.) As I’ve noted, the likelihood of integration is as much dependent on the location- and demographic-based restrictions as it is on the choices of parents. As evidenced in Maryland and Virginia, the dual role of traditional districts as both public school operators and charter authorizers also means that charters are also less-likely to exist in suburban communities. Suburban districts abhor the presence of charters even more than their big-city counterparts. Until these barriers are eliminated, charter schools will continue to confined to the nation’s urban locales. And unless those cities manage to lure more whites from suburbia through sensible fiscal and quality-of-life policies, charters will also remain highly-segregated.

Certainly integration is a great benefit, both to society and to the people on an individual level. After all, I’ve spent most of my career arguing for a color-blind society and even, demanding that my fellow African-Americans stop placing themselves into ghettos intellectual and otherwise. Petrilli is correct in noting that, depending on the setting, integration can even help improve student academic achievement (as well as, to borrow from J. William Fulbright, promote mutual understanding). Eliminating restrictions on the growth of charters would greatly aid that goal. So would the expansion of school voucher plans, the abolition of intra-district zoning  and magnet school policies, the promotion of inter-district public school choice (by making school funding a state-level role), and even the expansion of grassroots groups aiding parents in education, be it the Black Star Project or the PTA.

But integration isn’t the only social good. More important to black and Latino families — especially my own — are opportunities to provide the best education for their children. Given the low graduation rates for blacks and Latinos — and the consequences of mass academic failure wrought upon these communities — integration becomes a secondary priority. These families can no longer wait for the benefits of integration, wonderful and enriching as they are, as their young men and women struggle in traditional public schools that treat them as afterthoughts.  They want — and deserve — the power to choose better options.

Read: Value of Testing Edition

The Assembly chamber isn't the only thing empty when it comes to school reform. Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

What’s happening in the dropout nation after the AFC and NFC title games:

1. Opponents of standardized testing tend to think that there is little value to subjecting students (and teachers and school districts) to exams. But, as reported at Miller-McCune, testing is valuable in improving student learning (as well as proving valuable in tracking their academic progress).
2. It wasn’t unsurprising last week when New York State’s Democratic-led legislature failed to the pass legislation eliminating restrictions on growth of charter schools. What may be more surprising, as the Daily News reports, is that 49 percent of legislators received part of their education in private schools. Essentially, a good number of Empire State politicians denied to poor children the access to high-quality education they themselves received. Hypocritical. But, as we’ve seen inside the Beltway with the shuttering of the D.C. voucher program, not shocking.
3. When it comes to education reform, India and the United States aren’t far apart, according to Tom Vander Ark.
4. The Gates Foundation hands off $10 million to Denver’s traditional school district, according to the Denver Post. Whether this is a smart move or an Annenberg-like miscue? A different story.
5. Collin Hitt of the Illinois Policy Institute gives some perspective on what may be a fascinating attempt at education reform by Rod Blajocevich’s successor, Pat Quinn.
6. Even more going on in Memphis, another potential hotspot for school reform. The traditional school district there is offering more-rigorous math classes in elementary school (albeit, unfortunately, at just a few of its schools) and preparing to offer International Baccalaureate classes, notes the Commercial Appeal‘s Jane Roberts. Now if the district can make this widespread. Meanwhile Richard Locker analyzes how Tennessee’s latest round of teacher evaluation reforms came to fore.
7. Fordham (or to be more-specific, Smooth Mike) wants to know if you think Race to the Top is a “rip-off”. Let them know through their poll. I have my thoughts — and you already know what they are.
8. And at Indianapolis blog, IPS B.S., teachers are debating whether the state’s proposed grade retention law is worthy of discussion. Many seem to think kids should be held back even earlier than the state suggests.
9. Finally, off-education: Get a good start this Monday. Listen to “Rip the Universe”, a song from one of my favorite bands, a Canadian group called Reverie Sound Revue. For something a little less modern, you can also go with The O’Jays‘ “Love Train”.

Don’t forget to check out this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, which focuses on the high cost of teacher compensation and tenure for America’s taxpayers — and how it will drive the efforts to revamp how teachers are paid and evaluated. Also read last week’s Dropout Nation articles, including Saturday’s This is Dropout Nation report on one of the nation’s worst school systems.