Sorry, this is going to be a kind of weird rambling post where I have to tie a whole bunch of my thoughts together. But I can’t stop thinking about it, so down the rabbit hole we go.
I was reading this article about Citizens of the World Charter (CWC), first published in The 74 and then republished in LA School Report. And I have some thoughts.
The article rehashes the findings of report by the Century Foundation. The report describes how each CWC school has created a diverse student body that accurately represents the demographics of the surrounding community. In contrast, the traditional non-charter schools in the area represent highly segregated schools.
Everything in this report is correct and pretty inspiring. The data is 100% right (I verified it) and the steps that CWC have taken to make sure they have both a diverse student body and a diverse staff are really commendable.
What stood out to me, however, was the constant use of the word “community”. In the report, the word community is mentioned 39 times – but the concept of what makes up a community is never really defined.
What is a community?
What CWC has done is they have indeed created diverse schools, but to do so they had to redefine what a community is. For example, in the CWC Mar Vista charter petition, they set out to target the zip codes of 90066, 90034 and 90064. According to the 2010 census, that areas has about 125,000 residents. And it has an area of about 7 square miles. And it includes areas that no one would ever call “Mar Vista”.
Contrast that with a typical school zone, like Mar Vista Elementary, which is a highly segregated school – a student population that is 51% white. This segregation is no fault of the school itself, but simply a victim of de facto segregation (as well as the long-standing repercussions of de jure segregation). Mar Vista’s school zone includes only about 1 square mile, and approximately 10,000 people (based on the closest census tracts I could find).
By more broadly defining the area that makes up the community, CWC was able to create a “new”, larger target that was not as intensely subject to the segregation that plagues Los Angeles as a whole. The new community they made was more diverse than the individual communities that comprise it.
This brings me back to the question – What is a community? Are we bound by the traditional limits that have been set in Los Angeles – or are we going to redefine those communities to create broader connections?
I think this question really resonates right now, as LAUSD faces down a budget crisis, primarily caused by declining enrollment. One of the possible solutions is to merge schools – closing or appropriating some campuses and redirecting their students to another, to fill the space we have. One thing it could do, if planned correctly, is create larger, more diverse “communities” like the one that CWC has created.
It reminded me of something I read about earlier this week – the merger of two very different public schools in Chicago that will take place this fall. That merger however, took several years of planning, and even with heavy parental outreach, still had sizable community pushback.
It makes me hopeful but also makes me worried. To me, it seems inevitable that some schools will have to be merged. This could yield interesting results for diversity, but also could lead down a path of confrontation that will not be easy.
Nerd,
I read that same article last week. It was best left forgotten. But since you dragged us down the rabbit hole….two quick takeaways: 1) Charters and Magnets hurt traditional neighborhood schools (even when they play the diversity card); 2) How much is Citizens of the World (COW) paying THE 74 to write and publish their press releases? Or does the Walton Foundation write a check for that too?
The article’s title says “community engagement” and “student background” lead to “academic success.” Yet no evidence is provided to support such claims. Why isn’t it simply more likely that the students who opted into COW, or any other Charter, are just more motivated and supported at home than the ones who stay behind at traditional schools? Isn’t this more about money than race and/or diversity? Author Halley Potter agrees as much when she writes, “since wealthier families tend to find out about the school through their own research or social networks.” Charters and Magnets feed into a zero-sum game. Taking the better students from one school and placing them into another creates a win-lose scenario, or in this case, a COW.
Moooooooooo!
As far as what this COW is doing to foster academic success, the article cites a bunch of boiler-plate activities that almost ANY school could claim as its own:
“write and illustrate persuasive letters about climate change as part of a unit on ecosystems….hold a rally to end homelessness, drafting letters to the mayor, creating posters, and writing a song about the issue… learn about Cesar Chávez and the farmworkers union through role playing and group decision-making, and those whose home language is Spanish help teachers and classmates with pronunciation and translation of a Spanish song….blend social-emotional learning and literacy by pointing out examples of characters showing empathy in the books they are reading….learn about the Gold Rush by writing journal entries from different points of view — mine owners, white workers, and the women and people of color who worked alongside them.”
These seem like fine things for students to be doing. But inspiring? Risk-taking? Experimental? I think not. My point here is to suggest that traditional public classrooms can, and already do, operate like this. We should be strengthening our traditional public schools by hiring better teachers, offering a wider range of courses, starting younger (hooray for First 5 California!), and yes getting poorer parents more involved and educated about the importance of education so that they are just as likely to “do research” and “use social networks” as wealthier ones. We should all want that instead of another COW.
Moooooooooo!
To your larger question of community and boundary lines, LAUSD has already begun merging and redefining communities as a result of the hallowing of data and the pursuit of higher test scores by implementing Zone of Choice and allowing for more and more Charters, Magnets, and COWS. But what’s left for the leftovers?
Moooooooooo!
Finally, not sure what you mean when you say that Mar Vista Elementary is highly segregated at 51% white. It seems to me that any school within LAUSD, where 70-80% of the student population is Latino, that is 51% anything is pretty diverse considering. And isn’t it ironic that COW co-founder and CEO Dragon lamented the “segregated and low-performing” schools in her “diverse” Hollywood community when it is the very proliferation of Charters and Magnets inside LAUSD during the past 15 years that has contributed to this happening in the first place. Without Charters and Magnets, more kids stay at their home schools, and hopefully we’d all work together to make those schools better places.
Moooooooooo!
Check out some of what the Century Foundation report left out: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/06/brooke-parker-exposes-sham-of-century.html