Category: Segregation in Schools

This paper will respond to and analyze the topics discussed by Diana Herrera, former student and teacher in the Edgewood Independent School District, Albert Kauffman, professor at St. Mary’s University, and Brian Sparks, who is the network principal in the San Antonio Independent School District. Main basis of the panel was to discuss how even long after the Brown v. Board of Education state leaders still have not really used racial integration as a tool.

Racial integration is the first topic that is addressed because it is important for schools and students going forward. Albert Kauffman speaks of the importance of racial integration, especially in Texas, is of major importance because of the diversity that Texas has. I believe it is better because people are better when we are learning from each other. Which in turn will allow us to understand people better and be more comfortable around each other. It was brought up how districts in Texas are growing rapidly. Racial integration is a byproduct of other things as well. During the panel it was discussed how school segregation is also a byproduct of housing and where people are zoned. That is an interesting topic that I had never even considered. There have been times where African Americans have been criminally charged because they tried to provide a chance for better education by something called residency fraud. More specifically, Kelley Williams Bolar, who was sentenced for lying about her residency. I believe, especially in middle school and high school, that it is important to have more integration in schools. To give a fair opportunity to everyone and to build moving forward.

The topic of finances was also discussed. Better financed districts are in the predominantly white districts, and the districts that don’t get much funding are in Hispanic and African American districts, which also ties into zoning districts. Poor funding is an issue that has been an issue for years. Brian Sparks brings up the point of master teachers counteracting lack of funding. He proposes that the highest paid teachers go to schools with the greatest need. He in a sense proposed that it would guarantee that everyone gets the same chance at advancement, since the students who need the most help with get the best teachers. A counterpoint to this, which was discussed during the panel, is that there have been many studies to suggest, for example, African Americans tend to learn better and essentially do better when taught by people who look more like them. It was revealed that most teachers in Texas districts are white. What role does the school play in this? It is up to the school and the districts to hire teachers that are diverse enough to teach and relate to every child. Integration would still be the issue but would be better because of teachers’ ability to relate.

An interesting point that was brought up was what happens when kids who don’t have integrated experiences go to college, and what that experience could be potentially be like. I feel as though once in college everything changes. There is no way to make up for all that, but once in college, most kids tend to gravitate to they are more familiar with from high school.

I believe that integration from the beginning of middle school and high school would help all freshmen in college. I think that the nervousness that comes with being a freshman, while it would not completely go away, but would not be as big. Especially with increasing anxiety and people who really express emotions, it would be better to learn about integration from an early age. As expressed during the panel discussion, there is indeed justice in this that can be immeasurable.

Throughout the panel there were great points made and there really is an importance in integration. Everyone needs to work harder to make it more commonplace and something that could actually be reached.

Students who transfer from predominantly minority schools have difficulty transitioning to segregated high performing schools. They are left to figure out on their own why it is so difficult to earn high marks on mastery at this school compared to their past school. If you’re a student of color, it isn’t questioned why the new student is performing poorly, it is often assumed they it was never in them.

Saminathen, Laftman, & Modin, (2019) examined how students zoned to disadvantaged schools psychologically fare when transferring to a more prestigious school compared to their peers who stayed at the disadvantaged school. Study shows that schools that are characterized as ‘more prestigious’ tend to be of better quality than schools with a more disadvantaged student body, for instance, presenting with a more advantageous school ethos. The concept of school ethos is part of a more comprehensive theory of school effectiveness and refers to the beliefs, values, and norms that shape the way that teachers and students relate, interact, and behave towards each other at the school. Students were tracked for the decision of either staying at the disadvantaged school or moving to a more prestigious school. Each group was measured on the outcomes of student grades, survey results about school satisfaction, and survey results about psychological complaints. Movers reported having a higher mean academic achievement level while lower mean level school satisfaction with higher psychological complaints than stayers. The analysis is a contradiction of the ‘segregation paradox’ hypothesis: if a student associates with a desirable school, it would lead to high school performance, however due to the importance of peer connections during adolescence, school may present a more difficult social arena for movers than stayers.

Welsh (2018) used school-level segregation indicators such as race, income, and achievement combined with student mobility to expose educational inequality in urban districts by examining the relationship between student mobility and school segregation. Student mobility was categorized by exiting a school at the end of a school year, exiting a school during a school year, and students who exited a school during both times in one school year. The data proved that more than twice as many black students exited schools compared to 11% white students. Eleven percent of black students are identified as ‘mid-year movers’ and 5% being ‘ultra-movers’. In most cases, mid-year movers transferred to a school that was similar in segregation and underperforming, hence not changing achievement in either school. However, when mid-year movers leave predominantly minority, low-achieving schools for schools less segregated, schools may increase overall academic segregation in the district. In schools where there is more segregation by race, the achievement gap is larger than in a less segregated school.

Many studies narrate the inequity of two distinct regions that are characterized by the socio-economic status of their neighborhoods. Drake (2017) allows us to vie into two public high schools that replicate ethno-racial and socioeconomic inequality in the same affluent community, Valley View Unified School District (VVUSD). Valley View includes ‘Pinnacle’, a high achieving high school, and ‘Crossroads’, a continuation school for students who are not on track to meet the district’s high school graduation requirements in an acceptable and timely manner. Schools like Pinnacle take pride in keeping their ‘institutional success frame’ and proactively seek out students who do not meet this stature and use isolating tactics to encourage students to transfer out. These schools convince students and families that continuation schools are an easier alternative, where no homework is assigned, class sizes are noticeably smaller, and the school day is much shorter. Students pushed out of a competitive school feel inadequate, but conversely would otherwise be considered high achieving at various schools across the nation. The disparate views on the ‘racialization of achievement’ at schools perpetuate stereotypes such as Asian American students being viewed as ‘academic pacesetters’, forbidding them from being able to speak their suffering at the hands of fast-paced courses; and, of course, the trivial behaviors of the troublemaking black students need to be addressed vehemently. Schools like Crossroads too often find themselves as home to a disproportionate amount of Latino and black students. While the Valley View community only has a black population of 1.6%, Crossroads has a black student population of 9.4% (Drake, 2017). Teachers at more socially deprived schools orient their teaching practices and expectations to the ability level of the students, thus lowering the rigor and standards of the academic environment; contributing to the lower performance on academic achievement of low performing schools (Saminathen, Laftman, & Modin, 2019). ‘Academic segregation’ is racial segregation because the students affected are black and working-class Hispanics. Through academic segregation, schools are stratifying education based on socioeconomic and ethno-racial status, which is ‘inherently unequal’. When policy ends but practices continue, there’s no wonder how a subset of people is still plagued with ‘racial disparity’ (Drake, 2017).

Classrooms across the country are not seeing the professional recommended cultural competence embedded lessons being adopted. Williams (2018) and Lessard & Juvonen (2019) set a tone of caring relationships are often key moments that impact their journey to learning. Williams (2018) learns from the ‘life histories’ and experiences of four female teachers of students who needed a caring adult that eventually would make the difference in student’s finding motivation to succeed despite their circumstances. A theme of communicated success is reflected upon by each of the teachers about how community members took on various roles referred to as ‘otherparenting and fictive kin’. Both family personas are influential in shaping African American students’ lives by dealing with students in a manner that only has a belief of success and holds out for the best for these students. Also, like family members, these otherparenting and fictive kin feel a sense of responsibility to the students who are in their classes. Additionally, the teachers were sure to prepare their students for the biases that African American students would eventually face as they increasingly interact with people who are over-exposed to ‘white dominant views’. Williams explained that the trait of caring for students beyond the context of a student as learner stems from their ‘caring communities’, and this idea is coined ‘passing it on’. Teachers should expect to be a part of the ‘village’ for students that reminds them they are somebody through using compassion to listen to students and thoughtfully engage students in dialogue.

During middle grades’ years, students begin to add to their identity by their friends’ groups. Cross-class friendships can facilitate academic success by exposing young peers to experiences retold and knowledge, and resources. In a study of 4,388 sixth graders whom it was confirmed they had a reciprocated cross-class friendship reported a positive effect on the following three measures: grade GPA, achievement test scores, and teacher-rated academic engagement. From 6th to 7th grade, disparity gaps in students’ GPA, standardized test scores, and academic engagement drastically reduced between students whose parents have a degree and those who do not have a degree. This study, on the importance of attention to cross-class friendships, contends the need for schools to cultivate cross-class friendships to expose students to insights that are new to a student’s background. The social capital of learning from dissimilar friends has academic benefits during early adolescence. Knowing that you have a good friend circle makes students feel good about themselves. Students who have a good sense of self-identify statistically perform better in school. Dee (2015) replicates an affirmation experiment as an intervention to reduce the achievement gap between African American and Hispanic students compared to White students. Dee administered an experiment three times to 2,665 students that involved a writing assignment that would assist in evaluating if positive affirmations would have a positive impact on a student’s final grade. The goal was to experiment during a time at which ‘evaluative stress’ is thought to be exceptionally high. The writing assignment for the treated subjects required students to identify affirmation traits and consider how the affirmations helped them. The data were disaggregated in a few ways. Initially, Dee (2015) looked at the data by racial and gender groups, but unlike Cohen’s experiment, they were modeling after did not show any significant effects to those groups. Eighth-grade Hispanic students did see a statistically significant increase in final grades. However, there was a negative trend in girls’ final grades. Although the initial measure was student final grades, Dee took time to analyze the effect on other outcome measures and concluded no significant statistical effect had taken place. Given that there was a significant statistical effect for Cohen’s study, Dee began to look at class makeup. In the class make-up, if classes that were predominantly African American or Hispanic showed growth in peer achievement, then the experiment showed a significant effect. With such a large sample size of an experiment that was implemented with much precision and the replication of the experiment, Dee considers other factors that may have played a role.

Academic segregation replaces the term racial segregation, and no matter what the most recent nomenclature is, does the same thing: steals the opportunities and well-being of a certain youth group by depriving students of education, read as learning how to think. If students are truly going to learn how to think, then we must provide opportunities where students can engage in relevant issues, work with peers to identify real, feasible solutions. Valuing diversity is going to be key because students must feel safe to share the experiences that have helped them in the past free from subjectivity. Schools must train culturally proficient instructors and leaders. Sagor (2011) informs us that movement of any kind requires an organizational behavior that is consistent with the belief that everyone can learn. Williams (2018) makes a case that it is culturally caring educators that make all the difference in specifically African American students, who are consistently disadvantaged by predominantly minority schools that are low-achieving and high poverty where the student population has similar experiences and backgrounds.

It is clear that students benefit academically when they are exposed to advantageous social and cultural capital and cross-class friendships at better functioning schools. Desegregation of neighborhood schools should continue to be the reform focus for public programs, but desegregation of schools cannot be the only step to action; it should be intertwined with cultural competence. Cultural competence starts with what currently exists before you can begin to understand what should exist. Students require teachers who do not discriminate, brutalize, or negatively profile, but instead lifts every student to know that they matter and that teachers will seek to know them, understand them, and teach, not degrade them. Doing so is important because, as adults in our society without adequate language, reasoning and learning skills, young people risk being unable to support themselves or their families. Students who leave school without a moral compass and self-esteem will find it difficult to lead fulfilling lives.

This paper will respond to and analyze the topics discussed by Diana Herrera, former student and teacher in the Edgewood Independent School District, Albert Kauffman, professor at St. Mary’s University, and Brian Sparks, who is the network principal in the San Antonio Independent School District. Main basis of the panel was to discuss how even long after the Brown v. Board of Education state leaders still have not really used racial integration as a tool.

Racial integration is the first topic that is addressed because it is important for schools and students going forward. Albert Kauffman speaks of the importance of racial integration, especially in Texas, is of major importance because of the diversity that Texas has. I believe it is better because people are better when we are learning from each other. Which in turn will allow us to understand people better and be more comfortable around each other. It was brought up how districts in Texas are growing rapidly. Racial integration is a byproduct of other things as well. During the panel it was discussed how school segregation is also a byproduct of housing and where people are zoned. That is an interesting topic that I had never even considered. There have been times where African Americans have been criminally charged because they tried to provide a chance for better education by something called residency fraud. More specifically, Kelley Williams Bolar, who was sentenced for lying about her residency. I believe, especially in middle school and high school, that it is important to have more integration in schools. To give a fair opportunity to everyone and to build moving forward.

The topic of finances was also discussed. Better financed districts are in the predominantly white districts, and the districts that don’t get much funding are in Hispanic and African American districts, which also ties into zoning districts. Poor funding is an issue that has been an issue for years. Brian Sparks brings up the point of master teachers counteracting lack of funding. He proposes that the highest paid teachers go to schools with the greatest need. He in a sense proposed that it would guarantee that everyone gets the same chance at advancement, since the students who need the most help with get the best teachers. A counterpoint to this, which was discussed during the panel, is that there have been many studies to suggest, for example, African Americans tend to learn better and essentially do better when taught by people who look more like them. It was revealed that most teachers in Texas districts are white. What role does the school play in this? It is up to the school and the districts to hire teachers that are diverse enough to teach and relate to every child. Integration would still be the issue but would be better because of teachers’ ability to relate.

An interesting point that was brought up was what happens when kids who don’t have integrated experiences go to college, and what that experience could be potentially be like. I feel as though once in college everything changes. There is no way to make up for all that, but once in college, most kids tend to gravitate to they are more familiar with from high school.

I believe that integration from the beginning of middle school and high school would help all freshmen in college. I think that the nervousness that comes with being a freshman, while it would not completely go away, but would not be as big. Especially with increasing anxiety and people who really express emotions, it would be better to learn about integration from an early age. As expressed during the panel discussion, there is indeed justice in this that can be immeasurable.

Throughout the panel there were great points made and there really is an importance in integration. Everyone needs to work harder to make it more commonplace and something that could actually be reached.

Students who transfer from predominantly minority schools have difficulty transitioning to segregated high performing schools. They are left to figure out on their own why it is so difficult to earn high marks on mastery at this school compared to their past school. If you’re a student of color, it isn’t questioned why the new student is performing poorly, it is often assumed they it was never in them.

Saminathen, Laftman, & Modin, (2019) examined how students zoned to disadvantaged schools psychologically fare when transferring to a more prestigious school compared to their peers who stayed at the disadvantaged school. Study shows that schools that are characterized as ‘more prestigious’ tend to be of better quality than schools with a more disadvantaged student body, for instance, presenting with a more advantageous school ethos. The concept of school ethos is part of a more comprehensive theory of school effectiveness and refers to the beliefs, values, and norms that shape the way that teachers and students relate, interact, and behave towards each other at the school. Students were tracked for the decision of either staying at the disadvantaged school or moving to a more prestigious school. Each group was measured on the outcomes of student grades, survey results about school satisfaction, and survey results about psychological complaints. Movers reported having a higher mean academic achievement level while lower mean level school satisfaction with higher psychological complaints than stayers. The analysis is a contradiction of the ‘segregation paradox’ hypothesis: if a student associates with a desirable school, it would lead to high school performance, however due to the importance of peer connections during adolescence, school may present a more difficult social arena for movers than stayers.

Welsh (2018) used school-level segregation indicators such as race, income, and achievement combined with student mobility to expose educational inequality in urban districts by examining the relationship between student mobility and school segregation. Student mobility was categorized by exiting a school at the end of a school year, exiting a school during a school year, and students who exited a school during both times in one school year. The data proved that more than twice as many black students exited schools compared to 11% white students. Eleven percent of black students are identified as ‘mid-year movers’ and 5% being ‘ultra-movers’. In most cases, mid-year movers transferred to a school that was similar in segregation and underperforming, hence not changing achievement in either school. However, when mid-year movers leave predominantly minority, low-achieving schools for schools less segregated, schools may increase overall academic segregation in the district. In schools where there is more segregation by race, the achievement gap is larger than in a less segregated school.

Many studies narrate the inequity of two distinct regions that are characterized by the socio-economic status of their neighborhoods. Drake (2017) allows us to vie into two public high schools that replicate ethno-racial and socioeconomic inequality in the same affluent community, Valley View Unified School District (VVUSD). Valley View includes ‘Pinnacle’, a high achieving high school, and ‘Crossroads’, a continuation school for students who are not on track to meet the district’s high school graduation requirements in an acceptable and timely manner. Schools like Pinnacle take pride in keeping their ‘institutional success frame’ and proactively seek out students who do not meet this stature and use isolating tactics to encourage students to transfer out. These schools convince students and families that continuation schools are an easier alternative, where no homework is assigned, class sizes are noticeably smaller, and the school day is much shorter. Students pushed out of a competitive school feel inadequate, but conversely would otherwise be considered high achieving at various schools across the nation. The disparate views on the ‘racialization of achievement’ at schools perpetuate stereotypes such as Asian American students being viewed as ‘academic pacesetters’, forbidding them from being able to speak their suffering at the hands of fast-paced courses; and, of course, the trivial behaviors of the troublemaking black students need to be addressed vehemently. Schools like Crossroads too often find themselves as home to a disproportionate amount of Latino and black students. While the Valley View community only has a black population of 1.6%, Crossroads has a black student population of 9.4% (Drake, 2017). Teachers at more socially deprived schools orient their teaching practices and expectations to the ability level of the students, thus lowering the rigor and standards of the academic environment; contributing to the lower performance on academic achievement of low performing schools (Saminathen, Laftman, & Modin, 2019). ‘Academic segregation’ is racial segregation because the students affected are black and working-class Hispanics. Through academic segregation, schools are stratifying education based on socioeconomic and ethno-racial status, which is ‘inherently unequal’. When policy ends but practices continue, there’s no wonder how a subset of people is still plagued with ‘racial disparity’ (Drake, 2017).

Classrooms across the country are not seeing the professional recommended cultural competence embedded lessons being adopted. Williams (2018) and Lessard & Juvonen (2019) set a tone of caring relationships are often key moments that impact their journey to learning. Williams (2018) learns from the ‘life histories’ and experiences of four female teachers of students who needed a caring adult that eventually would make the difference in student’s finding motivation to succeed despite their circumstances. A theme of communicated success is reflected upon by each of the teachers about how community members took on various roles referred to as ‘otherparenting and fictive kin’. Both family personas are influential in shaping African American students’ lives by dealing with students in a manner that only has a belief of success and holds out for the best for these students. Also, like family members, these otherparenting and fictive kin feel a sense of responsibility to the students who are in their classes. Additionally, the teachers were sure to prepare their students for the biases that African American students would eventually face as they increasingly interact with people who are over-exposed to ‘white dominant views’. Williams explained that the trait of caring for students beyond the context of a student as learner stems from their ‘caring communities’, and this idea is coined ‘passing it on’. Teachers should expect to be a part of the ‘village’ for students that reminds them they are somebody through using compassion to listen to students and thoughtfully engage students in dialogue.

During middle grades’ years, students begin to add to their identity by their friends’ groups. Cross-class friendships can facilitate academic success by exposing young peers to experiences retold and knowledge, and resources. In a study of 4,388 sixth graders whom it was confirmed they had a reciprocated cross-class friendship reported a positive effect on the following three measures: grade GPA, achievement test scores, and teacher-rated academic engagement. From 6th to 7th grade, disparity gaps in students’ GPA, standardized test scores, and academic engagement drastically reduced between students whose parents have a degree and those who do not have a degree. This study, on the importance of attention to cross-class friendships, contends the need for schools to cultivate cross-class friendships to expose students to insights that are new to a student’s background. The social capital of learning from dissimilar friends has academic benefits during early adolescence. Knowing that you have a good friend circle makes students feel good about themselves. Students who have a good sense of self-identify statistically perform better in school. Dee (2015) replicates an affirmation experiment as an intervention to reduce the achievement gap between African American and Hispanic students compared to White students. Dee administered an experiment three times to 2,665 students that involved a writing assignment that would assist in evaluating if positive affirmations would have a positive impact on a student’s final grade. The goal was to experiment during a time at which ‘evaluative stress’ is thought to be exceptionally high. The writing assignment for the treated subjects required students to identify affirmation traits and consider how the affirmations helped them. The data were disaggregated in a few ways. Initially, Dee (2015) looked at the data by racial and gender groups, but unlike Cohen’s experiment, they were modeling after did not show any significant effects to those groups. Eighth-grade Hispanic students did see a statistically significant increase in final grades. However, there was a negative trend in girls’ final grades. Although the initial measure was student final grades, Dee took time to analyze the effect on other outcome measures and concluded no significant statistical effect had taken place. Given that there was a significant statistical effect for Cohen’s study, Dee began to look at class makeup. In the class make-up, if classes that were predominantly African American or Hispanic showed growth in peer achievement, then the experiment showed a significant effect. With such a large sample size of an experiment that was implemented with much precision and the replication of the experiment, Dee considers other factors that may have played a role.

Academic segregation replaces the term racial segregation, and no matter what the most recent nomenclature is, does the same thing: steals the opportunities and well-being of a certain youth group by depriving students of education, read as learning how to think. If students are truly going to learn how to think, then we must provide opportunities where students can engage in relevant issues, work with peers to identify real, feasible solutions. Valuing diversity is going to be key because students must feel safe to share the experiences that have helped them in the past free from subjectivity. Schools must train culturally proficient instructors and leaders. Sagor (2011) informs us that movement of any kind requires an organizational behavior that is consistent with the belief that everyone can learn. Williams (2018) makes a case that it is culturally caring educators that make all the difference in specifically African American students, who are consistently disadvantaged by predominantly minority schools that are low-achieving and high poverty where the student population has similar experiences and backgrounds.

It is clear that students benefit academically when they are exposed to advantageous social and cultural capital and cross-class friendships at better functioning schools. Desegregation of neighborhood schools should continue to be the reform focus for public programs, but desegregation of schools cannot be the only step to action; it should be intertwined with cultural competence. Cultural competence starts with what currently exists before you can begin to understand what should exist. Students require teachers who do not discriminate, brutalize, or negatively profile, but instead lifts every student to know that they matter and that teachers will seek to know them, understand them, and teach, not degrade them. Doing so is important because, as adults in our society without adequate language, reasoning and learning skills, young people risk being unable to support themselves or their families. Students who leave school without a moral compass and self-esteem will find it difficult to lead fulfilling lives.