Chancellor's Brown v Board message to parents
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Anonymous
| Inspiring and mostly appropriate, but also unfortunately included a blatant political plug for lottery and OOB set-asides. Well, people can oppose these and still care about the gaps and inequalities that these are claiming to be the solution to....For starters, OOB set asides are not AA/Latino or FARM set-asides: OOB slots can and do go to anyone. And lottery doesn't solve anything for those who "lose" in the lottery....Sorry, Kaya, but invoking Brown v Board will not help sell ideas that do nothing to bring quality education in every neighborhood. |
Anonymous
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I agree that her sentiments were lovely until the ambiguous end. She didn't explicitly endorse any policy, but her read of parents' behavior disturbed me. "Many of our families desire the benefits of an integrated environment, and travers the city, play the lottery, and do anything they can to get there." I thought families played the lottery and traversed the city in search of a quality education for their child, not "diversity." How is diversity defined? Are the white families in ward 3 traversing the city to wards 7 and 8?
If DCPS were able to provide a system of high quality neighborhood schools for all students, would there still be the same number of kids traversing the city in search of diversity? |
jsteele
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There would be fewer kids traversing the city, but with a few exceptions, there would be nearly complete segregation. |
Anonymous
| Agreed. Kaya needs to do her job, which is to improve all schools, not to blame some parents for her own failings. |
Anonymous
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I don't disagree that neighborhood schools would lead to more segregation in some parts of the city. But, there are some diverse neighborhoods that would have diverse schools if parents felt that the school were high quality.
Regardless, what I would most likely is for the Chancellor to face issues head on, not assign motivations to parents that aren't there. |
Anonymous
She was not blaming anyone per se, to me it was the ambigeous something is responsible. As to set asides if you think nearly constant segregation is a suitable outcome then yeah criticize away. Personally, I think it is one of the things that is harming our communities and would support a number of measures to alter the current segregation. |
Anonymous
So-called segregation now is by income not race. And gentrification will eventually push all poor folks (mostly all minority in DC) out of the places where Abby Smith and a lot of other well-paid (mostly white) people are now moving in. If you want to work for justice, then work for affordable housing. If you want more black faces at JKLM, make a racial quota. If you want economic diversity and access for the poor, make a FARM quota at every school. But OOB set-asides so that, for example Abby Smith's kid or such like can get a spot at Deal are not going to uplift the people... |
Anonymous
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why did she call Mr Emmanuel a defendant instead of a plaintiff? stuff like that from an education office irritates me....
I don't believe in separate but equal, however there is room for OOB at the few 'desirable' schools in DC without shredding these schools, IMO. And inequity aside, DCPS simply has too few schools with robust programs and good learning environs. I am still waiting for some viable proposal to improve middle and high schools. |
Anonymous
| Anyone have a link to the message? |
Anonymous
|
On Friday, I had the honor of commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision at the White House, with President Barack Obama and the families involved in the five lawsuits responsible for the decision. It was an opportunity to witness history from a front row seat, as the President spoke about “standing on the shoulders of giants,” and the fact that he wouldn’t be where he was today was it not for Brown. The thing that struck me most, though, was not the eloquent words from the President, or Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts (who gets kudos in my book for the best impromptu speech EVER), or Secretary Arne Duncan. I was most impacted by a little old man who I sat next to at the reception before the program started. He and his wife were in front of me in the line going into the White House. He kept stopping to take pictures of her in front of various parts of the building holding up the line. Instead of being frustrated, like I usually am, I thought it was charming. In fact, I volunteered to take a few pictures of the two of them so their friends wouldn’t think she was at the event by herself! They sat next to me at the reception after the wife, a teacher in Prince Georges County, recognized me as the Chancellor of DCPS. She introduced her husband, Mr. Emmanuel, as one of the original defendants in the South Carolina lawsuit (in addition to Topeka, KS, suits were brought by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in DE, SC, VA and DC). Mr. Emmanuel, a slight, African-American man well into his seventies was as quiet as his wife was chatty, until he got the chance to tell his story. He shared with me (after his wife started bungling the details) that he was 8 years old in 1951 when he and his family signed a petition to desegregate the public schools in his community, which was the first step in filing the suit. His family rented a farm from white landowners, who, when they heard his family was involved in “these shenanigans,” paid a visit to Mr. Emmanuel’s family. The white landowner told Mr. Emmanuel’s mother, “Lucretia, I heard that you’re planning on signing this petition. I just need to let you know that if you do, I’m going to have to put you off my place.” Mr. Emmanuel’s mother replied, “Well, I guess you’re going to have to put me off the place, because I’m signing the petition!” That night, she, her 8-year-old son, and others in their family signed the petition. The next morning, the landowners came and removed all of their things and dropped them off at the property boundary. Their family members and friends collected them and their things and they were able to re-establish themselves after some African-American landowners in town rented their land to the family. Now, more than 60 years later, he stood in the White House, proud of the role that his family had played in changing the history of our country. My encounter with Mr. Emmanuel sent my emotions swirling. I was proud of him and his family for being willing to sacrifice the little they had to do what they believed was right. I was reminded that regular, everyday people are the ones who can and will change the world. But most of all, I felt incredibly guilty that 60 years later, we haven’t lived up to the promise of Brown, that we haven’t honored the sacrifices made by Mr. Emmanuel, his family, and the many others who paved the way for a better educational system for ALL students, regardless of the color of their skin, or where they live. Each and every day, we work urgently, and tirelessly to provide the students of Washington, DC with a world-class education. Yet, many of children remain segregated in high-poverty, struggling schools. While some of our schools are racially and socio-economically diverse, most are not. In fact, some are becoming even more homogenous. Many of our families desire the benefits of an integrated environment, and traverse the city, play the lottery, and do anything they can to get there, while others are trapped by lack of access and opportunity. There are no easy answers to this issue. But I am reminded that regular, everyday people like us, and those who we serve, have to work together to figure out a different way to solve this problem that has continued to vex our country, 60 years after the courts took a courageous moral stand. We owe it to Mr. Emmanuel and his family to create a very different future for the children we serve. I hope the 60th anniversary of Brown provides each of you with the opportunity to recommit to the world-changing work that we do every day. Sincerely, Kaya Henderson Chancellor Not a link, clearly. But here it is! |
Anonymous
Hear Hear |
Anonymous
| Segregation is by income and not by race...that is such the coward's way of avoiding the obvious. We don't wear price tags on our heads. When the white parents see too many black parents they are not sold on the school. Demographics and dollars about public schools has become so exhausting. |
Anonymous
| You can be for diversity but against the lottery. |
Anonymous
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The end of her message made me roll my eyes.
The problem with DCPS schools is not lack of diversity, the problem is that most of them are subpar. I am pretty sure most parents, whatever their race or economic status, would prefer a school that provides a good eductation for their children over a bad school that is diverse. Fix the education issues first, then work on diversity - making a school more diverse without any emphasis on fixing a non-working education model won't magically fix anything (especially since if you force people into a less desirable school, those with means to go elsewhere will do so). |
Anonymous
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The perspective of Chancellor Henderson, like most everyone at DCPS, ignores the reality that one of the biggest reasons (if not the primary reason for most DC neighborhoods) that parents desire to traverse the city to get an education for their kids is because the most motivated parents in their respective neighborhoods are already traversing the city to get an education for their kids.
The situation today is very much different than in the days of Brown. "Segregation" today means something completely different than it did then. I strongly believe that if DCPS instituted policies that encouraged development of strong neighborhood schools, then many (though not all) neighborhoods in the city would soon have dramatically improved neighborhood schools. |