New Report on Racial and Economic Diversity in DC public and charter schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is quite a stretch to say that "white people don't want" integration when Deal and Wilson are the most integrated schools in the city. Clearly, white folks like those schools. But there aren't enough white students left over to meaningfully integrate at many other public schools than those. Basis charter, I guess, but it is pretty well integrated too; Hardy seems to be attracting more white folks recently. Unless everyone's REAL concern is that a small cadre of elementary schools located in Upper Caucasia (where all the white people live) have a majority of white students in those schools. If that's what is troubling you, then your problem is not really policy, but something more fundamental to your world-view.

The new racial and economic intergration report that came out yesterday also found that an equal number of white families in Ward 3 are opting out of public schools entirely, as are opting in. For hte purposes of Wilson and its feeders and overcrowding, that's probably a good thing, but it also significantly limits the amount of racial or economic balance we can hope to achieve (just 10% of the entire DC public and charter school student population is white).

The data also showed that in 16-17 Wilson was the most integrated racially, but not an all integrated economically but from the student newspaper and the principal's comments, the number of minority students has dropped significantly in the last 2 years.

The most integrated schools are (in order) below. It seems fair to conclude that housing patterns in DC prevents most DCPS neighborhood schools from being integrated racially unless a school has a history of accepting OOB students (Hyde, Murch, Eaton) or there is some sort of gerrymandering (e.g. the Gold Coast / Bancroft and longer ago having some parts of SW feed Wilson).

Wilson
Yu Ying
Mundo Verde
Basis
Seaton
EW Stokes
DCI
Hearst
EL Haynes Elementary
Breakthrough Montessori
SWW high school
CMI
Washington Latin MS
Hyde Addison
Inspired Teaching
Ross
Shining Stars
Deal
LAMB
Eaton
Cap City Lower
Cap City Middle
Center City Petworth
EL Haynes HS
Barnard
Van Ness
EL Haynes MS
SWW @ FS
Appletree Lincoln Park
Center City Brightwood
Washington Latin HS
Appletree CH
Thomson
LaSalle Backus
Bridges
Garrison
Tubman
West
Hardy
Roosevelt
Cap City HS
Cardozo
Maury
Center City Shaw
Peabody
Ludlow Taylor
Cooke
Two Rivers
Murch
Takoma
Oyster Adams

CHML
Cleveland

Really? I draw the opposite conclusion. Most of the DCPS schools in the "most integrated" list are those where GENTRIFICATION has INCREASED diversity by bringing new white families to the schools. What's crazy is how quickly the diversity can flip the other way, to all/majority white. So housing patterns seem to at least at one stage increase diversity, not decrease it.

[Anonymous]

In 10 years, with growing IB rates, all the Wilson feeders will be majority white. Even Bancroft and Shepherd are trending that way, although will remain very diverse for a while to come, based on their current demographics.

Keeping Bancroft and Shepherd IB will retain some diversity for now, but it'll be interesting to see how the city will address integrated schools in a decade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is quite a stretch to say that "white people don't want" integration when Deal and Wilson are the most integrated schools in the city. Clearly, white folks like those schools. But there aren't enough white students left over to meaningfully integrate at many other public schools than those. Basis charter, I guess, but it is pretty well integrated too; Hardy seems to be attracting more white folks recently. Unless everyone's REAL concern is that a small cadre of elementary schools located in Upper Caucasia (where all the white people live) have a majority of white students in those schools. If that's what is troubling you, then your problem is not really policy, but something more fundamental to your world-view.

Well, that is an issue, because the NW schools exist in the same system with 90% at-risk all-black schools doing much more poorly. An at-risk OOB set-aside in the lottery would address some of this, as long as DCPS ALSO invested in increasing capacity at those schools. But, unless the idea is to dissolve ward 7 and 8 schools and bus all those kids to NW, it's hard to see how even an at-risk set aside in the lottery addresses the whole problem. I do think DC has a lot of positive things going for diversity -- just look at the integrated charters, and some DCPS schools. But as we all know, that peters out at MS. Anyone who truly cares about diversity would have to focus on improving the MS and HS pathways for the integrated charters and DCPS schools. But yeah, at the end of the day, diversity can't be the only metric to judge DC schools.

I don't understand just which upper NW schools are troubling you, as there aren't that many of them? Wilson: check, the most integrated in the city. Deal: check, probably the second-most integrated. Hardy: check, increasingly integrated. So, if "that peters out at MS," what OTHER middle schools in upper NW are troubling you? In contrast, I'd say "the white folks" are behaving in a non-racist way. What gives?

Deal and Wilson are only integrated now because of OOB, right? So the issue is the NW elementary schools that have trended to all white, and the loss of OOB spots that will trickle up to Deal and Wilson and reduce diversity there. Also happening on the Hill -- as neighborhoods gentrify and the pipeline of OOB/sibling black students ends, the schools are quickly losing diversity.

Yes, they are absolutely losing diversity. DCPS is in a tough spot. I think the city leaders want diverse schools with opportunity and equity, but DCPS is based on neighborhood schools, especially at the ES level. Our neighborhoods are so segregated that you will only get diversity if you deconstruct or disrupt the neighborhood system to a pretty significant degree (e.g. magnet schools for all levels that would pull at least 20-30% of white families away from their neighborhood schools).

Of course if 50% of the white folks in the Wilson pattern who are now in public were to move or go to private (i know, there isn't room, but this is a thought experiment) their seats would be filled with OOB students and Wilson and its feeders would retain some diversity. But that doesn't seem likely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In 10 years, with growing IB rates, all the Wilson feeders will be majority white. Even Bancroft and Shepherd are trending that way, although will remain very diverse for a while to come, based on their current demographics.

Keeping Bancroft and Shepherd IB will retain some diversity for now, but it'll be interesting to see how the city will address integrated schools in a decade.

Bancroft, like Oyster, will never be majority white because of the dual-language program. Of course Oyster is 48% OOB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is quite a stretch to say that "white people don't want" integration when Deal and Wilson are the most integrated schools in the city. Clearly, white folks like those schools. But there aren't enough white students left over to meaningfully integrate at many other public schools than those. Basis charter, I guess, but it is pretty well integrated too; Hardy seems to be attracting more white folks recently. Unless everyone's REAL concern is that a small cadre of elementary schools located in Upper Caucasia (where all the white people live) have a majority of white students in those schools. If that's what is troubling you, then your problem is not really policy, but something more fundamental to your world-view.

The new racial and economic intergration report that came out yesterday also found that an equal number of white families in Ward 3 are opting out of public schools entirely, as are opting in. For hte purposes of Wilson and its feeders and overcrowding, that's probably a good thing, but it also significantly limits the amount of racial or economic balance we can hope to achieve (just 10% of the entire DC public and charter school student population is white).

The data also showed that in 16-17 Wilson was the most integrated racially, but not an all integrated economically but from the student newspaper and the principal's comments, the number of minority students has dropped significantly in the last 2 years.

The most integrated schools are (in order) below. It seems fair to conclude that housing patterns in DC prevents most DCPS neighborhood schools from being integrated racially unless a school has a history of accepting OOB students (Hyde, Murch, Eaton) or there is some sort of gerrymandering (e.g. the Gold Coast / Bancroft and longer ago having some parts of SW feed Wilson).

Wilson
Yu Ying
Mundo Verde
Basis
Seaton
EW Stokes
DCI
Hearst
EL Haynes Elementary
Breakthrough Montessori
SWW high school
CMI
Washington Latin MS
Hyde Addison
Inspired Teaching
Ross
Shining Stars
Deal
LAMB
Eaton
Cap City Lower
Cap City Middle
Center City Petworth
EL Haynes HS
Barnard
Van Ness
EL Haynes MS
SWW @ FS
Appletree Lincoln Park
Center City Brightwood
Washington Latin HS
Appletree CH
Thomson
LaSalle Backus
Bridges
Garrison
Tubman
West
Hardy
Roosevelt
Cap City HS
Cardozo
Maury
Center City Shaw
Peabody
Ludlow Taylor
Cooke
Two Rivers
Murch
Takoma
Oyster Adams

CHML
Cleveland

Really? I draw the opposite conclusion. Most of the DCPS schools in the "most integrated" list are those where GENTRIFICATION has INCREASED diversity by bringing new white families to the schools. What's crazy is how quickly the diversity can flip the other way, to all/majority white. So housing patterns seem to at least at one stage increase diversity, not decrease it.

+1.

It's pretty obvious that in DC gentrification has primarily INCREASED racial and socioeconomic diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You didn't ask the question at all. By implication, I guess your answer is there aren't enough white families in DC to effectively integrate schools outside of the areas that they actually live, and even in those areas the overall numbers of white students are not high. Assuming "integration" remains your goal (and I'd volunteer that "integration" as a goal is actually a red herring if you care about education) -- your solution is...?

Not sure which PP you're responding to, but I don't think the issue is identical for every area of the city and every school. For example, many Ward 6 elementary schools are admirably integrated, as white families are willing to send their kids to neighborhood schools; so are some charters. The issue there is integration of the MS and HS. Any place white parents are opting out of their feeder pattern is an issue to be addressed (if you care about diversity!). And, it can't be addressed by just calling white parents racist (I'm looking at you Nikole Hannah Jones). You have to proactively bring in the UMC families with programming and engagement. At the same time, some Ward 6 elementary schools still to not reflect the neighborhood except in PK (Payne, Miner, JOW, Tyler, eventually Amidon-Bowen.) That's also a diversity issue to be addressed through engaging white parents productively. A thornier issue is re-zoning overcrowded HS and MS like Deal and Wilson. There, white parents are basically totally against "losing" what they think they have the right to. I'm not sure how to deal with that issue. Where integration doesn't seem to be an answer is the all-black high at-risk schools in all-black neighborhoods. At-risk set aside seats in integrated schools is a partial answer; but not the whole answer. There, I don't think you can expect "integration" to do all the work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Really? I draw the opposite conclusion. Most of the DCPS schools in the "most integrated" list are those where GENTRIFICATION has INCREASED diversity by bringing new white families to the schools. What's crazy is how quickly the diversity can flip the other way, to all/majority white. So housing patterns seem to at least at one stage increase diversity, not decrease it.

Housing patterns temporarily increase diversity, until a neighborhood becomes more white. As the 'gentrifier' schools are adding white students, the Wilson pattern schools are losing African Americans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You didn't ask the question at all. By implication, I guess your answer is there aren't enough white families in DC to effectively integrate schools outside of the areas that they actually live, and even in those areas the overall numbers of white students are not high. Assuming "integration" remains your goal (and I'd volunteer that "integration" as a goal is actually a red herring if you care about education) -- your solution is...?

Not sure which PP you're responding to, but I don't think the issue is identical for every area of the city and every school. For example, many Ward 6 elementary schools are admirably integrated, as white families are willing to send their kids to neighborhood schools; so are some charters. The issue there is integration of the MS and HS. Any place white parents are opting out of their feeder pattern is an issue to be addressed (if you care about diversity!). And, it can't be addressed by just calling white parents racist (I'm looking at you Nikole Hannah Jones). You have to proactively bring in the UMC families with programming and engagement. At the same time, some Ward 6 elementary schools still to not reflect the neighborhood except in PK (Payne, Miner, JOW, Tyler, eventually Amidon-Bowen.) That's also a diversity issue to be addressed through engaging white parents productively. A thornier issue is re-zoning overcrowded HS and MS like Deal and Wilson. There, white parents are basically totally against "losing" what they think they have the right to. I'm not sure how to deal with that issue. Where integration doesn't seem to be an answer is the all-black high at-risk schools in all-black neighborhoods. At-risk set aside seats in integrated schools is a partial answer; but not the whole answer. There, I don't think you can expect "integration" to do all the work.

Yes, if diversity is a goal, then offering programming to meet the interests of ALL the diverse students that the schools allegedly desire would be a logical thing to do. It has been done before, and has been shown to work. Carrot-and-stick, pretty basic stuff.

[Anonymous]

The upper NW schools and neighborhoods are way more integrated/diverse IB than you think. That's where the majority of multiracial and non white or black families live in the city. But this doesn't actually seem to be about diversity...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You didn't ask the question at all. By implication, I guess your answer is there aren't enough white families in DC to effectively integrate schools outside of the areas that they actually live, and even in those areas the overall numbers of white students are not high. Assuming "integration" remains your goal (and I'd volunteer that "integration" as a goal is actually a red herring if you care about education) -- your solution is...?

Not sure which PP you're responding to, but I don't think the issue is identical for every area of the city and every school. For example, many Ward 6 elementary schools are admirably integrated, as white families are willing to send their kids to neighborhood schools; so are some charters. The issue there is integration of the MS and HS. Any place white parents are opting out of their feeder pattern is an issue to be addressed (if you care about diversity!). And, it can't be addressed by just calling white parents racist (I'm looking at you Nikole Hannah Jones). You have to proactively bring in the UMC families with programming and engagement. At the same time, some Ward 6 elementary schools still to not reflect the neighborhood except in PK (Payne, Miner, JOW, Tyler, eventually Amidon-Bowen.) That's also a diversity issue to be addressed through engaging white parents productively. A thornier issue is re-zoning overcrowded HS and MS like Deal and Wilson. There, white parents are basically totally against "losing" what they think they have the right to. I'm not sure how to deal with that issue. Where integration doesn't seem to be an answer is the all-black high at-risk schools in all-black neighborhoods. At-risk set aside seats in integrated schools is a partial answer; but not the whole answer. There, I don't think you can expect "integration" to do all the work.

Not so much. By grade the segregation is pretty stark.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You didn't ask the question at all. By implication, I guess your answer is there aren't enough white families in DC to effectively integrate schools outside of the areas that they actually live, and even in those areas the overall numbers of white students are not high. Assuming "integration" remains your goal (and I'd volunteer that "integration" as a goal is actually a red herring if you care about education) -- your solution is...?

Not sure which PP you're responding to, but I don't think the issue is identical for every area of the city and every school. For example, many Ward 6 elementary schools are admirably integrated, as white families are willing to send their kids to neighborhood schools; so are some charters. The issue there is integration of the MS and HS. Any place white parents are opting out of their feeder pattern is an issue to be addressed (if you care about diversity!). And, it can't be addressed by just calling white parents racist (I'm looking at you Nikole Hannah Jones). You have to proactively bring in the UMC families with programming and engagement. At the same time, some Ward 6 elementary schools still to not reflect the neighborhood except in PK (Payne, Miner, JOW, Tyler, eventually Amidon-Bowen.) That's also a diversity issue to be addressed through engaging white parents productively. A thornier issue is re-zoning overcrowded HS and MS like Deal and Wilson. There, white parents are basically totally against "losing" what they think they have the right to. I'm not sure how to deal with that issue. Where integration doesn't seem to be an answer is the all-black high at-risk schools in all-black neighborhoods. At-risk set aside seats in integrated schools is a partial answer; but not the whole answer. There, I don't think you can expect "integration" to do all the work.

Not so much. By grade the segregation is pretty stark.

It takes time, but the upper grades get more diverse as time goes on. Not perfect, but not nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The upper NW schools and neighborhoods are way more integrated/diverse IB than you think. That's where the majority of multiracial and non white or black families live in the city. But this doesn't actually seem to be about diversity...

? Well Janney is 4% Asian and 7% multiracial. Hardly staggering numbers. The policy paper looks at racial and economic diversity. I'm guessing there's very little economic diversity at Janney.

[Anonymous]

Maybe the city should offer race-based incentives (tax breaks, low-interest loan programs) for families with children to move into majority white neighborhoods? It wouldn't change the economic diversity very much, but it would incentivise more diversity in majority-white neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Really? I draw the opposite conclusion. Most of the DCPS schools in the "most integrated" list are those where GENTRIFICATION has INCREASED diversity by bringing new white families to the schools. What's crazy is how quickly the diversity can flip the other way, to all/majority white. So housing patterns seem to at least at one stage increase diversity, not decrease it.

Housing patterns temporarily increase diversity, until a neighborhood becomes more white. As the 'gentrifier' schools are adding white students, the Wilson pattern schools are losing African Americans.

Yeah, schools seem to reach a sweet spot of being very well integrated for a while, but unfortunately it's temporary--maybe 5-10 years of great diversity--in the transition from majority minority to majority white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You didn't ask the question at all. By implication, I guess your answer is there aren't enough white families in DC to effectively integrate schools outside of the areas that they actually live, and even in those areas the overall numbers of white students are not high. Assuming "integration" remains your goal (and I'd volunteer that "integration" as a goal is actually a red herring if you care about education) -- your solution is...?

Not sure which PP you're responding to, but I don't think the issue is identical for every area of the city and every school. For example, many Ward 6 elementary schools are admirably integrated, as white families are willing to send their kids to neighborhood schools; so are some charters. The issue there is integration of the MS and HS. Any place white parents are opting out of their feeder pattern is an issue to be addressed (if you care about diversity!). And, it can't be addressed by just calling white parents racist (I'm looking at you Nikole Hannah Jones). You have to proactively bring in the UMC families with programming and engagement. At the same time, some Ward 6 elementary schools still to not reflect the neighborhood except in PK (Payne, Miner, JOW, Tyler, eventually Amidon-Bowen.) That's also a diversity issue to be addressed through engaging white parents productively. A thornier issue is re-zoning overcrowded HS and MS like Deal and Wilson. There, white parents are basically totally against "losing" what they think they have the right to. I'm not sure how to deal with that issue. Where integration doesn't seem to be an answer is the all-black high at-risk schools in all-black neighborhoods. At-risk set aside seats in integrated schools is a partial answer; but not the whole answer. There, I don't think you can expect "integration" to do all the work.

As someone noted above, DCPS is a based on a neighborhood school model. In that context, I'm not sure how you can conclude that someone attending a school OOB has a greater right to it than someone currently IB. If a school is overcrowded, the first step should be reducing the OOB slots, rather than adjusting the boundaries. Boundary adjustment is certainly appropriate *after* other steps are taken.