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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm watching the DC Council Hearing on the education related agencies (UDC, DME-Deputy Mayor for Education, State Board of Education, DC PCSB, etc). The testimony from the EmpowerEd group is that the DME must be focused on school integration as a priority and push the necessary school boundary changes that lead to integration goals even if there is pushback.

What are your thoughts? I have lots of priorities for education like more gifted programs, improved middle school options, better curriculum, support to keep teachers in the profession, etc but changing school boundaries for the purposes of integration isn't high on the list.[/quote]

What does “more” integration even mean in DC. It’s one of the most integrated districts in the country [/quote]

They didn't define what it meant. The specific testimony was [i]&quot;And when we do boundary studies with the knowledge that school
segregation is still a profound problem and integration is a powerful tool for improvement- we need courage from the DME to actually make courageous decisions (even if there is pushback) to work towards real school integration.&quot;[/i][/quote]
Real integration has never been tried, apparently [/quote]

DP: Defining the terms matters a lot, especially in DC where the public school system is minority white. Without a definition, you have no idea what the goal of your policy actually is. What is &quot;real integration&quot;? That is the starting point of any meaningful discussion.

I have seen advocacy reports that define the goal of integration as policy choices aimed making sure minority students are not attending schools where 80% of the school population is minority (non-white) That's the minimum; more diverse is better. But white students in DCPS account for only 18% of the DCPS population. See https://dcps.dc.gov/page/dcps-glance-enrollment

Once you have a definition of &quot;integration,&quot; the follow up questions are about how to achievine it. Even with bussing, are there enough white students in the public system to make that definition of integration happen in every school? And even if the numbers worked, how practical is it to take the small number of white students in DCPS and spread them across the city just to achieve an artifical integration number that ultimaltey creates fewer schools with diversity. That's not good policy and likely would have the opposite of its intended afftect. DC knows this; the VA and MD suburbs are too close and accessible.

My understanding of DCPS's policy and efforts on integration over the last few decades, because of those numbers, is to retain white families in sufficient numbers so that more schools naturally get to the 20% non-minority number. The retenion policy is one part, the other part is giving as much flexibilty and choice to families as practical so that people voluntarily move around within the system instead of leaving the system (lottery, charter, and application schools), hoping for more students to end up at integrated (minimum &lt;80% minority) schools. A third part is addressing housing policy so the population itself moves around (but stays in DC -- this is key).

If you look at DCPS over the past several decades, you can see the effectiveness of these policies, as both the number of white families retained has increased (from 3.5% in 1982, to 12% in 2015, to 18% in 2025), as has the number of DCPS schools that meet this &lt;80% minority definition. Many charter schools and most private schools in DC also meet this definition of integrated.

Note that by 2011, DC's overall population was no longer majority black. However, in 2024, the stat for children under 18 living in DC was still only 22% white, so DCPS's 18% white statistic is pretty darn good considering.
https://datacenter.aecf.org/data/tables/8874-race-ethnicity-of-child-population-by-ward#detailed/3/any/false/1096,2545,1095,2048,574,1729,37,871,870,573/3498,2161,2159,2157,2663,3499,3307,2160|838/17761,17762

So the first question in their policy debate needs to be, what does a more integrated DCPS look like? What is the goal in numbers, and where is DC now against that goal? Does that &lt;80% definition work for DC? Does it work at all in 2026 given population changes? Maybe the definitoin should be about more than white/non-white in today's world? Maybe the goal should be fluid based on overall population? But without a definition, you can't measure success or set, let alone sell, the policies.
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