School Segregation: An Update on our Journal's Continuing Coverage

One of the purposes of our blog is to provide updates on topics covered in the Journal of Educational Controversy. Indeed, the journal itself is an experiment in creating a concentrated study of current controversies that is more than a one–time coverage of ideas but rather an ongoing in-depth look at a topic. Many of our journal’s issues have included an introductory section with articles that provide a broader context for understanding the topic, articles written in response to the actual controversy posed, and a section for related issues connected with the topic. The rejoinder section is intended to continue the conversation through peer review responses to the articles and the blog is intended to continue a more informal discussion of the ideas. Even our video series, “Talking with the Authors,” is intended to bring a broader understanding of the ideas by exploring the topic with the author in an interview that provides a look at the person behind the article. And our public forums, that are also videotaped and often made available in the journal, try to continue the exploration of these ideas in the context of a discussion or debate among the authors. Indeed, each issue of the journal is conceived as almost a mini-course on the topic with the conversation continuing into the future, something, we believe is unique for journals. Our goal is to provide a public space where scholars, educators, policymakers and the public can come together and engage in a deeper understanding of the controversies that arise in a pluralistic, liberal democracy.



Our winter 2007 issue on “Jonathan Kozol's Nation of Shame Forty Years Later” tried to do all these things. Dedicated to Jonathan Kozol, who was the journal’s distinguished speaker at our university, the journal published his prologue to the topic along with the video of his talk. The issue was published at the time his new book, The Shame of the Nation, the Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, had just come out. Fortuitously, it was also the time the U.S. Supreme Court had decided to hear arguments in the Seattle case on the use of race as a factor in public school admissions policy in PICS v. Seattle School District No.1 et al. So in addition to the articles in response to the controversy, we published a special section on “Washington State Politics and the future U.S. Supreme Court decision.“ After the issue went online, the High Court rendered its decision and we covered it in our rejoinder’s section. Some key players took part in our public forum that year.


Our Introductory Section for that issue contained a background essay to provide a context for the theme. Gary Orfield, distinguished professor of education at UCLA and co-director of the Civil Rights Project/El Proyecto de CRP, had permitted us to excerpt sections of his 2006 Report on Racial Transformation and the Changing Nature of Segregation. A member of our editorial board provided a short introduction to a selection of excerpts along with a link to the entire report. This morning, we just learned about a new manual that was released by the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA on Integrating Suburban Schools: How to Benefit from Growing Diversity and Avoid Segregation. According to the press release, the manual is intended to provide “invaluable guidance for education stakeholders in suburban school districts — including school board members, parents, students, community activists, administrators, policymakers and attorneys “ as they try to achieve “positive and lasting multiracial diversity.”


The 2010 census indicated a very large movement of African American and Latino families to suburbia. As CRP Co-director Gary Orfield notes, “Many hundreds of suburban communities that were all-white when they were constructed, and had experienced little diversity until the recent past, are now facing important questions about how they can achieve lasting and successful integration and avoid the destructive resegregation by race and poverty that affected so many areas in the central cities a half century ago.”


The manual offers the following information:

• A comprehensive discussion of the critical importance of diverse learning environments in racially changing suburban school districts.


• The history of court-ordered desegregation efforts and an overview of the current legal landscape governing school integration policy.


• General legal principles for creating racially diverse schools.


• The vital role that teachers and administrators play in building successfully integrated schools and classrooms.


• Specific examples of suburban school districts promoting high quality, inclusive and integrated schools.


• Strategies for teaching in racially diverse classrooms.


• Methods for building the political will and support in your community for voluntary integration policies.


• An extensive and reader-friendly list of education and legal resources including easily disseminated fact sheets on important topics related to school diversity.

Our readers can download the manual by going to the website of the Civil Rights Project at: K-12 Research Section.  The press release also indicates that the manual may be copied or reprinted and used in classes without permission or payment.

The Journal is now on YouTube

In the interests of getting these educational issues to the largest audience possible, we have begun posting excerpts from our "Talking With the Authors" series. First up is former Ballard High School principal David Engle.

In the fall of 2000, David Engle became the principal of Ballard High School in Seattle. At the time, the Seattle School was implementing an integration plan that allowed families to choose which high school they would like to attend. In the event of high enrollment at a particular school, the district had made provisions for a "racial tiebreaker" to be used, giving minority groups priority over the substantial population of white students in the area. When, after the protests of many of the white neighborhoods in the Seattle area, the 9th Circuit Court ruled against use of the "racial tiebreaker," Engle resigned his position in protest.

Stay tuned for excerpts from our interview with Aaron Caplan, and our forthcoming interview with Bill Lyne.


Go to the video on YouTube.

David Engle's article, "As Our Students Watched," first appeared in our Winter 2007 issue "Jonathan Kozol's Nation of Shame Forty Years Later."

Click here to watch our full interview with Engle.

The Obama Effect?

At the Journal, we have long been concerned with the effects of race and poverty on NCLB test scores. Our current issue addresses this theme in depth, while Jonathon Kozol, subject of our second issue, has famously criticized NCLB and its relation to economically and racially disadvantaged areas--and criticized leadership that ignores those findings. See his book The Shame of the Nation (267)

Famous Harvard and Princeton studies on race and performance backed up Kozol's criticism with an even more surprising finding that “it is the targets of a stereotype whose behavior is most powerfully affected by it. A stereotype that pervades the culture, like "ditzy blondes" and "forgetful seniors" can make people painfully aware of how society views them--so painfully aware, in fact, that knowledge of the stereotype can affect how well they do on intellectual and other tasks.”

The effects of these findings, when regarding African-Americans, may see a drastic change from President Obama’s election.

In this article, researchers at the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management administered a standardized test to a mixed group of blacks and whites four times during the process of Obama’s run. The further the president got, the better the minority subjects of the study did. They were told that the exam was “created by the Massachusetts Aptitude Assessment Center, and is used as a diagnostic tool to assess verbal problem-solving ability”—a ruse meant to activate the stereotype that blacks don’t do as well as whites on aptitude tests.

After Obama’s election, among students who watched the speech, the achievement gap was roughly equal.

The possible consequences of this study, though it will require follow-up studies to confirm the hypothesis, are incredible. Obama’s example as a black man in power might serve as a psychological reinforcement to the black children of America who disproportionately attend underfunded, poverty-ridden schools that underperform on standardized tests. A picture of a black President might be worth a thousand motivational words. In the spirit of the Obama campaign, we will hope.

What Does it take to Eliminate the Achievement Gap for African American Students?

In our winter 2007 issue, the Journal of Educational Controversy had a special section on Washington state politics. Among other articles, we published the position papers prepared by the Multi-Ethnic Think Tank (METT) in Washington State. The Multi-Ethnic Think Tank is an umbrella group that comprises individual think tanks - African American, Asian and Pacific Islander American, Hispanic American, Native American and Low Socio-Economic think tanks. It is a community inspired coalition aimed at making a difference for the education of its children who are struggling in our public schools. For a personal critique, read Thelma Jackson’s separate article, “Educational Malpractice in Our Schools: Shortchanging African American and Other Disenfranchised Students” in our journal’s Volume 2 Number 1, Winter 2007 issue on the theme, Jonathan Kozol's Nation of Shame Forty Years Later.

For readers who are interested in learning about the state's response to these ongoing community concerns, we have an update. During the 2009 legislative session, the Washington State Legislature is considering the problem of the achievement gap. A statewide advisory committee, which included some prominent METT members like Thelma Jackson, was created following passage of House Bill 2722 in the 2008 legislative session. Its charge was to investigate the African-American student achievement gap and recommend solutions to the problem. The committee has now presented its report, "A Plan to Close the Achievement Gap for African American Students," to the legislature. In a press release on the website of the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Mona Humphries Bailey, committee co-chair, says "We want to make sure that our State's 57,700 African American students are no longer left behind. We want to make sure that the system cares about them and that it sees them in all their individuality and potential." A copy of the report can now be read online.