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| Student Demographics in District 15 |
A couple of years ago, I was watching a clip of Beavis & Butt-head with my 8-year
old son. The MTV characters were sitting in the back of class cracking jokes
during class. My son found this confusing, so he turned to me and asked:
"But, Mom, how did they get into a good middle school?"
* * * *
I am a white parent of a 5th grader, and was a member of
the District 15 Working Group that helped come up with the new D15 Diversity
Plan. There has been lots of news about
the Mayor accepting this plan [see NYT, Chalkbeat, WNYC, NY Daily News, NY1, among others] but much has been left
out of the reporting. I’d like to fill in some of the gaps.
There's a reason most of the headlines about the District
15 Diversity Plan have focused on D15's ending of selective middle school
admissions: 10 out of 11 our public middle schools are screened, fostering a
climate where there are "good" schools are for "good" 10
year olds (mostly white) and "bad" schools for "bad"
students (mostly black or Latinx). (Asian students tend to be "screened
out" of the selective middle schools more often than white students but
not as frequently as black or Latinx students.)
With an average of 52% of its students qualifying for free
or reduced-price lunch, D15 has the most affluent student population in
Brooklyn. But because of admissions screens it's also the most internally
segregated. Ending screens will not only place different kids in different
schools, it ends a system that feeds racial and socioeconomic stereotypes as
well as self-serving notions of meritocracy among the privileged. The DOE could
do anti-bias and anti-bullying workshops until the cows come home and it
wouldn't mean a whit without unsettling core cultural assumptions about who
deserves what when it comes to schooling.
But the screened system did more than feed racial
inequity; it caused a lot of anxiety all around. Only children with straight 4s
(including in behavior) could count on a spot at their top choice, while
everyone else lived in fear of getting left behind by more successful peers.
(One 5th grade teacher told me that, at her school, the Friday in spring when
middle school assignments come out is known as “Cryday”.) Which is to say: many
white people hated the old system too, irrespective of their concerns on racial
justice.
- - -
The D15 Diversity Plan, developed through
a community process overseen by urban planners WXY and the
DOE, and with significant parent participation, addresses much more than
admissions screens and recommends other substantial changes for what happens
inside of our middle schools. The full list of recommendations, and an
impressive body of supporting charts, graphs, and background material are all
posted on the website. NEXT STEPS AND WHAT TO WATCH
Perhaps the greatest concern going forward is that the
integration push will lead to ability grouping or “tracking,” which could mean
segregated classes inside integrated schools. The research is clear that this
does not help kids learn and would sustain the stratification that we would
like to eliminate. Anticipating this, the Working Group called for language
explicitly prohibiting tracking in any new programs. In addition, the diversity
plan includes a recommendation to "Provide
support for D15 educators in adopting best practices for academically, racially
& socioeconomically mixed classrooms."
Unfortunately, the recommendations do not address tracking
that is already in place in schools—or provide specific mechanisms for assuring
that tracking does not arise. Monitoring all forms of ability-grouping and
establishing best-practices to assure that all students are academically
challenged and not segregated into rigid tracks will be crucial to successful
integration.
Those of us crafting the recommendations did not want to
be too prescriptive, however. We felt it is important for school administrators
and teachers to be able to foster heterogeneous learning environments in ways
that make sense for their own schools. If the plan was seen as force-feeding an
end to all tracking, we feared, it wouldn't get educator buy-in.
There are also three key recommendations in the Diversity
Plan that the DOE hasn't yet settled on. One has to do with expanding
transportation for 6th graders. Details remain to be worked out in consultation
with the MTA, the Mayor's office, and the Office of Pupil Transportation. One
area that merits targeted concern is Red Hook. This relatively isolated
neighborhood lacks subway access and, according to Red Hook families, the
problems with school bus service elsewhere are amplified here.
The second issue is class size: The recommendations ask
for decreases in class sizes across all D15 middle schools (which average class
sizes up to 32) and to ensure that class sizes of historically disadvantaged
students do not increase. There seems to be an acknowledgment of the importance
of class size by the new Chancellor, but resources remain a substantial
barrier. The DOE can't very well decrease class sizes in this relatively
affluent district without decreasing class sizes where there is even greater
need. Many Working Group participants considered class-size decreases a
"must have"; but at the same time, we didn't want a class-size demand
to sink the whole effort.
The third issue is the Title I cliff: If this plan works
as intended, every middle school in the
district would dip below the 60% threshold of students eligible for free and
reduced lunch [FRL] currently needed for Title I federal funding in Brooklyn
schools. [more on Title One funding here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rlWeVB5W9jqRSu6v0MUlyfE4eaMM5bCI/view] Schools
with FRL rates of 52% to 59% still have a significant amount of poverty and not
enough parent fundraising ability to make up the gap. Title I funding has
helped some D15 middle schools to provide lower class sizes; the impact of
losing that funding would be substantial. But, like class size, this issue
cannot be solved in an isolated district; it demands a citywide approach.
While the DOE wrestles with these questions, District 15
parent and student activists are now contemplating next steps:
●
Connect the
dots between high-stakes-testing and school inequity. The DOE middle
school guides sent out to parents now highlight average ELA and Math scores of
every school. These scores show a clear majority of schools in D15 "failing" their students, some more
than others. So either most of the D15 schools suck (they do not) or the test
score results are lousy measures of school quality. But however you look at it,
highlighting these scores discourages parents from across the socioeconomic
spectrum from attending different schools. I spoke to a black parent from Red
Hook who pointed out that according to the DOE middle school guide, there are
only three schools out of eleven in our district that are "good"
(meaning 60% or more students passing
the state tests). She said she would
send her child to one of those schools
but is wary of risking traveling outside of the neighborhood otherwise. Many white parents feel similarly, so it is
uncertain how well the new admissions system may work to diversify and
integrate our schools, given the overemphasis on test scores in the guide. Revising the middle school guides to replace
state test scores with other quality indicators would be a step in the right
direction.
- Beef up translation services for ELLs and parents. This is included in the plan but I’m mentioning it here to underscore the point: If we want to involve more parents in their children’s education, we need to do more to assure school materials and PTA are accessible. And with a student population that is 42 percent Latinx, we need more Spanish-speaking staff members in classrooms and offices.
- Address existing tracking in D15 middle schools. As mentioned above, we know that tracking is socioeconomically biased and results in segregation within schools. The new District 15 Diversity, Equity and Integration Coordinator needs to work directly with school leaders and community members to develop plans to differentiate learning without sorting children. Anti-bias training alone cannot solve this problem. Smaller classes would help of course to differentiate learning, and are even more important in diverse classrooms.
- End G&T elementary programs in D15. The removal of screens in the district's middle schools should make jettisoning screens at even younger ages a no-brainer, particularly given the stark racial divisions in two out of the three of our G&T schools. A few years ago, these programs were relatively diverse but, with gentrification, the gifted programs have become almost entirely white and Asian, especially in the earlier grades, while general ed classes are almost entirely black and Latinx.
- Promote anti-racist, inclusive practices throughout school communities. Last year, Superintendent Anita Skop started requiring all schools to establish diversity committees under the aegis of SLTs. This freed diversity groups from seeking approval by PTA leaders, which haven't always been responsive to the needs of parents of color, non-English-speaking, or low-income families. District 15 needs some mechanism for connecting these diversity groups, facilitating their development, and encouraging them to share best practices. We don't want this integration effort to result in white parents blaming problems that may arise in schools on "diversity," nor do we want them coming into Title I schools and taking over PTAs.
* * * *
I am grateful to have been a part of the D15 Working Group
and taken part in what felt like a truly democratic, community process. Our
formal work with the DOE and WXY has ended, yet our work has only just begun!
If you are a parent or teacher in D15 who would like to be involved in
furthering the goals of this plan and helping ensure its success. please check
out https://www.d15schools.org, or contact
me at district15schools@gmail.com or on
twitter: @_carriemclaren
--- Carrie McLaren is the parent of a 5th grader at PS 261 and
co-founder of the Coalition for Equitable Schools.
