Working it out in the neighborhood school

Many people have asked me how things are going at my son’s school. I realized it's been a while since I have written an update about our initial adventure in the neighborhood school in SLPS. I have attempted several times to put into writing what our experience has been, and yet it’s has been hard to do considering we were in the middle of that experience.

In taking time to reflect, I first have to look at what my son and I have brought to this school experience. First of all, this is the first time I have ever enrolled a child into any school. I don't know quite how to behave as a parent. I am constantly surprised at my "mama bear" reactions. This is a new facet of my identity that I am figuring out.

Add to the mix my son, who is quite exceptional. Quirky, actually. We have gone through all kinds of testing to see if he qualifies for special education, both for disability and gifted services. While this is all part and parcel to the school experience, it certainly intensifies everything. On the other hand, I can’t forget that this is the first time that my son has gone to school. And he is only three years old. So of course we had tears for the first few weeks and even months. There are still days where he begs me not to go to school so he can stay home, watch TV, and play with his brother. Even though I know he and his brother would drive each other crazy at home, I still feel guilty.

The only other experience I have had with school is when I was a student myself. Regardless of the school that I attended, the world is admittedly a very different place from when I was in school. My son will experience technology that I did not. He will be required to take tests that I was not required to take. But on the other hand, I intentionally enrolled him in a predominately Black school, while I went to school in a predominately White, segregated community. His experience is already vastly different from mine in that respect. So it has been hard for me to parse out what is the experience of being a new parent and a new kid at school, and the experience of what is "urban" and the neighborhood school.

When I get really honest with myself, I also realize that I have been worried that people are secretly waiting for us to fail. I imagine that they will be relieved when we finally confess that actually the neighborhood school is full of "dangerous" Black children, that the quality of education is inferior to whatever school they have chosen for their children. This is compounded by my own secret fears that I am doing damage to my child. Perhaps it stems from the little comments from my family members about my choice. Comments from well-meaning friends about the psychological damage that can be done to a White child in an all-Black school.

And yet, I have research to back up what I am doing. Evidence to show that explicitly teaching my child about "race" and racism will result in “race”-consciousness, anti-racism, and a healthy White identity. That getting involved in the school and maintaining a relationship with the teacher can add to the overall resources of the school. I have to reassure myself that I really do know what I'm doing. I just haven’t ever done it before.

All of this reflection is similar to the work I do with my research. I have to constantly "separate out a sense of self" from my research activities. That is, as with everything, "me" gets mixed into anything that I'm doing. So even as I try to be objective about getting involved in the local school, "me" is bound to get tangled up in the issues that are already at hand. The activity of separating out what I contribute to the experience in the school is helpful, and only serves to show how much more complex the situation actually is. The value in this activity is that I do not resort to quick and easy answers. I have quoted Charles Payne before: If the problems are complex, then the answers cannot be simple.

I have wanted to be able to write some kind of definitive statement about our experience, but it has seemed so messy and I have not been able to settle on what I want the public to know about this neighborhood school. I feel the need to protect it from the public’s tendency to call anything urban "bad.” But I also want to loudly proclaim that what we really need is more funding. That the education my son receives in the neighborhood school is inferior if for the mere fact that the teachers are paid less and there is no budget for preschool supplies.

I think I have at least come to the conclusion that our school is a good school. And more to the point, it is not a "bad" school. In fact, it would seem that the teachers are all that much better if they can teach without all of the funding and resources that wealthy districts enjoy. So in the end it's a very complex picture. That is, I think, the very point I hope to encapsulate here.  

We are too accustomed to thinking about schools in absolute terms. 
  
We talk about which schools are "good" and which schools are "bad." We have no paradigm for anything in between. But the truth is, that's all we have. Apparently, there are problems that stem from opulent wealth (e.g. “affluenza”), as well as from abject poverty (e.g. hunger, homelessness).

We have violence in all schools. We have children who are struggling to test "proficient" in all schools. There is racism and discrimination in all schools. There are very bad teachers in all schools. And there are wonderful, magical teachers who, despite all the odds, still teach and care for students. And let's not forget the parents, who pack up their children every morning to drive them or send them on the bus to school, including those parents who people say "don't care about education," and yet there they are at the bus stop, waiting in the freezing cold.

The truth is we don't have any perfect schools. We don't have any perfect experiences because schools are made up of humans, who are fundamentally flawed. But we know that there are better experiences than others. And we know that when children have full bellies, they can learn better.  We know that more money in education-terms always improves the overall experience. We know that a good teacher can make all the difference in the world, and that children need engaging instruction and curriculum. And we know deep down that not all children learn in the same way nor on the same day.

That is not to say a "good" school does not have many good things about it, or that a "bad" school doesn’t have many problems that the "good" school never has to face. But this is another example of a "chicken or the egg" scenario. Is the school "good" because people believe it is good, and therefore send their children and their money there, which causes "good" teachers to seek employment there? Is the "bad" school really bad because people believe it is and then send the kids there that nobody else wants? And then situation is compounded when the teachers believe they are teaching the "worst" students, so the students figure, "To hell with it. They already think I'm bad. I might as well go all out.” I believe this is the case.  

Because we construct our own reality, we can help to deconstruct it. 

We have encountered various issues that might be specific to an "urban" school, but I think they are also issues that all schools face. This means that my son has as much chance as anyone else. In fact, he is already privileged. He is getting a free, public education at the age of three years old. That puts him on track to be reading by kindergarten, which puts him on track to enter Harvard University, provided that we are making less than $60,000 a year so he can go there for free.

So my messages is, the suburbs can keep their schools. We're doing just fine in the neighborhood school.

Keep calm and don't White flight

I love positive affirmation. Who doesn't? But I also get that the design of social media allows us to present ourselves only in a positive light. Even when we write about our weaknesses, we are afforded the exact words, phrasing, and humor to make ourselves seem just slightly less than perfect.

So in that spirit, I would like to invite all of you over to my house each weekend to see me cry, threaten to quit everything, and go back on all my principles.

Can't make it? Okay, here's the next best thing:

That time I freaked out and applied to a magnet school.

For those of you not from St. Louis, you should know that a magnet school, true to its name, is a school designed to attract White families to St. Louis Public School (SLPS) district and St. Louis City. Like a magnet. Get it?

It's sounds kind of far-fetched now that we are all "post-racial" (or not), but it wasn't at the time of it's creation. Magnet schools were part of the desegregation program, the Voluntary Interdistrict Transfer Program (VICC), begun in the 1970s. The program had a few goals: 1) increase White student population in the city, 2) increase Black student population in the county, and 3) increase the number of Black teachers. Unfortunately, the last objective has failed miserably. But a limited number of White students did come to the city. However, the Black students who left the city to go to school in the county were the predominant participants of this program, and they continue to be.

*Read "Stepping over the color line: African American Students in White suburban schools" by Wells and Crain for an in-depth look at this phenomenon in St. Louis.

At this point in time, very few White students come from the county into the city. Middle-class White people have been slowly moving back into the city, and magnet schools serve as their first choice for their children. Also, getting into a magnet school requires entering a complicated lottery system. The result is the resegregation of SLPS, as parents with high-status networks navigate the complicated system of magnet and charter schools.

For example, in the Lafayette Square area (i.e. gentrified, upper-class neighborhood) word on the street (i.e. my mother-in-law) has it that a bunch of upper middle-class families (i.e. mostly White) were going to leave the city if they couldn't start a charter school for their kids. In the end, they were able to start a charter school, so we can enjoy their tax dollars for years to come.

Do I sound cynical? Yes, that would be my principles talking.

Because when reality meets my principles, apparently I freak out. Only a few weeks into sending my son to the neighborhood school, I panicked. He was having a really hard time adjusting to school. I felt that the school might not have all the resources that he needed. And so I applied to a magnet school.

Now again, the lottery system is super complex, so to increase your odds of getting in there are a few tricks. Apply early. Select your top two choices carefully. Alter your racial identity if needed. No, seriously, that is the advice that White parents have suggested, only sort of jokingly. Because that last one is illegal.

After I had carefully weighed my options, entered my choices, and maximized the possibility of getting selected, I submitted my application. And then I did some actual research about the magnet schools.

And oh, my gosh, I just replicated the research on school choice.

As a middle-class, White parent, I relied primarily on the reputation of schools rather than concrete information. And what I found in terms of information was disheartening.

While it is true that Metro and Kennard are at the top of the state in terms of test scores, there are quite a few magnet schools that are "failing" according to MSIP, the state accreditation organization. Additionally, the schools that have been labeled as "failing" are also the schools which White middle-class parents have mostly abandoned. Curiouser and curiouser.

This realization shocked me back to my principles. It made me angry. Because while I know you can't tell the whole story from an MSIP score or MAP test results, you would be hard pressed to convince the general public of that. What they see in terms of statistics is what they believe. At the same time, it was a reminder that school quality is largely a social construction. And magnet schools have been perceived as yet another magic bullet, when in fact, they are not.

It made me realize that my son is just a well off in a neighborhood school that actually has a passing MSIP score. And it reminded me that my school is what I put into it. As much as we have already invested in the school in terms of time and money, we will have to stick around for the long haul to see the pay off. Because school reform is a long, slow burn. Solidarity is a commitment.

This leads me to my final point. I had a conversation with a friend recently who suggested that I am really advocating for gentrification. In other words, sustainable social justice requires some that people with resources to join arms with people who have fewer resources. At the time, I internally resisted but couldn't see the nuance for all rehabbers. Here is my delayed come-back.

Absolutely, there is a place for privileged folks like me. However, I see gentrification as a move to replace the local population with privileged people. Solidarity, on the other hand, focuses on low turn-over rates and sustainable growth. It's a subtle, but important different.

So to all my White and middle-class people working for social justice in marginalized spaces (and to myself):

and solidarity on.

How I learned compassion

Matthew 9:13 (NASB)  But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

I started learning compassion when my life started going in a direction I hadn't anticipated.  I hadn't anticipated it because I had tunnel vision.  Most of my closest friends could have called it 10 years out.  My family was not surprised. My professors were not shocked; in fact, they were pleased.  I may have been the only one who somehow still clung to a vision of my life as a stay-at-home mom with tons of kids.  Believing all the things I was taught as a child.  Never questioning.

For the love, I was in denial.  Because ever since I was able to talk I have been questioning, challenging, testing the limits.  Not because I was going to cross the limits.  Oh, no. I was a first-born and a people-pleaser.  The reason I tested the limits was because the limits, as I saw them, were not entirely logical or well thought out.  It seemed like the limits were somewhat arbitrary, actually, and I just wanted to know if anyone else was paying attention.  Yes, I was sent here by God just to keep you on your toes.  You're welcome, Mom.

But here's the thing. I started on a path that involved saying "yes" to a lot of seemingly little choices.  The choices were not so obviously correct at the time.  In fact, I have spent a lot of time feeling regret over certain choices.  In the end, I made choices that seemed like the right way to go.  It made sense in a sort of "die to yourself, crucify the flesh" kind of way.  In other words, they were often the choices that didn't make good financial sense, but somehow amounted to better character.  Or something.

Until here I am.  One husband, two kids.  Full-time doctoral student working on a Ph.D. and teacher certification.  I may be in school for the rest of my life.  Or the next 3 years, whichever comes first.  My husband is now officially a stay-at-home dad.  What's that?  Yeah, you heard me right.  He cooks, cleans, gardens, changes diapers, and generally manages the home. He also is the best arts-and-craft, fort-building, ukelele-playing, baby-snuggler I have ever met. 

One other thing you should know about me--my research focus involves the social construction of "race" and class in education, racial inequalities in education, and anti-bias curriculum.  What, you say?  Well, I couldn't find anything more controversial, so I settled on that topic. 

Actually, there's probably one more thing you should know.  When I stumbled upon my new research topic--because I don't know a better way to described how I landed there--people in my church told me I was making crap up.  Please stop talking about racism.  Thank you.  Except no "thank you."  Which inevitably sent me into a crisis of faith, because if you seriously are in that much denial about our society, I obviously can't believe anything that you say about God or life or anything.  

All of this taught me compassion.  Okay, so I wasn't so compassionate towards the naysayers initially.  I'm working on that.  But I take comfort in the fact that Jesus Christ experienced throughout his life what it was like to be on the "outs."  Like he kept saying that he was God, so the religious leaders called him a heretic.  Stuff like that.

In the Bible in the book of Hebrews it says that Jesus Christ "learned obedience through the things that he suffered."  That word for obedience actually means "attentive hearkening," which people take to mean just straight up submission.  But really I think more than anything, Jesus learned to listen.  He was the ultimate example of someone who learned to walk a mile in another person's shoes.  He learned, taught and acted compassion.

I know what it's like to have someone tell me I'm probably doing it wrong, and why don't you just stay home with your kids.  I know what it's like for people to think my husband is a "man-fail."  I know what it's like to have people tell me "I don't even know if you're a Christian anymore, what do you believe anyway."

And dear God, I have so much compassion now. 

For every person who has been labeled a heretic.  For every person who was told "don't ask too many questions, that's a slippery slope." For every mom or dad that has people whispering behind their back about their parenting or life choices. For every person who the church has shunned, overtly or covertly.  For every person who feels like no one "gets them" and everyone is judging them (because maybe they are). Single people. Single moms.  Couples without children. Gay people. Black people. Democrats.

And I'm so sorry. 

To every person I have ever judged with my words or my thoughts.  For every time I have argued instead of listening.  For every time I have participated in the behind-the-back whispering.  To every person I shunned because I was too scared of people's opinions.

My message to others, but mostly to myself is this--it's okay to be "different." It's okay to have different opinions about life, God, the Bible, parenting, etc.  It's okay to have disagreements, to make mistakes, and change your mind.  It's okay to say, "I don't know."  And above all, it's okay to really not know.  Because we really don't.  We just don't really know anything. 

And I'm not making excuses anymore for my lifestyle.  We are happy, as a family, as a couple.  This way of doing things works for us, at least for right now. I am not less of a woman or a mother, and my husband is not less of a man or a father.  If anything, we are free to be more ourselves.  I may have ended up here haphazardly, but I'm so glad I did.

White Privilege Is Not in the Bible...or...Why White Christians Need to Pay Attention to Sociology

A few weeks ago, blogger and fellow Southsider, Kenneth Pruitt asked me to answer the question: What form of privilege do you personally feel is most urgent for the church to wrestle with in order to be the community Christ calls it to be? 

This was a great moment for me to stop and synthesize what I have been thinking and writing about for about a year now. I wrote:


"White Christians need to develop a “sociological imagination. 

Sociologists are able to see the world in ways that are supremely helpful to understanding our experience.  Along with anthropologists, they are the ones who describe how “race” is not a biological or cultural reality, but is social constructed.  Going all the way back to W.E.B. Dubois, they are the people who talk about a system of “White privilege,” which is the other side of institutionalized racism.  

White Christians mostly don’t know about these concepts, because to be brutally honest, White churches were helping to maintain Jim Crow laws and racial segregation on Sunday morning and every other day of the week for much of this time.  We absolutely have to listen to what sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists are saying about "race," racial identity, privilege and oppression, because we as White Christians have not been developing a capacity to think about these topics.  If we can listen with discernment, we will begin to understand why it is so critical to be aware of the society in which we live." 

The rest of the post can be found on Kenneth's blog, which I recommend checking out at http://voicilesmotsjustes.blogspot.com/. 

I am still hoping for some dialogue around this topic, so maybe I can give another go at engaging people.  

1)  What form of privilege do you think we most need to engage in the church?

2)  Are the sociological concepts of "privilege" and "oppression" useful for Christians?  If not, are there similar themes in the Bible that might help Christians theorize about "race" and racial inequality?   

3) Other thoughts, opinions, or critiques?  

Urban Education: The messages, myths, and realities

“[Urban schools] tend to be places governed by an overarching sense of futility and pessimism; where colleagues may distrust their supervisors and perhaps one another; where there can be a certain harshness in the way children and parents are dealt with; where many children seem to be disengage much of the time, but not necessarily more so than the teachers; where the levels of human capital are at their lowest; where instruction is uncoordinated and uninspiring; where there are too few resources, and those few are often badly use; where the curriculum is narrow, boring, and frequently changing; where teachers have profound skepticism about “program”; where there is a general feeling of instability—personnel come and go, students come and go, programs come and go—all of it presided over by a dysfunctional bureaucracy” (Payne, 2008, p. 23).

  

This quote comes from Charles Payne's (2008) book So much reform, so little change: The persistence of failure in urban schools.  In no way is he blaming any one particular player in this scenario, least of all the students or their families, but his analysis is supremely useful in that it presents the complicated and complex situation that is "the urban school."  

This past semester, as I went through a course called "Foundations of Urban Education," I was  struggling to put my finger on the solution for urban education.  This is not only slightly naïve, given that I have never taught in a public school, but it also reveals that I have bought into the prevalent ideology that there is a panacea for our educational system.   

I held off posting anything from the course on my blog because I wanted to be able to offer the answer.  But I’m starting to see that’s precisely the point—there is no one-size-fits-all solution.  And typically, any attempt at the next big solution creates more issues than it resolved. As a society, we have a long way to go before we have sufficiently delved into understanding the problems before we start passing more legislation.  

If the problems are complex, then the answers cannot be simplistic. 

This kind of post is fraught with other potential pitfalls. This “problem” of urban education, or education in “at risk” schools, is weighty and controversial at the same time. Works like Payne's help to deconstruct some of the biased messages that are promoted by the media and politicians regarding students in urban schools.  As we examine the factors that maintain socioeconomic and racial inequalities, it should become more difficult to “blame the victim” or oversimplify the issues. 

However, Payne paints a fairly grim picture of urban education.  And as he does, I can’t help thinking about some of my friends who teach in various schools around the metropolitan area who talk about the very kinds of problems that he discusses.  In any case, it seems that I cannot completely discredit what he says.  And therein I see at least one very sticky problem—how can I write about some of the realities in some urban schools, without perpetuating stereotypes? 

For example, I hear people complain about St. Louis Public School District, asking, "Where does all that money go?" implying that "those people" are just wasting time and money, that "they" are incompetent or corrupt.  I now see, however, there could be layers of bureaucracy, accompanied by flagging morale among faculty and staff, which leads to institutional failure.  In this kind of environment, people with strong personalities can take over and contribute to a culture of fear and mistrust. In this downward spin, efficient management goes out the window and the people inside just focus on day-to-day survival. In addition (and this is not frequently cited by the media) schools that serve communities living in poverty need more money than schools in affluent areas to begin with. 

So, again, the situation is far more complicated that anyone knows.

I am convinced that there is some hope in the idea of creating authentic community in schools as a way of breaking the cycle of social reproduction and truly caring for the needs of others.  I also believe that the more we find out what the real problems are--not the problems we think exist or the problems that the media emphasizes--the more we will be able to come up with real, grass-roots solutions.

Reference

Payne, C. M. (2008). So much reform, so little change: The persistence of failure in urban schools. Harvard Education Press. 

What are some of the messages you have heard about urban schools?  Are these messages based in reality?  How do you know? 

"Race" as a social construction

"Race: The Power of an Illusion" is a PBS series and website that tackles the tough questions about "race."  This resource has helped me tremendously in clarifying my discussions and writing. Understanding the concept of a "social construction" takes time.  Realizing that "race" is not genetically or culturally-based is sometimes a new idea for many folks.  I can't explain it better than these folks have, so here is this resource again.  Enjoy!

References

Herbes-Sommers, C., Strain, T. H., & Smith, L. (2003). Race: The power of an illusion [Television Series]. San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel & Independent Television Service.

Race: The Power of an Illusion Website. (2003). PBS. Retrieved August 14, 2012, from http://www.pbs.org/race/

"Culture of povery" and achievement ideology

"The problem is not that lower-class children are inferior in some way; the problem is that by the definitions and standards of the school, they consistently are evaluated as deficient" (MacLeod, 2008, p. 101)

Jay MacLeod  (2008) so brilliantly lands on this conclusion more than 30 years ago in his epic ethnography "Ain't no makin' it: Aspirations and attainment in a low-income neighborhood." MacLeod followed two groups of boys for a year, the "Hallway Hangers" (White teenage boys) and the "Brothers" (Black teenage boys).  He was then able to catch up with this same group of men 8 years later, then 20 years later, offering a rare longitudinal qualitative study in the realm of education and sociology. 

MacLeod offers a counter-narrative to the overly simplistic rationale of a "culture of poverty" by analyzing the underlying logic of the two groups of boys. From their perspective, it seems that there are only two options for the youth in this impoverished East Coast neighborhood: resist the achievement ideology put forth by the educational institution and fail quickly, or accept the achievement ideology and fail slowly.   

For the Hallway Hangers, "the possibility of upward social mobility is not worth the price of obedience, conformity, and investment of substantial amounts of time, energy, and work in school" (MacLeod, p. 106).  A loss of agency and self-esteem are at stake for these boys, as well.  The Brothers, on the other hand, seem to have internalized their own oppression, what MacLeod calls "anticipatory socialization." Regardless, with one exception, at 20 years later neither the men who had "tried hard" nor the men who had "given up" had managed to escape their social class.

Simply put achievement ideology that says if you work hard, you will succeed.  There are many stories of social mobility, but people generally achieve relatively modest gains or losses in the grand scheme of the whole social order.  The true "rags to riches" story rarely happens. MacLeod's narrative contributes further to the idea that divisions between racial groups only serve to solidify the position of all the lower class at the bottom of the economic hierarchy. 

MacLeod's work does not downplay the devastating effects of poverty on families, individuals and entire communities.  If anything, he gives a compelling and realistic picture of poverty. However, the picture he paints is far from simplistic; the interaction between structures and human agency is complex and profound. 

 Overall, he argues against the idea that young people in poverty fail to achieve because of their inherited "culture," and instead contends that the structures and ideology upholding a rigid class-system in this country are the very same forces that inhibit social mobility. 

This work also forces me to remember that social construction of "race" through laws and institutions was always about the preservation of the upper class.  While "race" has become the most salient aspect of our identity, class is surely only a few steps behind.  Regardless of a person's racial identity, we are more or less bound to the class into which we were born, although "race" certainly impacts the "more or less."  

It seems that the larger community of educators was not truly listening to the theoretical framework and powerful stories put forth by MacLeod because we are still having conversations surrounding the "culture of poverty" and its impact on educational achievement.  The role of the educational system should not be underestimated in how it promotes social reproduction by privileging one set of cultural values and linguistic codes, while disadvantaging others. 

"Whereas force and coercion often have ensured the cohesion of societies and the maintenance of oppressive relationships, ideology is more important in fulfilling this function in contemporary America" (MacLeod, 2009, p. 113). 

So it seems there are layers upon layers that reify the hierarchy that keeps the rich getting richer and the poor, poorer. 

References

MacLeod, J. (2008). Ain’t no makin’ It: Aspirations and attainment in a low-income neighborhood (3rd ed.). Westview Press.