Segregation in Public Schools: Poverty and Racism

April 20, Ferris State University celebrated the fifty-first anniversary of the the Brown vs. The Board of Education decision. A roundtable discussion took place on the issue of segregation in public schools in the new millennium. Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell, Superintendent Bert Bleke of Grand Rapids, Emily Aleman of the West Michigan Hispanic Center, and David May of the Institute for Healing Racism discussed the sad reality of resegregation in public schools.

Today, nearly 8 out of ten children in GRPS are minorities, latinos and blacks. Juan Williams of NPR visited Ferris State University last week, and labeled this type of segregation as hypersegregation. Hypersegregation is where minorities are the vast majority of students in schools. Even a half century after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling Brown vs. The Board of Education decision, which supposedly ended school segregation, schools are becoming increasingly segregated.

Mayor Heartwell of Grand Rapids stated that white parents are withdrawing their children from inner city schools and moving them to schools where there are less blacks and Latinos. According to Heartwell, “this segregation is a product of the human imagination… segregation is not inevitable and social order has nothing to do with it.” These trends only exacerbate the crisis at hand. Middle class parents choose to send their children to white dominated schools in the suburbs, to private religious schools, to charter schools, and to other schools that are further from the inner city populations. He believes that the separation of races is a form of inequality because of the lack of resources available to minorities in the inner city schools. He says that de facto segregation has become reality after the Brown vs. The Board of Education decision.

Superintendent Bert Bleke stated that poverty and racism are the makeup of this crisis and. He said the problem is made worse by the lack of funding in these urban schools. Bleke believes the education crisis is a social crisis. This year alone, Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS) is operating in a $15 million budget deficit, faces high poverty rates, low test scores, low parent involvement, and diminishing resources. In five years, ninety percent of the children attending GRPS will be living below the poverty line. Research has shown that low achievement is closely correlated with lack of resources. Numerous studies have documented the correlation between low socioeconomic status and low achievement. It’s no wonder that 11 GRPS schools have not met Adequate Yearly Progress for four or five years in the No Child Left Behind Legislation. Bleke said, “Most urban children are coming to school with a vocabulary that is three to four thousand words less than that of the predominantly middle class children. That is like starting a 100-yard dash 20 yards behind.”
According to recent studies, Grand Rapids is not alone. Since 1986, in the 236 largest school districts, which compose of one third of all students in the United States, black and Latino students are becoming more racially segregated from whites in their schools.

Bleke says that the gap between black and white children in education is widening. He thinks the isolation of minorities is leading to more anger among communities. Blacks and Latinos are feeling more disconnected from society. According to Bleke, those feelings of anger could lead to such problems in the future as riots. Heartwell stated that segregation is also very noticeable in housing, church and work life. Bleke said that neighborhoods share the responsibility with the schools to find a solution to this crisis. He also said, “The kids are bright and the teachers are excellent, but under the tough conditions that these children live in, the crisis of educating urban children should be one of America’s top priorities.”

According to David May of the Institute for Healing Racism, inner-city public schools need change. He said, “Problems in these schools are starting to hemorrhage; they have fallen behind and cannot catch up.” May said, “There is an absence of diverse thought; lack of diverse curriculum and staff; and enrollment is declining… change comes when those in leadership make that change a priority.” May believes that the current system has operated “inside-the-box” and that radical thinking is needed to correct the current system. All the panelists agreed that it can be changed. They called upon all generations to look for creative ways to end this injustice to society. May states that the solution is dialogue, “Dialogue can create a voice on how the system will look in the future… parents and communities can educate the system through dialogue.”