Critical Reflection #4 — Desegregation and Integration
In “The Myth That Busing Failed”, Nikole Hannah-Jones talks about the myth that busing a failure. Busing actually was extremely effective, especially in the South. At first, the South completely rejected the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education. They wanted segregated schools at any cost. Integration caused a lot of backlashes and in some places, they abolished public schools. White children received private vouchers paid by public tax dollars to attend private academies, while black children didn’t go to schools at all. Ten years later, the South became the most integrated region in the country. Busing was successful in the South because the South only had one big school district that would cover a single big city and all of its suburbs and rural areas. It was easy to bus people around and many people in the South simply dealt with it.
In the North, it was very different. When Brown v. Board of Education ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, the North initially agreed with the ruling because they thought that it didn’t apply to them. They thought that the ruling was targeted at the South to treat black citizens as citizens and that it only applied to segregation that was explicitly written into the law. In the North, most of the school districts were determined by gerrymandering which maintained separate schools and housing areas for whites and blacks. In many of the schools in the North, the black schools were receiving sometimes half the funding of white schools. Black schools were often overcrowded and some black students were required to come in shifts meaning that they would only get about half the education as white students. Black students in the North were facing similar conditions as black students in the South, and achievement tests reflected that. Busing wasn’t very successful in the North because they had several school districts in a single county and if white families didn’t want their kids to attend integrated schools, they could just move a couple of miles away into an all-white community. It was important to tell the stories of what was happening in both the North and the South because they had very different views on the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education and both had different outcomes from busing. Busing was very beneficial for breaking up racial caste.
The black kids who attended desegregated schools did narrow the racial achievement gap and their future lives. They were less likely to live in poverty, more likely to graduate from college, earn more money as an adult, less likely to get involved in the criminal justice system and live healthier and longer lives. Busing allowed for equal education and it allowed facilities to improve. Hannah-Jones claimes that, “busing was actually the most effective tool. And it was the most effective because it was the most immediate…And I think it was because it was so immediate and because it was so effective that that’s why wee fought against it so hard. Because we really didn’t want to desegregate our schools. We just wanted to pretend that we wanted to. We killed busing because it worked too well…Busing did not fail. We failed.”
In “The Problems We All Live With,” Nikole Hannah-Jones talks about an unaccredited school district and the affects on the students. Hannah-Jones talks about the importance of integration. Between the years 1971, when desegregation began and 1988 when integration was at its peak, the achievement gap between white and black students was cut in half. If integration continued, Hannah-Jones believes that we could’ve gotten close to eliminating the gap altogether. Integration was proved to be very successful. It allowed black students who received an education (or rather lack of education) from less experienced and less qualified teachers, had worse course offerings, less access to upper-level courses, worse facilities, and many of the students were in poverty, to have access to the same facilities as white students who had better quality teachers and quality instruction. If a student is behind, and they are surrounded by other students who are also behind, it is very unlikely that they will catch up. However, if the student who is behind and is surrounded by students who are advanced, they are often able to catch up.
Hannah-Jones talks about the Normandy School District, which was stripped of accreditation in January 2013. It had been on probation for the past 15 years, meaning it was still running, but the students weren’t receiving a good education and many of the credits would not count. When the school district became unaccredited the school remained open but, the transfer law allowed students to transfer to Francis Howell, a school 30 miles away from Normandy, for free. White parents of Francis Howell were against the transfer, as they were worried about their child’s safety, having black students integrated. At the town meeting, one woman spoke about her experience with the desegregation program that happened in St. Louis generations ago. She stated that it was a good opportunity for her. “It was hard, but it was also necessary. And for the most part, it worked. In the schools where white families chose to stay, test scores for black transfer students rose. They were more likely to graduate and to go to college.” “With Brown versus Board of Education, we as a nation decided that segregated schooling violated the constitutional rights of black children. We promised that we would fix this wrong. And when it proved difficult, as we knew it would be, we said integration failed instead of the truth, which is that it was working but we decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.” This quote really stuck out to me because it shows that many people realized that desegregation and integration were in fact working and beneficial, but people didn’t want to put in the hard work to make it continue, which is very sad for the students who have to deal with the setback. Later on, the Normandy School District became bankrupt, which allowed the state to intervene and take over. The state gave the district a new name: Normandy Schools Collaborative, which gave it a new accreditation. This meant that the transfer law no longer applied, so the students who had transferred were forced to go back to Normandy. The school district still had poor facilities and poor teachers.
These podcasts seem very relevant to my community partner, as the Sausalito Marin City School District is about to take action on desegregation order in the upcoming school year. I talked a lot about this in my last reflection, but just to reiterate, Bayside MLK Academy has a large African American and Latino population and Willow Creek Academy is primarily White. Here in Marin, segregation exists, which is very shocking for me. My hometown is just across the bridge, and growing up I would go to Marin fairly often. However, I always saw it was an old, White community. If I had never taken my service-learning course last semester, I would have never known that there is such a large Latino community so close to San Rafael, in the Canal. And if I had never taken this service-learning class, I never would have known about the segregation happening in the Sausalito Marin City School District. It’s crazy to see how oblivious I am, and I am sure many other people are too, about the serious issues happening here in Marin. The students that I am working with at Bayside MLK, don’t receive the same education as those at Willow Creek. This is due to the unequal funding and lack of resources. I am hopeful that when the desegregation plan is put into action, that it is successful and that it helps the students at Bayside MLK get a better education. Reading and getting a good education is key to do better in school, graduate, get a good job, stay out of the criminal system and overall, be more successful in life.
Some questions I have for my community partner:
For the staff, are you in favor of merging the two schools, or do you think it will just create more problems?
How large of an academic gap is there between the two schools? And what does the academic gap look like when comparing the races at each school?
