Economic Integration in Schools

In Greenwich schools, he said, “they teach ice-skating.” His wife, Veronica Llerena, who works as a housekeeper and a cashier at a Peruvian restaurant, added, “They have everything — music, sports, art, drama.” She and Bonilla, who farmed a small plot in El Ejido in Andalusia, recently left because “in Spain, he has no future,” Bonilla said, pointing at their 4-year-old son, Manuel Jr., who was sleeping in his mother’s arms. In Greenwich, they thought he did.

In his column this week, Adam Davidson looks at one of the wealthiest towns in America, Greenwich, Conn., and the research examining how well poor kids do when they attend schools that wealthy kids do.

Schwartz still isn’t exactly sure why poor kids do so much better when they are surrounded by wealthier ones, but the stability of wealthier districts probably plays a role. (“High-poverty schools are often lurching from crisis to crisis,” she told me.)

Or maybe that’s the exact reason why poor kids do better at these schools? Their education experience is much better at a school that’s not worried about how it’s going to afford things like computers or updating its textbooks.

Photo: eridesign