Raising Our Kids to be Good Neighbors
I attended a talk and performance last night about school segregation and gentrification. I really feel so lucky to live in New York City where I have access to such amazing resources. Seriously, whenever the thought crosses my mind that maybe I should go to graduate school or something, I find something absolutely edifying in my everyday world here.
But anyway this was a particularly edifying experience because I'm now entering the world of education as a parent. And I'm sharing this journey with so many peers and friends. So I think it's worthwhile to be looking at the bigger picture as we make these choices for our children.
I was really astounded by the statistics presented. As support for public education gets more fragmented and distorted, the nationwide public school student body is getting browner and poorer. We simply can't look back at our own public school experiences and use those as the blueprints for what public education is now and should be. I don't think I truly realized this.
The story of gentrification is not the invention of the white hipster. Racial migrations have occurred over and over again in our country. People have always been moving for better opportunities at the same time that other people have been displaced or red-lined out of them. That's our history.
I don't know how to reconcile what we know about our history and our public policies with our apparent unwillingness to deal with the negative consequences. New York City is the second most segregated school system in the country. If you live here, you know that the city is one of stark inequality living within this dream of progress and ambition. We're a model of talking the talk, but not always walking the walk. So how do you get people to walk the walk?
I'm heartened by the work and scholarship of The Public Good Project at Teachers College, Columbia University. They're doing difficult work with some local schools to navigate the perils and pitfalls of gentrification. One thing that really stayed with me about their presentation was how they talked about these changing schools and neighborhoods as fragile. Not weak. Not bad. But precarious and in dire need of robust and multidimensional support. This strikes me as true for all our modern macro and micro relationships. We all have to be thinking more deeply about what it participate in the public arena as an individual and a member of a larger group. What kind of communities do we think we're building? What does the evidence tell us about what we're actually building?
One of the students performing said something along the lines of school being the first step we take in the public sphere. I think about this a lot. Because we've been hearing about these gross inequities in public education for a long time. And there have been so many reform movements and experiments.
So what is my personal responsibility in this narrative? Louie is now attending kindergarten in a public school in New York City . It's a district school (and we also registered him at our zoned school and at a charter school, but ultimately decided to matriculate here), but his class is tracked as gifted and talented. Of course, it is patently ridiculous to track children so early, and I do not believe that those test scores say anything truly substantial about any child's abilities or potential. The data is clear also that there is real and persistent disparity in who gets these coveted GT seats. I felt and still feel so conflicted about our fortune in getting one. Every parent wants the best for their children, but how do we affect change and challenge this notion of competitiveness as an absolute good?
Children are not pawns. Every family has the right to assess their situation and make the schooling decision that is right for them. But I do think we have to be aware and wary of the lens through which we may be viewing our choices. The researchers talked a lot about gentrifying neighborhoods being viewed and judged through a deficit lens that discounted the value of the communities that already existed there. When we talk about test scores or the safety of a school, what are we really talking about? Do we care about achievement or racial and socioeconomic uniformity?
I really love Louie's school. It's warm and student-centered. All parents are welcomed there. They go outside every day. His teacher is caring and knows what she's doing. It seems like all the classes are like this, not just the GT ones. I have no idea what the test scores are like (though I imagine they're fine given the neighborhood the school is in). This is what I want for every child in America. How do we get there?
I think the answer lies in being a good neighbor, in building relationships and in thinking of our individual lives as connected to a greater community. There are so many constraints on where people are able to live and on how we can influence and push back on public policies that favor power and money over real people. The poor are always held accountable for their failing schools and neighborhoods. We need to hold ourselves, our corporations and our government accountable for enabling and/or ignoring that poverty. We can know our neighbors and the businesses that make up our communities. We can go to community board meetings. We can support the neighborhood school with our money or time, even if our children are not enrolled. We can be informed about what our elected officials are doing. We can weave this gnarled fabric of public life together and value every thread.
But anyway this was a particularly edifying experience because I'm now entering the world of education as a parent. And I'm sharing this journey with so many peers and friends. So I think it's worthwhile to be looking at the bigger picture as we make these choices for our children.
I was really astounded by the statistics presented. As support for public education gets more fragmented and distorted, the nationwide public school student body is getting browner and poorer. We simply can't look back at our own public school experiences and use those as the blueprints for what public education is now and should be. I don't think I truly realized this.
The story of gentrification is not the invention of the white hipster. Racial migrations have occurred over and over again in our country. People have always been moving for better opportunities at the same time that other people have been displaced or red-lined out of them. That's our history.
I don't know how to reconcile what we know about our history and our public policies with our apparent unwillingness to deal with the negative consequences. New York City is the second most segregated school system in the country. If you live here, you know that the city is one of stark inequality living within this dream of progress and ambition. We're a model of talking the talk, but not always walking the walk. So how do you get people to walk the walk?
I'm heartened by the work and scholarship of The Public Good Project at Teachers College, Columbia University. They're doing difficult work with some local schools to navigate the perils and pitfalls of gentrification. One thing that really stayed with me about their presentation was how they talked about these changing schools and neighborhoods as fragile. Not weak. Not bad. But precarious and in dire need of robust and multidimensional support. This strikes me as true for all our modern macro and micro relationships. We all have to be thinking more deeply about what it participate in the public arena as an individual and a member of a larger group. What kind of communities do we think we're building? What does the evidence tell us about what we're actually building?
One of the students performing said something along the lines of school being the first step we take in the public sphere. I think about this a lot. Because we've been hearing about these gross inequities in public education for a long time. And there have been so many reform movements and experiments.
So what is my personal responsibility in this narrative? Louie is now attending kindergarten in a public school in New York City . It's a district school (and we also registered him at our zoned school and at a charter school, but ultimately decided to matriculate here), but his class is tracked as gifted and talented. Of course, it is patently ridiculous to track children so early, and I do not believe that those test scores say anything truly substantial about any child's abilities or potential. The data is clear also that there is real and persistent disparity in who gets these coveted GT seats. I felt and still feel so conflicted about our fortune in getting one. Every parent wants the best for their children, but how do we affect change and challenge this notion of competitiveness as an absolute good?
Children are not pawns. Every family has the right to assess their situation and make the schooling decision that is right for them. But I do think we have to be aware and wary of the lens through which we may be viewing our choices. The researchers talked a lot about gentrifying neighborhoods being viewed and judged through a deficit lens that discounted the value of the communities that already existed there. When we talk about test scores or the safety of a school, what are we really talking about? Do we care about achievement or racial and socioeconomic uniformity?
I really love Louie's school. It's warm and student-centered. All parents are welcomed there. They go outside every day. His teacher is caring and knows what she's doing. It seems like all the classes are like this, not just the GT ones. I have no idea what the test scores are like (though I imagine they're fine given the neighborhood the school is in). This is what I want for every child in America. How do we get there?
I think the answer lies in being a good neighbor, in building relationships and in thinking of our individual lives as connected to a greater community. There are so many constraints on where people are able to live and on how we can influence and push back on public policies that favor power and money over real people. The poor are always held accountable for their failing schools and neighborhoods. We need to hold ourselves, our corporations and our government accountable for enabling and/or ignoring that poverty. We can know our neighbors and the businesses that make up our communities. We can go to community board meetings. We can support the neighborhood school with our money or time, even if our children are not enrolled. We can be informed about what our elected officials are doing. We can weave this gnarled fabric of public life together and value every thread.
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