Dis-integration

Some years ago when I was young and anti-poverty policy was a particular focus of mine, I wrote a paper for a course exploring some strategies for overcoming poverty. The strategies I was exploring weren't primarily focused on lessening inequities in wealth or income; instead, they were more concerned with finding ways to provide the poor with additional social and cultural capital, as deficits in those intangibles can be just as constraining as a lack of financial resources. Even if you can find ways to boost the monetary income of the poor, you still have to find ways to overcome the ghettoization--spatial, social, and cultural--of the poor that I've suggested creates the real gulf between poverty and non-poverty.

One of the tools I examined for helping the poor to forge those social and cultural links is an obvious choice: schools. I discussed the concept of integration:

We do not merely mean a racial integration of public schools, as was attempted in the decades following the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Instead, we prefer a concerted effort to integrate schools by income (something that would achieve racial integration as well, but in a less conscious way). Exposing low-income children to the aspirations and experiences of their middle class peers could have a very positive effect on the learning process, as would increasing their exposure to the level of resources enjoyed by middle class children. Of course, the benefits need not be one-way: both sides of the socioeconomic ladder could benefit from a sharing of perspectives. Income integration of schools has been tried, most notably in Wake County, North Carolina (an area that includes the city of Raleigh and its suburbs).

The New York Times reports that “Since 2000, school officials have used income as a prime factor in assigning students to schools, with the goal of limiting the proportion of low-income students in any school to no more than 40 percent.” The results, particularly for low-income minority children, have been dramatic: "In Wake County, only 40 percent of black students in grades three through eight scored at grade level on state tests a decade ago. Last spring, 80 percent did. Hispanic students have made similar strides. Overall, 91 percent of students in those grades scored at grade level in the spring, up from 79 percent 10 years ago. "

The result of such an integration scheme would be to equalize schools, weaving low-income children into the social fabric as they benefit from the political clout and involvement of their new classmates' parents (who will likely have more luck ensuring the school is provided with adequate resources than low-income parents might).

By all accounts I've seen, Wake County's socioeconomic school integration program has been very successful. Which, of course, means this aggression will not stand, man. Today comes the news that the Tea Party has succeeded in ending this dastardly example of "social engineering." And at the same time they've taken it upon themselves to shit on my thesis that isolating the poor is damaging to them and is instrumental in perpetuating poverty. Have a read:

IN RALEIGH, N.C. The sprawling Wake County School District has long been a rarity. Some of its best, most diverse schools are in the poorest sections of this capital city. And its suburban schools, rather than being exclusive enclaves, include children whose parents cannot afford a house in the neighborhood.

But over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course. Pledging to "say no to the social engineers!" it has abolished the policy behind one of the nation's most celebrated integration efforts.

And as the board moves toward a system in which students attend neighborhood schools, some members are embracing the provocative idea that concentrating poor children, who are usually minorities, in a few schools could have merits - logic that critics are blasting as a 21st-century case for segregation.

So that's that.