Educational Leadership - November 2010

Address Housing Equity

Patricia Gándara

Segregation of low-income and ethnic minority students makes closing achievement gaps virtually impossible. Separate is not equal, and never has been.

In addition, this segregation is harmful to all children who will need the skills and experiences to live and work in a multicultural nation.

Two factors are driving school resegregation today. One is a political climate that has fostered acceptance of school segregation. The populace has been made to believe that there is something un-American about reassigning students to schools for the purposes of integrating education. Yet hundreds of thousands of students board school buses daily to arrive at the school of their choice.

The second factor is housing policies that support segregated neighborhoods. Increasing immigration and rising housing costs have created concentrations of single ethnic groups in inner cities where they can find affordable housing. Placing low-income and subsidized housing in integrated and suburban areas would create natural desegregation of schools, but such policies have hardly been pursued in the United States in the last several decades. We have far less subsidized housing than most modern nations, and what we do provide suffers from the NIMBY—“not in my backyard”—syndrome.

advocate for fair and affordable housing in suburban communities and for creation of regional magnet schools that enroll students from a variety of municipalities.

As we work to change laws, regulations, and funding, we must also strive to counteract the negative effects of segregation. Segregation is not merely physical apartness. It cuts students off from the so-called “mainstream” society they must learn to navigate. Therefore, we must deliberately connect students to the society beyond their schools. Vague, rhetorical quests for “ excellence” and unrelenting drilling for standardized tests will not prepare young people for full membership in society. Providing children in high-poverty segregated schools with opportunities middle-class kids take for granted will begin to close the gap. A caring school culture is vital.

Districts must also create more magnet and dual-immersion schools in which students receive instruction in two languages. Dual-immersion schools naturally desegregate students, and middle-class parents wait in line overnight to get their children into strong programs that will enable their children to become multilingual. Mayors and educators also need to talk about how to place attractive new schools in gentrifying inner cities where the new middle class can send its children. It would be good for cities, good for business, and good for the social fabric of the nation.

To change the situation over the long run, we must ( 1) increase subsidized housing; ( 2) locate it in places that will give children access to strong integrated schools; and ( 3) reassign students to schools that will integrate them racially, socioeconomically, and linguistically. These recommendations will no doubt require legislative action, but educators should also organize around these issues. It’s time to stand up and be counted on integration—something that is absolutely crucial to the future of public education. V

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Patricia Gándara is professor of education and codirector of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles; pcgandara@ gmail.com.

So are healthy food, music lessons, art programs, safe recreational space, travel opportunities, and access to mental health counseling—as well as any experience providing first-hand knowledge of life and expectations at colleges and universities and in professional settings. These opportunities are all necessary and, sadly, are not present in the lives of hundreds of kids I’ve known whose zip codes force them to attend schools that cannot provide adequate training for life, learning, and work. V

Susan Eaton is research director at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School; www.charleshamilton houston.org; seaton@law.harvard.edu. Her most recent book is The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial (Algonquin Books, 2009).