St. Louis seems to be going through desegregation time machines.
In a recent New York Times article, the writer picked up on the racial sentiments reminiscent of forced bussing in the Confederate states after the landmark case Brown vs. Board of Education. It felt like an ugly time warp when I heard the views of parents, politicians and school officials from the receiving districts. The issue is one of complexities but not impossible to work through if stakeholders have the political and moral will to do so.
I wonder why a couple of generations since the St. Louis desegregation case that officials are still stuck on stupid. Missouri Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro claims that the current situation is “uncharted territory.” No, it’s not. History is repeating itself and it’s going to be another hot mess.
There has been no preparation on the home district’s part to let their students understand what awaits them in these mostly hostile districts. Neither have receiving districts to prepared their staff, students and parents on how to create an environment of fairness and inclusion.
In a recent Missouri Supreme Court ruling now allows transfers of students from unaccredited school districts to accredited school districts with home districts footing the bills. Just days before the start of school, parents in Normandy and Riverview Garden School districts scurried around to find appropriate schools for their children.
Normandy school officials chose Frances Howell District; Riverview selected Mehlville and Kirkwood districts. What this means is that these are the only schools that the home districts will reimburse; if parents chose other districts, they’re on their own. And while no district can refuse transfer students, some are already raising the bar for exclusion. Pattonville says transfer students are quite welcome to come to the district. One small detail: transfer students will have to pay their tuition in advance–$14,400 a year.
There’s been a law on the books since 1993 that was supposed to scare failing districts into doing better. Kind of like the law that triggered sequestration when Congress couldn’t agree on spending cuts, it was never supposed to have to be enforced.
Lawmakers, school officials and the justices have been throwing the flaming football to one another at least since 2007 when parents in the then unaccredited St. Louis Public School district filed a law suit to force the first ruling of the State’s High Court. Lawmakers could have been proactive and helped to set some guidelines but instead they held out to see what the courts would say. The Supreme Court punted back to the St. Louis County Circuit Court where the law was struck down only to be upheld by the Supreme Court again. I felt like black children were literally been kicked about—unwanted.
During the St. Louis deseg program, I was part of a team that had to do damage control in the mainly white school districts–holding sensitivity trainings, setting up student mediation programs, etc. I saw first-hand the lack of foresight by all involved and black kids mainly being the collateral damage.
In the period since deseg, I’ve talked to hundreds of black students who survived but were traumatized by their experience (I’m talking real post traumatic stress syndrome.) No one—not even their parents—could understand what it meant to be bussed into schools were you were unwanted, enduring covert and open acts of racism from teachers and administrators. Many students, now grown, would tell me they had no language to describe to others what was happening to them (of course not, they’re kids!). Others would say they couldn’t tell their parents because it was them who sent them into the lion’s den under the naïve guise of getting a “better” education. A few even expressed bitterness still towards their parents for their negative experiences.
There are geographical, racial, cultural and socio-economic realities that are being ignored once again. What we’ll see when these school cultures collide is more fights, more suspensions/expulsions, more marginalization, more tracking, more of all that’s not good for black, working class students. African American children deserve better. When we will give them a fighting chance at school success?
