Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: It's 2011. Are we still OK with school segregation?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: It's 2011. Are we still OK with school segregation?

It's 2011. Are we still OK with school segregation?

Louisiana marker
"If we had a school that was, like, 80 percent high-poverty, the public would see the challenges, the need to make it successful. ... Right now, we have diluted the problem, so we can ignore it." -- John Tedesco, Wake County, N.C. school board
School choice is a mixed bag. On the progressive side, it has meant more options for parents, students and teachers--a building block for democratic education It's a way to give kids more reasons to come to school every day besides compulsory education laws. Choice was also a major component of the early small schools movement, which created smaller learning communities--schools of choice-- both within and outside of neighborhood schools as a way of tapping into students' interests, talents, and life possibilities.

But the language of school reform, including school reform itself, has always been contested territory. School