Segregated schools are still the norm. Howard Fuller is fine with that
A longtime advocate for black-controlled schools in Milwaukee found an unlikely home among conservatives pushing school choice
A block dominated by houses with peeling paint and patched shingles gives way to the massive dull-brick facade of North Division High School, Fuller’s alma mater. The former Milwaukee schools superintendent and longtime school choice advocate pauses. “It’s hurtful to see what’s not happening here with these kids,” he says.
The school used to be a source of pride for the city’s black community, a stepping stone to middle-class achievement as its graduates went on to become doctors, businesspeople and win election to Congress. In 2016 not a single child at “North,” as locals call it, tested proficient in math according to the state’s education department.
Enrollment has declined from roughly 1,400 students in 1996 to about 350 students today, says the school’s principal, Keith Carrington. In a state that sends one out of every eight black men to prison, the highest rate in the country, this neighborhood bears a disproportionate brunt of the mass incarceration policy, with more African-American men from here locked up than from any other zip code in Milwaukee County.
“Where North is now is part of a conscious effort to sabotage black education,” Fuller says. He acknowledges that there are “well-meaning people in the building … teachers and administrators who have the kids’ best interests at heart.” But he also sees in the school’s decline a long history of white leaders, conservative and liberal, repeatedly asking black families to accept failure for their children.
As racial separation in U.S. schools becomes more pronounced in many places, and as hate crimes against minorities increase in Continue reading: Howard Fuller’s growing movement to expand black-controlled schools
