School segregation in my very blue state. 6th worst in the country.

[kwassa]

I'm getting very depressed by this information. Living in a liberal state seems to have little to do with diversity in schools and equitable outcomes.

As we re-segregate America ...

More than half of Maryland’s black students attend schools where the vast majority of students are nonwhite and poor, according to a report released Thursday that documents intensifying segregation patterns in the state’s public schools over two decades.

Fifty-four percent of Maryland’s black students were enrolled in schools where at least 90 percent of students were members of racial and ethnic minorities in 2010, up from about a third in 1989.

In Prince George’s County — where white enrollment decreased from 28 percent to 4 percent during those two decades — nine of 10 black students attend a school where at least 90 percent of students are minorities. Nearly four of 10 black students go to what the Civil Rights Project report calls “apartheid schools,” where 99 percent of students are minorities.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/report-half-of-black-students-in-maryland-attend-segregated-schools/2013/04/18/9097c29a-a83e-11e2-8302-3c7e0ea97057_story.html

and from the report that generated this news story:

Federal and state policy since the Reagan era have simply ignored patterns of
relationships between segregation and inferior opportunities and embraced the ideas that one can
ignore these relationships and achieve equal outcomes by increasing accountability pressure on
students, teachers, and administrators with lower achievement levels or by setting up charter
schools or other forms of competition. Educators are told that if they have the right expectations
they can overcome all of these obstacles. Enormous public and professional pressure is brought
to bear on low achieving schools. It is, of course, good to have high expectations, challenging
goals, and accountability, but three decades of serious implementation of these policies have left
the basic patterns of inequality between high poverty segregated schools and middle-class white
and Asian schools largely untouched. Punishing the teachers does not solve this problem. Badly
managed, it makes life grim for good teachers in schools under unfair pressure and gives them an
incentive to leave even more rapidly.

No one has a magic solution for comprehensive integration of schools in Baltimore or PG
County and it would be foolish to claim that there is one. It is equally foolish, on the other hand,
to do nothing about the continuing spread of segregated schools and resegregation of
neighborhoods or not to use school choice and magnet methods appropriately to create integrated
schools where it is feasible. Stably integrated communities are more successful educationally and
socially than resegregated communities which tend to experience rising poverty and declining
educational and job opportunities.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDAQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcivilrightsproject.ucla.edu%2Fresearch%2Fk-12-education%2Fintegration-and-diversity%2Fsettle-for-segregation-or-strive-for-diversity-a-defining-moment-for-maryland2019s-public-schools%2FMARYLAND_4-17-13_POST.pdf&ei=HHSCU9nvG-K_sQTKzYLoDQ&usg=AFQjCNE98GSjCuHV5Q-buWedRcLOy4wvzg&bvm=bv.67720277,d.cWc

[n2doc]

1. I'll tell you what

If the "apartheid" minority-dominant schools were funded at, say, 3x the dollars per student that schools in affluent districts were funded, the situation would change in a hurry.

And one would not have to do anything other than make it a funding priority to fund schools with low test scores and low college admission rates. Hold those levels until the schools recover and excel. Of course this will never happen.

[JJChambers]

2. Why not fund all schools equally?

Every student, regardless of race or economic background, deserves an equally good public school education opportunity.

[n2doc]

5. It isn't being done now, and never has.

And frankly, the schools in the minority/poorer districts have been screwed for decades.

I'll bet there would be a lot of folks trying to get into those schools instead of going to private schools if they were funded better.

[LittleBlue]

3. Happening in my state too

And I was in school during the final days of busing before it was scrapped.

Parents hated it and it never really helped solve the problems.

[kelliekat44]

4. Take a step back to one of sources of this: redlining by banks on mortgage loans. The realty

system is the perpetrator. Blacks are shown only homes in certain area and lenders deny loans for purchasing in certain areas. When blacks have the money to pay cash...they can get in certain areas more easily. Take another step back an you will find that credit ratings foster the system. And if you know anyone in the real-estate business they will tell you that credit ratings are easily waived for certain groups and for other groups they become the determining factor even if the minority family has 20% to pay down.

[kwassa]

7. yes, I just read "The Case for Reparations" in the Atlantic ...

though I knew part of the story before, I didn't know all the details.

[dsc]

6. until you solve the housing part of this the education part will never be solved

People won't deal with bussing to end any kind of problem especially racial segregation. No one wants their kids on busses for hours a day no matter what the reason for putting them on the bus is. I don't know how to solve the problem of housing segregation but until it is solved, the schools will continue to be segregated.

[kwassa]

8. the housing is indeed the key.