Tag Archives: public schools

One front in zoning and development battles: school districts do not necessarily want more students

Posted on by

The words of a suburban school district superintendent regarding a possible Bears stadium and adjacent development highlight one of the current fronts in battles over development:

Photo by CDC on Pexels.com

Palatine Township Elementary District 15 Superintendent Laurie Heinz said that if the special taxing mechanism is implemented — where property taxes above a certain level would be diverted away from schools, as well as other taxing bodies, and into the Bears’ proposed mixed-use project — the district would need financial assistance to add classroom space to schools in nearby Rolling Meadows, or potentially even build a new school within the 326-acre site…

The Bears’ preliminary site plan suggests a significant residential component, from higher-density, multifamily properties of four to eight stories closer to the Metra train station, to lower-density townhouses and multifamily units of two to four stories further south and east through the site.

Heinz said the housing could generate hundreds or even thousands of students.

“We want a seat at the table,” Heinz said at a recent community meeting. “We’re going to fight against it all being TIF’ed because we will need money.

The superintendent is saying that the school district will need money to serve the influx of students that would come through new residential units. Other school districts, residents, or leaders have gone further when considering other suburban projects: they do not necessarily want school students to live in new residential units. Fewer school-age children would save money for school districts and communities in the long run due to not having to provide educational services.

In some ways, this is an odd stance for suburban leaders and residents to take. Much of the suburban sprawl in the United States involved providing spaces and success for children. Property values and a sense of community status are often tied to the performance of local school districts.

But, this focus on children comes with costs. Particularly for mature suburbs, they can struggle to fund schools or residents and leaders push back against the costs of schooling compared to other preferred priorities (such as taxes not going up).

For this particular project, who will adjust: the city not provide a TIF? The developer change the residential units in ways that appeal to certain kinds of residents and not others? The school district finding ways to fit this into particular confines? Stay tuned.

“Creativity of the young” and the digital divide in working student play with technology into learning

Posted on by

I recently saw a Letter to the Editor in the Chicago Tribune that highlighted the savvy use of technology by a seven year old:

Kids can access their parents multiple ways today and vice versa. This letter suggests the observer was “captivated” by this technology use, hinting at the resourcefulness of the boy.

This response is interesting to compare to the findings of a sociology book I recently browsed. In Digital Divisions: How Schools Create Inequality in the Tech Era, Matthew Rafalow found that schools differed less on their access to or use of technology in learning but in how they treated the student’s creative use of that technology. From the conclusion:

The students that I profiled in the previous chapter suggest that kids’ potential as budding technologists gets bifurcated as they pass through middle school. Despite the fact that digital play with peers led to the development of digital skills with online communication, media editing and production, and even the basics of programming logic, these eighth-graders reported different conceptions of whether online play was acceptable or even welcome in schools. While students at a school for mostly White and wealthy youth came to see digital play, including social media and video games, as fun and even necessary for achievement, students at schools serving less privileged and mostly students of color were taught that play at school was either irrelevant or threatening to schooling. Schools differently disciplined digital play, and in doing so, they different shaped how young people came to evaluate their own digital self-worth in these settings. (135)

Restating the argument a few pages later:

My takeaway from this project is that cultural resources are not like a currency you can hand to anyone in exchange for rewards. The students in this study varied by race-ethnticity and social class, and each developed a set of digital skills in online communication, collaboration, and digital production from play with friends online. Despite each student’s access to this knowledge, only students at the school serving wealthy and predominantly White children were given the right to treat their digital knowledge as currency to be exchanged for achievement. The school organizational context determines not only what ideal cultural resources are but also who the buyer can be to facilitate the exchange. Working- and middle-class Latinx and Asian American youth at Chávez and Sheldon had the same resources but were not permitted to exchange them for a reward. (154)

As Rafalow notes, this is what class reproduction – intersecting with race and ethnicity – looks like in today’s world. Just as Bourdieu suggested with art and music, digital technology is widely available but who it is for and how it is supposed to be used differs by group. Is digital creativity lauded and celebrated for a kid who people think might be headed for success and a creative class career or is it discouraged or punished because it is distracting from acquiring necessary skills?

American conflict playing out through local school boards

Posted on by

One of the reasons many Americans like suburbs is the local government and local control over land, local organizations, and how local taxes are used. National debates are now playing out in one such local form of government: school boards.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Local school boards around the country are increasingly becoming cauldrons of anger and political division, boiling with disputes over such issues as COVID-19 mask rules, the treatment of transgender students and how to teach the history of racism and slavery in America.

Meetings that were once orderly, even boring, have turned ugly. School board elections that were once uncontested have drawn slates of candidates galvanized by one issue or another…

School boards are typically composed of former educators and parents whose job, at least until recently, mostly consisted of ironing out budgets, discussing the lunch menu or hiring superintendents.

But online meetings during the pandemic made it easier for parents to tune in. And the crisis gave new gravity to school board decisions. Parents worried their children were falling behind because of remote learning or clashed over how serious the health risks were.

This preference for local input and control is not just limited to suburbs: from the beginning, Americans have generally liked the idea of decentralized power. In the realm of education, there is input from the federal government, state government, and local bodies and districts. Local citizens retain some ability to provide their opinion on local education and to serve on local governments that control budgets and other aspects of local education.

Because of this system, people can work through different channels to address issues they are concerned about. Perhaps they can pressure the national Department of Education. They might seek to influence state boards. They can run for local boards and show up at meetings to voice their opinions. All could be useful in terms of promoting particular educational paths or policies. At the same time, I would guess there is an immediate satisfaction at showing up at local meetings, seeing real people in your community that shape schools, and advocating for change. These are not distant bureaucrats grinding out policy decisions; these are local elected residents who meet at regular times.

In the current moment, decisions made by local school boards help to differentiate different communities from each other. One district might be open to teaching something where another says no. Money may be allocated one way in a particular community while it is not a budget line in another. Board members may claim to represent one part of a community and not others. Local schools are not just about education; they symbolize local priorities and concerns. They help address or reinforce racial, ethnic, class, and gender boundaries in and across communities. Schools are both a part of the status of a community and contribute to that status.

In this article, it sounds like many of the school board battles are proxy fights over national issues. Whether this serves individual communities and their residents well remains to be seen.

Community disparities in COVID-19 cases mean districts and schools will need to respond differently

Posted on by

Given disparities in who is more at risk for COVID-19 (higher proportions of Blacks and Latinos, differences across suburban communities), school districts and possibly even schools within districts might need different plans to address the situation. In the Chicago suburbs, many districts have already announced plans for the start of school.

interior of abandoned building

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Yet, what the plans are and in which communities is interesting to observe. Approaches can vary quite a bit with some opting for all remote learning to start, others going with a hybrid model (alternating attendance), and a few considering more in-person instruction. Wealthier communities that go for remote options may have more flexibility: parents and families can provide for childcare or have adults who can work from home and technology is plentiful. Furthermore, some communities appear to have a lower risk of COVID-19 compared to other places where people work in different kinds of jobs and households are larger. And larger school districts that encompass pockets of residents from different social classes and racial and ethnic groups could have very different situations within their schools. To some degree, this is nothing new: outcomes can vary for students within schools and districts. At the same time, COVID-19 (and other crises) help expose inequalities already present and may exacerbate them further.

That said, it might difficult to develop one-size-fits-all options even at the district level, let alone among county education boards or state education boards, unless there is a lot of homogeneity. The residential segregation common in the United States which then affects who attends what schools as well as  COVID-19 cases means addressing learning and safety together could require flexibility across schools.

Palaces for the People, Part 3: school entries that discourage social interaction

Posted on by

I recently read Eric Klinenberg’s 2018 book Palaces for the People. I have been highlighting a few short passages from the book that make some interesting connections regarding physical places.

Discussing how schools are constructed, Klinenberg contrasts a school in Greenwich Village that was set up in such a way to foster community between parents and guardians versus a suburban setup that discouraged interaction:

But when the academic year began we quickly noticed some major flaws in the otherwise excellent social infrastructure. The campus, while beautiful, is mostly off-limits to parents, who are expected to drop off their children at the entrance and are allowed into classrooms on special occasions only. There’s some space for casual interaction on the sidewalk in front of the school, but it’s not designed for socializing, especially not at the beginning or end of the school day. The reason will likely be familiar to everyone who’s spent time in large suburban schools: the entryway is dominated by a long, roundabout driveway, and every day hundreds of parents drive through it to drop off their children and quickly pull away. It’s a remarkably efficient system – so efficient, in fact, that parents have little opportunity to get to know one another on or around the school grounds. (85)

If the name of the game is efficiency – get as many kids as quickly as possible in and out of school – this might be the best physical setup. If the goal is to encourage community and an interactive time before and after school, this may be the worst way to do it. But, if suburbs are often about “moral minimalism” where residents build community by leaving each other alone, perhaps this is the plan all along.

Looking at how schools could foster community and social interaction makes sense as many American kids and families are already interacting with public schools. With some tweaks to the physical environments of schools, even more social interaction and community might be encouraged. The flip side of this is whether schools continue to be centers of community and interaction even when people do not have children.

This reminds me of the TED talk on suburbs by critic James Howard Kunstler. He has a bit where he shows a picture of the exterior of a school in Las Vegas. From the particular angle, it looks like a prison. This is part of Kunstler’s argument: buildings that cut themselves off from the rest of the community do a disservice to the public. A school that limits social interaction in favor of cars misses an opportunity.

 

When the problems of America come out in the education systems

Posted on by

Two recent articles reminded me of what I wrote in the headline: for many Americans, the problems the country faces are part of the day-to-day realities of the local schools.

First, a report on a recent controversy in the schools in Shaker Heights, Ohio:

Yet in Shaker Heights, healthy race relations are a cornerstone of the community’s identity, the reason many choose to live here, a central organizing principle for the schools…

But the story of Shaker Heights shows how moving kids of different races into the same building isn’t the same as producing equal outcomes. A persistent and yawning achievement gap has led the district to grapple with hard questions of implicit bias, family responsibility and the wisdom of tracking students by ability level. Last school year, 68 percent of white 11th-graders were enrolled in at least one AP or IB course, but just 12 percent of black students were…

The racial tension coursing through the packed auditorium last November traced back to a tense exchange between Olivia and a veteran AP English teacher, Jody Podl, six weeks earlier. Olivia had been dozing in class, playing with her phone. Now, her first big assignment of the year was late. The teacher had admonished and embarrassed Olivia. Olivia’s mom fired off a three-page complaint, suggesting racism and charging bullying. The district put the teacher on leave to investigate.

Second, on enrolling students in New York City’s public schools:

The system that dominates our waking hours, commands our unthinking devotion, and drives us, like orthodox followers of an exacting faith, to extraordinary, even absurd feats of exertion is not democracy, which often seems remote and fragile. It’s meritocracy—the system that claims to reward talent and effort with a top-notch education and a well-paid profession, its code of rigorous practice and generous blessings passed down from generation to generation. The pressure of meritocracy made us apply to private schools when our son was 2—not because we wanted him to attend private preschool, but because, in New York City, where we live, getting him into a good public kindergarten later on would be even harder, and if we failed, by that point most of the private-school slots would be filled. As friends who’d started months earlier warned us, we were already behind the curve by the time he drew his picture of the moon. We were maximizing options—hedging, like the finance guy, like many families we knew—already tracing the long line that would lead to the horizon of our son’s future…

New York’s distortions let you see the workings of meritocracy in vivid extremes. But the system itself—structured on the belief that, unlike in a collectivized society, individual achievement should be the basis for rewards, and that, unlike in an inherited aristocracy, those rewards must be earned again by each new generation—is all-American. True meritocracy came closest to realization with the rise of standardized tests in the 1950s, the civil-rights movement, and the opening of Ivy League universities to the best and brightest, including women and minorities. A great broadening of opportunity followed. But in recent decades, the system has hardened into a new class structure in which professionals pass on their money, connections, ambitions, and work ethic to their children, while less educated families fall further behind, with little chance of seeing their children move up.

Many factors seem to come together in these circumstances:

1. The American belief that schools are the great equalizer or should be if they are not.

2. The expectation that parents should help ensure their kids do better than them.

3. The idea that the right education is needed to be successful in life (both for the kids and the parents).

4. A difference in opinion over whether American systems should provide equal opportunities or equal outcomes.

5. The public nature of schools where community tax dollars and identity come together in a local institution.

6. An American preference for local control thus that public schools can be responsive to local residents and leaders.

7. With declining trust in other major institutions, schools might be one of the few remaining institutions that provide hope.

8. Varying opinions on how schools should (or should not) address issues of race, class, and gender present in communities.

Put these all together and the stakes are high for local schools and conflict can arise. On one hand, this passion about a local institution may help guarantee its success. Even as Washington invokes depression, Americans can dive into and try to correct issues in their schools. On the other hand, all of these expectations plus larger social forces at work beyond the control of local districts or residents means flashpoints can be difficult to resolve. A number of the problems schools face are not just school issues; they are tough issues for the whole country to converse about and address. Every school district has to work to address community and national issues in ways that are desirable to local constituents while also considering wider standards and approaches.

Responding to “white suburbanites are exposed to more racial diversity than ever before”

Posted on by

One researcher explores the increasing racial and ethnic diversity of suburbia:

The scale of these national changes is too great to leave suburbs unaffected. As a consequence, white suburbanites are exposed to more racial diversity than ever before, a process that compounds annually. In 1980, a majority of white suburban residents lived in areas greater than 95 percent white, according to my analysis of the Census data. Only about one in six lived in a neighborhood where people of color made up at least 20 percent of the population. Fast-forward to today, and the numbers flip: Fewer than one in 10 white suburban residents lives in a neighborhood greater than 95 percent white, while more than half can be found somewhere that’s more than 20 percent nonwhite. Suburbs are now home to most black Americans and Hispanic Americans.

Nonwhite residents skew younger, which means diversity is increasing in schools even faster than in cities and neighborhoods. As that happens, the racial isolation of white children has been broken in spectacular fashion. In 1988, the earliest year with digitized federal data, more than half of white children nationwide attended a school that was more than 90 percent white. In 2016–2017, the most recent school year with data, that share dropped to less than one-fifth. In public districts today, more than three-fifths of white children attend a diverse school where at least 20 percent of the student population was not white; in major metros, nine-tenths of white children do.

Lest the point get lost in a swarm of statistics, these figures represent an inversion of America’s historic racial geography. As recently as a few decades ago, almost all white people in America lived their lives in places where racial diversity was minimal or nonexistent. This is simply no longer true. In neighborhoods and, especially, schools, moderate diversity is now the norm for most white Americans. The America where busing failed was a place where islands of urban diversity drifted in an ocean of suburban whiteness. Today, the metaphor must be reversed: An archipelago of white enclaves is embedded in a sea of growing racial diversity.

And since this discussion is in the context of debates about schools and busing, the author suggests this change in diversity has implications:

By every available demographic metric, those white suburbs are losing ground in 21st-century America. The problem of segregated schools, as urgent and familiar as ever, is embedded in a deeply unfamiliar context. School integration in 2019 means moving children across racial boundaries that are already looking ragged. The communities it risks outraging have ever-shrinking political clout. People should consider whether they have overlearned the lessons of history—whether the antibusing consensus is more robust than the conditions that created it. Integrated schools are more achievable than the political system believes. The missing ingredient for desegregation may just be elected officials with the courage to stop fearing America as it was, and start leading America as it is.

The article takes a pretty optimistic view of racial change in communities. Indeed, residential segregation has decreased in recent years with more minorities living in suburbs and increased immigration.

I wonder if the same data could be interpreted differently:

1. The cutoffs for diversity cited above are low bars. More than 20% non-white is not that much diversity.

2. The article does not discuss social class and its interaction with race and class. What kind of diversity are white suburbanites interacting with in terms of class and race together?

3. The emphasis here is on the public school system as well as communities though there are plenty of white students (as well as other students) in different schooling environments and social ties and networks can operate through many institutions. Diversity by community or neighborhood may not translate into diversity in a school setting or in local government or houses of worship or friendship networks.

4. What is the end goal of such efforts? Is “moderate diversity is now the norm for most white Americans” enough or even be used a way to limit further diversity? Is representation in public schools enough or is the goal similar academic achievement or access to political power or homeownership rates or wealth (all areas with disparity)?

Not just aiming to have separate school districts; secede and form whole new municipalities

Posted on by

Residential segregation is powerful in the United States and can include looking to secede from a city to form a new largely white community:

The parents’ first petition drive to create a city, which ended in 2015, looked as if it would be successful. Supporters of St. George, arguing that the schools in East Baton Rouge Parish were not doing enough for their children, had amassed more than 18,000 signatures, and submitted them to the registrar to be certified. But the same day as they submitted their petition, a group known as Better Together submitted its own forms to the registrar. “We did a withdrawal campaign,” M. E. Cormier, a spokeswoman for the Better Together campaign, told me. “We went door-to-door, told people about the detrimental effects of the creation of St. George, and we were able to get 1,000 people to withdraw their names from the petition.”…

In between the failed 2015 attempt and the new one, they tried to iron out a new strategy. They cut down the geographic area of their proposed City of St. George. The original map was roughly 85 square miles; the new area was 60. It would be easier to gain the signatures necessary for a new community with a smaller area. As soon as the proposed map was released, several people in favor of keeping East Baton Rouge Parish together noted that the new map, coincidentally, carved out several apartment complexes—places where black and low-income families lived.

St. George supporters vehemently denied the suggestion that the map was drawn with any malicious racial intent. “The decision on what areas to include and not include was based exclusively on the amount of previous support for the effort,” they wrote in a post on their official Facebook page. “If a precinct had a small percentage of signatures and clearly did not want to be in the new city, they were not included in the updated boundaries.” But practically, that meant that the proposed area of St. George became whiter and more affluent.

The organizers did something else significant as well, Michael Beychok, a political consultant who lives in what would become the new city, told me: They stopped talking so much about the schools. “They know, and we know, that the school argument is not their best argument to incorporate,” said Beychok, who is one of the organizers of One Baton Rouge, a group opposed to the creation of St. George.

The United States has a long history of communities being formed to avoid people of particular groups. This could work in multiple ways. For example, many suburbs at the turn of the twentieth century resisted annexation by the adjacent big city. Or, suburban communities incorporated in order to pursue particular zoning or development policies that could exclude certain people.

That this conflict started with school districts should be of little surprise as issues of race and class often are contested through this particular institution. While the issues can be phrased in terms of school performance or behaviors, it is often about race and class. This reminds of a chapter in Rachel Heiman’s book Driving After Class where suburbanites battle over redistricting lines with the goal of preserving privilege in certain school buildings while other students do not get the same access.

If a new municipality is formed, it would be interesting to see how its reputation develops. On one hand, the racial reasons for its formation could dog the community for decades. On the other hand, the residents of the new community may not care about outside opinions as they get to use their resources as they desire.

See a similar case last year outside of Atlanta.

Another use for vacant retail buildings: schools

Posted on by

The Chicagoland suburb of Palatine is considering converting vacant retail space into a school:

Under the proposal, a shuttered Whole Foods Market and other adjacent space totaling about 80,000 square feet would be renovated for a maximum of 32 classrooms for kindergarten through sixth grade. The school would be in the Park Place shopping center opposite a Walmart, southeast of Dundee and Rand.

Stuckey Construction Co. Inc. of Waukegan would buy the space for about $4.1 million and spend another $13.8 million renovating it, Thompson said. He said District 15 would lease the building with an option to buy it within seven years if the idea receives school board approval…

As part of the plan, Park Place’s owner would build four retail buildings closest to Rand. The former T.J. Maxx/Home Goods portion of the plaza would be demolished to make room for the new retail section and a playground and sports fields covering 2 acres for the school.

District 15’s school at the mall would serve 750 to 800 children in the northeast area, where about 22 percent of the students live but don’t have a neighborhood school. Thompson said he projects the new school would have 74 percent Hispanic students and an overall low-income population of 70 percent.

As retail locations struggle, many communities are looking for answers as to how to use the vacant structures. There a number of possible options but rarely have I seen the idea of schools. I suspect converting these spaces to schools has several distinct advantages:

  1. It could reduce the amount of money needed to provide school buildings. Referendums or tax levies to build new structures often face opposition in suburban communities because of the cost. Additionally, the new school buildings might be in response to a relatively new need in the community tied to new growth but the building may not necessarily be needed in the long term. Converting an existing building could save money.
  2. Retailers often locate in key locations near major intersections. This could make accessing a school easier for a broader range of residents.

Yet, there would also be disadvantages to pursuing this strategy:

  1. Converting the retail structures into schools takes possible land off the tax rolls. Many communities hope vacant structures will be filled by land uses that will contribute property taxes and sales taxes. Schools provide neither.
  2. The location may be central or at a key point but residents often have images of what neighborhood schools should be: located in or very close to residential neighborhoods. Several concerned residents are quoted in this story and they raise safety concerns of being located near major roads and higher-crime areas.

I wonder if a school could also be viewed as a community anchor for a larger mixed-use plan in a redevelopment setting like this. Having some new residences alongside some retail space plus new community (school plus parks, plazas, etc.) could create a new neighborhood setting.

Defining the suburban aspects of the movie “Eighth Grade”

Posted on by

Defining the suburbs, whether considering geography or social life, can be complex. So when the film Eighth Grade claims to depict “the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence,” how is suburbia depicted? Here are some key traits according to the film:

  1. People live in single-family homes. Kayla is shown going from house to house and acts as if her bedroom is a personal sanctuary from the outside world.
  2. The story revolves around the lives of children, a key emphasis of suburban life. When not in a home, Kayla is at school. Her social life revolves around school. Family life is critical as the primary relationship Kayla has is with her father who tries at various points to encourage her.
  3. A land of plenty. No one in the film lacks for anything and all the teenagers apparently have phones and devices to connect with each other and broadcast their lives. Some people in the film have more than others but consumer goods are not an issue in the suburbs depicted. Everyone is middle class or above even though we see little of what people do for work.
  4. The shopping mall is part of a key scene, one of the iconic places where teenagers can interact and consume.
  5. There is a good amount of driving required to get from home to home or to the shopping mall.
  6. The teenagers and families depicted are mostly white.

On one hand, the movie depicts a fairly typical residential suburban place. Many of the features of the suburbs listed above are on my list of Why Americans Love Suburbs.

On the other hand, the film does a lot with Kayla engrossed with her phone and social media. Could this take place anywhere? Or, is the film suggesting the particular combination of suburbs and social media leads to a negative outcome (too much online immersion) or positive (the values or features of suburbia help give her a broader perspective about live)?

Furthermore, the film primarily works within a well-worn depiction of suburbia: largely white, middle-class and above, revolving around teenagers, school, and families. Thinking like a sociologist in terms of variables, would it have been too much to situate a similar story in a more complex suburbia with more racial/ethnic and class diversity and a different physical landscape?