School Integration and Education Justice

The School Choice movement

Integration and education justice cannot thrive in a community that prioritizes private interests over the common good – i.e., school systems driven by market forces instead of equality of opportunity. In North Carolina, as in many other states across the nation, school choice means privatization. The privatization formula:

• Under-funding and over-regulating public schools, driving educators from the profession and leaving schools starved for critical resources needed to provide academic, social, and economic support for the most vulnerable students. 
• Pitting traditional public schools against charter schools that are allowed to limit access to certain populations indirectly through decisions they make about transportation, meal support, behavior standards, and parental involvement expectations. 
• Using vouchers to shepherd more and more students and resources out of public schools to private, mostly religious, schools that are allowed to discriminate against students through their application, admissions, code of conduct, and expulsion policies.

Segregation and inequity within schools

The history of school desegregation and integration demonstrates remarkable progress in some aspects and spectacular failure in others. Schools in segregationist strongholds and urban areas with racial tensions were required to desegregate. However, they used deliberate and overt methods of driving Black educators out of teaching and leadership positions, tracking students into segregated classrooms, and implementing discipline policies and practices that disproportionately removed Black students from school. Even several generations removed from those intentions, schools stubbornly cling to institutional norms and policies that reproduce inequalities of achievement and opportunity. Solutions we support:

• Invest in developing and supporting restorative practices that emphasize building relationships and trust, facilitating open and honest communication between students and educators, empowering students to participate in intentional conflict resolution, and keeping students in school (versus being suspended, chronically absent, dropped out, or imprisoned.)
• Implement placement testing and referral practices that mitigate implicit bias in deciding which students are removed from regular classrooms for special education services or advanced coursework. 
• Support and recruit educators of color because the vast majority of teachers, administrators, counselors, and other decision-makers are disproportionately white. 

Neighborhoods and property values

As demonstrated by the massive anti-busing movement of the 1970s-90s, the most significant barrier to school integration is de facto residential segregation. For the past 25 years, the Supreme Court has incrementally removed legal mandates and remedies involving race-based or race-conscious school assignments and admissions. The federal courts will no longer intervene, even in school systems that have essentially resegregated, if it is due to de facto segregation and not intentional school district actions. Due to historical housing discrimination, redlining practices, and unequal economic opportunity, low-wealth areas have a disproportionate percentage of students of color. Low-wealth communities net lower property taxes, and thus, lower school budgets and per-pupil expenditures. In North Carolina specifically:

• The Leandro Plan, which resulted from a long-running lawsuit against the state, designated extra funding for resources to help low-wealth counties meet their students’ right to a sound, basic education. However, the NC General Assembly has not yet fully funded key provisions of the plan despite a budget surplus due to a political power struggle.
• The NC A-F School Report Card system is based on the nation’s strictest formula, with 80% based on achievement test scores and only 20% based on growth. Schools with a disproportionate number of low-wealth students are penalized under this system, creating a redlining effect in the real estate market, where school report card grades are prominent.