Still separate, still unequal but still hopeful

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

In overturning of Brown vs. Board of Education – the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed children would not be forced to attend schools based solely on race – Chief Justice John Roberts said Louisville and Seattle school districts’ voluntary public school integration plans failed to justify their desire to integrate schools by assigning certain students to schools based on race.

Last June 28, 2007, the country groaned at this so-called "huge step backwards," the assumption being that race discrimination was the numero uno culprit in the staggering failure and drop-out rates among minority students.

At the time I argued that the flip meant nothing in a society where scores of kids were failing miserably because of the color-blind blight of poverty.

It’s almost a year later and not only are kids still being left behind, we’ve recently learned the numbers are surely worse than we’d imagined. U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is floating a plan to make the formula for calculating the number of drop-outs uniform across states so districts can no longer cheat down their annual reporting.

And the left-behinds? Big surprise – none of them are Carnegies. According to Census data analyzed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, back in 2006 – before the economic downturn – 17.4 percent of kids under 18 lived in poverty. That’s thirteen million kiddies living in real, actual poverty in the United States, and yes, over half of them were black or Hispanic – but why discriminate? A poor kid with a lop-sided shot at a decent life is just that, regardless of race.

But discrimination comes in many forms and to change how we educate tomorrow’s multi-hued leaders we must start with how every one of us sees them today.

"The challenges of race are not behind us and, in fact, are compounding with poverty," Matthew L. Kramer, self-professed affluent white kid and President of the hugely successful Teach for America – a national corps of new-to-education brainiac teachers dedicated to eliminating educational inequity – told me this week.

Matthew says the success his 17,000 teachers have experienced in reaching nearly 3 million low-income children since 1990 comes from being focused on solving the problems kids come to school with each day, "but because 90% are either African American or Latino, their particular challenges of poverty and race are fundamentally intertwined – both are factors in their lives."

The difference between the educational philosophy of his corps and the teachers getting pumped out of traditional education programs? It’s all in how they look at their charges.

"Our experience is that even though the majority come to school with these challenges, our teachers have the ability to motivate kids to work harder than they’ve ever been expected to work – and the kids perform! The evidence is overwhelmingly clear, we may not be post-race but it’s not credible to say these kids can’t learn, whether the issue is race or poverty."

Matthew rhapsodized about tangible successes like a phenomenal youth symphony orchestra comprised of low-income charter school students – "It’s hard to see the KIPP orchestra and not start crying" – and evangelized his belief that it is possible to keep poor or minority children from being left behind. And that opportunity is not solely in teachers’ hands.

"It is not legitimate to say is this unfixable and people don’t want to maintain that view. There are many successes out there but I think we’re stuck until many, many more people have seen them with their own eyes," Matthew said. "It’s hard to change our minds but it is only a matter of time at this point before [people] come into more examples of successes."

Until that happens, as you drive past, ask yourself if you can believe the gaggle of kids clustered on the street corner can achieve despite the odds stacked against them. Then tell yourself "yes."

If as a society we start to believe in the promise of today’s left-behinds, they’ll start to believe in themselves. And if we demand that everyone who has a stake in their education – you and me included – expect nothing less than success, we will get it.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com