Minnesota's "Voluntary" Desegregation Rule

[Explanatory note: A settlement proposal on behalf of the Minneapolis NAACP branch and the Xiong plaintiffs, dated February 19, 1999, was submitted to the State by the law firm of Shulman, Walcott and Shulman. The settlement was authorized by Rick Campbell, president-elect of the Minneapolis NAACP; announced at a press conference on February 19; and validated at a community meeting on February 20, 1999.

The 2/19/99 settlement proposal stated "This formal settlement proposal is intended to resolve the educational inadequacy in Minneapolis public schools and improve student achievement through proven, cost-effective, and voluntary means [emphasis added], including structural reforms such as Open Enrollment and Parental Choice."

However, Rick Campbell and the branch executive committee elected on January 9 had not been officially sworn in, and a meeting of the branch education committee, which included NAACP members who had been involved in the mediation process, recommended that the settlement proposal as written be rejected. This recommendation was affirmed by the branch executive committee and by a majority of the active branch membership in March 1999.]

In its response to the settlement offer made on behalf of plaintiffs in the NAACP and Xiong cases, with the exception of David Mann, the State maintains that it "has established a system of schools that provides students in the Minneapolis School District with the opportunity [emphasis added] to obtain an adequate education and has, therefore, fully satisfied its obligation under the Education Clause of the Minnesota Constitution (page 2)."

In other words, don't blame the State for the failure of the school system in Minneapolis to adequately educate most of its students, especially poor and non-white students. Blame the students, their parents, and factors over which the school administration has no control.

The State also contends that it has established a system of schools that fully satisfies its obligation under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S. constitution, and disputes the finding of fact in the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Topeka KS Board of Education (1954) that in dual systems, black schools are inherently inferior to white schools, for example:

"Even if some racially isolated schools remain under the proposed [desegregation] rule, this does not mean that the rule is unreasonable or ineffective; schools comprised predominantly of students of color are not inherently inferior (from the Statement of Need and Reasonableness for the proposed "voluntary" desegregation rule, page 59)."

"The cases at issue here are, and always have been, fundamentally interdistrict desegregation lawsuits. As the State has previously noted in this litigation, contrary to the plaintiff's allegations, the education clause does not impose any duty on the State to integrate school districts by race, socio-economic status, or any other student classification. Moreover, as the State explained at length in the Statement of Need and Reasonableness accompanying the State's proposed desegregation rule, integration of students by race does not lead to improved academic achievement. In general, the State favors community or neighborhood schools since these are more likely to enhance student achievement. In fact, the State approved the MSD's [Minneapolis School District's] request for a variance from the State's current desegregation rule to allow the MSD to implement such a community school plan aimed at improving achievement. Never-the-less, as also reflected in the proposed new desegregation rule, the State has been and remains committed to fostering greater integration of the schools and school districts in order to further the social benefits of such integration (page 9)."

On the other hand, the NAACP has maintained that the guarantee of an adequate education under Minnesota's constitution, and the equal protection clause of 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution, imposes a duty upon the State to desegregate the schools because of evidence that desegregation generally improves educational outcomes for black students, and can help to reduce disparities in education-related outcomes between black and white students.

The State does not and can not provide any evidence to back up its assertion that educational outcomes for black students can be improved by establishing a school system that is more rigidly segregated by race than what existed in Minneapolis before implementation of the so-called "Community School Plan."

In fact, data provided by the Department of Children, Families and Learning from reading and math tests given to 3rd, 5th and 8th grade students in 1998 shows that, in general, students of color and low income students in Minneapolis have substantially lower scores in public schools where 90% or more of the student population is non-white than in other Minneapolis Public Schools (Source: State Admits that Integration Improves Student Achievement, Shulman and Almonor, March 1999).

The State allowed the Minneapolis Public Schools to establish racially segregated neighborhood schools, citing the promise made by the Minneapolis Public Schools that its "Community School" policy would "close the gap" in student achievement between white and black students. However data provided by the Minneapolis Public Schools indicates the academic achievement gap between whites and blacks is getting bigger, not smaller.

The biggest reason that educational outcomes for black students have been inferior to outcomes for white students in racially segregated school systems is a much higher concentration of poverty among blacks. Poverty is known to have a negative impact on a child's home life and well-being, and restricts access to educational opportunities, such as high quality pre-school [and K-12] programs.

The correlation between race and poverty is very strong throughout the U.S., with Minneapolis boasting the greatest disparities in income and employment rates between whites and blacks of any major city in the U.S. People of color usually out-number whites in neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of poverty, and the schools tend to reflect residential housing patterns in their student population. According to Gary Orfield:

Among all U.S. schools reporting free lunch data in 1991, 13 per cent were "high poverty" schools with more than half poor students who get free school lunches because they have low family incomes. Half of U.S. schools, on the other hand, had less than 10% poor students. Two-thirds of schools with less than one-tenth students in poverty had 90 to 100 percent white students. At the other extreme, among the 5,047 schools with 90 to 100 percent African American and Latino students, 57% were high-poverty schools (Dismantling Desegregation, page 55).

For a classroom teacher at a school for most of the poor and predominantly non-white neighborhoods in Minneapolis, it's more difficult to help every student achieve minimum grade level expectations than in other schools, unless one lowers the grade level expectations. On average, students in schools for the poorest neighborhoods in Minneapolis have the greatest exposure to the least experienced and least effective teachers. As teachers move up the seniority list, most bid for jobs at schools where the student population is whiter and less poor.

And at a very high cost, compensatory programs have produced very modest results in terms of educational outcomes for students of color in segregated school systems. Much better results can be obtained in a desegregated school system. Moreover, to expect to maintain a heavier flow of funding to schools for mostly poor students than to schools for a district's most affluent students over the long haul is almost like expecting water to flow uphill without a pump.

The State is willing to explore with the Plaintiffs and the MSD the establishment of "high achievement" programs within the MSD that can enhance student achievement and attract students from outside the district. These programs could serve the dual purpose of promoting higher achievement and greater intradistrict and interdistrict integration as discussed further below (page 9).

"High achievement" programs, that is, programs for "academically gifted and talented" students have long been promoted by the State as an antidote to white flight and multiracial middle-class flight from Minneapolis. These "magnet" programs were part of the desegregation plan implemented by the Minneapolis Public Schools prior to the adoption of its "Community School" policy in 1995. And these programs have been expanded as part of the "Community School" policy.

However, for the majority of students who are excluded from the magnet programs, the quality of education actually declines because students are further segregated by race and class within the classroom through the practice of "ability-grouping," and into separate classrooms and schools through the gifted and talented programs.

The establishment of neighborhood schools and an expansion of "magnet" programs in the Minneapolis Public Schools has in fact caused a precipitous decline in achievement test score averages for students of color in Minneapolis, which the Minneapolis School Board tries to conceal by making the claim that, on average, students of color have been making gains in proficiency at math and reading above the national norm in recent years (the gains for white students were greater).

This claim of gains in reading and math above the national norm for students of color was made in a report to the Minneapolis Board of Education on November 24, 1998 by Dave Heistad, director of Research, Evaluation, and Assessment for the Minneapolis Public Schools; and in the 1998 Better Schools Referendum Report Card dated January 1999 (Minneapolis Public Schools Research, Evaluation and Assessment).

However, the claim of gains in math and reading scores above the national norm was based on the trend of test scores for only 37% of the class of 2001 who took the tests in the Spring of 1997 and the Spring of 1998. The district was not comparing the test score data for all students enrolled and tested in the Minneapolis Public Schools from one year to the next. Only the tests scores of students in the class of 2001 who had been continuously enrolled and tested in the district from the Spring of 1990 to the Spring of 1998 were counted. (Source: Minneapolis Public Schools, District Wide Assessment results 1997-98, page 29-31).

For students in the Minneapolis Public Schools who were eligible for free or reduced-price lunches due to low family income, nearly 2/3 of the total student population, the data shows that only 35% made gains above the national norm in reading, and 40% made gains above the national norm in math from the Spring of 1997 to the Spring of 1998. (Source: Minneapolis Public Schools, District Wide Assessment results 1997-98, page 28)

On the other hand, for students enrolled in the Minneapolis Public Schools who were tested in the Spring of 1997 and the Spring of 1998, and who were not eligible for free or reduced price lunches, the data shows that 65% made gains above the national norm in reading, and 60% made gains above the national norm in math (i.b.i.d).

The mandatory desegregation plan repealed by the Minneapolis School Board in 1995 was a "controlled choice open enrollment plan," which utilized a lottery and separate lists of white and black students to achieve racial balance at school sites. But the classrooms were much less integrated. Access to the magnet programs for black students was very limited, including magnet schools located in predominantly black neighborhoods.

Another problem with the open enrollment approach is that an entire district, or a large part of it, becomes an attendance area for a large number of schools. In order to transport students to schools with large overlapping attendance areas, it is necessary to bus more students, and to bus most of them much farther than would be required under a plan where students are assigned to schools on the basis of defined attendance areas.

A big selling point for the community school plan was that students could attend a school that is within walking distance or a short bus trip away. But the Community School plan wasn't just a bus trip reduction plan. The attendance boundaries were drawn in such a way as to decrease, rather than maintain or increase the level of racial integration achieved by the Minneapolis Public Schools under a controlled choice open enrollment plan.

On June 27, 1995 the Minneapolis Board of Education adopted a resolution ingeniously titled "Closing the gap: ensuring that all children can learn," which argued for the adoption of a neighborhood school plan, referred to as the "Community School Plan."

Under the Community School Plan, school attendance areas have been drawn which concentrate students from residential areas with high rates of poverty into some schools; And students of color, including "middle class" students of color are over-represented in areas with high rates of poverty.

Schools with the greatest proportion of children from low-income households have the least experienced teachers, and the central administration does not provide an adequate level of funding to the site management teams to cover necessary educational expenses, such as programs to train the teachers, and the acquisition of textbooks and supplies.

That's why, in some schools for the poorest neighborhoods in Minneapolis, such as Patrick Henry High on the North Side, students are not allowed to take textbooks out of the classroom. Whatever textbook reading that is assigned to the students has to be done in class.

The "closing the gap" resolution also proposes to increase the use of tracking: steering a large majority of students away from academic curriculum programs through devices such as ability-grouping, gifted and talented programs, and magnet schools.

Curriculum guides developed by the district and distributed to classroom teachers in 1997 promote "ability-grouping" within classrooms and by classroom. As early as Kindergarten, and no later than the beginning of first grade, children are labeled "fast, "medium-," and "slow-"learners; then grouped and provided instruction accordingly.

Tracking students in this manner is camouflaged with radically altered versions of legitimate educational theories, such as outcome-based education, and jargon that means one thing to educators and another thing to just about everyone else.

The Community School plan represents an abandonment of even token efforts to equalize access to Education in Minnesota. It is an attack on the legacy of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. It represents a return to the doctrine of "separate but equal" in the field of education, which held sway until the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education.

I am here as part of the Parents' Union delegation to ask, What is the Minneapolis Board of Education doing about under-enrolled schools in Southwest Minneapolis, where you find a lot of empty classrooms and the average number of students per classroom is much less than the referendum mandated maximums?

Minnesota's open enrollment law requires the Minneapolis Board to offer such a remedy for under-crowded schools. I'm sure that many parents on the Northside, whose children attend severely over-crowded schools would consider this option, provided that acceptable transportation arrangements are offered.

However, the school board's remedy is to spend millions of dollars to reconfigure elementary schools into K-8 schools where-ever possible, or set up exclusive pathways from one school site to another for grades K-8. This will increase enrollment by putting students from more grade levels at each site or paired school sites, and it has the virtue of ensuring that children in upscale white neighborhoods will never have to mix with children from neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty and people of color.

But to convince most high-income white people to put their children in the Minneapolis Public Schools [it is not enough to offer them all-white schools], the Minneapolis Board of Education will actually have to meet the expectations of those parents about what constitutes an adequate education, an education that prepares one to go directly from high school to college without having to take any remedial courses.

But this School Board will not try to provide the same quality of education for the under class in Minneapolis. In neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty, college preparatory curriculum programs will continue to be reserved for the talented tenth of students of color, and the talented third of white students. That's the plan because a highly educated under class would be a threat to those who profit from the under-education of our children, the white supremicists who run this town, and their puppets on this school board and at City Hall.

It is in the interest of just about everyone who has to work for a living to join the fight to ensure that all children in the Minneapolis Public Schools get a high-quality education, because the existence of a large pool of under-educated workers competing for low-wage jobs has an adverse affect on just about all wage earners.

The new desegregation rule allows school districts to establish and maintain what it defines as racially isolated schools, where the enrollment of non-white students is more than 20% above the district average. The Statement of Need and Reasonableness argues, on page 59, that,

However, in its unanimous opinion in the 1954 case of Brown versus Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court found that in dual systems, black schools were inherently inferior to white schools due to the link between race and poverty. Poverty limits access to educational opportunities outside of the public schools; and in dual systems, black schools have always had the highest concentration of inexperienced and ineffective teachers.

It should not be forgotten that racially segregated neighborhoods and schools were created in the Northern U.S. during the first decade of the 20th century by a white supremacist movement. Blacks were driven out of most neighborhoods by a variety of methods, including arson and murder, and city governments chartered and funded Neighborhood Associations which enforced restrictive convenants that prohibited the sale or leasing of dwelling units to blacks. These covenants were legally enforcable until 1948, and racial discrimination in the housing market was not outlawed until the passage of the largely unenforced Fair Housing Act of 1968.

History teaches us that privileged classes do not give up their privileges volutarily. If desegregation and access to education for all on equal terms could be acheived through purely voluntary means, it would have been accomplished long before now.

Power doesn't take a step back in the face of a smile, or a prayer, or a loving non-violent action. Power only takes a step back in the face of greater power. And power in defense of freedom is greater than power in defense of tyranny, because the power of a just cause is based on conviction and produces resolute and uncompromising action.

An "Our perspective" editorial in the December 21, 1998 issue of the Star-Tribune newspaper states that "...Minnesota's new school desegregation rule is a basically sound proposal that recognizes demographic changes and moves the State away from a racial quota system. Yet the new rule should make a stronger statement about the value of integration and its connection to student achievement."

The problem with the stance taken by the Star-Tribune is that, in as much as the proposed school desegregation rule will allow school districts to introduce more segregative policies on a variety of pretexts, it would be incongruous for the rule to affirm the connection between racial integration and student achievement.

In fact, the statement of need and reasonableness for the proposed school desegregation rule offers extensive argumentation not only to dispute the idea that racial integration can improve educational outcomes for students of color, but also to dispute the finding of fact by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1954 Brown decision that in dual systems, black schools are inherently inferior to white schools. For example:

It does not allow the commissioner to require a racially segregated school district to limit the enrollment of non-white students at school sites to a certain percentage above the district average, which the statement of need and reasonableness refers to as a "racial quota" system.

And it recommends the use of magnet school programs, and gifted and talented programs in the non-magnet schools, without racial quotas, in order to prevent white flight from the inner cities and from less affluent suburban school districts with significant non-white populations. Such a policy not only undercuts the goal of providing students of color with greater access to academic programs, but also leads to an accelerated decline in the quality of education available to the large majority of students who are excluded from academic curriculum programs, including most white students.

There are some white people who understand that a segregated, stratified school system isn't just a bad thing for other people's children. And many more can be convinced of this truth. We must explain that the proposed desegregation rule legitimizes efforts to create a more segregated, stratified school system. We must speak out against neighborhood school plans and other segregative policies that the proposed rule would sanction.