Why Integration In New York Won’t Work

The New York Times has stepped up its race and class conversations in education, highlighted by this article from NYT’s Kate Taylor on the proposed rezoning of a school district in Brooklyn. While it makes sense to de-zone our schools in an effort to temper down the flurry of studies showing NYC as one of the most segregated school districts in the country, the resistance to integration has come from both white parents for the typical reasons and black parents for atypical reasons. Typically, the resistance against integration comes from a vocal set of white parents who don’t want their children matriculating with kids they view as uncouth or less intelligent. A faux-integration often takes place when a school creates a specialized or magnet program on the penthouse floor, not ironically letting the cream rise to the top.

This time, however, I’m curious about the black parents’ responses:

“We fought hard to build this school, and we’re not just going to let people come from outside when we worked so hard and dedicated ourselves,” Dolores Cheatom, a Farragut Houses resident, said at the meeting, holding her 1-year-old daughter on her hip … She said she had “no problem working with anybody, but I’m not going to let anybody take from my daughter.”

On the one end, I wonder what Ms. Cheatom and the community did to “build this school,” specifically what it looked like prior to white folks jogging through their neighborhoods in neon polyurethane. Why is this specific narrative not told in light of the deluge of school choice advocates spraying our morning newscasts with their ideologies? It’s also instructive in the ways well-meaning, tongue firmly in cheek, white progressives underestimate black resentment. After decades of redlining, state property taxes, private schooling, and coalitions that only secured wins for white families, perhaps these parents felt like their isolation in DUMBO is the solution to their ills. They can define the term “public” for themselves.

Good on them. continue reading

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