Bleeding on the Eggshells

Throughout the kindergarten selection process, I was surprised by many of my encounters. I was pleased by the schools I toured. I was excited about one of the two magnet schools, and I found the actual registration process entirely pleasant.

I was also surprised by my talks with people about the process. It appears that a lot of parents were frustrated, but most of them appeared honestly frightened beyond rational thought. Most of these parents were white, middle-to-upper-middle-to-upper class, college-educated folks. These were parents that somehow seemed ashamed that they were researching local private school options for their children. One pair even whispered their choices to each other in conversation like the mother from St. Elmo's Fire discussing money and illness at the dining room table as "hush, hush" subjects. I addressed the situation with as much lightheartedness as possible. People shouldn't be ashamed that they're making (or even thinking about different school options for their kids.). I'm happy, as a probable future Unit 4 family, to have them pay $12,000 a year in tuition to send their child somewhere else and to give us their tax money for Unit 4, without costing us anything. There was a time, not so long ago, where I thought Next Generation was going to be the best option for my son. That was, until he got wait listed and I dove head first into my Unit 4 exploration. I am inspired at what goodness I found.

But here's the issue: Champaign is segregated by socio-economic status. And as of right now, when I talk to parents from not-poor families about their kindergarten choices, there is a lot of "my family/my child" talk. Very rarely does anyone ever bring up the idea of "community." They leave kids without helicopter-level parental advocates to fend for themselves. Worse, they don't even recognize that it's what the Controlled Choice process is built for... to look out for all children. And that's just not right. My child has no more value in this world than any other child on the planet -- except to me. 

For all of the complaining, whining and fear talk about Controlled Choice, no one in the community is coming forth with a better way to make sure that children of all economic levels are able to go to school together. Sending children to neighborhood schools won't solve any disparities. It, in fact, it will only increase them. Potential school board members in tomorrow's election, specifically Grey, Brown and Novak all talked about various aspects of this at the community forum. The geography of our schools is terrible. The schools aren't where the people have been moving for the last 40 years. At the same time, even though we're not allowed to use race as a marker any more, there are a large number of African American families below the poverty line in this town. They tend to live north of University. And they were woefully treated for a shamefully long time in this town. Hence why we had a decree in the first place. 

Poverty is the one giant characteristic that can bring a child to his knees. How can a child who doesn't have food or shelter possibly perform well in school, regardless of the color of his skin?

Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote a column called, "Separate and Unequal" on March 21, 2011. In the column, he writes:

"Educators know that it is very difficult to get consistently good results in schools characterized by poverty. The best teachers tend to avoid such schools. Expectations regarding student achievement are frequently much lower, and there are lower levels of parental involvement... Long years of evidence show that poor kids of all ethnic backgrounds do better academically when they go to school with their more affluent -- that is, middle class -- peers. But when the poor kids are black or Hispanic, that means racial and ethnic integration in the schools. Despite all the babble about a postracial America, that has been off the table for a long time... Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities and long-held custom, they are emphatically a reality."

And this, my friends, is Champaign in a nutshell.

During my tour of BT Washington, I was shaken by the fact that the school only has a 7 percent white population. The clear racial divide in our town was at first heartbreaking -- and then suddenly I felt anger in my chest. And it wasn't an annoyance, it was seething. Months ago I had been worried about sending my son to any school in an impoverished neighborhood because poverty to me = higher chance of crime. During my tour, I was suddenly flushed and shamed for many reasons. First, I know that this particular fear is illogical. I worked in the BT Washington neighborhood for a year at the Douglass Branch Library. I enjoyed my time there. I worked with smart and savvy kids. Some of whom had parents who were in their faces all the time about school work and behavior, and some kids who I'm guessing haven't been parented since they left diapers. Some of the kids had parents working two jobs to make ends meet. Some of them had parents who were constantly looking for work. Others had parents in school. And a few had parents at home all day. That's no different than people in any neighborhood. Second, when you live in a neighborhood of homes well over the $200,000 range, like I do, you can say that you think the world has gotten a lot better in terms of racial relations because you see diversity in your neighborhood, at the park, in the extremely expensive pre-school/daycare that you've sent your son to for four years. But then you walk into BT and look at the faces of the students and realize how disjointed your reality really is. 

During the process, I mentioned that BT Washington was third on our selection list. In response, I had someone utter words about how I probably don't want my kid to inherit any of "those kids'" bad behaviors. My gut clenched and I explained that as a parent, I'm pretty sure that my child could learn bad behaviors anywhere. And that it's my job to make sure that he understands right from wrong whether he's in public or private school. Since that conversation, I've had three other people repeat the exact same words to me, so I've repeated the same answer, biting my tongue from including, "racist-like" between "bad" and "behaviors" as I spoke.

Five days after Bob Herbert's column, the New York Times ran an editorial about cuts being made between a rich school district and a poor school district in New York. Much, much, much more money was being taken from the poorer district than the richer district. 

Why representatives continue to make these kinds of decisions probably has a lot to do with campaign contributions and heat from well-to-do parents who like to point at their schools as being "good" and "successful." I got a similar class-centered vibe the first time I met the principal of Bottenfield Elementary School. Admittedly it was one of those, "You have 2 minutes to tell me why I should put you on my list of five schools --Go!" moments at an informational meeting. But the first thing he told me was that a large number of students at Bottenfield qualify for the gifted program -- but don't go.

The gifted programs are in schools north of University. Perhaps Bottenfield does do an overwhelmingly awesome job of education so that parents, particularly those conveniently located, don't feel the need to move them from a successful educational experience. But at the same time, it put up a divider and labeled "good" schools and "bad" schools. It took a tour of Bottenfield where I observed the awesome work by the teachers before I felt more than comfortable there. MacTroll, admittedly felt they were too formal. But I still listed it as my number 2 based on the educational and social growth excellence I saw going on there. 

Similarly, when I got my 20-minute tour of Stratton. The principal there talked about competing with the magnet schools to deliver  her students an equally enriching educational experience, particularly in the gifted program. I don't want my school district to have competing elementary schools. I want each child to be valued the same and treated as an individual. It shouldn't matter where he goes to school. If there's this much unevenness in how principals see their individual schools, how can we ever come together as a district?

So it was with a lot of shock and awe that I toured BT Washington with its principal after going to the informational meeting about STEM where the administration and teachers all confirmed that they would be teaching the curriculum in a different time frame without a focus on testing and would be using inclusivity among all students (even those in the "self-contained" gifted classes) in their new school. Seriously, I got up at the microphone and asked them to confirm/repeat what I'd heard before I posed my question. 

But it's become obvious to me when people ask me about kindergarten that there's a divide between those choosing private and those choosing public. If I come out first and say, "We're in the lottery for Unit 4." There is first a holding of breath on the other parent's part, and then a complete stoppage of conversation about where his or her daughter might be going. Five minutes later, I have to come around and ask directly... before they'll commit to telling me where they're choosing to send their child. And then they'll somehow confess hidden public school fears that they might or might not admit whether or not they think they're irrational. Most often, they blame it on their spouse, which may or may not be true. (For example, when we toured Next Gen's primary school when X-man was 18 months, MacTroll was sold on it. I was more for keeping the thousands of dollars to ourselves for his college. As we got closer to kindergarten, I agreed that X-man needed more outdoor time than the public school could give him, and maybe that 45 minute rest after lunch wouldn't be such a bad idea, but that obviously didn't work out for us.)

I don't mean this blog to shame anyone (except for maybe myself). The truth is that if you found a private school that you can afford that will teach your child a second language, given them outdoor time every hour, instill in them the religious values you hold dear and found a school where you feel the administration, teachers and environment are best suited for your child, etc. -- go for it. Don't worry about what other people think, especially not me. And, if this is you, disregard the next paragraph completely.

My anger comes out of other place. A place where folks have told me they plan on moving to Mahomet when they have kids to avoid the mess that is Unit 4 or Urbana. Or they want to move to Philo to be in Unity. Or they're suddenly joining a particular church, even though they haven't gone to church -- ever (like since they lived with their parents), to make sure their child attends the private school that's attached to it. These decisions are based primarily on fear. The parents don't even want to bother to find out information because? -- I'll venture a guess.

The one common thread appears to be wealth and race: Sticking with your own apparently makes people feel very comfortable. But that's not how the world should be, and the big lesson I learned from this whole situation is that the best thing I can do for X-man is to show him how the world works and how to make it how he'd like it to be. I want to teach him to be kind and patient and to be successful and scholarly in a group of peers who don't all come from the same place or look the same. And as bad as I think Champaign is at feeding the fear monster and putting way too much pressure on parents and kids about getting into the "right" elementary school, an article in the Financial Times (reposted by Slate.com) makes us look like weenies in the school selection process. At the same time, the author touches on the same kind of encounters and thoughts I've had about fellow upper class parents.

Katie Roiphe writes:

"The reality is that their school, like all the other schools, is a tiny bit diverse. There are a few kids who come a very long way every morning, from another neighbourhood, on a scholarship, but the large bulk of the class very much resembles in background the other kids in the class... if you were truly committed to sending your children somewhere "diverse", would you not be selecting a different school, one that doesn't require almost all of its students to pay tuition that could support several villages in Africa? ... The interesting element of this obsession is that each of these unique and excellent schools seems to be conferring some ineffable quality, not just on its students but on the parents of these students. In the 10 minutes they spend dropping their children off in its hallowed hallways, they are seeing some flattering image of themselves reflected back: progressive, enlightened, intellectually engaged."

In other words, the choice of the school and the fancy-pantsness of it -- reflects mostly on the parent. A "good" parent picks the school that has historically perform well (test scores). A "bad" parent settles for -- anything else. And I refuse to play that reindeer game.

I put Carrie Busey down as my first choice because I loved my interaction with teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the healthy food and fitness initiatives and the fact that not all the kids came from the same background. I worry that if we do get our first choice that once the school is built a stupidly convenient six blocks from my house -- that part of what I loved about the school when I chose it will fall away. I don't want it to lose that Carrie Busey feel and metamorphoses into something like a Barkstall. I don't want large and institutional with uniforms. I want it to be personal and individualized. Because as much as parents coo about the ease of uniforms -- in a school like Barkstall (and even at Stratton) you can still tell the haves from the have nots just as easy as if they had picked out their own clothes that morning. 

Honestly, I could forgive the ugliness of uniforms... but I couldn't forgive a kindergarten selection process that didn't open the doors of a new $18 million school to everyone in the district, and not just the people in my neighborhood. That just simply won't do. 

Controlled Choice is what we have. It's there for a reason, and it's not to screw your beloved child out of a good kindergarten program or to drive you insane. It's there to level the playing field so that all kids have fair access to all buildings regardless of how much money parents make or don't make. While many parents may see it as penalizing -- many may see it as a blessing.

In the end, I know my child will be fine, no matter what school he goes to. MacTroll and I stress education, respect and hard work. He'll learn those lessons even if his school isn't the highest ranked or most chosen school in the district. And if you don't believe me that parental involvement matters in awesome amounts -- ask Steven D. Levitt and read his book Freakonomics.