For more than 50 years, the notion that racially mixed schools are in the best interests of all students has been a basic underpinning of America's educational landscape.
But increasingly across the nation, publicly funded charter schools are popping up that call out their intent to cater to specific racial or ethnic groups – African American, Latino or Hmong students, for example, who on average have far lower test scores and far higher dropout rates than whites and some other Asian groups.
Is it a return to segregation? Is it legal?
Those are the questions being debated after Margaret Fortune, a former adviser to two California governors and a leader in education reform circles, successfully petitioned the Sacramento County Board of Education for five publicly funded charter schools aimed at closing the achievement gap for African American students.
Fortune said her objective is to serve the lowest-performing student subgroup in the region, and that group happens to be African American. Addressing their needs isn't segregation, she said, because parents can choose whether to send their children to her charter schools.
"We aren't shying away from talking about the educational struggle that African American students are having," said Fortune, who runs the Fortune School of Education, a teacher and principal credentialing program. "To fix it, you have to name it. We want to be part of the solution."
Both supporters and opponents of Fortune's vision came out in force this month when the county Board of Education debated her petition to open 10 charter schools. After an eight-hour meeting, Fortune was awarded five schools countywide over the next five years, with the possibility for five more.
While some critics opposed the proliferation of charters in general, others expressed discomfort at an educational mission defined by race. Board President Harold Fong, the lone trustee to vote against the proposal, said he couldn't get past the feeling that Fortune was essentially creating segregated schools.
"To ask us to approve a school that is heavily segregated flies in the face of education policy handed down from the Supreme Court," he said. "To ask us to do this is wrong."
Charter approach defended
Similar discussions played out last year when the Sacramento City Unified School District approved Yav Pem Suab Academy, a charter that caters to Hmong students, a group that collectively has been among the lowest achieving in the district in recent years. That charter, which opened in August, offers Hmong culture and language instead of the typical foreign languages of Spanish and French.
Fortune said her charters will be molded around an educational approach rather than geared toward African American culture.
"When we talk about culture, we are talking about a college-going culture and of high expectations," she said.
The achievement gap between white and black students in America is not a matter of debate. It has been chronicled in hundreds of research reports and is underscored with each new release of test score data at the local, state and national levels.
In Sacramento County last year, African American students in grades 2-8 on average scored 26 percentage points lower than whites on the English language portion of the state achievement test. The gap in math was nearly identical.
"The system of education in this country has not worked for African American children for a long time," said Darryl White, chairman of the Black Parallel School Board, a group that advocates for African American students in Sacramento City Unified.
For years, it's been common for public school systems to offer charters or academies tailored to specialized academic interests (think technology and health sciences) or educational approaches (Waldorf, for example.)
Fortune said her charters aren't really any different. The curriculum will be geared toward helping low-achieving students make the transition to a college-bound track.
Fortune said her program will employ strategies known to be effective with struggling students: school uniforms; longer school days, standards-based instruction, extensive professional development for teachers; and ongoing analysis of student data.
David DeLuz, president of the Greater Sacramento Urban League, said the charters are about providing options for black students, not segregating them.
"We aren't creating black time, and we aren't teaching black math, black English," DeLuz said. "We are teaching them everything to the California standards."
Recruiting must be fair
By law, public charter schools, like traditional schools, have to be open to all students, regardless of race. As part of the conditions applied to the charter's approval, the County Office of Education is requiring Fortune to recruit a population that mirrors the county. Thirty-six percent of students in Sacramento County are white, 27 percent are Latino and 14 percent African American.
Sacramento County schools chief Dave Gordon said reflecting those numbers should be the goal, but it can't be required. "The idea is you can advertise and recruit and who comes is who comes," Gordon said. "Their obligation is to fairly recruit from all over."
A key question for critics of the model is whether a school aimed at one race or ethnicity feels accessible to students from other groups.
UCLA education professor Gary Orfield contends Fortune's charters and others like it are instituting a new form of segregation.
Orfield is co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, a group that released a study last year showing the levels of racial segregation in charter schools are higher than in traditional schools. He said he would like to see more emphasis on desegregating existing neighborhood schools, rather than further compartmentalizing kids.
"To isolate these kids from other races isn't preparing them for the future," Orfield said. "I can understand the frustration that leads to (the creation of these charters). African American kids aren't doing what their parents want them to accomplish. But this doesn't cure that problem."
Orfield's argument falls flat with Fortune's supporters, who argue African American students are already isolated at the bottom rungs of American achievement.
"I'm of the mind right now that we have to do something to change the trajectory of African American students and their level of achievement," said the Urban League's DeLuz. "This is an opportunity to try something different."
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/17/3409615/charter-schools-raise-question.html#ixzz1EiSvIAzg
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