[Summit] Education

[Jessica Jenner]

I wonder if the issue is not racial mix but school rankings.  Rather than
forcing integration and bussing of children, it could be that creating
high-quality schools in traditionally under-served areas is an answer.  It
seems to me there are lots of proposals out there, and some make a lot of
sense, but the bottom line issue is how schools are funded in this country.


  _____  

From: summit-bounces at sna.providence.ri.us
[mailto:summit-bounces at sna.providence.ri.us] On Behalf Of Greg Gerritt
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 10:55 AM
To: Summit Neighborhood
Subject: [Summit] Education


This one is a bit thought provoking.  Greg




STUDY: BETTER EDUCATED WHITES PREFER SEGREGATED SCHOOLS, NEIGHBORHOODS

RICE UNIVERSITY - A study, co-authored by Rice sociologist Michael
Emerson, shows that increased education of whites, in particular, may
not only have little effect on eliminating prejudice, but it also may
be one reason behind the rise of racial segregation in U.S. schools.
Furthermore, higher-educated whites, regardless of their income, are
more likely than less-educated whites to judge a school's quality and
base their school choice on its racial composition.

Blackvwhite racial segregation has been on the rise in primary and
secondary schools over the past decade. While whites, especially those
who are highly educated, may express an interest in having their
children attend integrated schools, in reality, they seek out schools
that are racially segregated. In the study, researchers found, on
average, that the greater the education of white parents, the more
likely they will remove their children from public schools as the
percentage of black students increases.

Emerson and research colleague David Sikkink, an associate professor
of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, know that income and
other factors come into play in terms of school choice, but their
study shows that, even after controlling for these variables,
education has an unintended effect. Whites with more education place a
greater emphasis on race when choosing a school for their children,
while higher-educated African Americans do not consider race.

"I do believe that white people are being sincere when they claim that
racial inequality is not a good thing and that they'd like to see it
eliminated," says Emerson. "However, they are caught in a social
system in which their liberal attitudes about race aren't reflected in
their behavior."

According to the researchers, part of this behavior is explained by
the place and meaning of schooling for children of more-educated white
parents. Degrees, for example, become status markers, regardless of
income. Parents seek quality education for their children to ensure
they are not hindered from achieving the "good life." As earlier
studies indicate, education is a key to social mobility and one of the
most important forms of cultural capital.

Emerson and Sikkink cite earlier work on school choice in
Philadelphia, where race was found to be a factor in whites'
evaluations of the quality of a school. Unlike blacks, who judged
schools on the basis of such outcomes as their graduation rates and
students' test scores, whites initially eliminated any schools with a
majority of black students before considering factors such as schools'
graduation rates. When they analyzed a national data set of whites and
non-Hispanic blacks to see if the level of their education would have
an impact on their school choice, Emerson and Sikkink found a similar
pattern. "Whites with higher levels of education still made school
choices based on race," explains Emerson, "while blacks did not."

The researchers found that regardless of income, more-educated whites
in their data set also lived in "whiter" neighborhoods than
less-educated whites. Higher-income African Americans also lived in
whiter, but more racially mixed, neighborhoods than lower-income
blacks. "The more income African Americans made," Emerson says, "the
more likely their children attended more racially mixed schools than
did African American children of less-educated, lower-income parents."
This, he explains, is because more highly educated or higher-income
African Americans often live in areas with racially mixed local public
schools, close to high concentrations of whites that have undergone
desegregation plans, while African American children of less-educated,
lower-income parents attend largely black schools. When separating
income from their analysis, however, the researchers concluded that
unlike whites, African American parents' higher-education levels don't
affect their school choice.

"Our study arrived at a very sad and profound conclusion," says
Emerson. "More formal education is not the answer to racial
segregation in this country. Without a structure of laws requiring
desegregation, it appears that segregation will continue to breed
segregation." Titled "School Choice and Racial Residential Segregation
in U.S. Schools: The Role of Parents' Education," the study will be
published in an upcoming issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

http://www.rice.edu/sallyport/2006/fall/sallyport/segregation.html




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