Ten Years Tell a Story

 

From July, 2026:

Maryland schools rank 10th worst for racial segregation, Liz Bowie, Baltimore Banner 

Halley Potter, director of PK-12 education at the Century Foundation, said racial and economic integration matters for the long-term success of students of all races and economic status.

“We have decades of research that show that integration promotes better academic outcomes, better critical thinking skills, better college attainment rates,” she said.

From May, 2016: 

Eliminating racial divide in Howard school suspensions requires community effort, county leaders say, Lisa Philip, Baltimore Sun 

I blogged about this article in July of 2016 - - ten years ago.

Lisa Philip’s article, about the racial divide in Howard County Schools, focuses on the continuing disparity in the suspension rate between white students and students of color. Even with indication of recent improvement, the rate for black students is still almost seven times that of whites, and well above the national average. This sentence from African American Community Roundtable leader Larry Walker speaks to a core issue underlying the data:

"If you don't acknowledge that I live a different reality, you're not willing to do anything to change that reality, to make our realities more similar."

The more students are divided by race, the less students and parents learn about and truly comprehend the realities of others who are different from them. Research shows that this has a significant negative impact on everyone’s outcomes. 

Affluent white folks very often refuse to believe that. During one of the most contentious redistricting battles, someone reached out to me - - someone who should have known better - - and expressed fears that having those people in her granddaughter’s school would dilute her educational experience because it valuable resources would of course be diverted to “them.”

The more we allow school segregation, the more we tacitly reinforce this false line of thinking. We are only “protecting” our children. The long term consequences include thinking it’s good to have more and more police presence in our schools in order to police other people’s children. 

Maintaining the separation breeds the kind of ignorance that is all too willing to believe half-baked conspiracies and swallow long-disproven assumptions.

More “enforcement”. More “consequences.” Less understanding of the context that creates school frustration and failure. More ignorance. Less empathy.

School segregation makes everyone more stupid and it makes a whole lot more people accept high rates of suspension for children they don’t know.

Ten years. July, 2016. July, 2026. 

At a time of polarization in our country, creating diverse schools is important, she said. “I really do think it is an existential crisis in our schools.” - - Halley Potter, Century Foundation 

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