Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
I'm a bit moved today that an issue I've been hammering away at by my lonesome for a decade is finally getting some attention.
New Jersey is racially segregated. Some of it is naturally occurring or of personal economic genesis. The birth of that kind of segregation requires no immoral act by mankind, though whether something should or can be done about it I leave for another debate.
Some of New Jersey's racial segregation is state sponsored. State sponsored racial segregation shouldn't be, from both moral and economic perspectives. Something must be done about it.
New Jersey has the highest incomes in America, but Camden is the poorest city in America. The only way to have the highest incomes and the poorest city is to have a segregated poor. Some of that segregation might have to do with the way public housing is built. That might be a real issue, but that is not my issue today.
My issue is education, where state sponsored segregation is a certainty in New Jersey. Brown v Board of Education may as well never have happened as far as the racially segregated City of Asbury Park is concerned. That is ironic since Asbury Park has a school named in honor of Thurgood Marshall, who was lead counsel on Brown v Board of Education. Thurgood Marshall and its sister schools in Asbury Park, the High School in particular, are some of the most racially segregated schools in the country.
Let's talk about how that happened. Asbury Park is home to some of the poorest people in New Jersey, and while it is racially diverse, it is majority Black. It's only a little bigger than a square mile. It is surrounded by other small towns, some of which rank as the wealthiest in New Jersey. They are super-majority White. They are all tiny towns, too small to have their own High Schools. So for about 100 years, children in all the rich surrounding towns attended Asbury Park High School.
Asbury Park High ran well as a racially and economically diverse school.
In 1996 state action occurred. New Jersey's Commissioner of Education ruled that 15 miles away, another public school in very wealthy and very white Little Silver, NJ had a better music program than Asbury Park. Therefore, anyone who wanted to study music could be bused past their home school in Asbury Park and go to Little Silver, at taxpayer expense.
Suddenly, an unexplained outbreak of the desire to learn the oboe developed among the White students, who were instantly so musically gifted that they all passed the required audition and were accepted into the other public high school's music program.
Over the past 15 years, they quietly allowed the rich surrounding towns to peel away from the Asbury Park School District to join districts geographically further away.
That took from Asbury Park it's economic, cultural and racial diversity. It left Asbury Park with just he lowest income students in the state, who for whatever reason you may wish to ascribe, happen to be Black. To look at the class pictures in Asbury Park, you would think that in 1996 aliens abducted all the white kids, because they just suddenly disappear.
Some may not have a problem with this, but that's only because I have yet to tell you about the money side. If it is activist courts, social engineering and throwing money at poor schools as a magic elixir that stirs your emotions, behold:
New Jersey had a Supreme Court case called Abbott come down. It stands for this proposition: Poor school districts must be funded to the same level as the richest districts in the state.
Thirty-two of the State's 500+ school districts are identified as poor "Abbott Districts" and they receive billions of dollars in extra money from the State, because the Supreme Court says they have a "right" to everyone else's money for being poor.
Asbury Park is one of those "Abbott" districts. It is one of the lowest performing school districts in the state. Its budget? About $90 million yearly. It's High School graduating class? About 90 students.
However, if we didn't bus all those kids past the Asbury Park district and brought them back home where they live, Asbury Park would lose it's "Abbott Designation" and taxpayers would save about $60 million in Abbott funding yearly.
Such an easy fix! Now brace yourself for the ugly side of politics to learn why it isn't done:
Most of the suburban White people will complain to high heaven about the money Asbury Park gets each year. But ask them if they are willing to send their children back to their geographic home district, and they will say, "On second thought, why don't you just keep that $60 million."
The urban Blacks in Asbury Park are just as guilty. While they may claim to abhor racial segregation, ask them to desegregate their school and their answer is, "And lose $60 million? No way!"
The children are caught in the middle. They are racially and economically segregated by state action, and they know it.
Since no one's hands are clean here, there is no reason to waste time with allegations that this happened because the White towns acted racially or the Black school was greedy. Just fix it for the children, and the taxpayer.
I have been calling on every politician since 1996 to change that awful "music ruling" and bring the White children back to Asbury Park, or close Asbury Park and send the children to the surrounding High Schools, where each school would have to take only 15 students per grade.
I've never gained any traction, because no one wants to admit that Abbott funding is "segregation hush money."
Until today. I'm delighted that Art Gallagher, who runs New Jersey's most prolific center-right blog More Monmouth Musings, has taken up the cause.
Art notes today that David Sciarra, Director of the Education Law Center who was responsible for bringing those Abbott cases, gave a speech yesterday lamenting the racial segregation he suddenly sees throughout New Jersey schools.
That is huge news. I don't care if Mr. Sciarra sees racial segregation as his organization's fault or not. I'm just glad he sees it. He, of course, is on the left. Mr. Gallagher is on the right. For the first time in 30 years, New Jersey's left and right identified the same problem with education: Segregation.
Art Gallagher has gained enough gravitas through his blog that he has been granted one-on-one interviews with Governor Christie himself.
I hope Art and Mr. Sciarra can get the Governor's attention to tackle racial segregation in New Jersey schools.
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
Sorry, but segregation is not the problem with education. Your argument hides an ugly racist implication --- that black kids are incapable of learning if not surrounded by white kids.
"Suddenly, an unexplained outbreak of the desire to learn the oboe developed among the White students, who were instantly so musically gifted that they all passed the required audition and were accepted into the other public high school's music program."
Umm....were the black kids forbidden from auditioning or going out of district? If so, I'd be outraged. But I'd like to see a shred of evidence that this was the case.
The Abbott Decision is a disaster and most Abbott districts spend double what non-Abbott districts do. Add in the State mandated caps that wealthier suburban districts have to work with, so as not to spend more than less wealthy districts, and you see evidence that money has very little to do with quality education.
I could tell you stories of how my non-wealthy town reached out to Abbott districts to share participation in our fantastic arts program ---- but was turned down because not a single Abbott teacher or parent would act as a chaperone!
Oct '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
Personally, I don't think segregation itself is the problem, so much as the lack of adult civic education. After all, if no one ever tells you how to be a citizen (including how to education your children, help with homework, etc) how are poor people supposed to ever learn?
Educators try to engineer a transfer of social capital from those who have it to those who don't (social capital isn't a zero-sum game, per se, and if it worked it'd make everyone better off). The problem is that minority identity politics does its damned best to make sure blacks stay poor, socially, culturally, and economically.
Desegregation will help, but only if combined with other reforms (like adult civic education), housing deregulation (to lower the cost of living trap created by greedy property owner's restricting the housing supply), etc.
Oct '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
If as you state, "Asbury Park High ran well as a racially and economically diverse school." Then why at the first chance did these white parents move their children to suburban schools? Either you are implying that they were racists putting up a false front for years or more likely beginning to lose confidence in Asbury Park and saw this busing opportunity, time consuming, but much cheaper than actually moving to the suburbs to have their kids attend these essentially all-white schools. And from looking at the rankings of those schools that Asbury Park has sending-receiving agreements the switch is not that great as they all rank in the middle to low end of NJ schools. That would indicate to me that there is something else going on Asbury Park that would make the parents willing to put their children on buses to flee a terrible school for mediocore ones.
Aug '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
What is stopping black students from applying to the music program in Little Silver?
Jun '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
I don't think it's as racial as everybody thinks. As poor blacks (and others) climb the ladder of success, they also can't wait to get the hell out of those dead-end neighborhoods. It's the blight and the lazy indifference that just wears you down if you stay too long. If they were white Hillbilly neighborhoods, letting their places go to hell, and letting their kids run wild, everybody would want to escape from there too.
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
Sticker -
Are you asserting there is no disadvantage to racially segregating students? Was separate but equal improperly repealed?
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
Pat Patterson -
Yours is a fair question. I went to the school when it was racially mixed. It was majority poor, and racially about 70% minority to 30% white.
There were problems that you normally associate with impoverished schools. But there was excellence side by side with it. I can point to you Judges and Legislators who graduated from that school when it was mixed.
Given the chance to leave, the other towns took it, to get away from whatever problems there were.
Is running away the best solution?
I support anyone who wants to send their child to a private school. Pay the tuition.
But these people take YOUR MONEY and go to a far away publlic school for free.
Edited on May 19, 2011 at 10:47amJul '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
Every time "activists" and courts get involved in schools, disaster ensues.
California is largely in the the hole it's in because of the way we fund our schools.
The Kansas City school system spent enough under a court mandate to send every kid to the moon, with pathetic results.
Don't even get me started on the schools of Newark, N.J.
Here's an idea: let people live where they live and send their kids to their local schools. If they don't like their local schools, let them get off their rear ends and work their way into a better community with better schools. That's what the majority of families in St.Louis did, with the result that 60% of the population moved out.
Aug '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
So, you're not in favour of vouchers or charter schools, I take it.
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
Kenneth: Every time "activists" and courts get involved in schools, disaster ensues.
California is largely in the the hole it's in because of the way we fund our schools.
The Kansas City school system spent enough under a court mandate to send every kid to the moon, with pathetic results.
Don't even get me started on the schools of Newark, N.J.
Here's an idea: let people live where they live and send their kids to their local schools. If they don't like their local schools, let them get off their rear ends and work their way into a better community with better schools. That's what the majority of families in St.Louis did, with the result that 60% of the population moved out. ·
Precisely.
I believe the conservative philosophy stood against the social engineering in schools created by the old "busing" cases, where communities took black students and bused them into white districts to create diversity. They should go to school where they live.
Same thing here, except they are busing the white kids away from their home school. They killed diversity. And they are paying themselves to handsomely to do it,
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
I am in favor of them. But I would want vouchers available to all.
I'm not in favor of busing by race, which is what we have in Asbury Park.
Jun '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
Tommy De Seno: Sticker -
Are you asserting there is no disadvantage to racially segregating students? Was separate but equal improperly repealed? · May 19 at 10:40am
But NJ is not racially segregating students. Currently in NJ no black child in the state could be forbidden to attend a school in his district because of his race. Nor would he be denied any of the out-of-district opportunities offered to a white child. The music program you speak of could have been used by any child of any race to enter the better school system. How does that in any way relate to "seperate but equal" where blacks would be viewed as tainting the educational experience of whites if allowed to mix at school? There is simply no correlation between those dark days and today's problems in NJ.
One of the biggest problems in NJ education is that we have 600+ school districts with ample opportunity for corruption and croynism, along with identity politics and the meddling of courts through Abbott mandates all coalescing to cripple our tiny, but dense state.
Oh, and don't forget the role of the Mafia.
Aug '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
Tommy De Seno
I am in favor of them. But I would want vouchers available to all.
I'm not in favor of busing by race, which is what we have in Asbury Park. · May 19 at 11:07am
Aren't all Asbury Park students free to apply to the music program at Little Silver, regardless of race? If one demographic group takes advantage of the choice more than another, does it follow that the choice shouldn't be made available?
There's a similar phenomenon up here in the Great White North. French Immersion is a very big deal in Ontario schools. I was in French Immersion from kindergarten until grade 11. It just so happens that French Immersion classes were higher on the socio-economic ladder (not to mention more "white") than the regular, English classes. Some "activists" say it's racist and amounts to segregation.
Should parents not be free to choose what they think is best for their children just because some groups might tend to make different choices than other groups?
Edited on May 19, 2011 at 11:28amAug '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
We also have an "arts" high school in my city, which students can apply to and must audition for.
It just so happens that the majority of applicants to this school tend to be upper-middle class and white.
Does that make the school itself racist? Should the choice not be provided if some groups tend not to place as high a value on the choice as others?
Aug '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
Tommy De Seno
I am in favor of them. But I would want vouchers available to all.
In my humble opinion, that statement is in direct contradiction to your statement in the preceding post that "they (students) should go to school where they live."
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
StickerShock
But NJ is not racially segregating students. Currently in NJ no black child in the state could be forbidden to attend a school in his district because of his race. Nor would he be denied any of the out-of-district opportunities offered to a white child. The music program you speak of could have been used by any child of any race to enter the better school system. How does that in any way relate to "seperate but equal" where blacks would be viewed as tainting the educational experience of whites if allowed to mix at school? There is simply no correlation between those dark days and today's problems in NJ.
One of the biggest problems in NJ education is that we have 600+ school districts with ample opportunity for corruption and croynism, along with identity politics and the meddling of courts through Abbott mandates all coalescing to cripple our tiny, but dense state.
Oh, and don't forget the role of the Mafia. · May 19 at 11:20am
Defacto segregation. That's the problem.
Apr '11
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
I live in New Jersey.
While Asbury Park may have previously been more racially intergrated was it as academically intergrated? There's a huge academic performance gap between black and white in New Jersey even in schools that are racial intergrated. And this is why intergration as a goal has lost its value to a certain extent.
I'm in the process of moving from an all white (about 90%) school district, which is high performing, to a less white (70%) that is slightly lower performing. But the NCLB data gives the story way. The white students in both districts have similar scores on ASKNJ (90% scoring proficient). The Hispanic and black students score lower on average and lower the overall average for the district even thought the schools are full intergrated.
Until we figure out a way to eliminate this performance gap (and by this I mean raise the performance of hispanic and black students, not lower the performance of white kids) whether or not a district is racially segregated makes little difference. Until African Americans and Hispanics develop the cutural capital and value education a performance gap will remain.
Jun '10
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
"But these people take YOUR MONEY and go to a far away publlic school for free."
That is exactly what is being done in Bergen County with the Bergen County Academies. This is a magnet program, drawing academically-gifted kids from throughout the county (an overwhelmingly white & wealthy county, by the way) and sending them to Hackensack. Do you object to magnet schools? Many of the families taking advantage of this school are fabulously wealthy & they are taking your money.
"...where communities took black students and bused them into white districts to create diversity."
You are forgetting a huge piece of the puzzle with busing -- the program took white kids and put them on long bus rides to black schools. That was far more objectionable than black kids coming into white disctricts. Imagine getting you kid up at the crack of dawn to put him on an hour long bus ride to a school he was forced to attend. He couldn't take part in after school events and weekend socializing without great effort on your part.
"I'm not in favor of busing by race, which is what we have in Asbury Park."
How so?
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
Misthiocracy: We also have an "arts" high school in my city, which students can apply to and must audition for.
It just so happens that the majority of applicants to this school tend to be upper-middle class and white.
Does that make the school itself racist? Should the choice not be provided if some groups tend not to place as high a value on the choice as others? · May 19 at 11:26am
Much different situation. In NJ, the school in Little Silver targeted the Asbury Park School district. They ended up with 99% of the white students. None of the black students.
It's called de facto segregation.
I'm not blaming just he white folks here. Remember the black folks pick up $60 million from the State each year because of this.
Re: Racial Segregation In A Northern State. A Challenge To My Governor Christie
"I'm not in favor of busing by race, which is what we have in Asbury Park."
How so? · May 19 at 11:34am
They bus the white kids away from where they live.