Report From The Century Foundation Task Force on the Common School Says Economic School Integration Can Help Close Achievement Gap

9/18/2002

From: Christy Hicks of The Century Foundation, 212-452-7723 or hicks@tcf.org

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 -- The achievement gap between middle-class and economically disadvantaged students remains disturbingly wide despite decades of school reforms including vouchers, busing, standardized testing, and compensatory spending. A new report released today by The Century Foundation Task Force on the Common School takes a fresh look at how to promote equality and achievement in education and offers a plan to improve both through economic integration of America's public schools.

A study commissioned by the task force finds that economic school segregation increased in the 1990s and predicts that the significant socioeconomic divisions between schools will widen in all but six states through 2025. These findings are consistent with other studies concluding that schools are resegregating by race. The report, Divided We Fail: Coming Together Through Public School Choice, concludes that if nothing is done to address these trends, we will reap an educational disaster. It proposes that creative efforts be made to break up concentrations of school poverty, laying out a plan for the economic integration of public schools through public school choice.

Even after Congress passed President Bush's education reform legislation, school reform remains high on the political and policy agenda at the national, state, and local level. However, Task Force Chairman Lowell Weicker, former governor and U.S. senator from Connecticut, believes the current efforts will not be enough to end the crisis in education. "Economic segregation is at the heart of America's education problem, yet neither political party has a strong plan of action to address this educational crisis," he said. He hopes that this report will help redirect the discussion about how best to improve public education for all children.

The report is based on research that shows that when a school has a solid core of middle-class families, all students - low income and middle-class - perform at higher levels than if those students attended high poverty schools. The task force notes that in a nation where two-thirds of students are middle class (not eligible for subsidized school lunches), every child, in theory, could have the chance to attend a solidly middle-class public school. In making its recommendations, the task force relied heavily on lessons from communities in Wisconsin, Missouri, North Carolina, and Massachusetts, which have had success with integration plans.

The task force is comprised of a distinguished group of education reform leaders from diverse backgrounds. It includes education administrators, business executives, former government officials, school principals, lawyers, scholars, policy experts, activists, and teachers. Charles S. Robb, former governor and U.S. Senator from Virginia, Charles Willie, Charles W. Eliot Professor of Education Emeritus, Harvard University. Ramon Cortines, former superintendent of schools in New York City and San Francisco, Amy Stuart Wells, professor of education policy, Christopher Edley, co-director, Harvard Civil Rights Project and professor of law, Harvard University Law School. UCLA, and Ann Majestic, attorney for the Wake County North Carolina School District, are among the members of the task force. Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and author of All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class School through Public School Choice, serves as the task force's executive director.

"The number of children involved in economic integration programs has grown from 20,000 three years ago to 400,000 this year," said Kahlenberg. "Many of the current school reforms, including voucher programs, work only because they have a small group of highly motivated participants. Our task force was intent of making recommendations that have worked in practice and can be successfully expanded," he added. The policy recommendations include:

-- Allowing Parents to Choose Among Various Schools The task force recommends that within geographic regions, parents should be permitted to rank preferences among a variety of schools, each of which has a distinctive curricular theme or teaching approach. School officials, then, honor those choices with an eye to promoting integrated schools. This system has been successfully employed in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Montclair, New Jersey, and elsewhere.

-- Coupling Investment in School Systems with Integration Since middle-class families are unlikely to send their children to schools in poor neighborhoods unless those schools are well-funded, financial investments must be made to low-income schools. These investments could help lure middle-class students, which, in turn, could assist in school improvement.

The executive summary for Divided We Fail, and a complete list of task force members can be found on The Century Foundation's education website at www.equaleducation.org or on The Century Foundation's home site at www.tcf.org. The study by David Rusk, "Trends in School Segregation," is also available. For more information on this report or to schedule an interview with a Task Force member, please contact Christy DeBoe Hicks at 212-452-7723 or hicks@tcf.org.

Divided We Fail: Coming Together through Public School Choice The Report of The Century Foundation Task Force on the Common School Paper, $14.95, ISBN: 0-87078-476-5 To order call 800-552-5450; in Washington, D.C., 202-797-6258.

--- The Century Foundation is a research foundation that undertakes timely, critical, and analytical studies of major economic, political, and social institutions and issues. Nonprofit and nonpartisan, TCF was founded in 1919 and endowed by Edward A. Filene.

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