As the school board election Tuesday nears, we're getting more offerings than we will be able to print. Here is a piece by research scientist William T. Lynch against "shuttle busing," saying, "If maximum diversity within the school were to be the preferred mix,
then the schools with intermediate FRL (Free & Reduced Price Lunch)
percentages would be showing the best results. If the 'researchers'
looked at this existing data they would find no instance where this
expectation has been realized."
We're planning to post several more things today. You can also find more letters about the school board race on tomorrow's "Other Opinion" page and in Sunday Forum on Sunday.
Thinking outside the Bus
The issues of socioeconomic diversity in the classroom are not being resolved. Since we all want the best for all students, it should be possible to approach this goal rationally. It does not suffice to quote demographic results and simply claim that more student diversity within each school building will help. It is certainly not appropriate to intimate racism against those who wish to assign metrics to diversity experiments. Much of the quoted “research” has not been research at all, but simply a selective gathering of scattered and obvious facts.
If maximum diversity within the school were to be the preferred mix, then the schools with intermediate FRL (Free & Reduced Price Lunch) percentages would be showing the best results. If the “researchers” looked at this existing data they would find no instance where this expectation has been realized. Higher scores, on average, are simply made by those whose parents are more educated, and whose incomes are, proportionately greater. This general separation has been maintained over generations, but any individual can defy this separation within a single generation. The question is: “How does one carry out a positive crossover?”
Everyone seems to know the pathway. It is based on motivation, discipline, and opportunity. Basically, it is dedication by the student, motivation directed from the parents and community, and opportunity supplied by the schools and taxpayers. Ultimately, success depends on the student. Even if every school were to have identical facilities and opportunities, even if every student were shuttled, the disparities based on these other factors would still exist. Without considering all factors, the simple act of mixing poor achievers with high achievers in the same classroom can be psychologically devastating for poor performers if they do not receive special focusing, or devastating for high performers if their special challenges are ignored. Every student is at a particular place with a particular set of needs.
No one today favors any practices that pre-assign any categories of students to low expectations, low challenges, and low ultimate achievements. The school must expect the best from every student, but also respond to the student’s actual level of performance. Good teachers recognize and focus on the range of abilities and limitations within their own classes. At some point in the education ladder the desire for socioeconomic diversity must recognize the greater need for an optimum range of performance diversity and realistic challenge in the actual classroom.
There may be an emotional letdown to realize that one deserves to be in the weakest performing classroom, but the next step towards greater challenges should always be available. Weak students, with more attention in their classroom environment, will advance more rapidly, and strong students, with more challenges, will advance more completely. If not in elementary school, then at some time such a partition is desirable.
Shuttle busing is a desperate move when it intentionally and forcibly promotes both socioeconomic and performance diversity within both schools and classrooms. If the classrooms are fully diverse, then will not both lower-performing and higher-performing students suffer? On the other hand, if the schools are diverse, but the classrooms are not performance diverse, will there only be hallway and lunchroom socioeconomic diversity? Certainly high performers who are forced to be bused in order, simultaneously, to ensure FRL percentages, grade level percentages, and socioeconomic diversity in a school that has already been designated as having poor performers are being mistreated. The 25% “not at grade level” requirement can, after all, be self-defeating, if that school is actually reducing its not-at-grade-level percentage. This shows that it is a good school, not a poor school, since it is clearly focused on student needs. If the school truly is a poor quality school, then the many students who were not bused out are also being mistreated.
There has to be a way to promote social mixing of all students in a better format. Allow the schools to be the catalyst that brings true socioeconomic mixing at both the student and parent level, without having any utopian visions that it can all be carried out in the classroom. Social awareness and individual motivation can be engendered by actual social mixing.
For example, could there be two pairs of days (a total of four days) in which two schools, A and B, swap one half of their students by means of busing? It’s a field trip, but to a partner school. On each day, the remaining A students host the visiting B students, and vice versa. It could start out with just a couple of grade levels. Teachers from A and B would work together to establish specific programs of classroom instruction for those four days. Special student preparation and participation for these visitations would be highly desirable. The topics might have a shift toward civics, geography, and economics, but all subjects would be included. Lunch might be for two hours for true social mixing, mixed-team play, individual contact sharing, etc. The second pair of days, later in the year, could begin with student expositions on how the first two days went and how their thinking and involvement has changed since.
At some point parents could be involved, perhaps as a social event on the evening of the first day of the second pair of days. They might share their views, and, who knows, maybe the children will inspire (or will have inspired) the parents to meet socially. The principal of the hosting school could give a tour to the visiting parents, and it would be only fair to see if there are true differences in facilities.
For the middle school students, some time in those four days should also be spent on discussing high school graduation and career choices. Special speakers might be appropriate. It should be clear that such goals are available for everybody. The topic of dropping out, and its futility, should be openly discussed. Recommendations have already been offered to the DPI on early involvement in preventing future dropouts, as well as for pre-identification of potential dropouts. Middle school is the crucial period. At sometime during this period it becomes very difficult to make up for lost educational ground in a single year.
Such approaches involve all students, not just shuttled students.
William T. Lynch, Ph.D.
Apex
William T. Lynch has been a U.S. Navy instructor and Adjunct Professor. His profession as a research scientist and manager involved a broad scope of statistics, performance evaluation, and mentoring of minorities. He comes from an ED background and is dedicated to improving opportunities for all.
