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http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jan04/198968.asp
No solution to school segregation
As Chapter 220 rolls forward, it's slowly losing momentum
By SARAH CARR
scarr@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Jan. 10, 2004
The trade-offs hit Lionell Perry III each morning when he passes the Shorewood sign on his way to school.
His home on Milwaukee's north side is only a 10-minute bus ride from Shorewood High School. But the cultural distance is much further.
When he sees the sign, he knows he is leaving behind an urban attitude, look and language that do not fit in at Shorewood.
quot;You don't get to see past the Shorewood sign during the school day," said Perry, a senior at the high school. "Pretty much everything you left behind the sign, you don't get to see un
til
the end of the day."
Twenty-eight years after the start of Chapte
r 220, the last of Milwaukee's formal school integration efforts, suburban school districts are far more integrated - at least on paper.
But the social reality for Perry and thousands of other students in the program is more complicated than some numbers on a sheet. Whether participating schools are as integrated in spirit as they are on paper depends on whom you ask. If anything, Chapter 220 illustrates how differently people define integration.
What is more clear is that attitudes toward 220 have changed. Some of the fervor and idealism that produced the program have died. Now, 220 is seen more as another option for families, rather than a solution for school segregation. This reflects a quiet shift away
from school desegregation policies around the nation.
"As the years have passed, some of the enthusiasm for 220 seemed to wane," said Lionell Perry Jr., who has sent four of his children
to Shorew
ood schools.
Dennis Conta, the former state lawmaker who sponsored legislation that create
d 220, is more blunt. Conta has long believed that the only route to integrated schools is the politically difficult task of creating joint city-suburban school districts.
"It is now impossible in our lifetime to achieve serious integration in the city," he said. "To suggest that you can reach any significant level of integration on a voluntary basis - that notion is dispelled by the results of 220."
Program's varied impact
Educators hesitate when asked whether Chapter 220 has lived up to its promise, because the initial goals were so murky and the impact varied so much across the participating school districts. The legislation creating the program in 1976 requ
ired only that 220 lead to more integrated schools in the Milwaukee area; a secondary goal of improving the educational experience for students was stripped from the bill.
The program allows m
inority students i
n Milwaukee to attend schools in suburbs such as St. Francis and Whitefish Bay and white suburban students to go to Milwauke
e schools. Chapter 220 also helps pay for busing to promote integration within school districts in Milwaukee, Racine, Madison, Beloit and Wausau.
For the 2002-'03 school year, the state estimates about 4,300 minority students from Milwaukee were enrolled in 23 suburban districts, down about 25% from 1994. About 580 suburban students went to classes within MPS, most of them to specialty schools.
The price tag for the state is nearly $90 million this year, about $40.4 million of which pays for the transfer of students such as Lionell Perry III from one district to another.
As other educational choices have become available, the number of
available 220 seats in the suburbs has steadily shrunk. Despite the arrival of options such as open enrollment, vouchers, charter schools and Montessori schools, however, thousands of families sti
ll make the decision to b
us their kids to the suburbs.
Strong academics, different culture
Lionell Perry III considered going to a more diverse high sc
hool. But Rufus King, the most selective MPS high school, was full by the time he applied. "I didn't want to go to a slum school after leaving Shorewood," he said.
The Perrys first heard about 220 from friends nearly 20 years ago. Over the years, their children, Alexis, 18, Lionell, 17, Amber, 15, and Lawrence, 13, all attended Shorewood schools. They wanted 7-year-old Lamar to do so, as well, but his application was not accepted. Lamar attends Green Bay Ave. Elementary, an MPS school.
Mr. Perry, whose job is to build bridges for the city, felt the academics would be stronger in Shorewood. He also wanted to expose his kids to a
different culture.
"We had the opportunity to let them know there's more than one culture on this planet," he said. "That's what I wanted them to see, not just o
ne group of people. We wouldn'
;t want to say they couldn't get a good education in MPS."
Indeed, Alexis transferred back to MPS to attend high school at North Division. But her parents were not sati
sfied with her experience there. They said the school had good facilities, but programs were underutilized because of a lack of funding and teachers.
In Shorewood, there were different worries. Although they generally were satisfied with the education their children received, the Perrys believe school administrators and teachers tend to overlook students who are not academic stars.
"You are kind of trapped," Perry said. "I want my kids to go here, but they have to be 'super kids' to really get the teachers to grab hold of them."
Shorewood also could work h
arder to include the trades in their curriculum, he said.
"Ninety-two percent are going to college. What about the other eight percent?" he said. "Do you want fries w
ith your shake? Is that where they go? I
don't hold it against them at all, though."
Emily Koczela, the president of the School Board in Shorewood, said that issue is "eternal in a high-powered school. It comes up all the time in the North Shore schools."
The famili
es interviewed chose 220 primarily for the academics. But, to varying degrees, they believe their children missed out on the comfortable feeling of community that comes from going to school closer to home.
"Some of the cultural aspects can be hard to deal with," said Tameka Haynes, a 1999 graduate of Hamilton High School in Sussex who is now a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "But then you gain in other areas."
Gary Orfield, co-director of Harvard University's Civil
Rights Project, said participants in a similar city-suburban transfer program in the Boston area tend to view their experience more positively later in their lives. "As kids, the
y might feel marginal in both worlds," he s
aid. "But as adults, they are fluent in both cultures."
More educational choices
School officials and policy-makers now tend to see Chapter 220 less as a broad social policy and more as a way to give families another educational choice. That shift in thinking runs parallel to the loss
of enthusiasm for school desegregation in Milwaukee.
Desegregation bogged down as white residents left the city over the past 30 years and as some black leaders argued that minority students bore the brunt of the efforts.
Conta said he never intended 220 to be the solution for school segregation. In the mid-1970s, he pushed for joint city-suburban school districts in the Milwaukee area - an idea that has never been palatable politically.
"We accepted 2
20 as a compromise, not because it was the ultimate objective but because we thought it could serve temporarily," he said. "We always knew it would have a relatively smal
l number of students."
But critics have alwa
ys assailed 220, arguing that it wasn't worth the cost and siphoned middle-class minority families out of city schools. Furthermore, the results of 220 are debatable.
Academically, no one can say for sure how students in the program have done. Except for one limited study in the mid-1990s, there has been no systematic attempt
to measure their achievement.
And, though many suburban schools are more diverse, MPS schools remain at least as segregated as they were in 1976 - and by many definitions, far more segregated. In 1976, roughly 60% of MPS students were white and 34% black; today, about 17% are white, 18% Hispanic and 60% black.
In 1975, 33 of the 163 MPS schools had more than 90% black enrollment, and today 70 of about 175 schools do.
All
of the suburban schools were more than 95% white in 1976. But during the 2001-'02 school year, 26% of the students in Shorewood schools were minorities. Without 220, that
figure would have been 13%. In St. Francis, 21% were minorities,
compared with 13% if 220 did not exist.
Two school districts - Brown Deer and Glendale-River Hills - have reached the cap of 30% set by the 220 legislation. The law states that once a district has 30% minority enrollment, it cannot receive state dollars for any additional students enrolled through 220.
Koczela, the Shorewood board pres
ident, notes that integration is defined in different ways, and that makes it difficult for the suburban schools to claim success.
"I'm confident that lawmakers never contemplated there would be a day when Shorewood was at 30 percent" minority enrollment, she said. "It does beg the question, 'What was it the legislation asked us to do? And are we done?' "
Improving diversity
L
ionell Perry III thinks suburban schools will be closer to realizing the potential of 220 when they understand that Rufus King, Riverside and North Division, all nearby MPS
high schools, are on the same planet as Shorewood.
"We woul
d be more diversified if we actually intermingled with other schools in MPS," he said.
Families say suburban schools should provide more of the multicultural curricula and diverse teaching staffs that they believe would benefit both minorities and white students.
"It seems like most MPS schools have black history programs, but the first black history month program I ever experience
d was my sophomore year in high school," said Brittany Jackson, 17, a senior in the 220 program at Wauwatosa West High School, who attended Wauwatosa schools starting in kindergarten.
"The way to get it more diversified is to get teachers of different races that can actually relate to the students," Lionell adds. "They do try to relate, bu
t they can't always, and that can make it difficult to learn."
School officials said they have offered diversity training for staff members over the yea
rs, but it has been hard to hire minority teachers.
"We have had som
e success, but not nearly enough," said Elliott Moeser, superintendent of Nicolet School District.
Koczela said that, over the last several years, Shorewood teachers and administrators have scrutinized all textbooks and displays at the school to ensure they are culturally inclusive. Recently, she has begun to think about what else the schools can do, and completed an extensive study on integration in Shorewood schools.
"We had this u
neasy feeling that we are not doing everything," she said. "But what next? We are asking ourselves the question of what more we should do differently."
On the question of whether suburban schools are truly integrated - in spirit and on paper - there is a range of opinion.
"The
majority of students of color, especially those who didn't live in Oak Creek, were completely alienated in classrooms," said Helen Harris, 21, a former pa
rticipant in the program as a student at Oak Creek High who now attends Antioch Collegei
n Ohio. Harris said she can remember only one teacher or administrator - the director of security - who was a minority.
But Fred Jackson, 18, a senior at Shorewood High School and a 220 student, sees it differently. He said he feels the community there "accepts students who don't live in Shorewood as family."
"I think of this as an integrated school," Jackson added. "Even if a newcomer wouldn't see it that way."
Jackson said visitors will walk in and see black and white s
tudents eating at separate tables, and conclude that the school is segregated.
"If you step in and take a closer look in the gym, for instance, you'll see different people playing basketball together, people who feel
like brothers and sisters," he said.
The views of the members of the Perry family tend to fall between those of Jackson and Harris.
The Perry
children said they've seen some signs that they are leaving an imprint on the Shorewood cul
ture. In years past, they said, teachers at the school were more uptight about black students goofing around with each other in the hallways between classes.
"They were really strict on us playing in the halls," Lionell said. "Before we came, they weren't used to kids playing around, but over the years they've seen that's how we act and communicate with each other. That's what keeps us up throughout the day."
But the family is also struck by what they view as a diminishing enthusiasm for 220. The Perrys noted that Shorewood started - and t
hen stopped - music and dance clubs geared to African-American students, including a drill team.
"I think they were trying harder at the beginning," sai
d Lionell Perry Sr. "They were afraid of changing the status quo. It was like it might start looking like a black school because they have a little rhyt
hm."
Perry said Shorewood officials went out of their way several years ago to be inclusive
and gracious. But, as time passed, "there seemed to be one culture and one way."
The family's experience speaks to the national shift, the loss of ardor for the promises of school integration that has coincided with the life span of Chapter 220.
On paper, suburban school districts might have accomplished more than anyone ever thought they would, but much of the momentum has, like Shorewood's drill team, disappeared.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jan04/198968.asp
No solution to school segregation
As Chapter 220 rolls forward, it's slowly losing momentum
By SARAH CARR
scarr@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Jan. 10, 2004
The trade-offs hit Lionell Perry III each morning when he passes the Shorewood sign on his way to school.
His home on Milwaukee's north side is only a 10-minute bus ride from Shorewood High School. But the cultural distance is much further.
When he sees the sign, he knows he is leaving behind an urban attitude, look and language that do not fit in at Shorewood.
quot;You don't get to see past the Shorewood sign during the school day," said Perry, a senior at the high school. "Pretty much everything you left behind the sign, you don't get to see un
til
the end of the day."
Twenty-eight years after the start of Chapte
r 220, the last of Milwaukee's formal school integration efforts, suburban school districts are far more integrated - at least on paper.
But the social reality for Perry and thousands of other students in the program is more complicated than some numbers on a sheet. Whether participating schools are as integrated in spirit as they are on paper depends on whom you ask. If anything, Chapter 220 illustrates how differently people define integration.
What is more clear is that attitudes toward 220 have changed. Some of the fervor and idealism that produced the program have died. Now, 220 is seen more as another option for families, rather than a solution for school segregation. This reflects a quiet shift away
from school desegregation policies around the nation.
"As the years have passed, some of the enthusiasm for 220 seemed to wane," said Lionell Perry Jr., who has sent four of his children
to Shorew
ood schools.
Dennis Conta, the former state lawmaker who sponsored legislation that create
d 220, is more blunt. Conta has long believed that the only route to integrated schools is the politically difficult task of creating joint city-suburban school districts.
"It is now impossible in our lifetime to achieve serious integration in the city," he said. "To suggest that you can reach any significant level of integration on a voluntary basis - that notion is dispelled by the results of 220."
Program's varied impact
Educators hesitate when asked whether Chapter 220 has lived up to its promise, because the initial goals were so murky and the impact varied so much across the participating school districts. The legislation creating the program in 1976 requ
ired only that 220 lead to more integrated schools in the Milwaukee area; a secondary goal of improving the educational experience for students was stripped from the bill.
The program allows m
inority students i
n Milwaukee to attend schools in suburbs such as St. Francis and Whitefish Bay and white suburban students to go to Milwauke
e schools. Chapter 220 also helps pay for busing to promote integration within school districts in Milwaukee, Racine, Madison, Beloit and Wausau.
For the 2002-'03 school year, the state estimates about 4,300 minority students from Milwaukee were enrolled in 23 suburban districts, down about 25% from 1994. About 580 suburban students went to classes within MPS, most of them to specialty schools.
The price tag for the state is nearly $90 million this year, about $40.4 million of which pays for the transfer of students such as Lionell Perry III from one district to another.
As other educational choices have become available, the number of
available 220 seats in the suburbs has steadily shrunk. Despite the arrival of options such as open enrollment, vouchers, charter schools and Montessori schools, however, thousands of families sti
ll make the decision to b
us their kids to the suburbs.
Strong academics, different culture
Lionell Perry III considered going to a more diverse high sc
hool. But Rufus King, the most selective MPS high school, was full by the time he applied. "I didn't want to go to a slum school after leaving Shorewood," he said.
The Perrys first heard about 220 from friends nearly 20 years ago. Over the years, their children, Alexis, 18, Lionell, 17, Amber, 15, and Lawrence, 13, all attended Shorewood schools. They wanted 7-year-old Lamar to do so, as well, but his application was not accepted. Lamar attends Green Bay Ave. Elementary, an MPS school.
Mr. Perry, whose job is to build bridges for the city, felt the academics would be stronger in Shorewood. He also wanted to expose his kids to a
different culture.
"We had the opportunity to let them know there's more than one culture on this planet," he said. "That's what I wanted them to see, not just o
ne group of people. We wouldn'
;t want to say they couldn't get a good education in MPS."
Indeed, Alexis transferred back to MPS to attend high school at North Division. But her parents were not sati
sfied with her experience there. They said the school had good facilities, but programs were underutilized because of a lack of funding and teachers.
In Shorewood, there were different worries. Although they generally were satisfied with the education their children received, the Perrys believe school administrators and teachers tend to overlook students who are not academic stars.
"You are kind of trapped," Perry said. "I want my kids to go here, but they have to be 'super kids' to really get the teachers to grab hold of them."
Shorewood also could work h
arder to include the trades in their curriculum, he said.
"Ninety-two percent are going to college. What about the other eight percent?" he said. "Do you want fries w
ith your shake? Is that where they go? I
don't hold it against them at all, though."
Emily Koczela, the president of the School Board in Shorewood, said that issue is "eternal in a high-powered school. It comes up all the time in the North Shore schools."
The famili
es interviewed chose 220 primarily for the academics. But, to varying degrees, they believe their children missed out on the comfortable feeling of community that comes from going to school closer to home.
"Some of the cultural aspects can be hard to deal with," said Tameka Haynes, a 1999 graduate of Hamilton High School in Sussex who is now a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "But then you gain in other areas."
Gary Orfield, co-director of Harvard University's Civil
Rights Project, said participants in a similar city-suburban transfer program in the Boston area tend to view their experience more positively later in their lives. "As kids, the
y might feel marginal in both worlds," he s
aid. "But as adults, they are fluent in both cultures."
More educational choices
School officials and policy-makers now tend to see Chapter 220 less as a broad social policy and more as a way to give families another educational choice. That shift in thinking runs parallel to the loss
of enthusiasm for school desegregation in Milwaukee.
Desegregation bogged down as white residents left the city over the past 30 years and as some black leaders argued that minority students bore the brunt of the efforts.
Conta said he never intended 220 to be the solution for school segregation. In the mid-1970s, he pushed for joint city-suburban school districts in the Milwaukee area - an idea that has never been palatable politically.
"We accepted 2
20 as a compromise, not because it was the ultimate objective but because we thought it could serve temporarily," he said. "We always knew it would have a relatively smal
l number of students."
But critics have alwa
ys assailed 220, arguing that it wasn't worth the cost and siphoned middle-class minority families out of city schools. Furthermore, the results of 220 are debatable.
Academically, no one can say for sure how students in the program have done. Except for one limited study in the mid-1990s, there has been no systematic attempt
to measure their achievement.
And, though many suburban schools are more diverse, MPS schools remain at least as segregated as they were in 1976 - and by many definitions, far more segregated. In 1976, roughly 60% of MPS students were white and 34% black; today, about 17% are white, 18% Hispanic and 60% black.
In 1975, 33 of the 163 MPS schools had more than 90% black enrollment, and today 70 of about 175 schools do.
All
of the suburban schools were more than 95% white in 1976. But during the 2001-'02 school year, 26% of the students in Shorewood schools were minorities. Without 220, that
figure would have been 13%. In St. Francis, 21% were minorities,
compared with 13% if 220 did not exist.
Two school districts - Brown Deer and Glendale-River Hills - have reached the cap of 30% set by the 220 legislation. The law states that once a district has 30% minority enrollment, it cannot receive state dollars for any additional students enrolled through 220.
Koczela, the Shorewood board pres
ident, notes that integration is defined in different ways, and that makes it difficult for the suburban schools to claim success.
"I'm confident that lawmakers never contemplated there would be a day when Shorewood was at 30 percent" minority enrollment, she said. "It does beg the question, 'What was it the legislation asked us to do? And are we done?' "
Improving diversity
L
ionell Perry III thinks suburban schools will be closer to realizing the potential of 220 when they understand that Rufus King, Riverside and North Division, all nearby MPS
high schools, are on the same planet as Shorewood.
"We woul
d be more diversified if we actually intermingled with other schools in MPS," he said.
Families say suburban schools should provide more of the multicultural curricula and diverse teaching staffs that they believe would benefit both minorities and white students.
"It seems like most MPS schools have black history programs, but the first black history month program I ever experience
d was my sophomore year in high school," said Brittany Jackson, 17, a senior in the 220 program at Wauwatosa West High School, who attended Wauwatosa schools starting in kindergarten.
"The way to get it more diversified is to get teachers of different races that can actually relate to the students," Lionell adds. "They do try to relate, bu
t they can't always, and that can make it difficult to learn."
School officials said they have offered diversity training for staff members over the yea
rs, but it has been hard to hire minority teachers.
"We have had som
e success, but not nearly enough," said Elliott Moeser, superintendent of Nicolet School District.
Koczela said that, over the last several years, Shorewood teachers and administrators have scrutinized all textbooks and displays at the school to ensure they are culturally inclusive. Recently, she has begun to think about what else the schools can do, and completed an extensive study on integration in Shorewood schools.
"We had this u
neasy feeling that we are not doing everything," she said. "But what next? We are asking ourselves the question of what more we should do differently."
On the question of whether suburban schools are truly integrated - in spirit and on paper - there is a range of opinion.
"The
majority of students of color, especially those who didn't live in Oak Creek, were completely alienated in classrooms," said Helen Harris, 21, a former pa
rticipant in the program as a student at Oak Creek High who now attends Antioch Collegei
n Ohio. Harris said she can remember only one teacher or administrator - the director of security - who was a minority.
But Fred Jackson, 18, a senior at Shorewood High School and a 220 student, sees it differently. He said he feels the community there "accepts students who don't live in Shorewood as family."
"I think of this as an integrated school," Jackson added. "Even if a newcomer wouldn't see it that way."
Jackson said visitors will walk in and see black and white s
tudents eating at separate tables, and conclude that the school is segregated.
"If you step in and take a closer look in the gym, for instance, you'll see different people playing basketball together, people who feel
like brothers and sisters," he said.
The views of the members of the Perry family tend to fall between those of Jackson and Harris.
The Perry
children said they've seen some signs that they are leaving an imprint on the Shorewood cul
ture. In years past, they said, teachers at the school were more uptight about black students goofing around with each other in the hallways between classes.
"They were really strict on us playing in the halls," Lionell said. "Before we came, they weren't used to kids playing around, but over the years they've seen that's how we act and communicate with each other. That's what keeps us up throughout the day."
But the family is also struck by what they view as a diminishing enthusiasm for 220. The Perrys noted that Shorewood started - and t
hen stopped - music and dance clubs geared to African-American students, including a drill team.
"I think they were trying harder at the beginning," sai
d Lionell Perry Sr. "They were afraid of changing the status quo. It was like it might start looking like a black school because they have a little rhyt
hm."
Perry said Shorewood officials went out of their way several years ago to be inclusive
and gracious. But, as time passed, "there seemed to be one culture and one way."
The family's experience speaks to the national shift, the loss of ardor for the promises of school integration that has coincided with the life span of Chapter 220.
On paper, suburban school districts might have accomplished more than anyone ever thought they would, but much of the momentum has, like Shorewood's drill team, disappeared.