…Two things can be true at the same time
There are many things that public education has gotten wrong since its expansion at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. While its central purpose at the turn of the century was to homogenize and socialize a rapidly diversifying urban core experiencing an influx of Irish, southern and eastern European immigrants, and Black migrants from the South for factory work, the delivery of public education has had a problematic legacy ever since. Public Education has never adequately mitigated its proclivity toward social reproduction. Public Education has never sufficiently empowered, in either instruction or administration, those belonging to demographics that are non-white and, at least, economically middle class.
For over 100 years, our public education system served to sort those expected to be successful from the expendable, as well as preserve the existing social hierarchy. Commonly, schools have been spaces where children are conditioned to accept their place and their future within American society. Schools comprised of poorer or working-class, and non-white students remind communities and students that they matter less – and, that they should get used to mattering less throughout their lives. Marginalization of students based on gender, family income, sexual identity, religion, ethnicity has existed for over a century. To be sure, public education’s history and its present is filled with warts.
One might argue that urban public education has largely continued along the same troubled trajectory as it did when it expanded in the early 1900s. Then, the general purpose of public schooling was to socialize a diversifying collection of children to “American exceptionalism”, “patriotism”, and for factory work: take orders, abide by bells or whistles, perform mundane routines daily, and submit to authority.
Though functionally much remains unchanged, the vernacular describing the purpose of schooling today has evolved, at least somewhat. The commonly expressed goals of modern schooling is to educate students for “college and career readiness”; to either get children prepared for college or have them ready for the work world in the 21st century. While educating students solely for the purpose of “college and career readiness” for any child is troublesome for a variety of reasons (some of which is referenced here), employing that approach for the most vulnerable children in public education, our urban student body, is uniquely problematic.
After listening to a series of sermons from legendary pastors James Cone, Samuel DeWitt Proctor, and Jeremiah Wright, all of whom are Black Liberation Theologians, two arching concepts emerged regarding their cognizance of the Black Church’s purpose: that the Black Church should be freeing, and, that it should serve. The Black Church should be concerned with freeing people’s minds and spirits that have been uniquely damaged by a legacy of white racism, as well as serve their communities that have been ravaged by governmental neglect and economic disinvestment for generations. Stepping back, I submit the ideals espoused by these pillars of Black Liberation Theology, should align seamlessly with the ideals of urban public education where masses of students of color come from communities that are the most economically challenged, and politically isolated. Thus I wonder, how are urban public schools freeing our students, and how are they serving their communities?
The compensatory nature of school legally mandates children to attend schools that are steadfastly committed to educating them for purposes that disregard the realities of their current condition. Most of us (with eyes and common sense), recognize that structural racism, in all its manifestations, exists as a reality. We also understand that those with scarce financial resources struggle to procure even the simplest, most basic needs like food, water, shelter, and clothing. And within urban schools, buildings are filled with students who are, essentially, locked into their social status because both their ethnicity, and their economic backgrounds are working against them simultaneously. In attempting to motivate students to work toward what’s possible, urban schools may showcase motivational speakers who share their exceptional paths to success, all while such schools regularly ignore their students’ most likely outcome…that because of both race and class, opportunities will continue to be denied our urban students.
Further, despite urban schools being governmental structures placed inside urban communities, for too long, schools operated independent of their surrounding neighborhood. The legacy of disconnect between urban public schools and their communities has lingered for decades. Parents and urban residents have been silenced by their schools, shown they don’t matter by district governing bodies, and made to feel like impediments to school culture to be circumvented, rather than included, and where needed, served.
Fortunately, urban public schools are beginning to awaken to the fact they’ve, collectively, been doing things wrong in the serving category for far too long. Through the implementation of the formalized Community Schools model, providing more wrap-around services for students, hosting FAFSA and College Readiness Nights, facilitating job fairs for the community, hosting food pantries for residents in need, providing dental and optical care, giving students haircuts and availing washing machines for students to do laundry, urban public schools are trying to turn the corner in serving the needs of students and the community beyond the narrow “college and career readiness” focus that does not address their tenuous reality.
This brings us to COVID19 (coronavirus) and what it’s handling says about the imperative for, and service of, urban public schools. As the moneymaking machines NBA, NHL, MLB, and NCAA announced the suspensions of their respective seasons, colleges shutting down operations, workplaces and public gatherings across the country are shuttered, the rare public institutions still operating (for now) are our urban public schools. And while many on the outside may deem this dangerous and irresponsible, advocates and central office administrators recognize the complexity in closing schools within economically depressed areas where parents must work in order to keep their jobs and make a living; and that more students than we’d care to recognize receive the bulk of their meals within city schools. Urban public schools are thoughtfully weighing the fears of the infectious nature of COVID19, with the likelihood that closing their doors could result in familial economic diaster, and the possibility of hungry children.
The coronavirus pandemic should remind many who’ve forgotten both the importance and potential of our urban public schools. Undeniably, public education has had awful moments in serving the needs of its most vulnerable students and communities, and has lightyears to go before liberating them from an American caste system that binds them due to their race and economic background. But at their best, public schools are increasingly demonstrating their worth to communities in ways far outside what is traditionally quantifiable. Helping families maintain their economic stability, however unstable, matters. Feeding children daily, matters.
What is true: Urban public schools have a problematic legacy in sustaining a system that constricts the potential for students to become their most liberated selves and has been absent in serving the neighborhoods in which they’re situated. What else is true: Urban schools have a long way to go, but in terms of serving their communities, that message is finally starting to register to the benefit of many.
