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In response to my column about new evidence showing that school integration matters, Joshua Curtis writes:
This is the first time that I’ve ever read anything that reflects my personal educational experiences. My parents are white ex-hippie lawyers who sent me to “bad” elementary and middle schools that had a high percentage of low income and minority students. However, I doubt this had a negative effect on my long-term academic success. Last year I graduated from Oberlin College and received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant grant. In a couple weeks I’m going to start training [for] Teach For America.I think many parents, even liberal ones, believe that their children will be hurt if they attend a school with a significant number of low income students. But as your article says, this is not the case. Making more parents aware of this is important to gain political support, at both the local and national level, for creating racially and economically diverse schools.I was also wondering what research supports this. I’d love to read it.Great question, Josh, and congratulations on your new job. It sounds like my schooling experience was quite similar to yours. Here is some research that might interest you:
- Both Sides Now - Columbia University sociologist Amy Stuart Wells and her research team interviewed black, white, and Latino graduates of desegregated high schools. They found that as adults, these people were more tolerant of difference, placed a high value on diversity, and hoped to provide the same type of education experience for their own children
- Michigan State education expert Mary Kennedy found that nationwide, poor children who attend racially and economically segregated schools perform at a much lower level than similar poor children who attend integrated schools
- Sociologist Jomills Braddock found that black and Latino young adults were much more likely to be hired for a job if they attended suburban high schools instead of segregated, urban ones
- For some great narrative education journalism and a review of much of this research, check out The Children in Room E4, by Susan Eaton
