Integration yes, but at what cost?  That is the question. In the late 1980’s,  I moved to Atlanta Georgia to work as an administrator with Fulton County Schools.  A suburb of greater Atlanta, Fulton County is bisected by Interstate 20, into North and South Fulton.  The student population in South Fulton Schools are predominantly black, and in North Fulton Schools mainly white.

In an effort to maintain a racial balance in its schools, Georgia funded the M to M (Majority to Minority) transportation program that allowed busing of children as a means of desegregating schools.  The belief was that desegregated schools were better places for all children, especially for children of color.  That belief still pervades today.  In New York City, it masquerades as school choice and charters and lotteries. That belief that integrated schools are better for children of color needs to be re-examined.  It is not always so.

Black parents in South Fulton could choose to send their kids to a North County school where children of color were in the minority.  White parents could also choose to send their offspring to a South County school where white children were in the minority.  Many black parents signed their kids up for the one to two hour highway ride to a school far away from their homes and communities.  I know of no white parents who chose to grab the opportunity for “diversity” and enroll their children in the M to M program.

George Williams (name changed) was a black 10th grader from South Fulton.  His parents saw what they felt were the benefits of integration.  He could go to  a “better” high school in North County.  They enrolled him in the M to M program.  His days began at 4:30am.  He had to be at the bus stop by 5:30am to be sure to be at North Fulton High School in time for his first class –the 8:00am zero period.  Sometimes he missed the bus.  Then his mother would have to drive him to school and she’d be late for her job.  She did what she thought was important for her son’s education.

Very often, there was traffic or an accident and the bus arrived late to school.   A sea of black students would pour into the quiet school, disrupting classes already in session.   These M to M students as they were called, couldn’t participate in after school activities or sports.  They had to get on the same M to M buses for their long trek home. Miss a bus and you were stranded.  These students left home before the crack of dawn and returned in the dark, tired not only from their day at school, but from the long commute in Atlanta’s horrendous traffic. Homework had to be done on the bus. The quality of that work, who knows?

The M to M bus rides took kids past their black neighborhoods, past their black schools and into white schools and places that were supposedly better for them. For some parents, the integrated environment was and still is important.  But again I ask, at what cost?

On a bright sunny Monday morning in May,  George woke up late.  He missed his bus again.  He dressed as fast as he could, grabbed something to eat in the car and called out, “I need a ride.”

But his mother in a fit of anger said,”No, I’m not driving you this time.”

She’d had enough.  What she didn’t know was that George had also had enough. To be or not to be?  That was his question.  She left him at home alone and went to work.  In the evening when George’s parents got in, they found George hanging from the rafters in the basement.  He’d hung himself.  He left them a note.  Just two words. “Bad George!”   He was their only child.

Nikole Hannah-Jones’ New York Times article “Worlds Apart” http://nyti.ms/1TXcq5c  describes her struggle to find a school for her daughter.  She and her husband argue about having her in an integrated school setting or not. This was a stark reminder that people still put too much stock on external appearances and diversity when it comes to evaluating educational environments for their children.

There is a pervasive and erroneous assumption peddled to parents that a child of color will do better academically in a majority white school environment. That they will do better in integrated settings.  Maybe, maybe not.  Many drop out or are pushed out.  There are a myriad of other factors that impact educational success.  Sitting in a “diverse” environment would not be at the top of my list.

Good teaching, caring teachers, supportive educational systems trump the diversity that the integrationists argue for.  These school integrationists make their living perpetrating and trumpeting this theory.  Poor people believe them and pay a heavy price.

There are other social and emotional factors that impact a child’s success in school.  It is not the whiteness or the diversity of the school that ensures success for children of color.  Rather, it is the quality of the teaching that the child gets.  Every child needs a good school.  Good teaching is the answer to creating good schools.   Having a majority of white children in a school does not ensure or assure a good educational experience for a black or brown child.  Good teaching does.  I have observed many bad teachers – both black and white.  I would not want my child in any of their classes.  I have seen many good teachers – both black and white, some in majority black/brown schools.   All children would thrive under these good teachers.  Ms. Frazier at CS200 was one of them. A caring, patient and thoughtful teacher, I never heard her raise her voice once at any child.  There are many more teachers like her. I loved the principal of PS154 Elizabeth Jarrett who worked with us when I created the Reading and Math Buddy Programs to work in Harlem.  She was an administrator who really put children first.   I’d trust these black educators with my child any day.

But I know what to look for, I know what to say and do when I don’t get good teaching for my child –many parents don’t.  They have to accept whatever cards fate deals their children when it comes to teachers.  If we want to help improve the schools for all children, then we all must support the teachers when we see that they need help.  They are not going to be fired.  Their union is powerful.  It won’t happen.  So instead of railing against the blackness or lack of diversity in a school, I want to help make parents better consumers.  Parents must know what they should expect in a teacher, what their child should get from a teacher, and what “good teaching” looks like regardless of the location of the school.  Parents and kids have to be given the power to reject poor quality teaching.

Some of the worry about a lack of integration and re-segregation of schools is nothing more than “fear mongering” — an expression of  racist fears that have been repeated so often that they are now accepted as fact by the larger population, including black folks.  Everybody wants the best for their children.  If they are told that the better schools are where the white children are, then parents will want that.  I do not expect any white parent to make his or her child a social experiment for the sake of integration.  That’s foolish.

What I do expect is that every school and every teacher must be held accountable for providing  the nurture, the support, the care, the rich educational experiences for all children –and the black, brown , poor children who don’t have those supports at home, need all that even more from their schools.  I don’t expect them to get a good education across town far from their communities.  NYC is a diverse and divided society.  Good schools are possible in every neighborhood if we as a society want them. We do know how.