NYC parents’ school choices not colorblind by Allison Roda and Amy Stuart Wells

Author Update (August 12, 2021) 

Since the writing of my co-authored publication, “School Choice Policies and Racial Segregation: Where White Parents’ Good Intentions, Anxiety, and Privilege Collide” (Roda & Wells, 2013), numerous other studies have documented how mostly white, advantaged parents interact with school choice policies in urban areas—portraying them as simultaneously anxious about the process, valuing diversity, and conflicted about how their privileged choices contribute to the segregated school system (Cucchiara, 2013; Kimelberg & Billingham, 2013; Makris, 2018; Posey-Maddox, 2014; Roda, 2015). As we wrote in our article, when school choice policies are colorblind, e.g. not designed to promote racial integration, they lead to self-fulfilling prophecies of “good” and “bad” schools, with white, higher income families often getting exclusive access to the most popular choice options. This results in “opportunity hoarding” behaviors because of the way in which the choice policies are designed (Sattin-Bajaj & Roda, 2020). Unfortunately, much has stayed the same since the time of this article. Indeed, New York City schools remain one of the most segregated school systems in the country because of school choice policy, school catchment boundary lines, and segregated neighborhoods.

 However, a number of initiatives have been piloted that are showing promise in disrupting decades of social reproduction via school choice policies. For example, in Brooklyn’s District 15, educational leaders and a group of advantaged parents responded to the high levels of middle school segregation by developing an “Integration Plan” that eliminated academic screens from the middle schools. The plan also got rid of other criteria that schools had formerly used to rank and admit students that unfairly reflected family income, such as requiring school tours and teacher recommendations. After two years, low-income students are now more evenly distributed across the 11 middle schools than before (Elsen-Rooney, 2019 and 2021; Joffe-Walt, 2020). What is more, due to the pandemic, all academically selective schools were barred from using test scores and attendance records to make admissions decisions in the 2021 admissions cycle, prompting integration advocates to call for the end of school screening processes and an overhaul of admissions procedures more generally (Nunberg & Smith-Thompson, 2020; Shapiro, 2020b).  Lastly, more than one-hundred schools across the city have voluntarily created set-asides for low-income students as part of a diversity in admissions program.

There has also been a notable shift in some parents’ school choice behaviors. In contrast to the dominant portrayal of ‘Nice White Parents’ (Joffe-Walt, 2020), I have conducted several studies in New York City that show a subset of advantaged parents making a different set of choices when choosing schools by advocating for neighborhood schools where their children would be in the minority (Roda, 2018) and participating in a parent-led initiative to phase out a segregated gifted program in an otherwise diverse elementary school (Roda, In Process). In my latest study with Mira Debs, Molly Makris, and Judith Kafka we have identified a different category of advantaged parents whose educational philosophy and priorities lead them to choose schools for their children’s happiness (or social and emotional well-being) rather than perceived academic rigor or competitive advantage.

 While there is still much more to be done to address the high levels of school segregation and inequity in the city, these policy changes are steps in the right direction and reflect our final recommendation in the AJE article: “It is clear to us that even small amendments to … school choice policies, shifting their goals and purposes away from the market-based model of school choice policy toward a policy with a greater focus on racial and social-class integration, could appeal to white parents’ intuition about the importance of school-level diversity and work against some of the forces that continue to push the system toward more segregation.”

Across the U.S., an increasing number of white, well-educated young professionals are choosing to live in cities such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Many of these so-called “gentrifiers” grew up in mostly- or all-white suburbs and attended predominantly white schools. As they raise children of their own in an urban environment, these parents often drive the school choice process by defining which schools are the “best”—definitions with important consequences for racial diversity in city schools.

In our effort to better understand the logic behind these parents’ school choices, as well as the impact of these urban demographic changes on public schools, we conducted in-depth interviews with dozens of parents participating in a kindergarten lottery in one of the increasingly white community school districts in New York City. Our article based on this research was recently published in the American Journal of Education, “School Choice Policies and Racial Segregation: Where White Parents’ Good Intentions, Anxiety, and Privilege Collide.“ In the article, we assert that the scarcity of racially integrated schools and programs in New York City reflects a failure of public policy and political will, not a lack of demand on the part of parents.

We learned through our in-depth interviews that many white, affluent parents want to enroll their children in racially diverse public schools, but they struggle to find schools in New York City that are racially diverse.  Even schools that seem racially diverse are often segregated at the classroom level because they offer gifted programs that overwhelmingly serve white students.  Therefore, some parents tend to make decisions for their children that perpetuate racial distinctions simply because there are few other options. As one parent we interviewed for our larger research project noted, when you only have the choice of segregation, you choose segregation.

However, many of the parents we spoke with rationalized these decisions by stating they want to be with other parents and students “like them,” and they believe these choices will guarantee their children the “best” possible education. Our interview data suggest that these white parents’ advantage strongly influences their anxiety about the school choice process. They worry about their children’s futures in a highly unequal society. This larger social context frequently causes them to go along with the choices of other parents “like them” and send their children to schools deemed most “viable” by other parents—even if such choices contradict the value they place on diversity in public education (at least in the abstract).

Meanwhile, these urban parents note that one of the reasons why they live in New York City is so that their children will grow up in a more diverse and “real world” environment. They bemoan the degree of segregation within the public schools, noting that it makes them uncomfortable and contradicts their sense of who they are and why they choose to raise their children in the city.

Other white and affluent parents choose private schools, either because their children are not accepted to their first choice of public schools, or because they are bothered by the racial separation within and between New York public schools. This private school choice is somewhat ironic, given that New York Public School officials originally established gifted and talented programs to help keep more white and middle-class families in public schools. Yet, our interview data indicate that fewer such parents would opt for private schools if there were more excellent and racially diverse schools and classrooms to choose from.  The one school in the district we studied that was diverse at the school and classroom level and seen as a “good” school also had a long waiting list of white students.

Since white, advantaged parents in New York often qualify schools as “good” or “bad” along race and class lines, our research lead us to conclude that although some white parents in New York City will probably choose separate, predominantly white schools and programs—especially those labeled “gifted and talented”—no matter what, public schools could do more to break these classifications by promoting integration (For more information about the racial segregation in gifted and talented programs in New York City, see the New York Times series called “A System Divided”.)  Furthermore, we know that there is a large, and potentially growing, group of white parents in the system who would choose otherwise if New York City policymakers would only listen and create more viable, racially diverse schools and racially diverse programs within those schools.

One way to achieve the goal of more diverse schools is to create more magnet schools that draw students of different racial backgrounds from across a community school district or the entire system.  The U.S. Department of Education is once again emphasizing the benefit of diversity in its competitive magnet school funding process, and local officials should build on New York City’s history of magnet school success to bring home more of that federal funding (For more information about magnet schools in New York City, see a recent New York Times piece on this issue:  “Do Magnet Schools Still Matter?“)

In short, racially diverse, vibrant public school options in which teachers think of student diversity as an asset to explore and build upon in the classroom would keep more affluent parents and their resources in public schools. This should be an important goal for maintaining the economic vitality of our cities while helping to provide more equitable educational opportunities for all children.

Thus, while we are not naïve enough to think that all parents would enroll their children in racially diverse schools if given the option, we do know—and we speak from personal experience as urban parents—that many would. Why not give these parents more choices? Based on our research and our own understanding as New York City public school parents, we encourage the DOE to shift its focus away from highly competitive, market-based school choice policies, such as charter schools, which consistently lead to greater racial segregation and a winner-take-all mentality. Instead, they should emphasize racial and social-class integration, cross-cultural understandings to prepare children for a global society and greater equality. Such an approach could appeal to white parents who have been drawn into cities from the homogeneous suburbs of their youth, while helping to educate the next generation of Americans who will soon inherit a far more diverse and culturally complicated country.

References

Cucchiara, M. B. (2013). Marketing schools, marketing cities. University of Chicago Press.

Elsen-Rooney, M. (2019, November 14). New admissions plan improves diversity in Brooklyn school district, new NYC data shows. New York Daily News. https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/ny-diversity-integration-brooklyn-district-15-20191114-pnykcguo5fcpnifex5bamstl6i-story.html

Elsen-Rooney, M. (2021, May 11). Pandemic admission screens pause boosts diversity at NYC middle schools. New York Daily News. https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/ny-middle-schools-pandemic-middle-school-screens-suspension-20210511-bvnten6fmnhibek3jzl6hyna6e-story.html

Kimelberg, S. M., & Billingham, C. M. (2013). Attitudes toward diversity and the school choice process: Middle-class parents in a segregated urban public school district. Urban Education, 48(2), 198-231.

Makris, M. V. (2018). The chimera of choice: Gentrification, school choice, and community. Peabody Journal of Education, 93(4), 411-429.

Nunberg, M. & Smith-Thompson, T. (2020, October, 9). Especially now, public schools for all: NYC should do away with middle-and-high school admissions screens. New York Daily News. https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-this-virus-should-finally-kill-school-screens-20201009-itgnpuark5b3xbgzl4wgmeuaxi-story.html

Posey-Maddox, L. (2014). When middle-class parents choose urban schools. University of Chicago Press.

Roda, A. (2015). Inequality in gifted and talented programs: Parental choices about status, school opportunity, and second-generation segregation. Springer.

Roda, A., & Wells, A. S. (2013). School choice policies and racial segregation: Where white parents’ good intentions, anxiety, and privilege collide. American Journal of Education, 119(2), 261-293.

Sattin-Bajaj, C., & Roda, A. (2020). Opportunity hoarding in school choice contexts: The role of policy design in promoting middle-class parents’ exclusionary behaviors. Educational Policy, 34(7), 992-1035.

Shapiro, E. (2020a). How White progressives undermine school integration. The New York

Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/21/nyregion/school-integration-progressives.html Shapiro, E. (June 11, 2020b). A school admissions process that caused segregation fell apart in weeks. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-schools-admissions.html