Economic Segregation in Bend-Lapine Oregon Schools?

"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members."
- Gandhi

Courtesy: apgovernment2010.yolasite.com

(BEND, Ore.) - 'Economic segregation' is an ugly term. However that won't keep it from being at the front of conversation in central Oregon tonight when the The Bend-LaPine School Board meeting convenes.

Other words and terms expected tonight will be 'racial discrimination' and 'Civil Right violations'. Projected future terms at school meetings in this central Oregon area may include 'class-action lawsuit' and 'federal intervention'.

Officials will hear a formal appeal by a group of parents over a recent school boundary decision which segregates poor and minority students outside of their neighborhood school, into one large school.

Local residents like Shelley Hall of Bend, are offended. They say the school board's decision is highly out of place in a modern society, particularly one already facing a strong economic divide and a fleeting middle class.

Hall sent a notice out to parents, community members and media, about tonight's meeting and the Middle School Boundary decision to send all Pine Ridge Elementary students to Pilot Butte Middle School.

She began by saying:

"If you think this does not affect you, it does. Even if you don't have kids in the schools or if your kids are not affected, this decision is not a good one for our community."

Hall next offered an overview of the situation:

The Bend LaPine School district chose to take the neighborhood furthest away from Pilot Butte, with the highest numbers of low income and minority students and bus them out of their own neighborhood school. This creates the largest economic divide (by choice) between the two middle schools, while overcrowding Pilot Butte.

Cascade Middle School - 668 students with 105 economically disadvantaged 16%

Pilot Butte Biddle School - 866 students with 580 economically disadvantaged 67%

She says this creates clear economic segregation within the Bend-Lapine schools and does not help to balance an equal education for every student.

Along with the current economic disparity facing so many in this state, racism has a real documented history in Oregon.

What seems like a green environmentally friendly state to the visitor, in fact has a dark and jaded past with regard to equality and human decency. Central Oregon, the area in question, is no exception.

According to the Oregon Blue Book:

A number of historians have written about the flaws of the 1920s and the nation's serious engagement with public-sanctioned bigotry. While some of the laws were overt, much more went on quietly but consistently. Oregon Indians, who became citizens of the United States in 1924, were forbidden to purchase alcohol, though some applied for a special card that certified their entitlement to drink. Oregon realtors declined to sell homes in certain areas to minorities. Oregon developers wrote into deeds restrictive covenants that prohibited holding ducks and geese and sale of the house and land to anyone of Chinese or Japanese ancestry. Large neighborhoods of Portland--Garthwick, Dunthorpe, Eastmoreland, Westmoreland--and Lake Oswego were kept "white" for decades by subtle but effective discrimination.

I mention this history because we have conducted our own research into Oregon racism and it is appalling, particularly within the justice and penal systems. The KKK has been firmly rooted in this state for many years and the influence of that era's thinking has not fully dissipated.

Hall went to considerable effort compiling data, and much of the problem resulting from this shift in students within the Bend-Lapine School District is absolutely measurable in racial terms.

These are the reasons why the Superintendent’s decision was not satisfactory and why they are asking for an appeal of this decision:

1. The Decision creates Economic and Minority Segregation within the Bend La-Pine Schools.
2. The Process was not made public and did not include a fair representation of the schools or neighborhoods directly affected.
3. The Committee did not receive guidance on how to make this decision. One committee member stated at the final vote, “We were not asked to consider SES, otherwise this would have been an entirely different process.” In actuality, SES was one of the issues to be taken into consideration during this process.
4. The final Vote was not an actual vote on the two or more options, but in the words of the Assistant Superintendent, “a way to gather a consensus on this option” (Option 1B).

Hall says the SES and minority statistics at Cascade will be dramatically out of line with the rest of the middle schools and the district as a whole. Option #1-B could actually create overcrowding at Pilot Butte MS.

Option #1-B SES Percentages:

Cascade: 16%
Sky View: 40%
High Desert: 46%
Pilot Butte: 67%

Below are the statistics on the economically disadvantaged and minority population of the schools being referenced based on numbers available from last year. The source is the 2009-2010 AYP Report. The three elementary schools currently feed into Cascade MS.

Pine Ridge Elementary has double the minority population of the district as a whole and more than double the population of the other Elementary Schools which feed into Cascade Middle School.

High Lakes Elementary:                      15.7% economically disadvantaged                                                        8.9% minorities

Miller Elementary:                              22.4% economically disadvantaged                                                        9.7% minorities

Pine Ridge Elementary:                       53.2% economically disadvantaged                                                        22.8% minorities

Pilot Butte Middle School:                   66.8% economically disadvantaged                                                        22.3% minorities

Cascade Middle School:                      24.5% economically disadvantaged                                                        11.9% minorities

"The district has used the term “Crisis” repeatedly to describe the overcrowding at Cascade Middle School," Hall said.

"I would ask that every board member take a look at the following statistics and see if the real crisis is that we have almost 1000 homeless children in our schools right now and that 1 in 5 children in Bend lives in poverty. The Superintendent did not think that SES should be a heavily weighing factor in the decision making process."

• 1 in 5 children in Bend lives in Poverty
• 1 in 9 people in our region live below the Federal Poverty Level

partnershiptoendpoverty.org

According to the Coalition to End Homelessness and The One Night Homeless Count conducted in January of 2011:

• 47% of all homeless in Central Oregon are under 18 years of age
• *the majority of those 906 children are in Deschutes County, at tending the Bend La-Pine Schools.

cohomeless.org

One of the most important legal decisions in U.S. history, the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas declared school segregation unconstitutional and paved the way for the civil rights achievements of the 1960s. By overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine established in Plessey v. Ferguson (1896), Brown v. Board of Education began the process of unraveling more than half a century of federally sanctioned discrimination against African Americans. As a result, it also initiated a struggle between a government now obligated to integrate all public schools and recalcitrant communities determined to maintain the status quo. This photograph shows an anti-integration rally in Little Rock, Arkansas, on 20 August 1959. The protesters carry American flags alongside placards declaring racial mixing to be "communism" and "the march of the antichrist"—a fascinating and disturbing mix of patriotism, prejudice, and fear. ~ Library of Congress photo

Brown vs. Board of Education

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, outlawing state-mandated separate schools for black and white students.

In Why Segregation Matters: Poverty and Educational Inequality, by Gary Orfield and Chungmei Lee, it is stated:

"50 years after the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education ruling against segregation in our public schools, we find ourselves having the same discussions surrounding forced busing, segregating groups of children and the Separate but Equal discussion."

Gary Orfield is a leading researcher on the effects of segregation and busing in our schools and the founder of the Civil Rights Project started at Harvard University, now UCLA. In 2005, he published a scholarly article outlining the consequences of poverty and educational inequality.

The problem Hall and others are pointing to is especially significant because it is part of a growing national trend, and this should be a red flag to educators, particularly school boards, as their decision making results in school policy.

Harvard researchers say, "little attention has been paid to the results of these two trends – rising segregation and increasing diversity – on the racial composition of our public schools".

Nearly half a century has passed since the initial Supreme Court ruling that banned segregation; however we're more than a decade into a period in which the U.S. Supreme Court has authorized termination of desegregation orders.

Harvard's Civil Rights Project explains that these plans are being dissolved by court orders even in some communities that want to maintain them:

"In addition, some federal courts are forbidding even voluntary desegregation plans. Given this context, it is crucial to continue to mark the progress of these policies and examine how their presence or absence affects the schooling experience for all students".

Perhaps this sheds light on both why and how this school board can get away with what is clearly an archaic plan to effectively toss central Oregon back into the 1950's. I strongly doubt if the type of press they are going to get will help their fragile tourism industry.

(see: Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles - UCLA and Why Segregation Matters: Povertyand Educational Inequality - Harvard

Communication Breakdown?

In a letter to the Bend La-Pine School District's Board Chair, Peggy Kinkade, and Superintendent Ron Wilkinson, Shelley Hall explained how over thirty families speaking out on the matter have not been properly understood.

"Unfortunately, there has been a continual misunderstanding on the part of the school district that the reason for this objection and the dissatisfaction on the part of the parents is a fear of change or the unknown on the part of the parents. I do not know how to make this more clear than to say it in all Caps:

THIS IS NOT ABOUT PILOT BUTTE OR EVEN WHERE WE GO TO SCHOOL."

Hall says the Superintendent is on record stating that children on reduced or free lunches (SES) were not a heavily weighing factor in the decision.

Thus she asked, "Why not? Shouldn’t the impact on our minority population be considered?"

The Bend La-Pine School Board meeting happens tonight, Tuesday, 24 May 2010, at 7:30 p.m.

Bend La-Pine School District
520 NW Wall Street
Bend, Oregon

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