Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

A few days ago, Erica Pandey wrote an article for Axios on the inequities in public education that is as timely now as it was on November 14, 2020. Indeed, the facts and assertions in Ms. Pandey’s article are identical to those I read in the 1970s when I attended graduate school in Philadelphia. And what are those facts?

The big picture: Family income is perhaps the strongest determinant of student success, and low income becomes an even higher barrier when it intersects with race.

• Even when Black students from poor families start kindergarten with above-median test scores, 63% test below the median by the time they’re in the eighth grade, a recent Georgetown University study found.

• Among Latino kindergartners in the same high-achieving, but lower-income category, 36% did worse by eighth grade, as did 39% of white students and 18% of Asian students.

• High-achieving students of color are too often overlooked by teachers and administrators: The odds of Black and Latino children being referred to gifted programs are 66% and 47% lower than white students, respectively, per the Fordham Institute.

And the reason for this disparity in performance is as clear now as it was in the early 1970s: “Decades of redlining and exclusionary zoning practices have segregated our neighborhoods and, by extension, our public schools.”

Ms. Pandey goes on to note that children of color are disproportionately disciplined and that the internet inequities have made all of these situations even worse.

She ends her article with this sobering message:

The bottom line: “The idea that this is about who’s smart and who’s not is just not true,” says Anthony Carnevale, founder and director of Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce. “In the end, the system pretty much places you where you were as a child. Education is the problem. It is not the solution.”

Unless we change our minds and hearts about race segregation, about taxes and funding equity, about having a TRULY level playing field I fear that Mr. Carnavale is right: Education IS the problem. It is NOT the solution.