Don't forget poor kids in suburban schools
One of every eight students in the Grosse Pointe Public School System gets a free or discounted lunch because their family can’t afford to pay the full price.
Think about it.
Here, in one of the wealthiest communities in the wealthiest country on the planet, one in eight kids can’t afford to buy their lunch.
You wouldn’t know that if you read “Fault Lines – America’s most segregating school district borders, ”
The national study, showing economic disparities urban and suburban school districts, was done by EdBuild – a nonprofit education reform group in New Jersey. The report said the largest disparity exists between Detroit and the Grosse Pointes.
To make its case, EdBuild looked at poverty rates between the two cities and showed that the largest gap existed between Detroit and Grosse Pointe schools. And to further make their case they tied it to race by referencing a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said school district borders represent individual communities and those communities do not have an obligation to racially integrate across district lines.
The report uses a piece of civil rights history to make its point, but leaves people with the dominant stereotype that rich and suburban equates to white and poor and urban equates to black. And it serves to stoke long-standing racial animosity that has been exacerbated by the charter-school debate in Michigan. It's worth questioning the nonprofit's intentions considering its chief executive has ties to the charter movement, and the group counts the Walton and Broad foundations among its funders.
If EdBuild was truly interested in correcting the racial segregation of the past, they would acknowledge migration patterns, include all minorities and include the numbers on suburban student poverty. But the damage is done. For the next few years, articles will reference “Fault Lines” as a way to pit city verses suburban districts. Comment sections will light up as the bigots come out and social media will glow all atwitter with hashtags. People love a good white verses black fight. “Fault Lines” gives it to them.
Meanwhile the 13% of the students from the five Grosse Pointes and Harper Woods getting a subsidized or free lunch because they are poor and the black kids making up 33% of Grosse Pointe North High School’s student body will go back to being invisible.
Greg Bowens is president of the Grosse Pointes-Harper Woods branch of the NAACP.