In Minneapolis schools, White families are asked to help with the integrating

MINNEAPOLIS >> When Mauri Friestleben learned that Minneapolis was rolling out a new school integration plan — and that the school she led, a predominantly Black, low-income high school, would soon include White students from some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in town — she looked around and proudly considered all that her school had to offer.

The hallways at North Community High are a tapestry of blue and white, the school colors. The curriculum had been updated to expand access to advanced placement courses. The school had a new athletic field, and on the first floor, a radio studio.

But in some phone conversations with potential new families, Friestleben, the principal, sensed deep skepticism.

Friestleben, a mixed-race woman who identifies as Black, knew that her school had its challenges. But she was working hard to serve the needs of her students and had little interest in adjusting her focus to woo White families.

“At times,” she said, “it was demeaning and humiliating.”

Minneapolis, among the most segregated school districts in the country, with one of the widest racial academic gaps, is in the midst of a sweeping plan to overhaul and integrate its schools. And unlike previous desegregation efforts, which typically required children of color to travel to white schools, Minneapolis officials are asking white families to help do the integrating — a newer approach being embraced by a small group of urban districts across the country.

“Everyone wants equity as long as it doesn’t inconvenience them,” said Eric Moore, senior officer for accountability, research and equity for Minneapolis Public Schools, where about one-third of students — some 10,000 children of different races — were assigned to new schools this year.

Research shows that de facto school segregation is one major reason that America’s education system is so unequal, and that racially and socioeconomically diverse schools can benefit all students.

But decades after Brown v. Board of Education, the dream of integration has remained just that — a dream.

Today, 2 in 5 Black and Latino students in the United States attend schools where more than 90% of students are children of color, and 1 in 5 White students goes to a school where more than 90% of students look like them, according to the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank.

If there is anywhere White families might embrace an integration plan, a likely candidate would be Minneapolis, which became the epicenter of the nation’s reckoning with racism after George Floyd’s murder last year. The city is 60% White and a bastion of liberalism, with a voting population that supported President Joe Biden by 80 percentage points or more in some areas.

But an up close look at one school, North High, shows the complicated realities of school integration, even in a city with the political willpower to make it happen.

Since arriving at North

High in 2019, Friestleben had not thought much about integration. Her philosophy was grounded in affirming the students who already walked her halls: children from mostly lowincome and working-class backgrounds; about 90% Black children and nearly 100% students of color.

“I make a commitment that every child that walks into any doors that I’m leading, that they will feel like royalty,” said Friestleben, who personally greets students at the doors each morning.

“As a society,” she added, “we have subconsciously rolled the red carpet out for White children for generations upon generations. So it’s my challenge and my honor to do that for Black children.”

Research has shown that integration can deliver benefits for all children.

For example, Black children exposed to desegregation after Brown v. Board of Education experienced higher educational achievement, higher annual earnings as adults, a lower likelihood of incarceration and better health outcomes, according to longitudinal work by economist Rucker Johnson of the University of California, Berkeley. The gains came at no cost to the educational achievement of White students.

Other research has documented how racially and economically diverse schools can benefit all students by reducing biases and promoting skills like critical thinking.

Racially segregated schools, on the other hand, are associated with larger gaps in student performance, because they tend to concentrate students of color in high poverty environments, according to a recent paper analyzing all public school districts.

“There is not a single school district in the U.S. that is even moderately segregated that does not have a large achievement gap,” said Sean Reardon, the lead author on the paper and the director of the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University.

The situation is especially stark in Minneapolis, a deeply segregated city. The district of 30,500 students is diverse: about 41%

White, 35% Black students, 14% Latino and 9% Asian or Native American.

But White students test four to five grade levels ahead of Black, Latino and Native students and 2½ grade levels ahead of Asian students.

Inequalities abound

North High is a reflection of those inequalities.

More than half of 10th graders who completed testing did not meet state standards in reading in 2019, and performance in math was worse, with more than 80% of 11th graders failing proficiency standards.

Enrollment also has been a problem. Over the years, many families have disenrolled from Minneapolis Public Schools, including families of color on the north side.

Facing these cascading challenges, Minneapolis school officials decided on an overhaul. They assigned families to new school zones, redrawing boundaries to take socioeconomic diversity — and as a consequence, racial diversity — into account.

The plan also moved magnet schools from whiter neighborhoods to more diverse, centralized locations.

The changes were projected to minimize high poverty and highly segregated schools, while redistributing resources.

This, activists and researchers say, is perhaps the most powerful promise of integration: shared resources.

At North High, though, integration was not something that most students and families had been asking for. By and large, they liked their school.

What families at North High long have wanted is more investment.

The school’s sprawling, brick building is decades old. There have been reports of rodents and problems with the drinking water. Low enrollment led to cutbacks, and at one point, threatened closure.

But in recent years, there have been positive changes.

The school has a dynamic principal in Friestleben. Now, the offerings include nine AP courses and new sports. There is even talk about a multimillion-dollar renovation.