Expecting the same old things

Pittsburgh Public Schools’ racial segregation is holding back the school system, ROB CULLEN argues

Haven’t I read this before? That thought kept popping into my head as I went over “Expect Great Things,” the new strategic plan from Pittsburgh Public Schools. Of course I hadn’t— it was only released a few weeks ago — but it’s easy to see why it felt so familiar.

There was the blandly optimistic title. (Other strategic plans released in the past decade have been called “Excellence for All,” “Getting to All,” “Whole Child, Whole Community” and “Empowering Effective Teachers.”) There were the recommendations from outside experts, in this case the Council of the Great City Schools (past plans have solicited opinions from RAND, a New York University sociologist and yes, even the Council of the Great City Schools). There were the strategies themselves — developing more rigorous curriculum, addressing the racial achievement gap and providing better support for teachers have all turned up before.

But most disappointingly, there was the word that wasn’t mentioned — not in this plan or any other the district has released in recent years. It’s an idea that could be one of the most effective ways to actually achieve the Great Things that PPS says we should expect: integration.

It’s no secret that many Pittsburgh schools are segregated. When I worked as a substitute teacher, in schools like Westinghouse and UPrep, I would go an entire day without seeing a single white student. African-Americans make up just 26.1 percent of the city’s population, and 53 percent of its public school students, yet at more than a dozen Pittsburgh schools, black students

make up over 90 percent of the student body.

These schools aren’t just racially isolated: A report from UCLA’s Civil Rights Project found that 90 percent of the city’s low-income students attend these intensely segregated schools, which are consistently among the lowest performing in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, outside of the city, at Lower Burrell High School (a half-hour drive from Downtown), the racial makeup is reversed: Fewer than 3 percent of students there are non-white.

The potential benefits of integration for these students could be enormous — and align directly with themes in this latest plan. For example, one key longterm goal is eliminating racial disparities. Well, in a survey of dozens of studies on integration, researchers with the Poverty & Race Research Action Council found, “Students who attend integrated schools perform better on tests in math, science, language, social studies; they take higher-level math and science courses.”

Another goal is ensuring that all Pittsburgh students are equipped with skills to succeed in college, career and life. Again, the PRRAC study found that attending integrated schools leads to students who “hold higher educational aspirations than their otherwise comparable peers” and “increases the likelihood of attending college, particularly for youth from underrepresented minority communities.” The district wants to attract and retain high-performing teachers; a research brief from Harvard’s Susan Eaton shows that racially integrated schools are more likely to have stable staffs composed of highly qualified teachers.

And it’s not only black students in Pittsburgh who could benefit. Employers are increasingly looking for people who are comfortable working in diverse environments, because racial diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, greater market share and greater relative profits. Students who attend integrated schools have fewer discriminatory attitudes,morecross-racialfriendships and better leadership skills than their peers who don’t. In other words, it’s not just the kids in Westinghouse who are losing out, it’s the kids inLowerBurrelltoo.

Despite all these benefits, in the latest five-year strategic plan from Pittsburgh Public Schools, integration isn’t mentioned once.

And it’s true that integration is more contentious than simply saying we should eliminate the achievement gap or provide more support for teachers. For many parents, in Pittsburgh “integration” conjures memories of the 1970s and ’80s, when white families fled the district to avoid what they saw as inferior schools and black students were bused long distances to schools where they were often seen as unwelcome outsiders. Even education advocacy groups committed to racial equity, like A+ Public Schools and Great Public Schools Pittsburgh, don’t mention integration as part of their platforms.

Still, someone needs to have the courage to at least begin a conversation about integration in Pittsburgh Public Schools. A good place to start would be adopting something like New York City’s School Diversity Accountability Act. The legislation requires the city’s Department of Education to issue an annual report on diversity in NYC schools, make diversity a priority in decision-making and commit to having a strategy for overcoming impediments to school diversity.

IfPittsburgh school leaders don’thave the courage to start that conversation, around an idea that decades of research have shown can actually help close the achievement gap, thenthere’s little reason to Expect Great Things. Instead we should expect more of the same.

Rob Cullen is a master’s student studying public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College (rtc@andrew.cmu.edu).