Minneapolis asks its white students to lead integration
One of most segregated districts in country flipped process around, but execution has proven difficult
When Mauri Friestleben learned 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 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 de facto school segregation is one major reason that America’s education system is so unequal and racially and socioeconomically diverse schools can benefit all students. But today, 2 in 5 Black and Latino students in the United States attend schools where more than 90 percent of students are children of color, while 1 in 5 white students goes to a school where more than 90 percent 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 percent 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.
More than half of 10th graders at North High who completed testing did not meet state standards in reading in 2019, and performance in math was worse, with more than 80 percent of 11th graders failing proficiency standards Declining enrollment has also been a problem.
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 have long 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.
Kelly Jackson wants all of this and more for the students.
But Jackson couldn’t help but ask: Why now? “I feel like they want to start implementing these things because they are getting white students,” Jackson said. “A lot of white families, when they say it, they fight for it, they want it, and they get it. But why does it take us 15 years?”
By the start of the school year, Minneapolis had moved closer to its ambitions: It decreased the number of racially isolated schools — defined by the district as 86 percent or more students of color — to 13 from 21.
But North High was not among them. Of 440 students, 30 are white.
“I expected better,” Moore said. “But I am also being pragmatic.”
The plan has no shortage of critics. Some have argued that the district did not really put the onus on white families, and that most students forced to change schools were children of color. And, critics say, district officials created controversy while not doing enough to truly improve and integrate schools. While some schools grew more diverse, others are expected to become less so.