Educational ‘Redlining’ Still Affects Public School Boundaries

While public schools can no longer discriminate against students based on their race, unfortunately, they continue to use school district and attendance area boundaries to exclude or limit students’ opportunities based on where they live.

Oftentimes, the only way for students to access higher-quality public schools than the ones they’re assigned to is by moving inside their attendance boundaries. However, this option is only available to families who can afford to do so since housing costs typically increase based on their proximity to better schools.

In some cases, families lie about their home address–also known as address sharing–so their children can go to better schools. But falsifying an address can carry major risks, including prison time, in the 24 states that criminalize it.

Unfortunately, living on the wrong side of a school boundary isn’t just bad luck. Even today, schools and governments gerrymander boundaries to exclude students they perceive as undesirable.

Moreover, this practice carries an unsavory past since gerrymandered boundaries sometimes reflect the lingering effects of redlining–now illegal racist zoning policies.

Nearly a century ago, federal agencies drew 239 color-coded maps identifying the lending risks associated with particular neighborhoods. However, eligibility for these loans was based on varying demographic factors, including race.

Neighborhoods that housed large minority populations were often color-coded red and marked as “hazardous.” The Federal Housing Administration’s official Underwriting Manual even went so far as to state that redlining policies would help prevent “large numbers of inharmonious racial groups” from attending the same schools.

While a series of federal laws eventually outlawed housing redlining, many school boundaries still reinforce the old redlined boundaries, limiting students’ public education options.

For example, the map in Figure 1 shows the attendance areas for Cranbrook and Barrington Road Elementary Schools in Columbus, Ohio, ranked 2,146th and 165th overall respectively by the Ohio 2023 Performance Index.

The high-performing Barrington Elementary School’s neighborhoods were exclusively zoned as Blue or Green, the best possible ratings provided by the federal government, back in the 1930s. Meanwhile, most of the neighborhoods assigned to Cranbrook Elementary Schools, at that time, were rated as “hazardous” (red) or “declining” (yellow).

The student populations of these public schools are still divided by race and socioeconomic status. Yet these boundaries block students from attending schools that are closer to their homes or that are a better fit.

For instance, some students living along King Avenue near the boundary line are only about a mile from Barrington Elementary, but they are assigned to Cranbrook, which is three times that distance.

This is just one of the many examples that show how broken public school assignment is nationwide.

A new report by yes. Every kid. Showcases how some policymakers have tried to ameliorate these barriers so students’ public school options aren’t solely determined by their geographic location. Specifically, the report highlights three key policies that can expand public school access today:

Weakening these barriers is a popular policy, as 78% of school parents support strong open enrollment laws according to March polling by EdChoice. Moreover, six states, most with bipartisan political support, strengthened their open enrollment laws last year, letting students attend any public school with open seats, regardless of where they live.

While 43 states permit some sort of public school student transfer, most of these laws are weak and don’t prioritize allowing students to get to better public schools. Brown vs. Board of Education was seven decades ago, and state policymakers still need to take important steps to make schools more accessible to all students by weakening the barriers that residential assignment imposes on families so students can attend schools that are the right fit.

https://heartlanddailynews.com/2024/05/educational-redlining-still-affects-public-school-boundaries/

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District That Suspended Student For Using Term ‘Illegal Alien’ Fails To Provide Docs To Parents Org

A North Carolina school district that suspended a student for using the term “illegal alien” failed to provide all public records pertaining to the incident that were requested by a parental-rights organization, the group told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Christian McGhee, a 16-year-old student at Central Davidson High School, received a three-day suspension in April for using the term “illegal aliens” during class while asking the teacher for clarification on a vocabulary assignment, prompting his parents to file a lawsuit against the Davidson County Board of Education. Parents Defending Education (PDE) filed a records request about the suspension, but received only four emails totaling eight pages that were provided to the DCNF.

“It is possible that said emails so requested may contain confidential student/educational records under FERPA that would not be subject to a public records request and/or to the extent that such emails can be provided pursuant to your request, they may have to be heavily redacted or not provided at all,” a representative for the district told the parental-rights group, referencing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

The Davidson County Board of Education and Davidson County Schools Superintendent Gregg Slate did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the DCNF.

A spokesperson for PDE told the DCNF that McGhee’s parents were not involved in the records request, nor were they in contact with the parental-rights group. A spokesperson for the Liberty Justice Center, which is representing the parents, declined to comment on the PDE records request.

McGhee eventually withdrew from Central Davidson High School and transferred to a homeschooling program after receiving threats due to the suspension, according to court documents.

Christian McGhee had returned to his class after using the restroom and arrived to find the class discussing aliens, leading him to he ask whether the class was discussing aliens from space or illegal aliens, Dean McGee, an attorney with Liberty Justice Center representing McGhee and his parents, told the DCNF.

“A Latino boy in class turned around and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to kick your ass,’” McGee said. “It was said jokingly, and class moved on as normal until later, a girl in class brought up the Latino student’s comment about kicking Christian’s ass, and that’s when the teacher called the assistant principal.”

Despite both boys telling the assistant principal that the comments were not a big deal, the assistant principal viewed Christian’s use of the term “illegal alien” as a racial slur and issued the suspension, McGee told the DCNF. McGee referred the DCNF to Liberty Justice Center’s complaint against the Davidson County Board of Education when asked for more details about the assistant principal’s conduct.

The term “alien” is defined in 8 USC 1101 as “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.” The term “illegal aliens” is used in multiple parts of the United States Code, including 8 USC 1182, 8 USC 1252c and 8 USC 1366.

https://dailycaller.com/2024/05/22/exclusive-district-suspended-student-illegal-aliens-parents-org/

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California parents demand principal be fired for ‘humiliating’ their son, censoring his school election speech

The parents of a California middle school student are calling on their son’s principal to be fired after they say he was discriminated against over his beliefs.

Saint Bonaventure Catholic School student Jimmy Heyward, who was running for “Commissioner of School Spirit & Patriotism,” was “completely humiliated” after principal Mary Flock barred him from giving his speech at a school election rally, his parents say.

Heyward’s mother, Hattie Ruggles, claims her son was told to remove “all parts about patriotism” from his campaign speech or he would not be allowed to deliver it before the school assembly. In the speech, the student talks about the importance of showing respect to veterans, and paying attention during the National Anthem or when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

“Jimmy stood up to her and said he wasn’t going to take the parts about patriotism out of his speech,” Ruggles wrote in a Change.org petition calling on Flock to be fired. “She then told him he would not be speaking. Jimmy sat on stage with all the other candidates while they said their speeches. Mary Flock directed the kids hosting the rally to skip Jimmy entirely. He was on the stage for an hour in front of his peers/teachers/parents being completely humiliated by Mary Flock.”

https://nypost.com/2024/05/22/lifestyle/california-parents-demand-principal-be-fired-for-humiliating-son-censoring-speech/

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