Monday, March 30, 2009
Editorial: An overdue conversation
Proposals to redraw attendance zones for Roanoke city schools has prompted a good conversation about race and segregation.
From the RoundTable blog
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There is a reason that attendance zones for Roanoke city schools have gone unchanged since a federal judge approved them in 1971.
It's not because the zones have been so successful. It's because any discussion of changing them necessarily involves sticky questions about race and Roanoke's ongoing history of segregation.
So credit members of Roanoke's school board for their willingness to tackle the issue head on. And credit the residents of the city for, thus far, engaging in a calm, rational and productive discussion about a very emotional issue.
At a forum on the proposed changes last week, several people expressed well-founded concern about the effects the redrawn zones would have on diversity within the schools.
Those expressing doubts about the plan went out of their way to recognize the effort that has gone into developing the new proposals.
"I appreciate your hard work," Barbara Phifer, PTA president at Lucy Addison Middle School, told the board. "I really sincerely do. I'm still not happy."
Nearly three-quarters of Addison's students are black. That would increase to nearly 90 percent under the board's proposals.
But William Kitt, who has three children attending Fishburn Park Elementary School, was right when he said the school board couldn't bear the responsibility for integrating the community.
"Outside of schools, everyone knows where the black side of town is. Everybody knows where the white side of town is. The question is: What do we do outside of schools?"
That's the heart of the matter. Nearly 40 years of desegregation efforts in Roanoke public schools have not led to an integrated city.
Information from the 2000 census indicated that Roanoke was the most segregated metropolitan area in Virginia.
The school system, on its own, cannot fix that. Board members have indicated their focus is on improving education for all students, especially the disadvantaged.
The current attendance zones don't seem to have facilitated that mission. For instance, black students attending schools in some predominantly white areas of the city don't perform as well as students at Lincoln Terrace or Roanoke Academy for Mathematics and Science elementary schools in Northwest Roanoke.
Concern about returning to the days of "separate but equal" is valid. There are indisputable benefits -- for students of all races -- to attending diverse schools.
There are also indisputable benefits to neighborhood schools that build a sense of community and connectivity.
In a segregated city, you cannot have both.
The focus on improving the school system's performance could eventually help with diversification by drawing back families that have either moved to Roanoke County or sent their children to private schools because of concerns about the quality of education in city schools.
But, in the end, truly integrated schools depend on individual decisions by countless residents. No matter what the school board decides, Roanoke schools won't really be integrated -- they are not truly integrated now -- until the city itself becomes less segregated.
