Private Schools Face Competition
The Supreme Court Redefines School Demographics
Mar 15, 2008 Elizabeth Randall
There is bad news afoot for private schools.
White flight affected more than neighborhoods. As predicted by Jonathan Rauch in an on-line 2002 Atlantic article “Reversing White Flight” school vouchers gave rise to the flourishing business of “independent schools.” Yet a Supreme Court ruling on the Parents Involved in Community Schools v.s. Seattle School District No. 1. [June 2007] has chiseled away at the right of school districts to promote racial diversity.
The Supreme Court settled the dispute by declining to recognize race “as a compelling state interest.” Their decision affects public schools throughout the nation. Government sanctioning of monochromatic student enrollment, and current economic straits, are going to water down the waiting list at the country clubs masquerading as private schools. What kinds of schools qualify as country clubs?
Three Kinds of Private Schools
“Christian” schools or “Parochial” schools, or “Muslim” schools are independent facilities with philosophic or educational objectives whether the public agrees with them or not. Diversity is beside the point; presumably, blue, black, green, or purple students should attend if the separation of church and state is a more dire concern than educational standards.
Prep schools don’t qualify as country clubs either. Parents of every race and creed who want to turn normal children into homework hamsters have the right to do so.
Educational country clubs are private schools with “Park” or “Lake” or “Oak” in their names. They’re private schools with brochures evoking rolling green grounds, white kids in uniforms or other pristine imagery that evokes an exclusive resort rather than an institute of learning. These schools are going to see their enrollment plunge. It’s ironic. This is what comes from appointing conservative judges; the dismantling of unitary status as evidenced by the Supreme court ruling in question.
Why should parents plunk down Harvard-level tuition when public schools are soon to be exempt from pesky diversity issues? It can’t have anything to do with their academic standards. According to a 2008 article “Private Schools Answer to Their Own Standards” by Sarah Viren in The Houston Chronicle, states gave up monitoring private schools almost 20 years ago.
Private school students are, if they choose, exempt from state standardized tests, their teachers do not have to be certified in the subject areas they teach- or in some cases , certified in any subject area at all. In many cases, their administrators are business owners who lack the educational credentials required of a public school teacher.
Charter schools, once trumpeted as the keypins in education reform, are mired in scandal. (see "Deregulation and Charter School Swindles" by Gary K. Clabaugh Ed.D La Salle University, 2006). Since 1991, over 700,000 students have enrolled nationwide in these business-run instituitions complicit in the same fiscal scams, inept management and cronism that our business leaders all over America have forced taxpayers to endure.
Socioeconomics = Demographics
According to The Seattle Times some liberal organizations are on the side of Parents Involved in Community Schools [“School Diversity Suits Reflect Attitude Change,” by Keith Ervin, May 2002]. They believe that integration should be based on socioeconomics rather than demographics. One could argue that it already is.
According to the U.S. Department of Education's August 2002 Fact Sheet on Title 1, allocation of federal money such as Title 1 is based on how many students are eligible for free lunch at any given school . Basing integration on this concept gives the term separate but equal a new and aptly 21st centuryish definition.
The 21st century definition no longer judges individuals by the color of their skin. It’s the content of their bank account that counts. That amount is about to go up if the patrons of private schools can rest assured that their kid is going to share No. 2 pencils solely with their next-door neighbor and not the kid from the other side of the tracks.
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