Introduction
Greens in the
Pioneer Valley have to acknowledge and address a shameful fact: Our communities
and our schools are segregated. In 2010, the Harvard School of Public Health
issued a report that identified the levels of segregation in schools across the
United States. For Hispanic students, Springfield, Massachusetts, ranked
second, meaning it had the second-most segregated schools in the country. For
African-American students, the city ranked ninth. Quite simply, some
of the most racially segregated schools in the United States of America are
here in the Pioneer Valley. As a political party founded on the principles of
social justice and equal opportunity, we have a duty to tackle this
unconscionable state of affairs.
Segregation is
unjust, unconstitutional, and morally wrong. It is also unsustainable. If we
are sincere about building a society that is truly sustainable, we have to move
quickly to integrate our communities and schools and undo generations of
inequity. Here in the Pioneer Valley, that will mean developing an approach to
land use, transportation, and education that is regional rather than local.
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| The Soiling of Old Glory, Stanley Forman, 1976 |
Segregation in the Pioneer Valley
Our commonwealth
has a policy, embodied in Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 76, Section 5, of
basing school assignment on residence. As
a result, where there is residential segregation, there will be racially
segregated schools. One example of this phenomenon is Springfield, the largest
city in the Pioneer Valley, a racially segregated city within a racially
segregated region.
In the United
States as a whole, “residential segregation that exists in metropolitan areas
does not typically occur within the same towns, but rather occurs between
municipalities” James E. Ryan, “Schools, Race, and Money,” 109 Yale L.J. 249,
277 (1999). The pattern of residential
segregation between Springfield and the surrounding communities is consistent
with this trend. The city is 51.8% White
and 22.3% African-American, with 38.8% of the total population identifying as
Hispanic/Latino. In 2000, the US Census
Bureau’s Housing and Household Economics Statistics Division ascribed
Springfield a Gini index value of 0.816 for African-American residents and
0.813 for Hispanic residents, with 1.0 indicating maximum segregation.
In contrast, the
eight communities that abut Springfield are overwhelmingly White, with only two
of them having populations that are less than 90% White. For example, East Longmeadow is 94.5% White
with African Americans making up 1.4% of the town’s population, and only 2.3%
identifying as Hispanic/Latino.
As a result of
residential segregation, the public schools in and around Springfield are also
segregated. In the Springfield school
district, 13.7% of the students are White, 20.7% are African-American, and
59.8% are Hispanic. In Springfield Central
High School, only 18% of the students are White, while 25.1% are
African-American, and 46.1% are Hispanic. In East Longmeadow, by way of
contrast, 89.9% of the students are White, 3.1% are African-American, and 3.1%
are Hispanic. Similarly, in Longmeadow,
86.3% of the students are White, 2.8% are African-American, and 2.7% are
Hispanic.
In short, in the
heart of the Pioneer Valley we have some schools for Whites and other schools
for non-Whites. Although litigation – McDuffy
v. Secretary of the Executive Office of Education, 415 Mass. 545, 615
N.E.2d 516 (1993) and Hancock v.
Commissioner of Education, 443 Mass. 428 (2005) – and so-called education
reform did much to remedy the inequity of school funding, the last real effort
to tackle educational segregation was in the 1960s and 70s.
METCO and the Racial Imbalance Act
Back in 1966, in
order to reduce racial isolation Massachusetts created the Metropolitan Council
for Educational Opportunity, or METCO program, which covers Springfield as well
as Boston. Students travel by bus from their homes in Springfield to
predominantly White schools in neighboring towns, called receiving or host
communities. Approximately 75% of METCO students are African-American and about
17% are Hispanic.
At present, only
four school districts around Springfield receive METCO students, namely East
Longmeadow, Longmeadow, Hampden-Wilbraham, and Southwick-Tolland. According to
the director of the Springfield public schools this is because of “limitations
of the transportation provided by the host communities.” There are approximately 25,000 students in
the Springfield school district. But in 2010-11 the number of students from
Springfield attending schools in neighboring communities via the METCO program
was just 141, or 0.5% of the total number of the city’s students. Clearly,
METCO alone is not going to integrate our schools.
Without question
the situation in and around Springfield violates the state constitution as well
as the applicable state statute. Where more than fifty percent of the pupils attending
a public school are non-White, Massachusetts law defines the situation as one
of “racial imbalance” (M.G.L. c. 71, §37D, the Racial Imbalance Act). Like METCO, this statute dates from the
mid-1960s and its purpose is clear:
“It is hereby
declared to be the policy of the commonwealth to encourage all school
committees to adopt as educational objectives the promotion of racial balance
and the correction of existing racial imbalance in the public schools. The
prevention or elimination of racial imbalance shall be an objective in all
decisions involving the drawing or altering of school attendance lines, establishing
of grade levels, and the selection of new school sites.”
Despite having
been on the statute books for 47 years, the Racial Imbalance Act has not
produced racially balanced schools. Because Springfield and the surrounding
communities are residentially segregated according to race, Chapter 76, Section
5, has the effect of assigning students of color in Springfield to segregated
schools. This is an outrage. It is also a violation of our state constitution.
Article 1 of the
Massachusetts Declaration of Rights provides that “[e]quality under the law
shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national
origin.” The Supreme Judicial Court
considered this provision in the context of efforts to desegregate the public
schools in Boston and Springfield during the early 1970s. As a result of those decisions, there is no
doubt that in Massachusetts it unconstitutional to use “[s]tate power to
promote and entrench racial separation in all those schools whose communities
have segregated residential patterns,” Opinion
of the Justices, 363 Mass. 899, 906 (1973).
By continuing to operate an education system that both reflects and
perpetuates residential segregation, the Commonwealth is violating Article 1. Enforcing
the local-schools policy but not the Racial Imbalance Act means that we are
denying students of color in and around Springfield their right to equality
under the law.
The
Commonwealth’s practice of confining students of color to schools in their
racially segregated neighborhoods – unless those students successfully opt en
masse into the inter-district school choice program – entrenches both
educational and residential segregation.
The fact that Springfield Central High School, for example, remains
racially imbalanced demonstrates that the Racial Imbalance Act, METCO, and the
school choice program are inadequate responses to the ongoing violation of constitutional rights.
Regional Approach
Segregation
becomes self-perpetuating. As the Supreme Court of the United States observed
in a landmark desegregation case: “People gravitate toward school facilities,
just as schools are located in response to the needs of people. The location of
schools may thus influence the patterns of residential development of a
metropolitan area and have important impact on composition of inner-city
neighborhood,” Swann v.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 20-21 (1971). The
Pioneer Valley’s experience demonstrates how, over the years, patterns of
residential and educational segregation in and around metropolitan Springfield have
become mutually reinforcing.
How do we open
the padlock of segregation? I believe that the key is identifying those
decisions that have a regional impact, and putting power over those decisions
into the hands of a democratic, accountable regional body. Ceding power upward from
the municipal to regional level may strike some Greens as counter-intuitive, to
say the least, and inconsistent with our goal of greater decentralization. But
I believe that it is completely consistent with our commitment to grassroots
democracy, the first of our party’s Ten Key Values, ensuring that people have a
say in the decisions that affect their lives and creating political forms that
directly include people in the decision-making process.
Here in
Massachusetts, where “local” has often served as codeword for White, local
control and local schools have worked together to perpetuate racial inequality.
We need to break with the past, and design policies that promote regional
equity. Here is a link to a video featuring Professor john a. powell (he uses
lower-case only in his name) of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and
Ethnicity, Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University. Professor powell
explains that racial and economic segregation segregates people of color not
just from White people but from opportunity. He argues that we need to address
the “opportunity structure at the regional level” rather than trying to tackle
segregation at the local level.
If we are to follow this advice and ensure that the opportunity structure in the Pioneer Valley is accessible, inclusive, and equitable, we will have to design a new governmental structure with the authority to make decisions about fair and affordable housing, public transportation, commercial development, and school assignments. In a state that effectively abolished county government, relishes local control over zoning, and amended its constitution to prevent "forced busing" there will be plenty of resistance.
On the other hand, Massachusetts also created the Cape Cod Commission, a regional authority which manages growth and promotes environmental protection on Cape Cod. Fifteen towns in Barnstable County ceded zoning power to the commission in order to protect the scenic value, water supply, and quality of life on the Cape. Clearly, Bay Staters are quite capable of surrendering some local control to a supra-municipal body when we realize that the stakes are high.
Conclusion
Although
policymakers in Massachusetts have devised a variety of programs over the past 50 years, our
society remains a segregated one. Programs such as METCO and school choice are still alive and produce
positive results for the participants, but do little to bring about genuine
integration. The Racial
Imbalance Act and the law enshrining local assignment work against each other,
and display the inadequacy of an exclusively local – as opposed to regional –
approach to building social cohesion.
As the site of some of the most racially segregated schools in the country we have to change the way we distribute decision-making power and other resources, and we have to do so urgently and effectively. In order to achieve an increasingly just, equal, sustainable, and democratic society, Greens in the Pioneer Valley should put regional equity at the top of our list of policy priorities.
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