Schools

Regional Forum Seeks Solutions To Racial Divisions in Long Island Schools

ERASE Racism and Stony Brook University sponsored a documentary screening and workshops to break down issues of institutional racism on Long Island.

Peer-to-peer mentoring, more conversations about diversity, community surveys and data collection, merging academic levels, and sharing of programs between school districts are some of the ways through which racial achievement gaps in Long Island public schools can be eliminated.

That's according to educators, administrators, social workers, and advocates from around Long Island, who came together Monday at a regional forum on education equity at Stony Brook University to find ways to close what has been identified as a racially divided achievement gap in schools island-wide.

The forum centered around a screening of the documentary A Tale of Two Schools: Race and Education on Long Island, produced by the Syosset-based nonprofit ERASE Racism. The film follows a day in the lives of two very similar students: teenage boys with good grades, athletic achievements, college plans and part-time jobs. The details of their experiences are vastly different, however, because one attends school in Wyandanch, the other in Rockville Centre.

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The film motivated discussion of not only how to foster equal academic opportunity for students of different ethnic groups within school districts, but also what to do about one of the sources of the problem – segregation on Long Island as a whole.

"Based on the 2010 federal Census data, Long Island is still the third most racially segregated suburban community in the country," said V. Elaine Gross, president of ERASE Racism.

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Dr. Amy Stuart Wells, director of Columbia University's Center for Understanding Race and Education, said contributing economic and social factors include the infrastructure, taxes and unemployment rates, changes in demographics, and the overall fragmentation of communities across the island. But she said local research has shown that a majority of Long Islanders favor some kind of program which would allow their children to attend more diverse schools.

"There are massive bodies of evidence to support why it should be done," Wells said.

Among the speakers was Roger Tilles, who represents Long Island on the New York State Board of Regents. According to Tilles, consolidation of the island's more than 120 school districts is not yet a serious topic of debate on the state level, but there is talk of how Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposed budget will affect various communities – including some with large minority populations which are already struggling to fund basic educational needs and district operations.

"I'm still concerned that with the financial system that we have ... the gap we have is only going to grow greater and not lessen," Tilles said.

Breakout sessions at Monday's forum included discussions on cultural competance within schools, financially restructuring schools, and de-tracking as a means to providing equal opportunities within schools that have diverse populations.

Dr. Carol Corbett Burris, principal at South Side High School in Rockville Centre, presented her own district's model for de-tracking – or wide-scale merging of honors, gifted and Regents-level classes across the various subjects – which she said has yielded tremendous results in closing the racial achievement gap. According to her data, in 2000 close to 90 percent of white and Asian students were earning Regents diplomas, whereas only about 30 percent of black and Latino students were doing the same. But 11 years after de-tracking was implemented, 95 percent of black and Latino students at South Side are earning Regents diplomas.

"What we know from research ... is no matter how you sort and select kids, whether you do it by choice, whether you do it by test scores, whether you do it by teacher recommendations, the same pattern of stratification results," Burris said. "White and Asian students, wealthier students, or in some districts the more affluent side of the track, go into the high track, and everybody else goes into the low track."

She said de-tracking was met with resistance at first, with some parents actually asking her why "those kids" were not "weeded out" from high-performing programs at the high school.

One of the participants in that breakout session was Michael White, executive director of the Long Island Regional Planning Council, who identified resistance to change as an obstacle to closing the achievement gap.

"There needs to be some work to identify where that resistance is coming from," White said, "and then overcome that resistance."


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