all Gary Orfield stories

Residential segregation in metro Boston goes beyond affordability

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:35:00 -0400

New research from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University shows that in a region where median home prices now exceed $400,000, affordability alone does not explain the continued patterns of racial segregation that exist in the Boston area. Research findings implicate a complex tangle of factors, including housing preferences and discrimination. "In metro Boston today, segregation is due to much more than money," said CRP researcher Nancy McArdle, noting that well-off blacks and Hispanics are as segregated from their white counterparts with similar incomes as poor blacks and Hispanics are from poor white households. Boston is the nation's third whitest large metropolitan area. Researchers found that African-American and Latino homebuyers were greatly overrepresented in some areas - Lawrence, Chelsea, Lynn, Everett, and Revere for Latinos; Randolph, Brockton, Boston, and Milton for African Americans - even after accounting for affordability. "The flip side is that in most places, they're very underrepresented," said McArdle. In 80 percent of cities and towns in metro Boston, she reported the number of black and Latino homebuyers was less than half what would be predicted based on affordability alone. Civil Rights Project co-director and Professor of Education Gary Orfield said, "The market isn't working freely like people think."

Studies challenge claims that percent plans provide viable alternative to affirmative action

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:27:09 -0400

Although the Texas, California and Florida plans appear to be very similar, in fact they differ greatly. There are key distinctions that must be noted when considering their implementation and effectiveness. Current public discussion of percent plans seems to suggest that simply designating a percent of each high school class entitled to public university admission results in diverse college campuses. Each of the states has had deeply unequal educational K-12 outcomes by race and ethnicity, and serious increases in racial isolation in high schools, according to the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. The public higher education systems as a whole and the premier institutions in Texas, California, and Florida, more specifically, range dramatically in their selectivity and national prominence. The story of whether percent plans are effective is complex. These percent plans have been presented as major alternatives to race-conscious affirmative action. Research from the Civil Rights Project shows that they, in themselves, have very modest effects at best and do not lead to the level of diversity reflective of the students they are intended to serve.

A multiracial society with segregated schools

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:28:06 -0400

The nation's public schools are becoming steadily more nonwhite, as the minority student enrollment approaches 40 percent of all U.S. public school students, almost twice the share of minority school students during the 1960s. Almost half of all public school students in the West and the South are minority students.

School segregation on the rise despite growing diversity

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:14:21 -0400

Nearly 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared Southern segregated schools to be unconstitutional, resegregation is happening again. And it is occurring despite the nation's growing diversity. According to Gary Orfield, co-director of The Civil Rights Project and professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, resegregation is contributing to a growing gap in quality between the schools being attended by white students and those serving a large proportion of minority students.

Minority students more likely to be labeled "mentally retarded"

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:05:58 -0400

When compared with their white counterparts, African-American children were almost three times more likely to be labeled "mentally retarded," according to a paper by Thomas B. Parrish, managing research scientist at the American Institutes of Research.

High school dropouts concentrated in 35 cities

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:05:00 -0400

The nation's high school dropout problem is most desperate in between 200 to 300 schools in the 35 largest cities in the U.S. The cities are Indianapolis, Detroit, Cleveland, San Antonio, Baltimore, Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City, Austin, Columbus, Milwaukee, Denver, Kansas City, Nashville, Memphis, El Paso, Oklahoma City, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, San Diego, Washington D.C., Long Beach, Phoenix, San Jose, Seattle, Tucson, Virginia Beach, New Orleans, Jacksonville, and Charlotte. "As states impose new standards and high-stakes tests for graduation and promotion, some predict that our dropout problem will only get more dire," says Robert Schwartz, president of Achieve Inc. "Our challenge is to raise academic standards for all students, while simultaneously ensuring that at-risk students receive the supports they need to meet the standards and stay in school."

Despite some progress, segregation persists in Boston area

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:08:46 -0400

A report, "Segregation in the Boston Metropolitan Area at the End of the 20th Century," found that despite the progress that disadvantaged minorities have made in achieving homeownership outside of Boston, there is a danger that the benefits of such ownership may not accrue to them because of racial and ethnic segregation. In particular, the report raises concerns about the emergence of highly segregated schools across the metropolitan area. In addition, income segregation provides evidence of the persistence of a patchwork of "have" and "have-not" communities outside of Boston that affect the opportunities available to lower-income families of all races and ethnicities. According to the report, almost one half of the purchases made by African-American and Hispanic home buyers outside of Boston were concentrated in seven of 126 communities. To achieve racial and ethnic integration, more than 50 percent of minority home buyers would have had to have bought a home in a different city or town.

High stakes tests in Texas threaten disadvantaged students

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:06:13 -0400

Texas is frequently cited as a national leader in efforts to raise academic performance and hold schools accountable for student performance. At the center of these efforts is the statewide standardized test, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), administered to public school children in grades 3 to 10. Students must achieve a minimum score in order to proceed to the next grade and to graduate from high school. However, according to two studies of education reform in Texas, such tests have deepened the educational inequity between whites and minorities and widened the educational gap between rich and poor students. "Texas is frequently heralded as a successful model for the nation of how tests can improve the academic performance of students, particularly poor and minority students," says Gary Orfield, co-director of The Civil Rights Project at Harvard. "These studies, however, raise serious questions about the wisdom of putting so much at stake on one measure."