Transcript Document

Fisher v. Texas: Implications for K-12 Integration
Stephen Menendian
Assistant Director, Haas Institute for a Fair and
Inclusive Society
February 22, 2014
K-12/Post-Fisher Environment
• The requirements of narrow tailoring/exhaustion and the
burdens of this approach are already evident in K-12.
• K-12 educational environments are increasingly segregated by
race and class.
• School districts with a commitment to equal opportunity and
integration have developed increasingly administratively
complex, sophisticated approaches to student assignment.
“If school authorities are concerned that the studentbody compositions of certain schools interfere with the
objective of offering an equal educational opportunity
to all of their students, they are free to devise raceconscious measures to address the problem in a
general way without treating each student in a different
fashion soley on the basis of systematic, individual
typing by race.
School boards may pursue the goal of bringing together students of
diverse backgrounds and races through other means, including strategic
site selection of new schools; drawing attendance zones with general
recognition of the demographics of the neighborhoods; allocating
resources for special programs; recruiting students and faculty in a
targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments, performance, and other
statistics by race. These mechanisms are race-conscious but do not lead
to different treatment based on a classifications that tells each student he
or she is to be3 defined by race.
Multi-Factor Modeling
•
Multi-factor approaches may better capture particular forms of disadvantage,
but they do a less effective job of producing raw numerical racial diversity than
individual racial classifications do.
•
To compensate for not being able to use race directly, more factors are
needed to ensure greater precision in terms of desired outcomes.
•
While approximating race, these approaches are far more complex and
resource intensive than using a simple race criterion, and require outside
expertise and consultants
•
Such plans have been laboriously developed using available demographic
data with the help of consultants and student assignment experts.
Multi-Factor Modeling
•
Multi-factor approaches are compelling because they not only paint a more vivid
portrait of the underlying structural conditions, but are also more narrowly tailored
to particular forms of disadvantage.
•
A single indicator cannot capture the myriad factors that influence an individual’s life
chances.
•
The administrative expense of developing race-neutral plans goes far beyond the
resources of most admissions committees, let alone school boards and
administrative staff, compared to the use of racial classifications in either student
assignment or admissions review.
District
Indicators
Steps
Notes
Jefferson
County/Louisvill
e, KY
1)
2)
Median HH Income
Racial Composition
of Neighborhood
Ed. Attain of Parents
1) Parental Choice
within Resides
Zone
Two-Zone model
Berkeley , CAL
1)
Average Nbhd
Income
Ed. Attain of Adults
in Nbhd
Racial Composition
of Nbhd
1)
2)
Sibling
Parental Choice
within Zone
assignment
Controlled Choice, 3
Attendance Zones;
Upheld by Cal. Ct. of
Appeals
Median HH income
HH Poverty Rates
# of F/R Lunch Stds
Ed. Attain of Adults
in Nbhd
Racial Composition
of Nbhd
1)
2)
3)
4)
Special needs
ESL
Siblings
Parental Choice
within Zone
Assignment
Magnets Plan,
Freedom-of-Choice,
3-Zones, K students
only
1)
2)
Siblings
½ of remaining seats
proximity lottery
Remaining Seats by
SES census block
zone
4 Census Block
Zones
3)
2)
3)
Montclair, NJ
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Chicago, IL
1)
2)
3)
4)
Median family income
Adult Ed. Attainment
% of Single-Parent HH
% of Owner-Occupied
Homes
5) % Of ESL students
3)
Berkeley Zones
Source: Civil Rights Project at UCLA
Diversity Map
Source: Civil Rights Project at UCLA
Cal. Ct. of Appeals
“We conclude that the particular policies challenged here – which aims to
achieve social diversity by using neighborhood demographics when
assigning students to schools – is not discriminatory. The challenged
policy does not use racial classifications; in fact, it does not consider an
individual student’s race at all when assigning the student to a school.”
- ACRF v. Berkeley Unified School Districts
Multi-Factor Modeling:
Opportunity Mapping
Since the racialized nature
of
Opportunity
Mapping
and
opportunity isolation is a spatial
phenomena, maps are naturally
Education
►
an effective way to represent it
►
Maps allow us to understand
volumes of data at a glance
through layering
►
Mapping is a very powerful tool
in looking at educational
inequity & opportunity
10
Opportunity Mapping For Schools
► Mapping the geographic distribution of
opportunity helps us to evaluate where
these opportunity mismatches exist in a
community and to design interventions to
move people to opportunity
► Student assignment policies can be
created using indicators, drawing
attendance Zones, boundaries, or through
controlled choice plans.
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Opportunity Zones in Montclair
Modeled several educational zones for Montclair, based on five equally
weighted factors.
•
•
•
•
•
# of Free and Reduced Lunch Students
Parental Education Levels
Median Household Income
Household Poverty Rates
Race, by neighborhood
Each of these factors was calculated at the neighborhood level, by census
block group.
Three Zone Integration Model: Montclair,
NJ
►GOAL: Each school has
diversity of students from
each zone, within 5% point
deviation of K class zone
baseline.
►K and transfer students
are assigned based on
parental preference and
zone balance.
Montclair
*Step 3: From this database, a wait list system is utilized
Montclair
Montclair
Three Zone Integration Model: Montclair, NJ
Under the plan, the township would be divided into three zones,
labeled Zone A, Zone B and Zone C.
Students would be assigned to zones based on individual census
data, including household income and Title 1 status (eligibility for
Free or Reduced Lunch).
Students from all three zones would then be represented in each
school.
Three Opportunity
Zone Model
Without Race
With Race
Four Opportunity
Zone Model
Without Race
With Race
Justice Kennedy’s opinion is controlling as the fifth vote.
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That the school districts consider these plans to
be necessary should remind us that our highest
aspirations are yet unfulfilled. School districts
can seek to reach Brown’s objective of equal
educational opportunity. But the solutions
mandated by these school districts must
themselves be lawful.
Conclusion
• Opportunity-enrollment model may well offer an ideal alternative
or complementary admissions policy.
• Pursuit of policies such as these will illustrate for the courts the
limits of a strict exhaustion requirement, and perhaps lead to
the development and use of admissions processes that can
better measure forms of advantage relative to discrete and
insular minorities.