Last I checked, the year is 2016.
That makes the landmark the 1964 Civil Rights Act, signed into law under President Lyndon B. Johnson – 52 years old.
The Supreme Court unanimous decision in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, which declared “separate but equal” facilities didn’t work in reality and the segregation of schools to be unconstitutional, is now 62 years old.
Millennials marvel at footage of 74-year-old presidential candidate Bernie Sanders protesting racial discrimination as a young man alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
All of these events seem like memories of a distant past shrouded in shame – a time we’d all like to soon forget.
Because 16 years into the 21st century, we’ve moved past that as a society, right?
Sadly, it appears not.
On April 4, the United States Department of Education opened a civil rights investigation to look into whether the Pinellas County School District systematically discriminates against black children, according to the agency.
The federal involvement in the county was in response to “Failure Factories,” a yearlong investigative series by the Tampa Bay Times that published in five parts last year from August through December.
“Failure Factories” traced the decline of five elementary schools in St. Petersburg’s black neighborhoods: Melrose, Campbell Park, Lakewood, Maximo and Fairmount.
Unbelievably, the school board voted to end its decades-long integration procedures back in 2007. These previously successful strategies included bussing children across the county to schools far from the neighborhoods in exchange for a balanced school system.
The district had established quotas for the racial makeup of the population of each school, and in doing so, children attending the schools experienced diversity and a more even distribution of well and poorly behaved students.
The school board ended these benefits so students could attend schools in their neighborhoods and not have to travel so far to get an education.
When the idea was met with outcry, the board promised that schools in the more impoverished areas of the county would receive extra benefits to counter the deleterious move. The proposed fix would grant schools more federal education money, more experienced teachers and expanded special needs programs.
Over the past eight years, as the schools have inevitably deteriorated, the promises made by the board have failed to come to fruition.
The result? De facto segregation.
The still-obvious separation of the city of St. Petersburg, stemming from the unequal housing in suburbs back in the early 20th century, has led to a modern disparity.
In fact, what once were average scoring elementary schools have become five of the worst in the state of Florida. So bad, in fact, that Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, declared the district guilty of “education malpractice” in his visit to the schools last fall.
As the Times outlined, the schools and the students are experiencing a vicious cycle.
A disproportionately high number of students with violent and insubordinate behavior histories now make up the student population.
Teachers are stretched thin, and quit often. Bullying – serious enough to send students to the hospital – is a regular occurrence. Elementary school students threaten one another with murder and rape.
As more educators jump ship from the schools, the students experience inconsistency in tutelage and discipline, exacerbating the problems.
A dog-eat-dog environment breeds more violence.
This is, by no means, a one-solution situation.
The issues are layered one after another, and digging to the root of the problem will take time, effort and added funding.
There exists, though, alternative methods of teaching that I see as being a perfect fit for this ordeal.
In the 1970s, when integration of schools was new and teachers struggled to undo generations of prejudice, social psychologists were asked for help.
One group, led by prominent social psychologist Elliot Aronson, developed a program of “jigsaw” learning.
Instead of having students compete for good grades and for the teacher’s limited attention, the method calls for acts of mutual interdependence. Students are given small pieces of information individually, but must combine these into a whole to understand the concept. Their performance throughout the process determines how they are graded.
Creating scenarios where students must work together as a team encourages them to see commonalities over differences and fosters empathy and compassion – the opposite of bullying.
The perfect project to kick this off? An after-school community garden program.
It would keep children occupied and focused on something bigger than the problems they face in a school day. It’s a small start, and would require volunteers and a budget, but it would at least be a Band-Aid on the wound for now.
It is unrealistic to expect novice teachers to have a firm grasp on these ideas and how to properly execute them.
But if the school board would stick to its promises and incentivize experienced, seasoned educators to work at the schools, this lost ship could still be turned around.
Read the Tampa Bay Times’ five-part “Failure Factories” investigation here: tampabay.com/failurefactories
