{"id":1400,"date":"2011-10-13T14:05:01","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T18:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/neighborhoods-matter-more-than-schools.html"},"modified":"2011-10-13T14:05:01","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T18:05:01","slug":"neighborhoods-matter-more-than-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/neighborhoods-matter-more-than-schools.html","title":{"rendered":"Neighborhoods matter more than schools?"},"content":{"rendered":"Where you live makes more difference to your education than where you go to school,\nsays a news study, backed up by an older study.\n

\nMaureen Downey blogged for AJC 5 October 2011,\n\nForget school vouchers. The route to improving education may be housing vouchers.<\/a>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nSchool voucher proponents argue that kids need a way out of failing\nschools, but research increasingly suggests that it would be more\neffective to provide them a way out of failing neighborhoods.\n

\nShould we consider giving poor families in low-performing school zones\nhousing vouchers that they could use to relocate in the zone of a school\nperforming above the area median?\n<\/blockquote>\nI’d say that’s a bad solution to the problem the study identifies,\nand we already know better solutions.\nBut first,\nfrom the abstract of the the study<\/a>\n\n\n(Neighborhood Effects in Temporal Perspective:\nThe Impact of Long-Term Exposure to Concentrated Disadvantage on High School Graduation, by Geoffrey T. Wodtkea, David J. Harding, and Felix Elwert,\nin American Sociological Review October 2011 vol. 76 no. 5 713-736<\/small>):\n

\nWe find that sustained exposure to disadvantaged neighborhoods has a\nsevere impact on high school graduation that is considerably larger than\neffects reported in prior research. We estimate that growing up in the\nmost (compared to the least) disadvantaged quintile of neighborhoods\nreduces the probability of graduation from 96 to 76 percent for black\nchildren, and from 95 to 87 percent for nonblack children.\n<\/blockquote>\nCould bussing those same children to school during the day,\nonly to return them to the same neighborhoods at night,\nreally overcome that much difference?\nThe study doesn’t address that question, but proponents of “unification”\nshould.\n

\nAnd now the older study:\n

\nSupporters of housing vouchers often cite Chicago\u2019s Gautreaux program,\nwhich grew out of a 1976 consent decree in a lawsuit over discriminatory\nhousing practices by the local housing authority and the U.S. Department\nof Housing and Urban Development. The suit argued that public housing\ndeliberately had been built in ghettos so as to avoid economic and\nracial integration. The consent decree required the housing authority to\nsubsidize apartments in the suburbs for qualifying low-income families\nwilling to move, with the stipulation that similarly poor families not\nexceed a certain proportion in any one area.\n

\nBetween 1976 to 1998, more than 7,000 families participated, with more\nthan half moving to suburbs, providing a basis to examine the benefits\nof economic integration. Children of families that decamped to the\nsuburbs had higher academic achievement, lower dropout and higher college\nattendance rates than peers who stayed in the ghetto. The parents also\nfared better, with mothers more likely to be employed at a living wage\nand less likely to return to welfare. The conclusion: Neighborhoods\nmatter more than anyone expected.\n<\/blockquote>\nWe all already knew living in the ghetto was a problem;\n\neven Elvis knew that<\/a>;\nbut maybe we didn’t know how much of a problem.\n

\nWhat do the researchers of the new study consider a disadvantaged neighborhood?\n

\nFor the study, the researchers defined disadvantaged neighborhoods as\nthose characterized by high poverty, unemployment, and welfare receipt;\nmany female-headed households; and few well-educated adults. \u201cOur\nresults indicate that sustained exposure to disadvantaged neighborhoods\nhas a much greater negative impact on the chances a child will graduate\nfrom high school than earlier research has suggested,\u201d says Wodtke.\n<\/blockquote>\nHow about if we address those characteristic problems?\n\n<\/a>\nMoving selected children and families out of bad neighborhoods\nmay be good for those lucky few, like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.\nBut what about the ones who get stuck back in the ghetto?\nAnd what if you move everyone out, what happens to the disaster\nzone you leave behind?\nPlus, where do you move them to?\nNewly-built subdivisions in the country, destroying agricultural\nland, increasing flooding, and requring paying for bussing that\ncosts more than any tax income advantage to the school systems?\n

\nHow about instead we address those underlying problems?\n\n<\/a>\n\nPoverty is the root problem.<\/a>\nMoving people to subdivisions still doesn’t give them jobs.\nAs a start, how about we get on with solar energy and retrofitting houses\n\n<\/a>\nfor efficiency and conservation so people in those neighborhoods\ncan have jobs doing that and can reduce their bills at the same time?\nHow about we find ways to locate new facilities like libraries\nand auditoriums in those “bad” neighborhoods to make them better?\nWe could find a way if we wanted to.\nThat sounds like a job for… the Chamber of Commerce!\n

\nAnother huge problem is incarceration.\n\n<\/a>\nWith 1 in 13 Georgia adults in jail, prison, probation, or parole,\nand two thirds of them being black, and by far most of them male,\nit’s no wonder there are so many female-headed households, or so many\nwith poverty, unemployment, or on welfare.\nLet’s stop the Industrial Authority from locating a private prison here,\n\n<\/a>\nand let’s end the School to Prison Pipeline, just for starters.\nThen let’s\n\nend the failed War on Drugs:<\/a>\nthat alone will empty the prisons of most of their prisoners.\n

\nYou may not agree with everything I suggest,\nbut I suspect many of you, gentle readers, will agree\nthat many of those suggestions make more sense than\nschool “unification” or consolidation, which would only\nmake matters worse.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nHow about if we address those problems instead of wasting time\nand effort on a failed non-solution from forty years ago?\nVote No November 8th<\/sup><\/small>, for the children,\nfor our neighbors, for ourselves, for our community.\n

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