DURHAM -- You don't have to go far to hear African-Americans praise the old Jim Crow schools, where generations of dedicated, caring teachers worked their magic. Their sweet hymn blends fond memories, understandable disillusionment and strains of Black Nationalism with a dangerous amnesia. White advocates of what amounts to resegregation frequently cite this song as they peddle their nostrums about "neighborhood schools." This smacks of the old-time segregationists' habit of explaining that the maid told them black folks didn't care where they sat on the bus.
What resegregationists of all hues share is that they're looking backward rather than forward and ignoring what we know about contemporary education. We honor our heroic teachers best by doing our homework before we make up our minds. If we do, we will resist the trap of pitting "diversity" against "high-quality" education.
Even a quick peek into the scholarly literature shows that diversity and school excellence are related. This is "one of the most consistent findings in research on education," according to Gary Orfield, professor of education at UCLA, and Susan Eaton, research director at Harvard Law School.
It's not that complicated. Research shows that schools in which large majorities of poor children are segregated become failing schools. Virtually all of the roughly 40 failing schools in North Carolina fall into this category. In schools with a healthy mix of poor and more affluent students, poor students perform at a much higher level, while better-off students do as well as ever.
Schools segregated by socioeconomic status inevitably undermine our goal of high-quality, experienced teachers for all students. These schools breed teacher burnout. Experienced teachers transfer to easier spots - who can blame them? Schools for poor children become places where teachers start but do not stay.
Rich kids whose parents manage to dupe the taxpayers into paying for an essentially private school - a "neighborhood school" where the price of admission is the ability to pay a gigantic mortgage - will always do fine. But they perform just as well in mixed schools and also get preparation for the diverse 21st century workplace. Obviously, this was not a concern back in the good old days, when African-Americans and women were barred from the better jobs and the prestigious universities.
The issue today isn't "whether black children get the privilege of sitting beside white children," as bitter demagogues often misstate it. It is whether we choose to let some of our schools become pools of misery and failure that sink our school systems.
Defenders of the old all-black schools point to graduates who became accomplished professionals despite Jim Crow. This is true, but irrelevant. The brilliant Malcolm X educated himself in prison, but that doesn't mean I want my daughter to leave college and go to the joint. Segregation always produced a black professional class, whose members often played a heroic role in their communities. But Jim Crow schools produced a lot more menial laborers than medical doctors. Nostalgia for those days is misplaced.
There is one real kernel of truth in these hymns to the past. Ironically, segregation against blacks and women did make for a stronger teacher corps. With so many professional doors barred against them, able and ambitious black and female students took their talents into teaching. These days, it is a rare and happy occasion when one of my best students becomes a public school teacher. They can make a lot more money and get a lot more respect doing practically anything else.
We can't go back and close the doors of opportunity, imprisoning our most talented women and African-Americans in the classroom. Instead, we must make the teaching profession a well-paid and honored one. We should stop bickering about resegregation and get busy recruiting and supporting skilled educators. That isn't about race; it's about economics.
This is also true for Wake County's diversity program. A New York Times Magazine cover story in 2008 held up Wake schools as a national model for "purely class-based" integration. Between 1997 and 2007, Wake doubled the percentage of black students performing at or above grade level, from 40 percent to 82.5 percent. This was not achieved at the expense of middle-class students, whose scores also increased. And 86 percent of students under the diversity program attend schools within 5 miles of home. Still far from perfect, Wake schools can't spare the energy for this battle to resegregate them.
Greater Schools in Wake County and other defenders of the diversity policy, white and black, refuse to play the resegregationist game of living in the unrecoverable and overrated past. Instead, we ask the grown-up question: Where do we go from here?
The Rev. William Barber and the NAACP, rather than raising an empty nostalgia or defending the status quo, are joining with parents of all hues and means to build stronger schools for today and tomorrow. Diversity is one part of the recipe for stronger schools. It's time to talk about the other things that our schools need. Resegregation is not one of them.
Timothy B. Tyson is senior research scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, visiting professor of American Christianity and Southern Culture at Duke Divinity School, and adjunct professor of American Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. He also serves on the executive board of the N.C. State Conference of NAACP Branches.
