It’s Not a Fight Amongst Poor Schools
PPS administration has attempted to frame the high school redesign issue in a way that pits low-income area schools against each other. They would be happy to see Marshall attack Jefferson, Roosevelt or Benson but why should we?
Each of those schools have suffered from PPS actions or inactions. Those schools along with Marshall have been underfunded, denied resources, mismanaged and neglected while Lincoln, Wilson, Cleveland and Grant have benefitted.
The question isn’t why does Jefferson or Roosevelt get resources that Marshall doesn’t? The question is why does Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland and Wilson continue to get so much more than everyone else?
Why are there still such inequities in the high school redesign when it was SUPPOSED to be about equity?
Tony Hopson had a brilliant speech at SEI on Monday night. Here it is:
I would like to speak to your recent new idea about Jefferson/Benson. It is not my position, nor am I here to discuss what you should do at Benson or Marshall as it relates to the Superintendent’s recommendation.
I am here to dispute the notion that the Jefferson community has not weighed in on these recommendations.
Perhaps the way is which the Jefferson community has weighed in in the past would be more visible: The 1980, 1981, and 1991 Boycotts and 2001 when the Crisis Team shut down the school board meeting.
This time, we chose to follow the prescribed district process. Representatives from the Jefferson community met several times with the Superintendent’s Redesign committee. After much discussion and debate, a compromise agreement was made that both the Superintendent‘s committee and the Jefferson representation could agree on. That agreement was recommended to you. There was no need for us to show up in mass because we did this the way you asked us to. By coming to the table, giving input, and coming to collective agreement.
But let’s be clear, the District has no positive track record keeping its promise with the Jefferson Community or the Black community. In fact, many of the past district decisions to better the district has been at the expense of Jefferson and the Black community. So here we are, once again, at a critical time in the district looking for a way out, and you turn to Jefferson and say “This is the path of least resistance”.
So a quick historical look back:
1969 – The District’s concerns about Jefferson Athletics and dominance in the district. So the systematic dismantling of a successful high school begins with the building of Adams High School. Adams doesn’t even exist today. All of this in the name of desegregation.
1971- The first boundary change took place that moved students who lived only four blocks from Jefferson and moved them to the Washington Monroe site. Again, for desegregation. And yes, that school doesn’t exist today either.
1974 – Jefferson started The Jefferson Dancers – the elite group that has been highly accomplished. But the reality turns out to be a wonderful opportunity for white students and parents to take advantage of the best of what Jeff had to offer without any commitment to the school. This fact still exists today, and we find that this group is not represented by many Black students. Imagine the feelings of Black students watching the Jefferson Dancers get praised nationally and they can’t even compete.
Late 70’s – Early 80’s we had the busing of Black kids from the Jefferson neighborhood all across the city. Why desegregation, one way busing? In fact, in 1977, 44 students from the then Eliot school were bused to 20 different schools.
At this same time the Black United Front had to threaten a lawsuit to get one, just one middle school in the Jefferson Neighborhood – which became Tubman.
1980 – The district relaxed transfer rules that allowed massive movement from Jefferson. This movement early on was White students. But the more Jefferson was raped of its pride and dignity as a school, the more all students began to leave. Once again, all of this in the name of desegregation too.
1990’s – CMAC (Community Monitoring Advisory Coalition) pushed repeatedly for change, so in 1994 there was a protest by the Hispanic Parent Association, followed in 1996 by a Presentation in Protest by Ronnie Herndon, Halim Rahsaan, and Lulu Stroud-Johnson in protest of school inequalities
1997 – After a threatened boycott, the district passed an emergency resolution on student achievement. From that resolution, the only recommendation that the district followed through on was reconstitution of Humboldt and Jefferson. A decision so poorly implemented that Jefferson, a school that at best needed to replace 20% of its teachers, lost 80% of its best teachers. Some of the best instructors this district has ever seen.
In 2001, the Crisis Team on two occasions shut the Board down in protest of the lack of attention to the achievement gap and low achievement in all schools that had a majority number of students of color.
So now we have multiple plans almost yearly and 8 Principals in the past 10 years. And somehow Jefferson is supposed to be successful? The last change put K-8 schools in the Jefferson region, and the Boys and Girls Academy. This was not mandated in any regions other than Jefferson. The Boy’s Academy doesn’t even really exist.
So let me put the scary word in the center of the table. Racism. I don’t believe that any of you presently on this board or your predecessors are racists. The reality is that we have a system that is culturally insensitive and outright racist in its decisions around what happens to people of color in this district.
The District has systematically raped Jefferson High School over the past 40 years. What has happened to Jefferson is not your fault. But it is your responsibility as elected school board members to make it right.
Oregon is the 5th Whitest state of the 40 largest urban centers in the U.S. at 73.7%. So we understand why you might be afraid of displacing White kids instead of kids of color.
African-Americans students are PPS’s largest minority at 11.1%. They have the highest suspensions and expulsion rate at 16.5% compared to White students at 5.8%.
-Unemployment rate nationally is 15% for Blacks vs. 8% for Whites
-Incarceration over 600% disproportionality
The future of PPS will include large numbers of kids of color that deserve equity.
The decisions you make now have long-term impact. Your predecessors made some really bad decisions as it relates to Jefferson.
The failures in the past have District broken promises all over it.
Could we just once believe that we the community of color and Jefferson actually knows what’s best for ourselves?!
So we ask that we be given what we historically deserve. The right to reclaim Jefferson Pride – Jefferson the School of Champions.
We ask that you not only give us the opportunity to win as a comprehensive school as recommended, but that you also support this effort financially to put in place all that you have taken away over the past 40 years. That means Jefferson and all of its Zone Schools need the full support of this board to help the Superintendent put in place once and for all a system for success that fully and comprehensively includes the full partnership between the District and those of us who really know how to support, enhance, and educate children who look like us.
Leadership that leads, Teachers who want to be at Jefferson and its feeders, and resources that allow the appropriate community based partnerships to support this effort.
If you say that your decision to do something different to Jefferson is because of its history of failure, I say to you that this district systematically created the failure we see today. So let the Jefferson community have the final shot at redemption with district support for the future, instead of district broken promises of the past.
This is the year 2010 – with the first Black President. How sad it is that people of color can be so disrespected that you would assume that we don’t know what’s best for our children and families.
You would never make such an assumption at Lincoln, Wilson, or Grant. We simply ask for the same respect.
16 comments
So, in essence, what he is saying is that representatives met with the district and worked out a backroom deal to keep Jeff open? Too bad Marshall didn’t get the same opportunity.
At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, it gets a bit tiresome when the “Man’ is blamed for all the problems of African Americans. While inequities certainly do exist, ultimately, a person is responsible for themselves, regardless of color.
And yes, Jefferson has been screwed over more than once. But so has Marshall. So has Roosevelt. We don’t get to use the race card.
Leah, Is there something in Tony’s testimony that you believe to be inaccurate? Tony’s testimony really just touched on the inequities. Given the history Tony describes in the testimony, I would say the “man” is responsible for most of the problems of African Americans at Jefferson.
And yes, Marshall and Roosevelt students have been screwed over repeatedly too.
Yes, the district has treated Jefferson shabbily. If they stay open, they should get their fair share like everyone else. I’m mostly put off by using discipline, incarceration and job statistics to garner sympathy. While I know there are cases (more than there should be, I’m sure) of both personal and institutional racism, I think that race is too often used as a way to avoid taking personal responsibility for one’s actions. And, even Jefferson though wasn’t get the support from the District is deserved, ultimately, it’s population choose to leave. I often wonder if most of the kids at Jeff had chosen to stay, what would Jeff look like today. I feel this way about Roosevelt too. If so many of our kids hadn’t have left, we would be in a better position today, I think.
Grant and Cleveland used to be considered “ghetto schools.” What turned them around was parent involvement. Why were Cleveland and Grant parents able to make it work over the same period of time that Jefferson kept sinking lower and lower?
I disagree that stating facts is an attempt to garner sympathy and it is amazing what the Jefferson community HAS been able to accomplish in the face of such adversity.
There is a double standard applied and I see it every day as an advocate for people with disabilities. I see it in the cafeteria at my school when the white child is hitting someone and all they get is a finger wag whereas the black child runs in the hallway and gets sent to the principal. The child without a disability is refusing to cooperate and they get a “talking to” whereas the child with ADHD or autism gets suspended.
These are not excuses these are facts. You practically have to become a lawyer to advocate for your child and be shown respect. As a professional in the disability field I show up to my IEP and get handed exactly what I want (for now, I never take this for granted). I requested that all of the staff that come in contact with my child have training in executive functioning differences and it was added without question! The parents I advocate for have laws broken and doors closed in their face regularly. While I am certainly happy that my child’s needs are being met I recognize that I am the recipient of privilege at the same time. Someone asked me why I fight if I am happy with my child’s services and it is because not fighting for social justice as long as injustice exists is the same thing as condoning it.
The community is rallying around Jefferson and the families both with history and new to issues want Jeff to be our community school. Many of the families at Ockley plan to show our support and are involved already. I have heard that the other feeder schools are also getting on board in large numbers.
Thanks for posting Mr. Hopson’s testimony!
Jefferson High School is the bellweather of how Portland treats our Black community. Schools are a reflection of our culture and since the days of red-lining Jefferson has been identified with the African-American population of our city. As such, Jefferson High School’s history, past and present, is the bellweather of how Portland treats our Black community. But, it isn’t just the Black community that wants Jefferson back, that is why this is a critical issue. We have an opportunity for real healing, not from the top down, but the inside out.
There were a couple of years in the 1980′s when Jeff was not being mistreated by PPS. But before that and since it has been terrible. Leah talks about Marshall. I think she is right. For the last 20 years, since Bierwirth, the defining characteristic of PPS has been to protect and preserve good education in the upper middle class neighborhoods in Portland. Since the resources are finite this has influenced those attendance areas with more money and thus more political punch to downgrade the remaining parts of the city. I am sure much of it has been racist, but most of it has been classist. We get ours since we can. And we elect people to the school board and hire superintendents who know where their bread is buttered.
So I disagree with the idea that each school should operate on its own. The whole idea of the high school redesign was to create schools (not just your school) which have the ability to put forth a quality education. The opportunity for real equity. But now, we are closing one poorer neighborhood’s school, weakening Benson, which has historically been the school offering the best possibility of a quality education to less affluent students, and fooling around with Jefferson, in effect creating new problems in a community which has been most beset by poor decisions by PPS. Where is the equity in that???
Now they have ousted Jeff’s principal and business manager. Not a good sign for Jeff. And to be clear, I just want any decisions made to be based on sound academic footing not based on pure emotion. If keeping Jeff open enhances the overall system, than by all means, do so. I sort of think that we have 2 issues here. Offering a robust program at every school. And keeping schools located in every neighborhood. I don’t know if those are mutually exclusive concepts. But to do both, we may need to rethink what a public education looks like here in Portland. I don’t that that is a discussion that many of those who have had it so good are quite ready for. all I can say is that the new core program the super wants to implement looks pretty good to those of us here in Roosevelt that have gone without.
I find it fascinating that it is called High School Redesign, but ever since Ms. Smith’s proposal was presented, we have not heard even a whisper about Grant, Lincoln, or Wilson. Suprised? Not a bit. How will these schools really be effected?They will remain just as they are, and the neighborhoods with lower SES will deal with the fallout of all the changes.
Under the Super’s plan, those schools will lose enrollment (esp. Grant) and the FTE that goes with it. That is how they would “really be affected.” There was also talk earlier on about reducing AP classes so that more “support classes” could be offered.
Here, in front of me, is a letter from the Grant H.S. Foundation, that says ” A Grant eduaction provides our students with a breadth of course offerings that goes far beyond the basics. It includes courses like Latin, Photography, Forensic Science, PSU World Civilization, Marketing, Yearbook, Intsrumantal and Vocal Music, and dozens more electives that deepen and enrich their high school experience. The finacial support provided by the Grant community has been vital to Grant’s ability to offer this broad range of electives. The Grant Foundation is the only way our community can fund staff positions beyond those provided by the district.” It thrn mentions Grant’s enrollment dropping over the next few years and then goes on to say
” By making a tax-deductable contribution to the Grant H.S. Foundation today, you can help maintain academic excellence at Grant.”
Yep, sounds like ” change ” to me.
Speaking of Tony Hopson, here is some interesting info about his past relationship with Jefferson:
http://joesschool.blogs.com/olsononline/2007/05/tony_hopsons_ne.html
http://joesschool.blogs.com/olsononline/2007/08/tony-hopsons-us.html
http://blogs.wweek.com/news/2007/05/11/jefferson-high-school-governance-it-takes-a-pillage/
Some deals are being made with SEI also. Ask Lolenzo Poe about how he plans to use the ARRA money to give out to community based organizations for Family/Community Engagement. SEI is one of those!
Well I like SEI and they are making a difference at my school. I will have to write these two gentlemen to ask them for their perspective on these points.
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