Why Marshall?

The following letter by Cora Potter was sent to the PPS superintendent, school board, Lents Neighborhood Association chair, mayor and city commissioners:

I think the overall goals of the redesign are laudable. We should be using this redesign process to achieve equity. However, the recommended implementation falls far short of these goals and even goes as far as perpetuating extremely negative systemic flaws.

The current proposal manages to help north and northeast Portland. This is commendable. However, the steps being taken are now 10-20 years too late and the mistakes that were made in north and northeast Portland, years ago, are now being repeated in east Portland. The situation in north and northeast Portland has improved. However, east Portland is the only part of the city where poverty has actually increased in recent years. It is also growing more and more diverse – even including some of the populations that have been displaced from north and northeast Portland. If PPS truly wants to right those wrongs, they should be creating opportunity and strong, comprehensive high schools in the communities of east Portland. Not dividing, isolating and “busing” east Portland’s students to flounder in unfamiliar and even hostile new schools where they have less support from their neighbors, mentors and friends. Certainly, we should be trying to create more socioeconomically diverse schools. But, in implementation, we should be extremely mindful of who bears the burden of that integration – and we should be making sure that those with the most resources are sharing and perhaps even bearing the costs.

Eliminating the transfer policy is a appropriate. Re-instating a system where the least affluent and most diverse children have to bear the burden of travel cost and time cost is completely inappropriate. The kids in the Marshall catchment are the ones that can least afford to spend 1-2 hours a day on public transit. They are the ones who will be most discouraged by having to endure a gulag just to get to school. They are the ones who would benefit most from having close access to home, to take care of their siblings – to volunteer – to have an after school job, to feel like their community is valued by the rest of the city.

The “guilt” of transferring the burden of school closure is constantly being impressed upon the people of the Marshall catchment. But, when and where is the “guilt” hyperbole being doled out to the Franklin, Grant and Lincoln communities? Communities of “haves” who have taken and taken from east Portland and have never acknowledged that their success is partially based on the diversion of resources and the disinvestment that has occurred at the Marshall campus – and in general in east Portland? Why isn’t PPS using this opportunity to affect systemic change and right this 20+ year wrong? Why isn’t PPS “busing” the “haves” to east Portland?

The current plan creates additional obstacles and barriers to overall equity in Portland, at least as far as East and outer SE Portland is concerned. The “haves” need to absorb the burden of travel and division – not the “have-nots”. This is the price they should be willing to pay for excluding the “have-nots” from living in their communities and for years of extracting resources, without being equitable caretakers. If they are indeed citizens of a progressive city, they should recognize the sacrifices (small in their trope) they will need to make to achieve real equity.

In addition – we’re offered platitudes like “the school will still be open for community use; it will still be a community asset”. Simply handing over a key for occasional use is in no way equivalent to maintaining programming or making investments at a school – especially one of Marshall’s size. It would not be an asset for the neighborhood – it would be a liability. An open building is not the same as an operating High School with investment in programming and maintenance. In reality, it shifts the cost burden for keeping the Marshall campus healthy and usable from Portland Pubic Schools to a struggling community that has very little income, time or energy to invest. Even worse, it’s in addition to the costs they are already paying into the pubic school system. Having no ability to be stewards of the campus in absence of PPS, the asset is simply transferred to those who have the time and resources to seize it – or worse- it’s a mothballed eyesore. This is true even with a focus option. It is the current state of the school with 750 students attending.

It’s been asked – why Marshall when every other school will have an equally compelling story?

Why Marshall? Because we should be taking the last 20 years of disinvestment into account when determining what high school plan is fair and equitable. A focus school at Marshall is not a school for the neighborhood – it’s a school for the rest of Portland that already has opportunity and options. A focus school is not an equitable, accessible school with strong social ties to the neighborhood.

Why Marshall? Because strong comprehensive schools are a cornerstone of community development. The neighborhoods surrounding say – Franklin High School – don’t demonstrate the same need for active community development as the neighborhoods in east Portland. They are far closer to being complete neighborhoods. In addition, the Franklin neighborhoods are a mere 25 blocks or less from a well respected comprehensive school in Cleveland HS. East Portland, Lents, Brentwood, Arleta etc. need a commonality to unify them as a community. The current HS proposal segregates and divides a community that desperately needs to be united, with common interests and goals, with strong social ties.

Why Marshall? Because building a strong school in east Portland will help equalize an entire neighborhood in an economic sense, over time as families that want to invest and live close to their home school will choose to move into a neighborhood that needs them.

Why Marshall? Because the HS students of east Portland should have easy access to volunteering in their own communities. We should not be exporting their energy to benefit other neighborhoods when there is more need near their own home. They should be able to take MAX or walk to Lent or Kelly elementary to tutor 2nd graders in reading. They should be able to take MAX or walk to Kirkland Union Manor or Lents Village to spend time with their elders. They should be able to take MAX or walk to the Springwater Corridor to help with invasive species management, or to learn about the watershed that passes right behind their own homes.

I could go on for hours about why, when it comes to schools, the investment, the improvement – the creation of a desirable asset and opportunities should be made in the neighborhood with the most need -why this is the fair, equitable and forward thinking course of action. I only hope that you can start thinking in this trope when making your decision. It’s the right thing to do for the city as a whole.

In a fair and equitable world, the school that is merely 25 blocks from Cleveland would be made the focus school and Marshall, which is more geographically central to both its existing catchment and even the proposed Franklin catchment, Marshall which offers the ability to equalize opportunity  geographically, would be the comprehensive school. It’s also a symbolically important choice. Closing Marshall is equivalent to PPS saying they have no desire to meet the needs or improve the status and life of anyone living east of 82nd avenue. The real question isn’t “Why Marshall?” the real question is about the ability of the board of Portland Public Schools to think holistically, to understand the past wrongs done to east Portland and understand who benefited from those wrongs. It’s a question of whether the PPS board has the political will to do what is required to create an equitable school system.

Sincerely,

Cora Lee Potter