An Open Letter to the District 65 School Board
To the Esteemed Members of the District 65 School Board: In just a few days, on November 21, 2011, you are scheduled to convene in order to make what the Evanston Roundtable refers to as “some hard decisions” on building a new school in the “central core.” At present, there appears to be some difference of opinion about the proper course of action. That is understandable. The questions before you are complex and have far reaching social, educational and economic ramifications. Conscientious consideration and vigorous debate, even at this late date, are necessary elements of a thoughtful and deliberative process. But in the end, it boils down to a vote. Your vote. The power, as they say, is in your hands. I am confident that each one of you will vote in a manner consistent with your vision of what is in the best interests of the children under your care. That said, it is my sincere hope, and the hope of many other 5th Ward residents, that the Board will vote in favor of building a new school in the 5th Ward. Should the Board continue to debate the configuration of a new school, attendance boundaries, issues of parental choice, curriculum and how we can best maintain the rich diversity so important to District 65 schools? Certainly. Will a referendum be required before a new school can actually be built? That appears to be the case. But the question of whether or not to build a school in the 5th Ward has been before the Board for some time. The Board formed a New School Referendum Committee and this committee took approximately eight months to examine the merits of building a school in the 5th Ward. After a thorough process that involved the input of the community, educators and a number of retained experts, including several law firms well versed in the nuisances of school law and finance, the committee recommended building the school. We applaud the hard work and diligence of the committee (which included several Board members). We respect the need for deliberation. But it is now time, long past time, to move forward. Through our website, www.5thwardschool.com, we have tried to make a fair, open and Socratic case for a 5th Ward school. As you well know, a great deal of public discussion has centered around the social equity of building a school in the 5th Ward. The social equity argument is certainly an important piece of our argument in favor of a 5th Ward school. But it is only a piece. A vote in favor of a school for the 5th Ward represents many other things as well. It is a vote in favor of community, a strengthened and more robust local economy, a greener environment and, most importantly, the District’s ongoing commitment to providing all children with the best possible education. But we think it is important to address one critical component of our case at the outset. It is important to address what a vote in favor of a 5th Ward school is not. A vote in favor of a 5th Ward school is in no way a vote against our current schools. Much ado has been made about the results of the telephone survey conducted by the ECRA Group. During this survey, parents in the central core were asked, “Are you happy with the schools your
children currently attend?” 93% of the respondents indicated “Yes.” One unfortunate result of this response was that some then questioned the need and desirability of a 5th Ward school among 5th Ward residents. There is an old adage that if you do not ask the right questions, you do not get the right answers. The problem with this question is the underlying inference is that a vote for a 5th ward school is somehow a vote against our current schools. But at no point in making our case for a 5th Ward school have we ever suggested that our current schools are failing our children. Yes, there are some well-documented achievement gaps among African American children that must be addressed. But the answer to this survey question reflects what we already know and believe: that District 65 educators are doing a very good job of educating all children, including children of the 5th Ward. To that end, we would not expect any other answer to the question “are you happy with the schools your children currently attend” than a resounding “yes.” What those of us who support a 5th Ward school have chosen to do instead is to focus on the many benefits of a neighborhood school. These benefits can be categorized in four broad categories: (1) educational, (2) economic, (3) equitable and (4) environmental. The educational benefits of a neighborhood school are numerous. They include: • • • • • • • • • •
Increased student safety Improved attendance Fewer incidents of student discipline Less vandalism Higher grade point averages Greater participation in extra curricular activities Greater community involvement Increased parental involvement Increased teacher satisfaction A heightened sense of community belonging
These benefits are not a matter of perception or opinion. These benefits are well-documented and researched based. We could, if asked, provide reams of empirical data to support each one of the above-referenced benefits of neighborhood schools. The bottom line? Our point is not that our current schools are bad, but that neighborhood schools are educationally better for all children; especially during their early formative years. As support for the importance of neighborhood schools, we think a far more instructive survey would have been to ask parents outside of the 5th Ward how important they think neighborhood schools are to their communities. But we already know the answer, don't we? Parents who have an opportunity to send their children to neighborhood schools think they are critically important to their communities for the very reasons outlined above. Do you recall the outcry about the possibility of cap and transfer? That outcry was certainly a testament to how passionately parents in other communities feel about their neighborhood schools.
Moreover, this telephone survey essentially asks a community that has been busing its children outside of the ward for almost 40 years to assess the importance of something they have never had—a neighborhood school. It then provides no other information about the school other than the fact that it might be built. No artist rendering. Nothing about curriculum, technology, resources or after school activities. Just random, unsolicited and unexpected questions about a completely unknown and unfamiliar entity. That approach is, at best, flawed. It is, at worst, unfair. 5th Ward parents needed to know more about a proposed school and said as much. But ask the parents whose children currently attend neighborhood schools what they think. Look at the educational results from those schools and from within those communities. We think that is the sort of raw, real, empirical data that we should be considering when questioning the need, or the desirability, of a 5th Ward school. The economic benefits of a neighborhood school are also significant. Time and time again, when we read about the 5th Ward in the news, we read about a shooting, drug busts, unemployment or the need for economic development. But what do we know about the economic impact of neighborhood schools? The presence of a neighborhood school increases property values and encourages continued public and private investment in a neighborhood. The presence of a neighborhood school also attracts more young families to a community. This, in turn, increases the tax base available to all schools. The bottom line? An economically viable 5th Ward is not just good for the 5th Ward. An economically viable 5th Ward is good for all of Evanston. A neighborhood school is a step in the right direction. But when considering the value of a 5th Ward school, we must do more than just look at the economic impact. As Bruce Miller writes in Rural Distress and Survival: The School and the Importance of Community, “economic development is often equated with community development, leading to an emphasis on economics at the exclusion of the social dimension of community.” Economic development is certainly critical to community development. But Miller urges that we also consider other, equally-important facets of community well-being. These include the value of place, the quality of environment, one's history as a member of a community, and perhaps most importantly, a sense of belonging and affiliation among caring friends, neighbors and relatives. Miller asserts that this psychological sense of community provides the foundation upon which successful economic community development efforts should be built; not the other way around. Even more, Miller concludes that “mounting evidence suggests that, without building this sense of community, development efforts are likely to fail.” The issue here is the fundamental importance of community. The fact that people live close to one another does not necessarily mean that they have much to do with each other. There may be little interaction among neighbors; therefore precious little actual community. Mark K. Smith writes, “It is the nature of the relationships between people and the social networks of which they are a part that is one of the most important, if not the most important, aspects of community.” (Smith, M. K. (2001) 'Community' in the encyclopedia of informal education,
http://www.infed.org/community/community.htm). Smith continues, “The nature of the networks within in a particular place or grouping is, thus, of fundamental importance when making judgments about ‘communities’—and the extent to which people can flourish within them. Humans are social animals. Connection and interaction both widen and deepen what we can achieve, and makes possible our individual character.” Robert D. Putnam refers to these social networks as “social capital.” In his groundbreaking book “Bowling Alone,” Putnam provides compelling evidence of the many benefits of communities rich in social capital. Putnam’s work demonstrates that: •
Child development is powerfully shaped by social capital. Trust, networks, and norms of reciprocity within a child’s family, school, peer group, and larger community have far reaching effects on their opportunities and choices, and hence on their behavior and development. (Smith 2001).
•
Public spaces in high social-capital areas are cleaner, people are friendlier, and the streets are safer. Traditional neighborhood “risk factors” such as high poverty and residential mobility are not as significant as most people assume. Places have higher crime rates in large part because people don’t participate in community organizations, don’t supervise younger people, and aren’t linked through networks of friends. (Ibid).
•
Where trust and social networks flourish, individuals, firms, neighborhoods, and even nations prosper economically. Social capital can help to mitigate the insidious effects of socioeconomic disadvantage. Social capital can help to mitigate the insidious effects of socioeconomic disadvantage. (Ibid).
•
There appears to be a strong relationship between the possession of social capital and better health. According to Putnam, if you belong to no groups but decide to join one, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half. If you smoke and belong to no groups, it’s a toss-up statistically whether you should stop smoking or start joining. Regular club attendance, volunteering, entertaining, or church attendance are the happiness equivalents of getting a college degree or more than doubling your income. Civic connections rival marriage and affluence as predictors of life happiness. (Ibid).
The bottom line? When people are asked about what ‘community’ means to them, it is these social networks that are most commonly cited. For most of us, our deepest sense of belonging is to our most intimate social networks, especially family and friends. Beyond that perimeter lie the equally important social networks of work, church, neighborhood, civic life and school. As well as helping us to build a sense of self and individuality, such informal relationships “also enable us to navigate our way around the demands and contingencies of everyday living.” (Ibid).
A neighborhood school is a critical component of a community rich in social capital. In fact, we have argued on our website and our Brick and Mortar video that “a neighborhood school is the heart and soul of a community.” The 5th Ward was once a community rich in social capital. It was a community connected by a neighborhood school (Foster School), family-owned businesses, trusted, longtime neighbors, a sense of place and belonging and community pride. While building a school in the 5th Ward is not a magical panacea, it would be a significant step forward in rebuilding the bonds of social capital that made the 5th Ward a unique and special place to live. Closing Foster School in order to integrate other area schools might have been the right decision in 1967. Building a school for the children of the 5th Ward is the right decision now. There are also a number of health, fitness and environmental benefits to neighborhood schools. In 2000, The National Trust published Why Johnny Can’t Walk to School: Historic Neighborhood Schools in the Age of Sprawl and included older and historic neighborhood schools on its list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. Since then, awareness about the health, transportation, and sustainability ramifications of school siting choices has grown significantly. In 2009 for example, the American Academy of Pediatrics noted that “factors such as school location have played a significant role in the decreased rates of walking to school, and changes in policy may help to increase the number of children who are able to walk to school.” Neighborhood schools keep travel distances short, which means less time for children and their families in cars and buses. Not only does this affect a family's quality of life, it also helps to reduce global warming, pollution and lower the number of traffic collisions. (Travel and Environmental Implications of School Siting, US Environmental Protection Agency, October, 2003.) Communities often fail to consider the increased traffic congestion as parents drop off and pick up their children and the possible health impacts of longer commutes for students. (Helping Johnny Walk to School). Further, according to Putnam, every ten minutes of commuting reduces all forms of social capital by 10%. The bottom line? Let’s get our kids out of school buses and onto bicycles. Let’s get more cars off our streets. Let’s encourage more children to walk to school. Neighborhood schools do that. Finally, we have an obvious equitable argument for a 5th Ward school. Right now, the 5th Ward is the only community in the City of Evanston that does not have a neighborhood school. 5th Ward children are bussed to 13 different schools. They are bused away from their parents, away from their community, away from each other. As a consequence, children who live just blocks away do not know each other. Bonds to their community and each other never develop. There was once a neighborhood school in the 5th Ward of Evanston. Foster School. It was the school my grandmother attended. It was the school my father attended.
It was closed in 1967. Over 40 years without a school in the 5th Ward is long enough. But this much is also true. The City of Evanston has consistently risen to meet the needs of all of its residents. This is a city that has a long history of fighting for what is fair and equitable. This is a city that knows how to do the right thing. Yes, the right choice is rarely the easy choice. History bears that out. But every great leap forward in the course of human history requires the vision to see that which is not yet seen and the conviction and courage to act. The time to act is now. The eyes of our city are upon you. Therefore, I respectfully urge you, without hesitation, reservation or qualification, to vote in favor of building a new school in the central core. It is the right decision for the 5th Ward, for District 65 and for the collective future of our wonderful city. Very truly yours,
Michael E. Summers, Esq. www.5thwardschool.com