Changing which students go to which schools is never easy.
Operating a severely under-enrolled school with too few classes, teachers and extracurricular opportunities, however, isn’t any better.
I commend the Atlanta Public Schools Board of Education for tackling this issue head-on — despite the political landmines that come with it.
But there is one significant problem: The plan put forward creates disruption for families but does nothing to change the status quo of entrenched segregation. But there are research-backed solutions.
Atlanta exemplifies a tale of two cities
Atlanta is notoriously split in two. More than a quarter (28%) of Black households are in poverty compared with only 7% of white households.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
The median house in majority white neighborhoods (on the north and east side) is 2.7 times more expensive than one in the south and west, where more Black families live (roughly $524,000 compared to $193,000).
The concentration of poverty and lack of access to necessities like health care or clean water contribute to the southwest paying the ultimate price: shorter lifespans than their counterparts to the northeast.
In a surprise to no one, we see this quality-of-life separation in our school outcomes as well.
The performance of Black students lags. Instead of working to bridge the divide in our city, the school board’s existing plan treats these lines as a natural phenomenon instead of what they are: human-made and sustained segregation.
Over 70 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the Brown v. Board of Education decision that separate is inherently unequal. Desegregation brought jumps in graduation rates and earnings but also brought backlash that cost Black teachers and administrators their jobs.
Leaders must address concentrated poverty
Credit: Courtesy of Atlanta Public Schools
Credit: Courtesy of Atlanta Public Schools
Atlanta has changed since the 1950s, and our solutions must change, as well. We can learn from what worked from this experience to imagine a city where students down in Cascade have the same resources and opportunities as those in Morningside.
One where our teachers are not burdened by the extraordinary challenges that come with serving a school packed with students experiencing poverty induced by invisible, human-made lines.
The only way we can do that is to name — and then address — the role that concentrated poverty plays in the quality of our schools and how our enrollment lines have exacerbated the issue.
The current plan shuffles kids around but does nothing to tackle that problem. It maintains all the same levels of segregation and concentrated poverty.
Consider Midtown and Washington high schools. This plan has Midtown High School, with 27% of students in poverty, adding capacity to relieve overcrowding.
Only 4 miles to the west, Booker T. Washington High School has more than three times the students living in poverty and hundreds of open seats.
Midtown parents get worried when discussions about moving lines start up, and who can blame them? Data from the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement shows that students at Midtown had 27 Advanced Placement courses, while Washington only had seven.
Over a quarter of the teachers at Washington in the most recent data are on emergency credentials (26%), while Midtown had too few to even count. With more kids in poverty, fewer qualified teachers and fewer academic resources, what guarantee do parents have of an excellent education?
Here are a few solutions to try
Atlanta Public Schools sends more money per student to schools with greater needs through the Student Success Formula. Money needs to be accompanied by strategies that allow our schools to better represent the entire city, not just a single cluster.
- We can redraw boundaries or promote themed magnet schools to draw from broader areas.
- We can also add honors and AP courses to the schools that lack them.
- And we can make sure that every school has access to high-quality technology, including emerging AI tools and training.
The possibility of reimagining a future of public education without segregation led my organization, the Southern Education Foundation, to invest in a project three years ago that focuses on the advancement of resource equity and school integration: Brown’s Promise.
Many of the strategies above came from our “5 Policy Solutions to End Segregation.” Research shows that segregation can be overcome, and we can do it in a way that recognizes the value of the entire city.
The school board in Atlanta has shown they can make difficult decisions. As schools are closed and lines redrawn, our leaders should adjust to make sure the new line is one in the sand that declares that separate will never be equal.
Raymond Pierce is the president and CEO of the Southern Education Foundation.
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