Barber Shop

Yesterday at the barber shop, a father was explaining his rationale for pulling his son out of one school system and shopping around for a better system. His son will be a sophomore, scored a 28 on the ACT his freshman year, plays a solid outside linebacker on JV, and wants to become an engineer. His father lost confidence in the school system his son previously attended; he cited a drop in the property values in the district, an increase in minority enrollment, levy failures, and a subsequent decline in test scores and district rating.

The father is looking for a district that can serve as a better platform for gaining admission into competitive universities: a district where his son's class rank will have more weight, a district where the mean ACT score is higher (to improve on that 28), a district where his son might see some varsity playing time, a district that spends more per pupil, a district that passes its levies...which in effect, although unsaid, meant a district in central Ohio with a higher rating and less minorities.

The father is playing the game: a game defined by a historically unconstitutional school funding system, a game he has the social and financial capital to play, a game that is won and lost along lines of class and race, a game the father didn't create, yet a game he will play to win.

It's also a game that historically and in the present only has losers; we all lose by not providing equal opportunities and resources to all of our students, regardless of class and race. But it's also a game that elected and appointed officials have no incentive to change for the constituents that make up their power and campaign finance bases have no problems playing and winning the game.

In the May/June 2008 issue of the Journal of Teacher Education, eight contributors wrote letters to our next president. In Gloria Ladson-Billings' letter, she reframes the national conversation around the racial achievement gap to one of educational debt, shifting the focus from the students and teachers who aren't winning the game (irrespective of social and financial capital) to all of us, as members of a democratic society, who are complicit in sustaining the game and complacent with who the winners and losers are.