Robert Henderson: Our children know they’re attending segregated schools. We need policies that will bring equitable integration.

A couple of weeks ago, my 7-year-old son asked me a heart-wrenching question: “Dad, are schools still segregated?”

My son attends a racially and socioeconomically diverse public charter school in Ward 5, but after three years of morning drop-offs, he had noticed only black kids waiting each day to enter the public school on the same block. What was plain to my second-grader’s eyes was borne out by the statistics. So once I told him that the neighboring school had no white students, he answered his own question: “Yes, schools are still segregated.”

As we mark the 65th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision that ruled racial school segregation unconstitutional, a new study from the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles finds that segregation for black students is increasing in all regions of the country except for the Midwest. In DC, according to a 2018 report from the D.C. Policy Center, half of public schools had a student body more than 90 percent black. The UCLA study finds that such schools are often marked by “double segregation” — by race and by poverty.

In other words, there are essentially two groups of DC public schools: one set of racially and socioeconomically diverse schools and another group of racially segregated, virtually all-black and largely low-income schools. This divide in DC schools does not simply replicate the line separating the city’s public schools and public charter schools — there are some diverse public schools, and there are some segregated charter schools. Additionally, while boundaries for neighborhood schools, neighborhood preferences, and proximity certainly contribute to patterns of segregation, the District’s open enrollment policy means that segregated schools are not merely a reflection of housing patterns. Whatever the factors leading to ongoing segregation, the results are simple: a lack of equity among the city’s schools, and the denial of the benefits of diversity to students of all races.

The persistence of school segregation in DC is scandalous, yet our elected officials and too many of our families (including mine) continue to tolerate a system that maintains it.

What then, should we do?

We could encourage white families at all socioeconomic levels as well as affluent black families to choose, in greater numbers, to send their children to DC schools that are currently segregated by race and/or income. But unless a substantial number of families do this, this wouldn’t result in significant racial or socioeconomic integration — and they’re unlikely to do so en masse given that most families with the resources to avoid a segregated, under-resourced school will continue to do so. The District’s existing “market” approach — with families exercising “school choice” with open enrollment and a hybrid of public and public charter options (given limitations of lottery results, in-bounds and other preferences, transportation options, etc.) — has delivered the segregated system we have now, suggesting that we must reform the system itself.

Everything — the lottery, in-boundary zones, school locations, transportation investments and more — should be on the table, and everyone — especially the people who have been underrepresented in the past — should participate in the discussions. Mayor Muriel Bowser, DC Public Schools Chancellor Lewis Ferebee, the DC State Board of Education, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, the Public Charter School Board and the DC Council should all make desegregation a priority. A systemic solution would be politically difficult and logistically complex, but the moral imperative to end segregation remains simple.

Assuming we do summon the political will to desegregate the city’s schools, we must insist on equitable integration. Too often, communities of color have disproportionately borne the costs of integration. Both the processes used to achieve integration and the integrated schools themselves must be equitable, safe and nurturing. White and affluent families will have to cede some measure of power in the short term to empower all DC students for the long term.

Unlike its landmark decision 65 years ago regarding de jure school segregation, the Supreme Court is not going to mandate an end to de facto school segregation; the residents of DC will have to demand it. Let’s not settle for anything less than equitable integration. Someday soon, I’d like to be able to tell my son that DC’s schools are no longer segregated.

Robert Henderson is a Ward 5 resident and parent of two school-age children who attend Two Rivers Public Charter School’s Young Elementary campus in Ward 5.

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