Beyond ‘good’ and ‘bad’: Disrupting narratives about school quality

Four-year-old Marcie’s white, upper-middle-class family lived in a neighborhood largely populated by families like theirs. She was eligible for prekindergarten in her racially diverse urban school district. When choosing schools, Marcie’s parents were allowed to rank up to 12 — some in their neighborhood and some in a nearby historically Black neighborhood. PreK spots were in high demand throughout the city, but schools in their neighborhood were especially popular and had substantially longer waitlists than schools in the Black neighborhood. Marcie’s family would have had a better chance of getting a spot at a school with a shorter waitlist. However, they decided to rank only those schools in their predominantly white neighborhood. Ultimately, Marcie remained on waitlists all year.

There are many reasons a family might make the choices that Marcie’s did. The logistics of pickup and drop-off, for instance, can be a key determinant in enrollment decisions. Marcie’s family, though — like many others from their socioeconomic background — used state accountability data when choosing a school. As they put it, they wanted to exercise due diligence. Of course, they already may have been inclined to conclude that schools predominantly serving students of color and low-income students were “bad” schools. But whether the data served as the basis for their decision or merely confirmed their beliefs, the result was the same: Marcie’s family avoided the schools serving higher percentages of low-income students and students of color.

State accountability systems currently rely on indicators that correlate strongly with demographics. Consequently, no conversation about school quality can be separate from issues of race and class. Schools perceived as “good” tend to be in better-resourced districts and enroll higher percentages of wealthy and white students. Schools perceived as “bad” tend to be in more economically oppressed districts and enroll higher percentages of low-income students and students of color. Such determinations, endorsed by the state, reinforce the racial and socioeconomic status ideologies that permeate our assessments of schools. In general, Americans have come to accept that more privileged populations maintain better access to most of life’s necessities. Why should schools be any different?