Since I was in elementary school myself, I’ve been told that the education I receive will directly affect the life I have later on. Over and over again, we say that investing in our children and schools are some of the most important investments we can make as a society. We have made some progress, but many students, especially those who are low-income and belong to Black and Latino communities, are falling behind.
The pressure is on to fix these problems so that all our children are served and served well when they go to school. Teach Us All, a 2017 documentary directed by Sonia Lowman, exposes the systems of oppression that have resulted in the failures of America’s schooling. It also provides insight into how we can combat these failures and move to a more equitable education system. Here are three takeaways from Teach Us All.
1. Schools continue to be the battlegrounds of the Civil Rights Movement.
In high school history class, I learned that after the ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education that made segregation in schools based on race unconstitutional, groups like the Little Rock Nine were welcomed into schools. I also learned the narrative that, since these landmark events in American history, we have continued to move forward over time in the direction of desegregation. Of course, schools in the United States are not segregated based on race explicitly. However, according to Teach Us All, these two teachings represent a distorted version of the truth.
For one, the version of the Little Rock Nine story often taught is not the full truth. For weeks, students like Elizabeth Eckford were barred from entry to the school building, bolstered by the Arkansas National Guard. It wasn’t until President Eisenhower engaged federal troops that these students could enter the building of Central High School. Most of the time, the story ends there. However, these students faced discrimination and racism throughout the school year, enduring shunning, hate speech, and violence from their peers and teachers. On top of this, the Little Rock Nine had mounting pressure to succeed, with few tools to make success a reality. In 1958, one year after the Little Rock Nine first integrated Central High, the school and other public schools in the city closed by order of the governor. Private education was made available to white students, leaving no alternative for Black students other than to join the military or find work. Today, in Little Rock and elsewhere, we see the effects of this discrimination continue to plague student achievement for low-income communities of color.
Our education system has moved back towards the segregated schools that the 1950s and 1960s sought to dismantle in many ways. Poor neighborhoods are full of schools that are underfunded and underserved. These schools, in places like Little Rock and elsewhere, are often attended by upwards of 90 percent Black and Latino students. Students facing poverty, drug abuse in their homes, gang violence, and other crises are expected to show up and succeed in schools that are not equipped to teach them. Much of these issues and the achievement gaps they produce are rooted in the oppressive systems that have held African Americans back since before our country’s founding. Today, we still face the task of desegregating our schools, despite the narrative that this was accomplished decades ago.
2. Minority students face segregation two- and sometimes three-fold in the education system.
Today in the U.S., it is illegal to discriminate based on racial identity. However, the effects of discrimination and our participation to this day in systemic racism affect low-income, minority children’s ability to succeed in school. Because of various systems, such students experience segregation in learning at multiple levels. These come in the form of what Teach Us All calls double and triple segregation. But what do these terms mean?
Double segregation is segregation based on both race and income. In cities like New York City or Los Angeles, where the population is diverse, communities and schools are very concentrated racially. Because of the histories of discriminatory housing practices, places like New York are made up of neighborhoods that are distinctly Black or distinctly white. Black neighborhoods are also highly concentrated with low-income residents. The schools in these low-income neighborhoods are underfunded, and the children going through them are underserved. In New York, public schools’ admissions processes make it easier for privileged, middle- and upper-class students to matriculate into the best, most competitive schools. The rest have no choice but to attend what schools are is left. In New York City, funding is not allocated equitably among public schools, and institutions like double segregation are to blame.
In some communities, especially places like Los Angeles, where there is a large population of Latinx immigrants, triple segregation exists. Through triple segregation, issues perpetuated by double segregation are compounded by language barriers. Students and their families face the same disparities created by race and income, but do not have the language tools to question these inequities. Furthermore, students are placed in classes where they are not paced well enough to be prepared for college upon high school graduation because they are learning English in addition to the rest of their curriculum. Instead of being treated as assets to our globalized society, bilingual students are labeled as having a more difficult time as they travel through the education system. These factors put white students in a position where they have better access to quality teachers, well-funded schools, and the other tools they need to maximize their experience in the American education system.
3. It is up to us as teachers, students, and parents to combat these issues– and it is by no means hopeless.
Though Teach Us All holds a microscope up to the American education system, and its failures, the documentary by no means suggests that there is no hope for all children to receive a meaningful education. Instead, Teach Us All showed me just how important our teachers are to getting to a solution. At schools like Baseline Academy in Arkansas, teachers and administrators are committed to providing their staff with as many opportunities for professional development as possible. This commitment ensures that the best teachers are attracted to the school and motivated to provide their students with excellence in teaching. According to Teach Us All, this is the cornerstone of improving our schools. The most excellent teachers must be sought out and placed in the schools where students need them most. Too often, children in schools that are underfunded feel that their teachers do not empathize with or even understand them. Instead, teachers become disciplinarians. Students become pushed out of the education system altogether (and sometimes pushed into the nation’s prisons). Teachers who can and want to strive to be there for their students are the ones who ought to be teaching those whose basic needs need attention.
Finally, it is up to us as students and parents as well to be the voice of change. Without being the leaders inciting change for our own causes, no lasting reform will be accomplished. By putting pressure on our politicians and building a community of learners and advocates, we can combat and begin to dismantle these complex, deeply rooted issues in our education system.
Teach Us All is available to watch on Netflix. Click here to learn more about the documentary!
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