Diverse Schools: Building Strong Communities, In School and Beyond

A Forum — June 6, 2003

Background

As our nation’s schools become more diverse, educational leaders must face new challenges presented by a mix of students from different races and ethnicities. Many school leaders have built vibrant, diverse schools, viewing the increasing diversity as an opportunity for enhanced academics and social interaction for all students. These schools have served as beacons for the entire community, becoming the driving force for the development of strong multicultural communities beyond the school walls, which in turn have provided vital community support for the school. At this forum, author Eileen Kugler discussed the advantages diverse school populations offer to students, faculty, families, and communities. She was joined by two high school principals who discussed their own efforts to build strong school communities in the face of rapid demographic change.

Forum Summary

Eileen Kugler, a national advocate for diverse schools and author of Debunking the Middle-Class Myth: Why Diverse Schools are Good for All Kids, cited research from the Harvard Civil Rights Project revealing that the student composition of public K-12 schools in toto nationally is becoming more diverse, yet individual schools are becoming more racially and economically segregated. One reason is that too often, middle class parents, particularly those who are Caucasian, assume that racially and ethnically diverse schools are ruled by violence and low academic standards. Kugler argued that this mischaracterizes many ethnically diverse schools and that, further, the diversity of a well-run school is itself beneficial to students

Kugler described her own experience at a diverse high school. Her children’s high school in suburban Annandale, Virginia, became very ethnically diverse in the 1980s. When a large student fight broke down along racial lines, with major coverage in the media, the community formed very negative perceptions of the school. After intensive work spanning several years, the administration was able to address the issues of tolerance and respect among students and faculty, work with the community to change mistaken public perceptions, and ultimately build upon the diversity of the school in ways that benefited the students and the entire community.

Kugler become involved as an active parent, using her professional expertise in public relations to help correct community misconceptions about the school. While initially focusing on the message that the school was just as good as predominantly white schools, she realized that the racial and ethnic diversity of the school provided benefits not available in homogeneous schools: students at the school developed critical thinking skills in discussions rich with different perspectives and experiences plus students learned how to interact and communicate with people different from themselves, thus better preparing them for life in a diverse society. Kugler began sharing the lessons from Annandale High in presentations at national conferences. As her ideas began to take shape, she felt she needed to investigate whether her positive experiences were isolated to that school or whether people in other diverse schools had similar experiences. She interviewed educational leaders, teachers, parents and students from strong diverse schools across the county and found that they shared her enthusiasm for the benefits of their diverse schools. At the same time, however, they shared her frustration that many parents continue to assume that diverse schools are dangerous and not academically challenging, and would rather move to other neighborhoods or choose private schools rather than enroll their children in these schools.

Donald Clausen, Principal, Annandale High School (the school that Kugler’s daughter and son attended), described the school’s response to diversity. When the school opened in 1954, it was 100% Caucasian and it remained largely so until 1986. However, with an influx of immigrants to this Washington suburb, the school experienced rapid demographic change resulting in a current student body hailing from 88 countries and speaking 48 first languages. The population is 24% Hispanic, 24% Asian, 14% African American, and 48% Caucasian, the latter category including many students from Middle Eastern countries.

The community initially was very worried about the impact of diversity on the school. However, numerous programs were put in place to develop positive school climate, build upon the advantages associated with diversity, and strengthen community support. For instance, the school increased academic opportunities for all students, held school-wide prejudice reduction workshops, and strengthened peer mediation and character education programs. Administrators sought ways to encourage students from every ethnic background to take part in school activities, resulting in participation that is demographically representative of the student population today. They have built community support by holding language-specific parent outreach meetings, hiring parent liaisons with facility in specific languages, and working with the press and community organizations to disseminate information about the positive aspects of the school.

As a result of the school’s initiatives to provide academic challenge and support for every student, SAT scores have gone up each year, the school is fully accredited, a high percentage of students from all backgrounds successfully take advanced courses, and the school has been identified as one of the nation’s top high schools by Newsweek. Clausen said that students come back years after graduation to say that the diversity of the school prepared them to function successfully outside the school. He explained that school diversity exposes youth to other cultures and languages, helps them understand multiple views about the world, and teaches them to interact comfortably with people who are different from themselves.

Michael Hanna, Principal, Storm Lake High School, Iowa, said many people are surprised to learn that his rural high school in the Midwest is ethnically diverse. Job opportunities in the major meat packing companies have brought ethnic diversity to the community. The demographic change was subtle at first, but grew over time until school leadership realized it needed to adapt to these changes. Hanna views the increasing diversity as a precursor of the changing faces of many high schools throughout not only the Midwest, but the nation as a whole.

Today, the school’s population is 60% Caucasian, 11% Asian, and 29% Hispanic. Unlike some other diverse schools, Storm Lake has not experienced White flight; the district has an open enrollment policy, and more families are choosing to join the school community than to leave it. The school has focused on three key areas: creating a sense of worth, creating a sense of belonging, and celebrating diversity. School leaders have found ways to extend learning opportunities to all students and ensure that a broad range of students have ample opportunities to master the curriculum. Strategies include: infusing flexibility into the curriculum (e.g., offering algebra courses over one, two, and three semesters, as needed for student mastery), ensuring literacy development for building vocabulary and developing reading and writing skills. To increase academic opportunities for students, a number of dual-credit courses are offered with the local community college and a small liberal arts college in Storm Lake. Typically there is 20-22% minority enrollment in these courses. Hanna credits the long-time emphasis on cooperative learning with providing the opportunity for students of different backgrounds to learn how to work together. Hanna stated he is committed to parent communication, including parents with little English fluency. He would like to see incentives for school and corporate collaborations to empower minority parents though learning English.

Kugler concluded the discussion by presenting recommendations to guide policy to help ethnically diverse schools succeed:

1. Improve reading instruction at the secondary level. Most reading programs focus on literacy in the primary grades; however, many secondary students in ethnically diverse schools are not yet proficient in English, particularly in comprehension. A national initiative aimed at improving reading instruction at the secondary level, one that is flexible enough to meet the varied needs of diverse schools, is needed. This should include pre- and in-service teacher training so that all secondary teachers, no matter what their content specialty, are skilled at secondary reading instruction. The speakers also urged a change in the testing requirements in the No Child Left Behind law, which requires testing of English-language learners in English after only three years in an American school, although research documents that it takes from five to seven years for students to demonstrate mastery of a second language at the cognitive academic language proficiency level.
2. Build community coalitions to support academics. While all schools work best with community involvement, in a diverse school the community is an essential part of school success. Traditional activities such as families coming in to read to students or chaperoning trips are important, but so are other types of activities such as teaching parents English and using bilingual skills to facilitate student learning or help with parent outreach. An initiative to provide the resources to bring our communities together to support the academic growth and achievement of every student is needed in the same vein as community coalitions funded to reduce youth violence and substance abuse.
3. Adopt a comprehensive approach to evaluating schools. While test scores can provide valuable information, they should not be the sole measure of a school’s worth. A wide range of factors should be considered in assessing the success of a school including the school climate, high expectations and support for all students, initiatives to address the achievement gap, faculty commitment to the goals of the school, tapping of potential resources, and the strength of relationships between the school and its community.

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