The founding families of Oak Park were concerned with developing an outstanding educational system. They, by and large, succeeded and Oak Park is regarded as having one of the best school systems in Illinois. The high school was, at one time, among the best in the nation. It consistently competed with New Trier as the best high school in Illinois. In addition, Fenwick, a Catholic high school, has recently been touted in a US News and World Report article as superior. When I attended the high school in the early 1950s it was excellent. While I was heavily invested in being a jock and a rebel - motorcycle boots, a DA haircut and all - I was well prepared for college. There was a clear underclass during my high school days - those who were not in college prep. Often these kids were in industrial arts (shop) and frequently they were also not-WASPS. Later this distinction was known as the DOOPERS (Dear Old Oak Parkers) and the greasers. They was no question who ruled the high school if not the world. No one seemed concerned or at least voiced any anxiety over the clearly inequitable distribution of resources and the second-class place of these kids. Times have changed. I am told that today, everyone is in college prep. And many people complain about the quality of education and behavioral problems especially in the high school. Parents speak up today and actively seek to improve the quality of education. There is an underlying often unspoken assumption that the problems are "racial" (ethnic) in nature, that is, the school officials treat African-American students as an underclass. It appears to be the case that African-American high school students are more likely to drop out, have low grades and be behavioral problems than Euro-American students. A more successful integration of African-American into the high school has been a focus of various parent groups and the school administration. So far they have not been very successful in locating a solution.
Having good schools is an essential attribute of any community. People are attracted to Oak Park because of the reputation of the schools. Realtors often list their offerings according to the school district. Since Oak Park became integrated problems in the schools have become a source of great concern to many villagers. Recently these concerns have reached fever pitch and the weekly newspapers are now filled with anxious letters and propositions for solving the problems. Many people regard the Oak Park school system as being in serious trouble.
A primary problem is a concern with the "racial" (ethnic) balance in each school - an issue that arose within a decade of the integration of the village. While African-Americans constitute about 18% of the population, they are over 35% of the school population. The explanation for this apparent discrepancy is rather simple. There are more older Euro-American families without school age children and African-American families tend to be slightly larger than Euro-American families. There is a largely unsubstantiated assumption that there is a "tipping" point in communities in general and in schools. When a school becomes more than 30% African-American, it will "tip over" and eventually become 100% African-American. This is an general anxiety that has fueled many efforts to control the racial (ethnic) distribution of housing particularly rentals in the eastern part of the village where there is a higher percentage of African-Americans. The Housing Center and other agencies work hard to increase "white demand" in these places in order to prevent a concentration of African-Americans in one part of the village. I will revisit this issue in more detail in a web page about introgression.
The school district has undertaken two measures to insure a diverse school population - the creation of two junior high schools and busing. The question of maintaining diversity in the schools or as it is expressed more commonly, the problem of "racial" (ethnic) imbalance is tied to the second problem - African-American children tend to not perform as well as Euro-American children. So as the African-American population of a particular school increases, the test scores for that school decrease. (A question not often asked is are these tests predictive as to the future success of students? That is, if you score well on the tests do you tend to get into the better universities or have a higher lifetime earning than those who do not do well? While I am not an expert on educational testing, I am dubious of the importance of these tests.) Thus a school with a large African-American population becomes less attractive to newcomers not necessarily because of any prejudice but rather because parents want their children to go to a school that evinces quality because the students do well on tests. The problem is made more complex because there are fewer housing options for African-Americans than Euro-Americans in the greater Chicago area making Oak Park with a reputation for being tolerant of racial (ethnic) differences more attractive to African-Americans. Euro-Americans can find other places to live if the Oak Park schools look problematic to them. If Oak Park wants to maintain its reputation for as a diverse community, it must remain equally attractive both groups.
The solution to the imbalance question is complicated. On the one hand, the re-districting of the school boundaries and the busing of children will temporarily solve the problem but it ignores the greater issue - why do African-American children perform less well than their white counterparts? Since racial explanations are clearly invalid, that is, no one seriously contends that African-Americans are genetically inferior to Euro-Americans, the answer must lie in the realm of culture. But whose and why? This is a dilemma facing all schools in the U.S. Repeated efforts at cultural sensitivity for the teaching staff, changes in the curriculum, after school programs, increased parent involvement and so on all seem to yield insignificant changes. It is easy to look at inner-city schools with their inadequate facilities, poor budgets, burned out staff and readily understand why they fail to reach children who live in the despair and hopelessness of poverty often in dysfunctional families. But Oak Park is affluent. It spends a lot of money on its schools. The majority of the students come from solidly middle-class families that support their children's attempts to become educated. Are their elements within the dominant culture, in Oak Park that is an upper middle-class WASP world that alienate African-American students? If so how can they be changed? Are their aspects to African-American culture that discourage educational successes? There is some research that suggests that some African-American teenagers regard succeeding in school to be selling out to White culture. There is also the question of "acting out." Teenagers, particularly those from affluent families have the time to rebel. African-American teenagers at times will effect the look and behavior of the ghetto kid and are then often assumed to be a threat to society. For whatever reasons, African-American high schoolers get into trouble more often than their white counterparts. The result is their grades suffer and the ethnic differential in performance becomes greater. Oak Park was supposed to be a place where the American dream of equal opportunity really did come true. Somehow that has not worked in the schools.
These are problems that have
the potential to destroy the social experiment of a community
that believes it can maintain its diversity and be an example
that the U.S. does not have to be a segregated nation. A study
of the schools must become a major part of this research project.
It is not an area in which I have any expertise or particular
interest. I must add others to the research team to explore this
crucial area. A former student of mine, Matt Durington, will become
my colleague in this project. He is currently finishing his dissertation
- a study of teenagers in Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. If
you are interested in his work, you can read his
dissertation proposal.