Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20240712

How the best American Kids are kept out of the best Public Schools. We will continue to host Virtual Events and you can learn more about them on her website as well as our social media. Our next event is tomorrow. For regular updates please feel free to subscribe to our newsletter. It will end with a q a so to submit a question please use the ask a question button. If you see a question on the list that you like our speakers to answer please click the like button. If youd like to purchase a copy of tonights featured book you can click on the green bun button directly below the viewer screen. You can continue to check out process. Currently open for Curbside Pickup as well. With that being said let me introduce our speakers for this evening. Hello everybody. The former executive director. She is an experience tv commentator. She currently teaches journalism at chapman university. An education reformer in 2001 she was elected to the 247 district of california the first woman to ever hold the leadership position. She has also been on the Education Committee. Tim derosa is a writer and works in Public School districts and Charter School networks and other education streams. The pbs producers academy. The first book it was featured on cbs on sunday morning. Its good to pass up to jill stewart right now. I will give a little bit of a background on the book. From the back of the book. Anyone who believes in a childs zip code should not. The fantastic tim deroche suggests a number of ways over the public to start suing the government to get this rolling. And thats just a hint about where this is going. It is not a safe book. Its a wonderfully interesting guarantee to book. Im so thankful for bromans for hosting this event. With many of you in the store celebrating the launch of this book. Really this is a great way to do this and given the pandemic and we are so grateful for bromans. One of the few advantages is that our lunch party is except accessible to folks that are not in los angeles. I have very fond recollections of our last bookstore in downtown la. Very happy to head yall here. This book is something ive been working on for about seven years. And gloria and i just started with this kernel of curiosity we knew there were some very elite Public Schools in those areas i know that people pay quite a bit to live in the zones for those schools. We started with this basic curiosity of what is the legal basis if a young family is that tax pain taxpaying member of the district. They live within walking distance of one of the schools. My is a legal basis for excluding them. The one bit of curiosity let us down led us down a rabbit hole of research. I learned that i had been working in education reform often on for 20 years. That really there were a lot of things going on that i was unaware of. And a certain point it became clear that this was this great untold story i could tell a story that would be fun and fascinating to read about american democracy and Public Education and might generate some interest and change. Its kind of a summary of the book. We will display a few minutes of that video. You can get a feel for what we are talking about. Give me one second. A persons zip code should not determine their educational destiny. Most American Kids are kept out of the best Public Schools. Its really about the policies that assign children to schools based on where they live and specifically i am shining a light on intendants zones. Who gets preferential enrollment at the best Public Schools. To read this book. It goes to the essence and the heart of what i saw as a policy maker in c maker in san francisco. A very exciting hearing for the Education Committee. I was actually the very first woman to ever achieve the leadership position been elected to be the majority leader and also i was on the Education Committee for most of the 14 years that i served. Gloria romero is a hero of mine. I was so honored when she agreed it to rate to rate the afterwards of the book. She fought for kids when she was in the senate. She was always willing to speak truth to power. To have the artificial lines drawn by some identified bureaucrat that this is the front door to which you can enter where this is a door that says closed and you must go elsewhere. Most people have heard of district boundaries. What place an outsized role in most American Families lives are the attendance zones. They are the lines drawn by the district staff. They really only have meaning for the best schools. For the Broader Community of the district. These lines have existed for decades in our state and our nation its about time that there is a spotlight on these little fine lines that people never see but they become determinants of who gets the high quality education and who is prevented. It was a practice during the new deal era. They drew these maps to see who was or wasnt eligible for federal Housing Assistance. They would shape certain areas of the city green or blue meaning that they were desirable and people could get Housing Assistance and then they shaded other areas of the city red or yellow. They use the map to discriminate against people that lived in those areas. In many cases the outline of the attendance zone kind of mirrors the shape of the desirable area from the redlining map from 80 years ago. It is really something that happens across the country. I believe when readers pick up this book that they will have this for a hot moment. Theres so much that needs to be done to change the system but the first one is awareness. You can talk to parents of all different income levels who have their lives affected by these. They had been excluded from these elite Public Schools in the city. Middle income parents who had to sell the home where they raised their kids while the parents in malibu who paid a friend for the utility bill. Its extraordinary the link that people will go to navigate these policies. And have the courage to read this book and to understand that this is an opportunity. It is long past time to recognize them and dismantle them the same weight we have taken on political gerrymandering and redlining. For every family that wants to have access to the American Dream. Thank you everybody. That is a good representation of what were trying to do to the book. I have a hard question for you right off the bat. Tim calls a School District in chicago and he tries to get into a good school. Once you realize that he realized that parents were lying to get into the good school and making up addresses in later in the book being arrested or followed or arrested for lying about their address so their kids could get into the Better School just down the street. Tell us about that phone call to chicago. The book is based on these the piers of schools where there is one elite school and one Failing School right next to each other. And they share in attendance zone boundary. The pattern is the same and a in a lot of these cities. Your destiny is determined about one or the other. And they are paying significant premiums to live in the zone. Social divisions grow over time because the middleclass people and the lower income people cant afford those houses. We had identified these pairs of schools and the best example was in chicago there was a School Called lincoln elementary. One of the shining stars and than a mile away as a School Called madero elementary. Last year laster in 2019. Over 80 of the students were proficient in reading. At the school a mile away 0 of the eighthgraders were proficient in reading last year. I was like i have to confirm whats going on here. I just called the school i said im moving to chicago id like to get my kid into your school and what do i have to do. You have to buy a house or rent an apartment in the stone. In if youre on the wrong side of the street. I did this with any number of schools across the country in seattle the woman said you better buy a house in the right area it doesnt really seem fair. If we didnt have a line no one would want to go to the other school. I think that was very telling. This is an american problem. With schools in america. The bay area, seattle. This is not unique to one area of the country this is across the country. In the book tim shows that some of the school actually lie about having those. They dont want to let people know a way to get in. The number of vacancies. Lausd it says it only has two open seats. Is that a real number thank you jill and tim. Today is historic. Its been 66 years. The pretext that was used underground not getting into a good school was skin color. Today its ten points out with the research. What i saw when i was serving in the legislature is about the lines that we dont even know exist. They are out there. What i would see and what tim saw over and over. That chronically kids get tracked into schools. Going back into the question that you raised. I dont know exactly what those numbers are. The issue is they do the county. And they do these right or wrong determing based on arbitrary lines that the state allows or even mandates across the country for the lines to be drawn and yet some unelected bureaucrat deep in the bowels for la unified they draw. It was political gerrymandering we can see the lines we had developed commissions to fight in dismantle those lines but today 66 years they are lines that exist and we arent even aware of them. See mac until you called actually. You did such Great Research in this book. Many districts around the country and they were pretty open about keeping kids out. There is no way that they would tell how many open seats there are. That was a consultant. These are consultant in many big cities. There is one here in la who made that comment. One of the key things that we did at a certain point we started looking at the analogy between these are policies policies in the redlining practice. Certain neighborhoods were discriminated against. People of all braces living in those neighborhoods. And to our being kept out of these schools. It was a big moment. They try to superimpose the current attendance zone. On the redlining map. Seattle and indianapolis. And you to see these patterns where they really seem to exclude areas. They are boxed out of those schools. Gloria is a great champion of these people who have been tried for lying about their average address. Its something that goes on up and down the economic spectrum in america. Why are you even writing that book. The problem is the only people being prosecuted our lower income people. Im sure everyone on this call knows people who had lied about this address. Its very problematic. We found an article posting about how did do a surveillance on children. People freak out if they see a man taking pictures of children. The policies set up a dynamic where they have to do that. They are not just the people who are lying. The people that are being surveilled as everybody. I want to talk to you a little bit about page 65. They attended the zone in massachusetts. They have a greater degree of racial separation than what had emerged. Theyre not going to the Public School closest to their home. Theyre not going to the Public School closest to their home. That is the case in many ways. It is the case oftentimes. The schools in the neighborhood and that neighborhood will be a little bit better no matter what. If you look at north avenue as a dividing line between lincoln and the narrow elementary. If you look at the Health Clinics in that neighborhood there is a Health Clinic on the north side. If you look at the patient rating of those two. They are about the same. If one is feeling than people would go to the other one. There just isnt the degree of a separation in the community for the Health Clinics. You get Better Service and better levels of performance where as the schools are kept separate some of these schools have been feeling for decades they had been feeling for decades. See mac i wanted to get over to gloria for a moment. On page 75 i believe he gets into the issue of the anonymous tipsters and parents in michigan and they are urged to tip off the schools to tell on other parents. Youve been cheapening some of those families in kits. Whats it like. Were spying on each other so the other kids dont get a lot in. They basically have a private investigator others to be enough. Someone here who doesnt belong within these lines. In Montgomery County pennsylvania was incredulous and involved in some family structure. That didnt happen to be the case but those were the stories that will be told. What you point out is essentially would be a society from the effort to create an immunoassay these function as an apartheid system. To prevent them from coming in and then having the social enforcement. Some of the parents that have been arrested and put into jail. Kept there. Mister garcia was charged with the potential for up to seven years based on some of these things. Needs to change. It currently sounds outofcontrol. Can you go into a little bit of what happened with Kelly Williams in akron ohio. When the district hired a private investigator. She was a low income mom. I think she was homeless. And i think you know kelly. I think she was homeless. The district hired someone to follow her and determine her home wasnt in the district wherever she was sleeping with her kids. It was not within the district lines and they put her in jail. Its problematic. There are these two different types of lines. District lines which are the legislatively drawn lines. All of these people share a school. Thats one type of line. The other type is attendance zones which is Administrative Service areas they are lines drawn by the district as gloria said we dont know how those lines get drawn there is a lot of mystery about that. Once youre in a zone you will fight very hard if things change. If they try to change those lines. One of the things we found. I found the three examples. What happened in chicago was young family started flooding into the lincoln attendance zone. They no longer had enough space. If chicago Public Schools were a true system where they were readjusting those lines based on changes in population. They would change the lines to reflect where those kids live. What happened instead those politically powerful parents were very upset. They went all the way up to the state. And got 20 million with both the state in the city that are in a financial crisis. Just so that their kids would not be rezoned. They are surrounding lincoln elementary. They are really not in the same system and it is just very problematic i think. For the allocation to work that way. I think both of you have brought up a very interesting topic. They stopped doing their redlining in 1987 and it was controversial. How is that working out. If we stop and think of it. If the only place we use that. Is really in education and its really a k12. Parents arent stopped at the front door scene where you from. Higher education. You can go to a private public university. You can go to any dentist or dr. We do not use an address. Basically that is the first question. Thats used in k12. Let me suggest to you as we Start Talking to the audience some people are afraid to say that. We ought to be careful about this. I really assert this should be a nonpartisan issue. There had been some in some areas of the country that have looked at what we called open enrollment getting rid of the line. In fact it was a former Supreme Court Justice Anthony scalia in one of his decisions he was writing about this. Talking about wait a minute. While why dont we try Something Like this. It is not a left of Center Liberal idea you have Justice Scalia raising this question. I think i think disproportionately there is a negative impact this potential. This has potential to unite families and communities to say that every kid deserves access and 5 degrees of separation. Thats a whole other issue. This is also when youre in the same district and youre paying these taxes over all to the same School District. As tim pointed out. They are within 1 mile apart with vastly different outcomes. The potential that can unite families, all kids are entitled and they had access to a quality school. We will go to the audience in about eight minutes. Can you talk about what you get into later in the book. Some of the resolutions i want to come back to one thing that gloria said. The reason parents they pass a law saying it was not in the best interest of the people of the state of california that there enrollment be rinsed restricted to one Community College. And the reason they did that the Community College system which have been this pillar of Educational Opportunity has been seen declines in enrollment. One way we can pull people back into this system is by opening it up and giving people a choice so that if you have the right program for you is over here youve a chance to do that. What we are seen today seeing today in the k12 system and many big sissy cities across the country is dramatic decline in enrollment. People are moving out of the city in some cases or not having children even because theyre not sure they can get a quality education for their kids. Without paying ridiculous amounts of money for private school. So one way for the Public Education system to be more appealing to the parents and the pull people back in would be to have true open enrollment in the first big surprise i have when i started researching this book was what was the basis for schools turning people away. It is the open enrollment law they pass a passed a law in the 1990s that said any kid within a district has a right to go to any school in the district. They added an exception which said you can displace a kid that was zone to go to that school to begin with. Lets face it on the surface that sounds extraordinarily reasonable they created the geographic enrollment preference. What you create over time these conditions for the school to grow even more separate over time the population goes in different directions. They are created by that law. One big component of what we were looking at. There were two big surprises one big surprise was that there was a slight forgot called a civil rights law. I write about this lot just this week education next. In which i talk about this law this law puts constraints on how they can assign kids to schools. The language is very clear the attendant zones. With this federal civil rights law. They cannot be assigned that is not the nearest to their residence if it enhances segregation. They cant play to their zones. Away from the school with a higher degree of country dash concentration. These attendant zones are weird misshapen things. There are a lot of pockets in this federal civil rights law. A lot of excitement about the idea of challenging some of these. From the Supreme Court. And i found this amazing quotation from Justice Scalia we could have done this differently. We could have opened up all of the schools. Parents are free to disregard their Neighborhood School assignment. And can send their kids to any school within the district. And it is a very powerful passage. The Supreme Courts approach to segregation the only thing that they had outlawed is over segregation and overtime districts had removed any mention of overt segregation. In their public statements. In their policy documents and everything else. The fact is a district could run schools and many districts to that are very segregated racial lines. They were pointing out. Rather than trying to eradicate overt segregation. They would havent active ongoing role to play and making sure that the Public Schools are open to the public. It was surprising i dont think very many people know about that opinion and scalia was a great writer and he went on occasion take counterintuitive views. I would recommend everyone takes a look at that. My interest is piqued by the litigation strategies covered in the book. What affected steps in measures would be planned to take together. Ive have a couple lawyers talk to me about these issues. If youre interested in filing a lawsuit definitely reach out to us. You can find our emails on our website. Its not hard to find. I think one of the things that we had been talking about. We had weve been talking about citizen stewart. I talked to him on a daily broadcast this week about the book. Were talking about potentially launching protests of some of these elite schools and saying we have to open up the schools to people that live within walking distance of the school. We are obviously gonna keep writing about these issues. The lawsuit angle is one that we are both very excited about. One last question. And then im getting it go to the audience. How do you feel like it has the Distance Learning. Varies by district once again. Take a look at one School District and theyre completely different. Any type of Educational Program is local. There are great possibilities there as well. Let me go back to the question over all. I dont think any of us are saying that its okay and we want to be the kids identified. I used to see the list. Didnt call them Failing Schools. It was more bureaucratic language. They were concluding overall. Ultimately we should look at ensuring that every school is prioritized to have a high quality education. There is a number of issues. But in the meantime clearly we see that this occurs. It is the issue of making sure that there is the access there. I think Distance Learning Online Education i would submit to you that post pandemic theres probably can be a lot of families that say im not going back to la unified. Im happy with homeschooling and remote Distance Learning. This is more affluent parents in new york. They are developing a consortium. We will have our own teachers et cetera. There is a lot of ways that parents are thinking about it. I believe in school choice. Im a democrat that says im prochoice and that includes education. There is not one glove that fits all. What is a family think is best for that child. I think whatever the entity is that it is a quality. Is not bound by a certain lines. And you dont live in these new lights. If i can say we always put out the words education is the key to the American Dream. What tims book points out is that what we know that is so cynical is that too many kids in america had been given keys to the front door that just wont turn. These keys dont turn the locks. I it just kinda changes. One thing we havent touched on yet is you put a couple of maths in the book of your own neighborhood. I thought it was very brave. Partly it is just knowledge. These are issues that i was interested in before. The neighborhood has dramatic issues. They are relevant to where we live. In Mount Washington there is an elite Public School. One of the most public coveted schools. And the attendance zone. In the shape of that zone its very weird. I would absolutely love to have how does that line get drawn over time. I would love to know that. If you look at the redlining map of our neighborhood from the 1930s which is almost a hundred years ago now. The shape of that desirable area is very similar to the shape of our attendant zone today. We did a video of the analysis of which families might be able to file a lawsuit in federal court saying hey we have a right under federal law we are being excluded. Partially because the attendance zone is just so weird and poses poses those questions really effectively. I think most of my neighbors are aware of these issues. Part of this book is meant i have an instinct to see the best in people and two ants assumed good intentions i never want to claim and that someone whos disagrees with me. I know its a hard pill to follow for some folks. This assumption that drives where you go to school. Its a very big one and certainly i have young kids. Proximity and finding a good school that is close to our house is extremely important to me. What im not saying is your kid should be assigned to another school on the opposite side of town. Your kid should not be assigned to any school. Why should the district why should the bureaucrat determine where your kids go to school. They have no idea they have probably never sent us set foot in the school. How in the world with that person know whats the right thing for your kid. The stats published by the federal government. Say over 50 of people just send their kid to whatever school they had been assigned to. The other 45 percent of people who buy a house in order to gain access to a school they want to go to. The forms a Public School choice. But 55 percent of the people are just going where the bureaucrat tells them to go. I think people up and down the economic spectrum should really think carefully about whether they want to trust the government on this big question. If you find yourself buying a house in one of these areas and then you find yourself saying im pro open enrollment. I really like this exception that gives the kids the Privileged Access for the school. Then you find yourself also arguing that while i dont really like Charter Schools i want the kids outside of the zone i want them to go to their own school. And i dont want them to have other choices i view combined those three sets of opinions and they are commonly held together have a very hard time ive i have a very hard time seeing how that is a morally right position. What im trying to do with this book. I think a lot of people have not been paying attention. Im just saying hey. Lets tear this thing straight arm. Whats really going on here. I think once you do that. Its hard to support these kind of policies. We have a good question for you on that topic if they can go to any school you would still discriminate against those who cannot provide transportation. There was some in economic and racial divide. If you look at scalias opinion. He said the district should pay if the kid wants to go to a Different School in the district the district should pay for that transportation for that child. I think you could have partial subsidy of transportation i was talking to tony miller under president obama who is a friend. You can say the district will provide transportation for any school within a 5mile radius and then if you want to get tear outside of that zone. Then you have to give their get there. Then great. They have as much of a right to go to that school as anyone else in the district. You use this at the very end of the book. As you called us the unfinished project that began 66 years ago. I think a lot of people just assume that the Public Schools are open to the public. Because of these policies the vast majority of people are boxed out of the schools. Theyre only helping a very narrow set of people. I think its driving up property prices. The government has in a series of policies over the past few years. Thats not what we want. We want our kids to be able to afford housing we dont want exorbitant housing prices. Its one of the ways that the government pops up prices. The question that is a thread through all of this. If they can move their kids all over the place what will happen to the quality of schools. The bad schools get better . I think they well. If you think about it to some extent the creation of magnet schools or Charter Schools to some extent it was intended to do a healthy competition with the idea being that all boats rise. I think that is the case over all that you find it and you find good quality Charter Schools are magnets. The idea is to make sure that there is a betterment. Its not like we just want to flee and leave the bad schools there. Its an opportunity to think lets turn around lets make sure we get what the standards are. We have a lot of issues related to staff in teaching and leadership all of that as part of it i think. Overall the goal is to make sure to lead the way. Basically you leave no school behind. Its about kids and education. We can go virtual. You have those two. The vast difference in the schools separated by this artificial line. The Health Clinics are both highperforming. Everyone is fully invested. And if they fully failed they would close it down. And the doctors and nurses would go and find a job at a different Health Clinic. I think it sets up the dynamic. The folks that bought a house in the lincoln zone right now they are not invested in making the system better overall are making the Failing Schools better. They found a way around. If you really put them in the same boat as everyone else and say hey you have to enter a lottery to get it in the school. There will be a lot more pressure everyone will be in the same boat together. I think thats healthier for our democracy. It just disappeared asking about what if the good schools get overwhelmed. How do you see unfolding. The good schools are already overwhelmed. They know they cant get in. I think what would happen over time it would create dramatically more demand for educational pluralism i think it creates more pressure. There is no question that in the near term there would be a little bit of friction. I think people would respond to that and they would respond in a positive way. Is talk about taxes. If you can assess school to provide the transportation is a public going to be willing to pay taxes on them. As a for not paying right now. Its against all of the money et cetera. And almost passes the state budget. Take a look at the outcomes now. I dont know that most people are even happy with this. How do we want to go forward. The fact that the governors proposal i actually think when there is crisis there is opportunity. Lets take a look at how we do things. Maybe we have to rethink how we even pay for this but its always a question 50 of the state budget were not getting what were paying for so lets think about how we change that. Looking at the last initiative that we voted down. It didnt shock me but it shocked a lot of people who were so certain that people always vote for taxes. They are stepping up and saying no, were not just to pay for stuff anymore. Give me something of quality something that transforms many neighborhoods so that we all get some skin in the game. I think theres opportunities for bigger coalitions rather than just the chosen few. I also think if people if it is full open enrollment the vast majority of people are going to pick schools that are so close in proximity to their schools. The vast majority of people are going to prefer a school closer to their home. There are many schools that are within 3 miles or 5 miles of my house. There are many options. The best schools just arent available to most people. Im not sure on the timing here. Someone would like to know from either one of you the ideal alternative system that would take place if there were not attendance zones. How would you do it. Just today jay mathews in the Washington Post published this column about our book. I am a big fan of experimentation. You cant use zip code within that zip code. Within a district you cant use zip code some School Districts would experiment with a centralized lottery. Others might use a first come first serve. All of those are not perfect they have a lot of potential for abuse but all of those systems are at least based on the principle of equality of opportunity. Our Current System is not even based on the principle of opportunity. Its for the corrupted by people trying to get what is best for their kids. I think we should start with a system that starts with equality and opportunity. Lets see what works. If the geography is outlawed. How do you deal with the teachers union. I think there is an opening. When we have the first open enrollment laws. I reached out to you tla. It was then headed by 18 duffy. Do you know what he did. He actually stepped aside we can do this. We havent declining enrollment. If you want to put Charter Schools out of business quite frankly ill work with you on that. Basically it adopt some of these open enrollments. That is the Business Plan of a Charter School. It gives parents a choice. Giving families choice. I think actually its good. If someone from you tla is listening. Tim and i we would love to talk to you. There is a real winning issue that allows kids and families education to succeed. It is the American Dream why would we oppose it. Its a great note to end on. And there is a book there is want to say thank you so much jill and gloria and tim. We really appreciate you having this incredible discussion that the community can be a part of and engage in with a lot of Great Questions as well. Like i said earlier the book that gloria is holding right now. Can be purchased from a bookstore website. Click on that it will take you to our website. You can shop around if youd like. And buy it there. I want to thank everybody for supporting us during this very important time. Please follow us on crowd cast. Book tv is television for serious readers. All weekend every weekend join us again next saturday beginning at 8 00 a. M. Eastern for the best in nonfiction books. Tonight, a special edition a book tv. Enjoy booktv on cspan2. Host cspans has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and public