Promoting Diversity, Integration, and Activism Through a Parent-Driven Gifted and Talented Phase-Out Proposal

• In Event: How Grassroots Activism Can Challenge Marketization of Schools

Abstract

In New York City, the continued use of standardized tests and other academic screens for school assignment decisions is hotly debated, particularly in light of the racial inequities exacerbated by Covid-19 (Veiga, 2020). Academic screens have been identified as a driver of school segregation and inequity (Hu & Harris, 2018; SDAG, 2019). This “sort-and-select” system of school choice is reminiscent of the assumptions that support tracking (Burris, 2014). Tracking is achieved between NYC elementary schools through test-based Gifted and Talented (G&T) programs, which “…are a part of New York City’s legacy of opposition to school integration” (SDAG, 2019, p. 19) and result in disproportionately White and Asian G&T tracks (Cramer, 2019). Meanwhile, detracking/integration policies have been shown to close racial opportunity gaps (Rui, 2009), and promote cross-cultural understandings (Tatum, 2003).

While much is known about how White parents’ pass along advantages to their children by obtaining access to the most coveted schools/programs (Aggarwal, 2014; Posey-Maddox, Kimelberg, & Cucchiara, 2014; Roda & Wells, 2013) and by resisting desegregation and detracking reforms (McRae, 2018; Wells & Serna, 1996), less research has explored parent mobilization as a catalyst for the common good (Eikenberry, 2009; Fennimore, 2017; Roda, 2018). This paper fills that gap by analyzing the motivations and actions of a parent-led group to phase out a disproportionately White G&T track in a multiracial school that also offers General Education and Dual Language tracks. I asked, what prompted a diverse group of parents to put forth the phase out proposal; how did they frame their arguments and include the school community in the process; and how did stakeholders respond? Data included interviews with 37 parents whose children were enrolled in the G&T, General Education, and/or Dual Language tracks, as well as ethnographic fieldwork leading up to and including the June 2019 school leadership team (SLT) vote on the phase out proposal.

I found that parents’ main motivation for the phase out proposal was neighborhood gentrification’s effect on G&T enrollment. The pro-phase out parents, including some G&T parents who were seemingly going against their self-interest, organized three listening circles to encourage democratic participation in the process. Parent activists described their messaging as a fight to keep the school as a “community school,” rather than as a place for White “entitled persons of privilege,” and felt they needed to organize the school community to keep the school diverse because the department of education was not going to do so. Anti-phase out parents called the process undemocratic, and believed that if the proposal had been framed differently, it would have been received as an opportunity instead of making them feel bad about how their school choices contributed to segregation.

In the end, the SLT, principal, and superintendent approved the G&T phase out proposal, even though a proposal to diversify the G&T track was submitted by a White G&T parent. This research shows how parents can promote diversity, integration, and activism by encouraging “democratic counterdiscourse” (Eikenberry, 2009) against the dominance of market-based ideology and privileged parent’s demands.

Author

• Allison Roda, Molloy College