Dream Town by Laura Meckler

I remember very vividly February, 1997, when I was a junior at Shaker Heights High School, a suburb on the east side of Cleveland. Our school newspaper, The Shakerite, came out with a front-page article titled “Black and White or Shades of Gray”, detailing the racial disparities in educational achievement amongst Shaker students across the district. The article hit the school, the community, and the city like a bombshell, and my beautiful school was at the center of a seemingly never-ending and obviously polarizing debate that lies at the heart of our educational system today: why does this disparity exist between Black and white students, and how can we close the gap? Born and raised in Shaker, Washington Post national education writer Laura Meckler tries to tackle this issue in her fantastic new book Dream Town, detailing the decades-long quest of Shaker Heights to try and achieve racial equity and prove that Black and white families can co-exist and thrive in the same suburb at the same time. Shaker was founded in the early 1900’s as an enclave for wealthy, exclusive, white families looking to escape the drudgery and smog of the city, and they were the first suburb in America to try and intentionally create racial parity in both their homes and their schools. To this day, Shaker remains leaps and bounds ahead of most of the rest of the country in trying to create this racial utopia, and Meckler details the painful struggle to try and make this dream become a reality, and the book is infused with first-person anecdotes, stories from the teachers, parents, students, and educators that helped to shape this system, and reams of research and data analysis to support or disprove what worked and what didn’t. This one certainly hits close to home, and Meckler leaves us on a hopeful note by writing that, no matter the odds and no matter the opposition, Shaker keeps pushing and keeps trying, and perhaps other suburbs can follow their lead in our quest for equity and equality.

• Shaker Heights, a suburb of about 29K people
• decades long, nationally recognized track record of racial integration, but also a persistent achievement gap in education
• found as a wealthy and white enclave of privilege, route for Clevelanders looking to flee the city
• integrated neighborhoods started in a section called Ludlow
• became a national model for other cities seeking alternatives to white flight
• economic divides in Shaker are heavily correlated with race
• by 2020, white median income had risen, Black family income had dropped to 35 percent of white families
• racial integration is one of the few things that works to close racial achievement gaps
• no negative economic or educational impacts on white students
• simply being exposed to higher income peers provided opportunities for connections and friendships that boosted them into the higher economic class
• could one town be the dream town of Cosmo and the dream town of Dr. King?
• land once occupied by an obscure religious sect called the Shakers
• envisioned a world of peace and communal living
• outgrowth of the better known Quakers, demonstrations of religious ecstasy gave rise to the name Shaking Quakers, or the Shakers
• Shaker Heights, after the Shakers, and because it is high up on the hills
• from the street, with greenery unfolding in front of each house, not just near a park, but living inside one
• Cleveland was an industrial powerhouse in the early 1900's
• by 1930, the region would rank as the third largest metro area in the U.S., after NY and Chicago
• Vans were creating a utopia
• embodied the capitalist spirit of rewarding the rich with the finest things money can buy
• not just a wealthy enclave, but a tasteful one
• rules put new homes off limits to Blacks, Jews, and Catholics, though exceptions were made
• 1920s, Great Migration, Black Southerners into Cleveland
• National Housing Act of 1934, practice of redlining
• racism on display in deeds
• widespread, pernicious, encouraged, and enforced from the top
• Black people couldn’t get mortgages in their own communities because they were redlined as risky
• couldn’t buy into white areas
• 1927, Terminal Tower, at the time of completion the second tallest building in the world, giving Cleveland the look of a first class city
• Vans soon built a rail empire, some 3B, what would be 52B in 2022 dollars
• built on a financially dubious pyramid, interlocking holding companies dependent on a mountain of borrowing
• market crashed in 1929, empire came tumbling down
• they died financially broken, Shaker remained a wealthy, exclusive enclave
• 1962, Census reported that Shaker was the wealthiest city in America among places with at least 25K residents
• 1940s, Black families had migrated into a handful of Cleveland neighborhoods further east, “Black Pioneers” were often following the route Jews had taken out of the central ghetto toward the suburbs
• “good schools” usually means schools with lush resources, where poverty is scarce and test scores are high
• wealthy people cluster into certain districts
• housing segregation in 20th century America was tied directly to federal government policy
• Shaker was one of the first spots where Black buyers were able to gain a foothold
• 1956, For Sale signs were posted in front of about 25 percent of Ludlow homes
• within six months, half the houses on their block had changes hands, white to Black
• now that the area was integrated, banks worked to keep white people out
• 1957, Ludlow Community Association, classic pattern Black families arrived and white families departed
• process known as resegregation
• Ludlow embraced the idea of living with people from different from themselves
• they valued it, appreciated it, and grew to love it
• many of the movement’s white allies were Jewish
• Jews were more likely to see themselves in common cause with Black Americans, moral imperative and a self interest in eradicating discriminatory laws
• first stirrings of Black Jewish alliance were appearing in Ludlow
• 1961, Ludlow fast becoming the model community for racially integrated living in the country
• financing arm to help fill the gap left by banks that would not write mortgages to the neighborhood, subsidizing white but not Black buyers
• “if you’re honest, you know that this too is discriminatory”
• white residents embraced a color blind philosophy that felt progressive to the at the time but could leave some Black people feeling unseen
• 1965, Ludlow hosted ambassadors from five African countries, Jamaica, and the Netherlands for a weekend of events
• association hosted Ella Fitzgerald for a fundraising concert
• attracted white families with children to the neighborhood
• the rest of virtually all white Shaker was only starting to realize that race might be their concern, too
• 1964, Pennybacker commission, now called Shaker Citizens Study Group on Racial Change
• arrival of Black families had not depressed prices
• Ludlow, property values had risen on average by 5.9%
• council voted 5–0 to approve a ban on For Sale and Sold signs
• ban would remain in place for more than three decades, until these ordinances were ruled unconstitutional
• 1979, U.S. News wrote about Shaker; integration wasn’t a challenge, it was a selling point
• workers careful about how they spoke about race, housing office was selling Shaker and the benefits of diversity in general, integration in areas where it was already underway, while downplaying the actual presence of Black people
• 1970, proposal by City of Cleveland to put 14 public housing units into the neighborhood
• Black Ludlow residents were angry, they moved to Shaker to have the suburban dream, not to live alongside those in poverty
• Lawson, 1970, present recommendations for a busing program aimed at desegregating the district’s nine elementary schools
• ten years following Brown, schools in the South did almost nothing to implement it
• most systems avoided desegregation with mass resistance, total disregard, or school choice programs that deliberately kept whites and Blacks apart
• began to change with the 1964 Civil Rights Law that cut federal funding to any districts that segregated students by race
• 1971, court blessed mandatory busing
• segregation in the North and West, de facto segregation, often had created through deliberate choices and also was unconstitutional
• 1973, Court agreed, ordering Denver schools to desegregate
• when forced to do so, many communities closed the predominantly Black schools
• burden of desegregation fell harder on the shoulders of Black students
• 1970, Shaker Schools Plan, called for Moreland students in grades four through six to be bused to other schools, though parents could opt out
• white students elsewhere in grades 1–6 could request transfer to Moreland
• landmark moment — voluntarily desegregate their schools, absent a court order
• district studied children developing cross racial friendships
• students at the receiving schools did not lose ground and those who were bused performed as expected, or significantly better
• important milestone, continued Shaker down the road that not everyone wanted to travel
• Shaker schools got more diverse, sorting children into academic buckets called levels
• two school systems within one, both academically and socially, Black and white students were together, and apart
• upper level courses were filled with white faces, lower level classes became dominated by Black ones
• system not designed to be racist, yet is has evolved to that point
• students ran into racism but didn’t always talk about it
• 1976 school year, students in honors, AP, enrichment programs, 734 were white, 91 percent; of the 245 students suspended the previous year, 74 percent were Black
• self segregation starts to unfold in middle school, development of personal identity, racial identity, begins in earnest in adolescence
• Black students start to realize that the world sees them as Black
• joining with one’s peers for support in the face of stress is a coping strategy
• 1968 Fair Housing Act, barred discrimination on the basis of race and other factors when renting or buying a home, obtaining a mortgage, or engaging in other housing related activities
• law enabled private lawsuits that alleged discrimination but had little enforcement power beyond that
• promoting integration of necessity results in unequal treatment
• many of the Black families arriving in the 70s and beyond were less wealthy than the first wave in previous decades
• Shaker would have to confront not just racial divides, but economic ones too
• Reagan, rather than encouraging integration, boosted a color blind vision that undercut that work
• 1983, Shaker, Cleveland Heights, University Heights with their school boards formed a new organization to formally steer Black house hunters to the Hillcrest suburbs farther east
• East Suburban Council for Open Communities, ESCOC
• first of its kind in the nation
• cooperation between cities and schools boards had been almost unheard of before this
• 1985, Shaker offered mortgage assistance to families, white and Black, who bought homes in areas where their race was underrepresented
• 1990 study by a Fed economist found that the probability of a white person buying in an integrated area rose by 20 percent and that housing prices rose by 5.8 percent annually
• 1990, ESCOC had helped about 400 Black families move to mostly white suburbs
• major racial split happens in 7th grade
• two races tend to fear each other
• when you don’t want to face a hot issue, appoint a committee
• 1977, Shaker expanded its voluntary busing plan to every school
• now any student could attend any elementary school and either junior high, as long as the transfer would improve the racial balance at the new school
• citywide integration plan took effect, as it turned out, just a year before school integration peaked in America
• after that courts, began releasing districts from their mandatory desegregation plans, progress made in response to Brown began to unravel
• Shaker’s commitment remained
• 1992 to 1996, about half of Shaker students were white and half Black
• Black students made up about 7 percent of the top 20 percent of the class, and 90 percent of the bottom 20
• the higher the level, the whiter the class
• Ogbu, 2002, Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb
• provocative and uncomfortable central conclusion put the responsibility squarely on Black students themselves
• they were not trying hard enough, not putting forth the same effort as white students
• feel inferior inside, feelings of self doubt
• socioeconomic factors did not explain because Black academic performance falls below white performance even within economic classes, according to Ogbu
• low teacher expectations played a role, students themselves influence what teachers expect from them
• study of 40K middle school and high school students from fifteen districts around the country in the Minority Achievement Netowrk
• findings stood in contrast to Ogbu’s
• at least half the gap, could be attributed to differences in family income and resources
• lack of skills, remedy was more instruction, starting in homes and classrooms in elementary schools and sustained as students grew older
• parental education made a difference
• white runners start ahead, get extra coaching, channeled more information about strategy — example
• Tripod Project, three keys to student success: content, pedagogy, relationships
• encourage a growth mindset
• Sankofa, an African symbol of a bird looking backward as a way to emphasize the value of understanding the past in order to chart the future
• over time, Black population in Shaker did become less wealthy
• U.S. educational system two decades during Bush when the focus was on accountability
• No Child Left Behind, education reformers in both parties believed that if academic achievement was measured and disaggregated by race, if high standards were in place everywhere, if schools and teachers were held accountable for the results, performance would improve
• standardized testing, teaching to the test, sapped time for arts and sciences and music and anything else that wasn’t being measured
• little evidence that the reforms were leading to improvements
• new theory was equity
• attack systemic racism, hire more teachers of color, diversify and inclusion officers
• make sure every child is given what he or she needs to succeed
• equality means that everyone gets the same
• equity means that everyone gets what they need
• under an equity framework, some kids might need more, and get more, a direct challenge to the expectations and privileges of families who were used to getting what they wanted
• Excellence, Equity, Exploration
• economic divides in Shaker, with white residents far wealthier than Black ones
• over time those divides have grown wider, made closing the academic gaps harder
• children in struggling families, far more likely to struggle in school
• poverty had grown
• nearby Solon, Black population more than double over two decades to about 12 percent in 2021
• Shaker became more accessible to low income residents
• some driven by Great Recession and foreclosure crisis
• white community was wealthy and stayed wealthy
• Black community earned far less, over time even less
• portion of Black Shaker families in poverty nearly tripled
• research shows that having a same race teacher is enormously beneficial to students of color
• teachers, like others, make negative assumptions of students of color, broad implications for their education, including expectations for success and decisions about discipline and course placement
• in elementary school the message was that either you are smart and good at school or you are not, the message sent
• some were told they belonged at the top, other’s weren’t
• Black students were not encouraged to take upper level classes
• white parents actively pushed to get their children into these classes
• math education in middle school, students with average ability levels did better when they were placed in higher level classes, especially Black students
• academic tracking was first introduced in America in response to the influx of immigrants in the early 1900's
• to sort students into rigid educational pathways
• certain students were groomed for college and others for trades such as plumbing or secretarial work
• high ceiling, low floor — gives students multiple options for completing the same assignment
• most detracking initiatives are driven by a frustration with racially segregated classes
• research suggests that high level courses are far better for students of all abilities
• grouping all the low performing students into one class is not an effective way to help struggling kids catch up
• critics argue that mixed ability courses don’t challenge higher achieving students and put unreasonable burdens on teachers
• students in Shaker consistently scored higher than white students in other racially diverse districts in the state
• Black students scores were about equal to lower than those of Black students in other suburbs
• teachers with empathic, supportive students, with high expectations for all, saw far more success than those with punitive approaches
• racially diverse faculty and assure that students of color saw themselves reflected in the curriculum
• part of a heightened embrace of racial equity already underway in eduction, school districts nationwide, including Shaker, hired DEI officers, audits of data, exposed widespread variances and disparities by race
• strategic plans that centered equity
• Feldman, threatening to fail a student does nothing to help the vast majority of students avoid failure, does not address their lack of confidence and dearth of experience wit academic success
• changes sparked a political backlash, conservatives charging that the schools were overly focused on race and indoctrinating students with liberal ideologies
• coming out of remote school, districts across the country saw spikes in violence, shootings, fighting, and general misbehavior
• one of Shaker’s big challenges was that upper income Black families don’t want to live around lower income Black families
• trying, that’s what Shaker does
• trying and trying again, and with each iteration, community moves a bit farther along a very long, bumpy, and unfinished quest for racial equity
• far ahead of most of the country and offers lessons for places and people who want to try to do better
• Shaker faces stiff competition among other suburbs of Cleveland, many wealthy Black families are choosing to move elsewhere
• create and maintain a diverse, shared community
• trade offs, compromises, and commitment
• people living there created and then embraced an identity that celebrated diversity and integration
• to create a community where we all belong, we need to also consider the needs and wants of all children
• talking and listening, everyone, teachers, students, parents, administrators
• trust and relationships
• day in day out effort
• opportunities with high expectations
• Black community has to do more talking
• Shaker and communities like it cannot write off privileged families
• community is still integrated, schools are still racially balanced
• building a sandcastle by the side of the ocean, waves are lapping it, but people are working to build, sustain, and protect the sandcastle, you are going to have something that looks, more or less, like a sandcastle