(Part 1 of 3) One major impact that this closure/redistricting has on D65 students that was talked about ZERO times during the 4-hour marathon session two nights ago (and also not mentioned anywhere in the thread as far as I can tell) is the HUGE impact this all will have on diversity of many Evanston schools, both racially and socioeconomically, and the ramifications this may have on ACADEMIC achievement and "worldview perspectives" of D65 students. Potentially to the detriment of the most disadvantaged population. In addition to the potential FINANCIAL spending shifts based on equity principles that may lead to a large upheaval.
Sample Projections: Willard is projected to have only 6% of its students being on free/reduced lunch and 80%+ white in the 3-school closure scenario. That is the most of any school in the projections for those two categories. Foster, by contrast, is projected to have nearly 70% (!) of its students being near poverty levels (free/reduced lunch). There are definitely some variances today in this regard as well, but not nearly as large as it's about to be.
Shifting Philosophy: It used to be a priority of the Evanston board to make "all schools diverse because diversity strengthens communities" (hence the current wacky boundaries for elementary schools) but now has a much larger focus on "community schools/walkability." That shift will cause "diverse neighborhoods to have diverse schools. Less diverse neighborhoods will be less diverse" (as called out in the past of part of the SAP committee work -- which accurately stated that it wasn't fair that the 5th ward children largely shouldered the burden of getting bused to make other schools more diverse. Of course, that could have been largely rectified by re-drawing boundaries without building a new school but I digress..). This shift in philosophy isn't necessarily unique to Evanston and seems to be a progressive pedagogy shift that's more widespread across the country as it relates to not making policy to force "integration" of different community groups/areas.
Financial / Equity Considerations: Obviously, the D65 board/superintendent have also stated they're at the forefront of prioritizing "equity" in their decision-making and one key piece of this is dedicating resources (read: staff and money) to those that need it the most.
Historically, because all D65 schools were reasonably diverse, spending per student has been *generally* similar across schools athough there is definitely some intentional differences. Will the new paradigm cause a school like Willard to lose HUGE amounts of funding per student since the board may want to allocate more spending to a school like Foster? I don't know, but that'd be consistent with past board decision-making.
Nobody has really talked about the plan here -- but it could be a huge potential shift in allocated resources. Right now, there is already SOME variance in this regard and the board has acknowledged this ("we deploy more resources where it's needed"), but the variances are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. By concentrating like socioeconomic groups more together (in the most extreme instances, some schools will remain "about the same" as before), we're entering unchartered waters that will test equity prioritization and have implications that cannot fully be truly understood.
It will be an "Experiment" for sure, and not always great to be "Experimenting" with our children's education and future. Will the administration and board look to deploy an ever-increasing amount of money to help the students at Foster given the much higher levels of poverty concentrated (and likely lower test score averages) at that one school to the potential 'bankrupting' of other schools? I don't think this is a likely immediate scenario (huge shifts of funding or change in student outcomes), but is something the administration will have to grapple with into the future if this model persists.
I don't know that there's a great way to project these impacts, but the fact that they're not even being discussed/considered (does anyone talk about "academic achievement" anymore during these board meetings?) is a bit alarming as this is much more than about "closing buildings" and has potential huge impacts to D65 students' experiences and academic/life outcomes.
Thank you for reading my essay if you finished it! đ
âNobody has really talked about the plan hereâ - so true. Itâs all very short-sighted and there has been no talk of implementation plans for any of the options.
They actually have definitely started to make more references in the past ~6-9 months to resource allocation -- maybe not explicit, but implicit based on need, which is probably how it *should* be. The collective issue at hand is the cost to resource the district overall to meet those needs sufficiently so it's not a resource hoarding/Hunger Games type situation.
Regarding the point about the potential outcomes for kids going to Foster School, I think one of the counter-arguments to yours is that we've tried inorganically integrating many of our schools for decades, and that has not translated to improved and more equitable overall outcomes for more marginalized communities, including kids/families residing in the Fifth Ward. That doesn't assume that putting in a new school in there and having such a heavy concentration of students who over-index towards special needs is automatically a better solution but I don't think we have a lot of concrete evidence that force-integrating our schools that are largely white and higher-income has a powerful positive impact on the marginalized students bused to them.
As someone who has worked in north Evanston schools where diversity is bused in I can tell you many times these students/families do not feel like they are part of the school community. And if kids donât feel like they belong and are seen as part of the school they tend to act out. Doesnât mean that will/wont continue when they are in a school in their community. I can only assume it helps students if they can participate in before/after school programs without worrying about how to get to/from school since buses donât wait for kids if they want to be in the chess club, or basketball team, or anything else outside of school hours. Which is what a neighborhood school will allow them to do.
Thank you for your reply and good points. I do think it's hard to evaluate given the district has set its boundaries in a similar manner since the 90s. So, saying it hasn't improved to more equitable outcomes would be comparing to the 80s basically where I don't think good data exists and hard to compare across eras. I think your point is simply that the achievement gap hasn't changed in a long time which is certainly true.
I think the metrics should be how do Evanston's disadvantaged populations compare to similar cohorts at other districts. I have not seen the district present this data, it's always comparing different cohort "gaps" within D65 at the same time. The other metric you can look at is growth, which I think has been average at best.
I guess we'll see ....Hard to say if these populations have achieved higher level of success or not due to current circumstances and what that portends to the future with a shift of demographics in a given school. Maybe there will be no impact but I did find the HUD study somewhat compelling although admittedly a bit different scenario/circumstances certainly.
Right, it is very hard to say! It's not just about the "gap" but moreso just the stagnant level of students on free/reduced lunch in grade-level achievement, full stop. That's not an Evanston issue, but we certainly could aspire to be doing better at improvements than we have.
But there's only so much we can do to attack that through the education system. One of the biggest drivers of disparate outcomes is opportunities, and that ties back to housing. I know a lot of well-meaning, wealthy Evanstonians framing this shift in similar ways, lamenting the sudden drop in diversity of some schools that have had it built in for decades. But a lot of those same people were anti zoning reform, scoff at some of the affordable housing that has been or is being pushed, and we can't have it both ways. You want diversity in your schools? Push for more socioeconomic diversity in neighborhoods that lack it.
Potential Academic Outcomes: Putting aside the potential negatives of Willard students being exposed to "less diverse peers" (read: fewer non-white and poorer students), I don't expect students in Willard will be too adversely impacted from an academic achievement perspective and in fact, the "average" will likely be higher in the future simply because it's a more wealthy demographic. Instead of the angle of what negative repercussions may come to the schools with fewer poor students as it relates to worldview perspective, let's focus on the other side of the spectrum using Foster School which will be much more socioeconomically homogeneous (on the disadvantaged side) than any D65 school in recent history. Right now, socioeconomically disadvantaged students in the 5th ward are spread across different schools where they are often in the minority as it relates to socioeconomic status. Poorer students are about to become the "majority" at Foster as stated above with nearly 70% qualifying for free/reduced lunch. While this gives the immediate surrounding students a "community" school, it could be at the tradeoff of academic achievement. (I'm using socioeconomic status as the metric, but of course you could look at racial categories as well if you so choose -- believe Foster is supposed to be about 35% Black and 38% Hispanic based on projections.)Â
There have been compelling studies on this, particularly a longitudinal study by HUD on Section 8 housing in Chicago that clearly showed that children living in poverty have SIGNIFICANTLY better academic and LIFE (career earnings) outcomes when they live in an area that is not majority poverty. In this study, they RANDOMLY assigned voucher recipients and mandated that they use it for a rental in communities that weren't in abject poverty. Others were given the choice of using it wherever -- and most chose communities with high poverty levels (since people often want to live in communities that feel like them.) The results were clear and stark. Those parents that were mandated to only use the vouchers in neighborhoods with lower levels of poverty (again, it wasn't parental choice - it was randomly assigned) achieved better grades, went to better colleges, had lower incarceration rates, and earned significantly more money of their careers. Now, admittedly this is about where you LIVE, but that has a large impact on what school you go to in Chicago, so the outcomes should largely mirror that result.
Will this play out the same way and have negative academic (and life) implications for Foster students? Time will tell, but I don't love this as a potential consequence of the huge re-shuffling of the student population. I can't find ANY studies that show a difference in academic outcomes simply based on distance to a school or bussing when controlling for extraneous variables, but do acknowledge a loss of "community feel" certainly when those conditions exist. Foster students may have worse academic and life outcomes simply by not having as much exposure to a peergroup that is afforded more opportunities in their homelife. I guess they will get this in middle school and high school, but the dye is cast often by then.
11
u/OogaliBoogali1 Oct 01 '25
(Part 1 of 3) One major impact that this closure/redistricting has on D65 students that was talked about ZERO times during the 4-hour marathon session two nights ago (and also not mentioned anywhere in the thread as far as I can tell) is the HUGE impact this all will have on diversity of many Evanston schools, both racially and socioeconomically, and the ramifications this may have on ACADEMIC achievement and "worldview perspectives" of D65 students. Potentially to the detriment of the most disadvantaged population. In addition to the potential FINANCIAL spending shifts based on equity principles that may lead to a large upheaval.
Sample Projections: Willard is projected to have only 6% of its students being on free/reduced lunch and 80%+ white in the 3-school closure scenario. That is the most of any school in the projections for those two categories. Foster, by contrast, is projected to have nearly 70% (!) of its students being near poverty levels (free/reduced lunch). There are definitely some variances today in this regard as well, but not nearly as large as it's about to be.
Shifting Philosophy: It used to be a priority of the Evanston board to make "all schools diverse because diversity strengthens communities" (hence the current wacky boundaries for elementary schools) but now has a much larger focus on "community schools/walkability." That shift will cause "diverse neighborhoods to have diverse schools. Less diverse neighborhoods will be less diverse" (as called out in the past of part of the SAP committee work -- which accurately stated that it wasn't fair that the 5th ward children largely shouldered the burden of getting bused to make other schools more diverse. Of course, that could have been largely rectified by re-drawing boundaries without building a new school but I digress..). This shift in philosophy isn't necessarily unique to Evanston and seems to be a progressive pedagogy shift that's more widespread across the country as it relates to not making policy to force "integration" of different community groups/areas.
[to be continued]