Seattle has a profound reputation for being one of the most liberal and progressive cities in the U.S. The historically blue city was one of the very first to legalize the use of marijuana and to emerge as a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants. Despite the city’s efforts to assert itself as a tolerant and welcoming community, Seattle is struggling to take care of some of its most vulnerable - children of color. The Seattle Public School System was built on a foundation of racial segregation and socioeconomic inequality that has been perpetuated through education, housing, social welfare, and economic policies. As a result, Seattle Public Schools are still severely racially and socioeconomically segregated and, consequently, many poor, primarily …show more content…
This policy had helped facilitate a better mix of socioeconomic classes and racial/ethnic demographics in Seattle Public Schools, by bringing together students from different neighborhoods across the city. This policy was far from perfect; it often involved forcing students of color to take lengthy bus rides past their own neighborhood school, to reach a more distant one in need of minority students. This required students to wake up earlier to accommodate the longer journey, and got them home later in the evening, with less time to decompress or study. Since overturning its busing policy, Seattle schools have trended toward extensive resegregation. (Shaw)
The demographic differences established above are not deterministic of disparate educational outcomes between schools. Instead, the disparities seen today are a result of policies formed around these schools and their varying levels of diversity. Sealth International is not struggling simply because it is more diverse. Rather, the socioeconomic and racial/ethnic breakdown of its student population has shaped the type and amount of resources the school has received, which in turn affects the education of its student
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federal education policy has been defined by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, a reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education act. NCLB aimed to relieve the national achievement gap present between white students and students of color. Each state was directed to create a new standardized test, and for a individual school to receive its allocation of federal funding, each of that school’s demographic groups would have to reach a certain threshold on this test. Unable to hide their achievement gap behind aggregated data, schools would be incentivized to direct resources towards the populations that needed them most. If schools failed to meet these standards for several years in a row, they could face restructuring of administration or teaching