Dive Brief:
- Gary Orfield and a team from UCLA's Civil Rights Project has come up with a number of recommendations to make Buffalo Public Schools, specifically its criteria-based schools, more integrated and equal.
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After months reviewing inequity in Buffalo prompted by a complaint by the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, Orfield and the research group concluded admissions standards are "systematically unequal" at criteria-based schools.
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Some recommendations for criteria schools include: Changing admissions standards to focus less on IQ test scores, getting rid of a neighborhood attendance zone, setting aside 10% of seats for students who show strong signs of potential but may not have been given adequate preparation, switching up how educators are selected so that seniority does not play such a huge role.
Dive Insight:
The school board has until August to take Orfield's suggestions and submit its own improvement plan. In April the board considered two proposals to bring charter boarding schools to the city's struggling school system. The idea being if students from unstable homes are in school 24/7 they have a better shot at success. The plan, however, has some nervous that it could exacerbate unequal systems and segregation in schools.
