Throughout this episode of This American Life; "The Problem We All Live With" Ira Glass talks with investigative reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones about the issues facing African American and Hispanic students in the United States Public school system. More specifically they focus on the solution of integration and how it is overall beneficial, but often ignored as a solution.
Hannah-Jones puts focus on the Normandy school district in Missouri, the school district which Michael Brown attended. She discusses Lesley McSpadden, Michael Browne's mom, who after her son was shot, one of the first things she said to the media was about how hard it was to get her son to graduate as a black man. She writes, "Most black kids will not be shot by the police but many of them will go to a school like Michael Brown's...the school district he attended is almost completely black, almost completely poor, and failing badly" . Here she discusses how this school district represents many throughout the country, that students of color will attend and be segregated from the white students in the surrounding community. This is similar to a process which Kozol touches upon in Amazing Grace where he talks about the community of Mont Haven in the Bronx, and where a woman from that community says, "Clumping so many people, all with the same symptoms and same problems in one crowded place with nothing the can grow on? Our children start to mourn themselves before their time" (Kozol). Whether it is in New York or Missouri, the institution of the United States works to pile more and more into one place to further prevent movement out of the lower class, or in this case to even be properly educated.
Once Normandy lost its accreditation and students were allowed to transfer to another school nearby, this brought about the accidental resurgence of integration in schools in Missouri. Hannah-Jones explains the positive aspects of integration and how it is beneficial for the students of color coming from the worse school district, and also does not
negatively affect the schooling scores of the students in the schools that students are being integrated into. But she also puts much of her focus on the struggles of getting to integration and why it is not the used solution today. For one, the school districts themselves furthered the explanation of institutions making it harder for students to be educated and raise out of a situation. When the Normandy school district needed to choose a school for their transfer students to go to, while they had a plethora of options and the school chose one which was over thirty miles away, making the option unappealing and harder for the students of Normandy. Also, those parents at the school chosen, Francis Howell, worked to try and make it as hard as possible for the Normandy Students to attend as well. One parent suggested, "Has anyone considered changing our school start times? Moving start times up 20 minutes, maybe 40 minutes? Making it a little less appealing?". Both of these school districts were doing whatever they could to put up road blocks for these students to prevent them from getting a proper education.
Bob Herbert of The New York Times wrote an article, "Separate and Unequal", further explaining the benefits of integration of schools, how test scores increase and the overall well being of poorer students increases when they go to school with middle class students. He then goes on to explain, "Studies have shown that it is not the race of the students that is significant, but rather the improved all-around environment of schools with better teachers, fewer classroom disruptions, pupils who are more engaged academically, parents who are more involved, and so on". But even though it is not the race of the students that is playing the significant role, it almost always is viewed as a racial issue.
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