The Shame of the Nation in CMS

I attended Vance High School in Charlotte.  While I grew up in a middle class neighborhood, there were some poorer neighborhoods surrounding us.  Many of the children who lived in these neighborhoods also went to school there.  While we had a nice building and relatively good resources, Vance reminds me of some of the schools found in The Shame of the Nation.  While I can’t find any statistics to back me up, I can say with relative confidence that I was definitely part of the minority in my school.  Mostly Blacks and Hispanics went there, while Whites, Asians and other races were hard to find.  I remember being one of only two or three white girls in several of my classes, and being the only white person in at least one class.  I could tell that several of my classmates either had not had much interaction with white people, or felt that we were completely different from them, when I was told I was the prettiest white girl they knew.  These sort of interactions were always strange for me, since I had gone to a diverse elementary and middle school, where race was not really much of a factor in any of our interactions.

One quote from the book that I could see being said in my school was this one: “I asked her if she truly thought America did not “have room” for her or other children of her race. “Think of it this way,” said a sixteen-year-old girl sitting beside her. “If people in New York woke up one day and learned that we were gone, that we had simply died or left for somewhere else, how would they feel?” “How do you think they’d feel?” I asked. “I think they’d be relieved,” this very solemn girl replied.

I was lucky enough to be in mostly Honors classes at my school, so most of the students I interacted with on a regular basis did not feel this way, but in my elective classes, I could see how some of the students could.  They were not nearly as invested in their education as I was, which frustrated me.  Didn’t they know that an education was the key to going to leading a successful, happy life?  Now I know that more than likely they were not raised to think that way.  They were raised to think that they would never amount to much, because they had the double burden of being poor and Black.  Most probably went home to families that needed them to work, not focus on an education which did not have any current benefits.  They probably hung out with peers who had dropped out of school, only to join the local gang, thinking that was the only option they really had.  They did not have the benefit I did.  They did not go to an elementary school that gave them the skills and confidence to continue in their education.  They did not have parents that had the luxury of time to help them with their homework.  They probably did not have the safe environment I did.

I could even see the segregation that can occur naturally in a community.  I remember when I applied to schools; we did not even consider Vance an option, though it was my homeschool.  I applied for two other schools, one that was well known for great programs, another was a mainly white school only a little further from my house.  When my mother discovered that I was slated to go to Vance, she asked me if she should call and ask to put me in West Meck, a school I would automatically get into since it was a continuation of the immersion program I was already in, even though it was far away, and it was well known that the immersion program there wasn’t strong anyway.  I told her no, that I would rather go to Vance, and I’m glad I did.  Looking back, I think it was the school systems way of reversing the segregation that was already happening.  All the white kids had to go to the home school they were trying to escape from.  It was going downhill before we got there, but it seemed to be improving throughout my four years there.

I can now see the full negative effect that segregation can have on a schools population.  My senior year, they opened up a new high school nearby.  My neighborhood and several of the neighborhoods surrounding us were moved there.  I recently read an article that called Vance “the most dangerous high school in CMS”, with 111 arrests in the past school year.  While Vance may not have been the safest place when I was there, it definitely was not as dangerous as it is now.

I’m glad I went to Vance.  I believe I still received a very good education there, and my eyes were opened to a culture I probably would not have seen had I gone to another high school.  I have a better understanding of what students there went through, and some of the problems they are probably still dealing with.  I’m also very saddened by the road it’s going down now, and hope that CMS will work to improve it in the future.

http://www.14news.com/story/15084366/vance-hs-has-111-arrests-last-year