My editorial in no way suggested that only affluent white families can validate KCPS
Last week, an editorial I pitched and wrote on behalf of the editorial board asked if white families would return to Kansas City Public Schools now that the district is on the verge of being fully accredited for the first time in a decade. This is a great achievement, and a reason for those who’ve opted out to come home to the district.
Critics saw what I wrote as somehow suggesting that KCPS could only ever be validated by an influx of affluent white families.
“It is unfortunate that the Star editorial board thinks the whole objective of improving school performance is to get white kids to go to KCPS,” one letter writer wrote. “That is SO racist!!”
Another said, “My takeaway from this piece is that KCPS cannot be deemed worthy if ‘affluent’ white people don’t pour in.”
That was certainly not my intention — and in fact, did not occur to any of us on the board. Instead, our message was that the district needs both the dollars and the diversity it lost when white families started sending their children elsewhere.
Greater enrollment would stave off school closures, and greater diversity helps at-risk children the most.
Kansas City Public Schools’ minority student population is nearly 90%, according to district data. The district is segregated, as its own analysis of the public school system in Kansas City concluded in 2019. In a city that is 60% white, it’s a shame that only 10% of the district’s more than 14,000 students are white.
Yes, there are more than a dozen school districts inside the city limits and the boundaries of KCPS include some of the poorest, Blackest parts of the city.
But white families left the district in droves over a 20-year period starting in the 1970s. “White flight” devastated Kansas City Public Schools. The district hasn’t been majority white since 1969. Over the last 20 years, the proliferation of charter schools in Kansas City has drained district enrollment overall. Middle class families of all races have left for better opportunities in the suburbs.
The district lost half its white student population when seven schools in western Independence were annexed in 2008.
If diversity is a good thing, and it is, then now that the district is on firm footing, why is it a problem to propose that white families take another look at schools that have clearly come a long way? I stand by what I wrote, and so do my colleagues.
This story was originally published January 8, 2022 at 6:17 PM.
