The Great Divide: The Urbanization of the Suburbs

By: Adrienne Stackwell

December 15, 2006

Introduction:

As of 1997, Chicago has been slowly saying goodbye to one of its most notorious and tarnished landmarks, Cabrini-Green. This housing project, which has come to symbolize the many problems of public housing in the United States, was home to more than 20,000 low income families at the height of its residency. With the destruction of these gang-infested high-rise apartments, comes planned construction of million dollar condos and lofts that will surely house some of Chicago’s high society members who are eager to be in proximity to the city’s night life in the nearby Gold Coast. As of today, only 5,000 people remain in Cabrini-Green, waiting to inevitably face the same fate as the other 15,000 who have been displaced before them as a result of the ten year transformation plan that Mayor Daley has been steadily supporting and implementing since 1997. We are headed towards the completion of this project, but we are just beginning to see the widespread problem that it is now presenting for not only these poor, displaced families, but also for surrounding Chicagoland suburbs and other Midwestern states.

The Chicagoland suburbs are becoming the next best option for these poor families seeing as they cannot afford to live within the city’s limits. As a resident of one of these suburbs, it is shocking to observe the staggering increase of poor individuals with low economic status who have infiltrated the few apartment complexes my city has to offer. It is best characterized as a smaller, more compact Cabrini-Green that has all the amenities a suburban city has to offer; cheaper gas, affordable food, and, most importantly, better education. However, what are the implications for the children in these low-income households in their new educational setting? Do they struggle coming from an under-performing inner-city school that has neglected to provide them with a basic knowledge-base? Furthermore, how are the external socio-economic drivers affecting the performance of suburban districts? Finally, is there a visible effect on school performance because of the entry of poorly educated students into their school? I will attempt to analyze the effects that the destruction of Cabrini-Green has had on Chicago suburban school districts through the exploration of these questions. The path I have chosen to follow in my journey through this topic will include a discussion of related studies and texts relevant to my research topic, a presentation of my research findings, and finally an articulated rationale as to what implications this problem presents for future classroom practices.

Literature Review:

While investigating sources relevant to my research, it became apparent to me that the type of information and research that I was attempting to gather was going to be difficult because of the immature nature of my research and data. Because the destruction of Cabrini-Green is fairly recent, the long-term effects that displaced students have had and will continue to have on suburban schools has not been studied or analyzed at great length. However, I was able to gain plentiful insight into the character of the Chicago Public Schools, and what kind of experiences these displaced students bring with them to suburban schools. David Spearman writes in his article, Teachers' Opinions of the Security and Safety Climate in Chicago Public Schools at Cabrini- Green , that the increase in violence in urban cities across the country including Chicago schools which have recently led to the installment of metal detectors in all public schools is a result of increase violence in not only the media, but also in our communities. Pam Belluck, a reporter from the New York Times, states in her article, Gang Gunfire May Chase Chicago Children From Their School , “…the principal cannot remember the last time children were allowed to play outside. The weed-chocked blacktop that once passed for a playground is beaded with broken glass, the slides and monkey bars are shabby skeletons, the leftover strings of basketball net straggle like a limp gray mop.” It is hard to imagine growing up under these abominable educational conditions and how inner-city students are actually able to learn in such awful environments. In fact, according to Illinois Standards Achievement Test, only 27% of students at a particular Chicago elementary school met their reading standard followed by only 33% meeting their math standard. Is it the stifling, crime infested environment this is to blame for these poor test scores, or is it a combination of unqualified teachers with a high turn-over rate, low parent involvement due to rigorous work schedules, and inadequate district funding per pupil. Thomas Cook, Robert Murphy and David Hunt’s research titled, Comer’s School Development Program in Chicago: A Theory-based Evaluation , focuses on a specific program that Chicago schools have implemented in order to bring up test scores as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act that has forced schools to either increase their academic achievement or face even less funding for their school. Their findings suggest, “The effects of the Comer School Development Program in ten inner city Chicago, Illinois schools over 4 years suggest that the Comer program caused positive changes in standardized test scores and in the beliefs, feelings, and behaviors relative to disruptive and illegal student behavior.” Perhaps the $1,000 per school fee the Comer School Development Program charges for an all encompassing organizational restructuring of the school administration, teachers and support staff would be something that more struggling, underperforming schools would look at adopting.

After perusing many sources that dealt with inner-city schools and their poor performance on state exams, their abominable school environments, and the overall depletion of their communities, I found myself interested in the pressures that strong, well-performing suburban schools were facing with the recent additions of many of these inner-city children to their districts. While research is still being done in Chicago, many other urban cities are experiencing the same urbanization of surrounding suburbs. For example, in John Kain and Daniel O’Brien’s article, Black Suburbanization in Texas Metropolitan Areas and Its Impact on Student Achievement, the argument presented is that the quality of suburban schools is not deteriorating, but the speed of the curriculum is slowing in order to compensate for the low level of knowledge the students from the inner city possess from their prior schools. However, they also state that enabling the average black student to attend schools of average suburban quality rather than average inner city quality would eliminate between 12% and 30% of the current black-white achievement gap that plagues most of the counties inner city schools.

Another city that is faced with a similar suburbanization phenomenon is Boston, Massachusetts. The article, City-Suburban Desegregation; Parent and Student Perspectives in Metropolitan Boston, discusses the nation’s largest transfer of inner-city students to suburban high schools, and the effects of this transfer on the schools and parents of the students in those schools. The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunities (METCO) was established by black educators and parents in 1963 to offer students the opportunity to attend suburban schools. Families of minority children in Boston can place their children on a waiting list for this program, which enrolls about 3,200 students in districts that have chosen to participate. A survey was given to approximately all urban and suburban families that participated in this program, and their findings were extremely interesting. “Research shows that these [poor] families are not social planners, but that their goals are very much like those of suburban parents. Although many participants call for more diversity among teachers and curriculum, this survey suggests that when superior educational opportunities are open, there is a strong demand for them among urban minority families.”

Both of these resources were extremely beneficial to me in my research, but I was still searching for Chicago-specific research that specifically focused on the dynamics of the displaced Cabrini-Green families and the suburban cities and their schools that were providing refuge for them. I then came upon an article by Vernon C. Polite titled, If Only We Knew then What We Know Now: The School-to-Work and School-to-College Transitions of African American Males in Suburbia. This source used quotations from interviews of not only African American males in Chicago suburban schools, but also their counterparts who attended troubled urban inner-city schools. The interview covered a variety of subjects including: teachers and the academic challenge, mathematics and the sciences, career planning, postsecondary educational pursuits, and the realities of being African American, male, working-class, and unskilled. The comments by both African American cohort groups were extremely contrasting. The difficult inner-city schooling had left these students with the overwhelming feeling of being constantly behind along with the desire, at times, to simply give up and go back to being a, “sheep among sheep rather than a shepherd to my flock.” It gave me insight into how students from schools where the minimum was good enough would benefit from a school where teachers challenged them daily on not only academics, but also personal achievement their lives felt before, during and after their schooling.

Data on the performance level of suburban schools post Cabrini-Green destruction has been extremely minimal. However, an article that I found in the Chicago Tribune, Perceptions and Reality in the Suburbs, addresses the notion that suburban schools do indeed have quality schools, but that their success is eminent due to the amount of money that supports these institutions by the surrounding community. The author, a former member of the board of education in Wilmette for four years, discusses how districts encourage positive public impressions, sometimes in contrast to actual performance or evidence of extensive outside tutoring to fill in gaps left by schools in order to attract homebuyers to the community. "Maintaining this image -- that a lot of tax money buys superior education -- is the number one preoccupation of the administrations ... Even when perception is not reality -- it doesn't matter. As long as the home shoppers believe the perception, pay the high prices for the house and justify (in their minds) high taxes to preserve the 'superiority' of the schools -- perception will suffice." The article goes on to state that the only reason why suburban schools are achieving at or above state issue standards is the amount of supplementary education students can afford to receive outside of the school. Another article in support of this “denial” from suburban community members is an article from The Home Educator’s Family Times titled Viewpoint: Denial and the Suburban Mind by Bruno Behrend. This source states, “One large social group that is living in a state of denial right now is that of suburban parents. Most of them simply will not permit themselves to believe that the quality of education in their suburb is lower than it should be. The recent ISAT scores are a perfect example. They showed that in almost every district of Illinois, from Chicago to the suburbs to downstate, students scored lower than expected.” It was after reading this article that I had an epiphany. I had fallen into what Bruno Behrend had classified as “suburbanite denial.” It is out of this self-realization that I discovered what fueled my interest in my topic, how my biases played into my research, and how my research findings reflected the actual events taking place in Chicago suburban public schools post Cabrini-Green destruction.

Research Findings:

I grew up in a suburb of Chicago where I attended Catholic school from Kindergarten to eighth grade. After eighth grade, I entered the local public high school for the first time in my educational career. This decision was based upon my desire to gain a more realistic view of the diverse world that we live in. I was extremely excited to be afforded this wonderful, new opportunity. However, my mother and father were extremely apprehensive as to what level of education I would receive at a public institution where, not only would be I bombarded with different cultures and ethnicities, but also a new grading system, new classmates, and new facilities. I gave it a shot and loved every minute of my public education. The amount of attention I received at the high school from my teachers was the main reason I even went into teaching as a career. My experience was amazing, but I will never forget the apprehension my family felt going from the private education sector to the public education system. Now, looking back on my public education, I feel a strong tie to my high school and believe that out of this tremendous love and passion I have for my school, I began searching for reasons why it’s achievement level on standardized tests have been steadily declining. I immediately bought into what the district administration had been telling the community about how students from Cabrini-Green were preventing us from achieving our necessary standards. It was out of this frustration that I decided to investigate this topic further. However, upon researching, I have discovered that our suburban public schools are and have been in need of help even before the destruction of Cabrini-Green and that perhaps using the annihilation of Cabrini-Green as a scapegoat was a tactic used to remove some of the pressure the administration was feeling from community members and schools and transfer it to already easy targets, the low socio-economic class.

Not only does pointing fingers not fix the problem, but it also continues to oppress the oppressed and under-represented in our community. The families in poverty who are trying to get by are being singled out as the sole reason for why suburban schools are dropping in achievement levels instead of receiving support and aid from the community. We should be focusing on what we are spending our money on as a district. Why are we repaving a parking lot that is perfectly fine, or replacing a gym floor that is still functional? Why not use the thousands of dollars spent on non-urgent repairs and replacements to improve the academic resources available to students that are in need, regardless of where they came from and what socio-economic class they fall into. These are the questions that should be asked in suburban schools instead of blaming the declining scores on the poor and homeless that have had no choice in the type of education that has been offered and given to their children. We should spend our money helping these students instead of improving the aesthetics of a school building. What good is a beautiful, well-landscaped school, if the students learning inside are not achieving at a level representative of their highest potential?

I believe that I have constructed all of my ideas for this research based upon the concept that our decline in test scores is the doing of “outsiders” instead of focusing on the other idea that our schools might be on the decline because of the preoccupation of “insiders” to protect the image of “a safe, quality, suburban school” rather than assuring that their students are receiving the best education they can possibly receive.

However, I believe that there still is some truth to the idea that students displaced from the demolition of Cabrini-Green have still made a significant impact on suburban schools. Upon further investigation, I find that it is mostly the cultural impact that these students provide that truly can account for the most amount of change in suburban schools. For one, Chicago culture is something that suburban children are captivated by. They are intrigued by how much of a response a simple gang hand sign provokes, and what certain colors are associated with different gangs. They have no idea what it is like to be in a gang and how dangerous it is, but it is something taboo to the average suburban child. Ask them to walk through the halls of an inner-city school, and I bet after one day they would have a different perspective of the life that they desire to have. Life that is spoken about in rap songs and seen on television is not a realistic portrayal of what inner-city life encompasses.

The mantra of the suburban kid is, “There is nothing to do in this town.” I am guilty, myself, of saying this a few times, but the truth is that city life is not all it is cracked up to be either. Suburban children do not understand that in the city you have to have money to do entertaining activities on the weekends like visit museums, eat at different restaurants, and see different shows because everything is more expensive. In talking with some students from the inner-city of Chicago that are not wealthy, I was amazed to hear that they had their own saying, “why can’t I do anything in this town?” This statement could elude to financial pressures or even worries of crime in dangerous neighborhoods if they venture out, but what I gathered as being most important in these inner-city student’s lives was that they did not believe that they could ever go anywhere with there education or life. The idea that they would, most likely, be in their parent’s profession, and living in the same neighborhood the rest of their life is what they were referring to by saying, “they couldn’t do anything in this town.” In that regard, inner-city students that migrate into the suburbs carry with them a heightened sense of responsibility and maturity about the ways of the world and life in general that the average suburban child knows nothing about. The naiveté that the suburban child possesses can be easily seen by inner-city children that are more knowledgeable in “street smarts.” Herein lies the dilemma, what is more beneficial in one’s life? The acquisition of street smarts or the retention of book smarts. Whatever the answer may be, I believe it is apparent that the suburban public schools must re-evaluate the emphasis and money that is being placed on aesthetics instead of academics because it is not the influx of students from the inner-city that is to blame, but the focus of districts to maintain an image that is the true culprit.

Implications for Future Practice:

I believe that my research findings have indicated that students that enter suburban schools from the inner-city of Chicago are not the only factor in the decline of suburban school achievement. Placing the blame on low-income, urban families is a cowardly copout by suburban school administrations, and the validity of those statements should be analyzed and re-evaluated. However, it would be unfair to ignore the notion that inner-city students do indeed impact the community and school in many different ways such as the new cultural perspectives they bring, the increased level of responsibility they carry with them, and the specific real-world experience that has become an integral part of their life. I, therefore, believe that it is important that suburban administration reconsider the appropriation of school funds along with the reorganization of priorities within their schools in order to not only accommodate the students that may enter their schools behind in their expected age-appropriate knowledge-base from the inner-city, but also to assist current students that may need extra, supplementary help in addition to the support they are receiving during school hours from faculty in order to meet the state’s standards.

One of the most important lessons that I have learned from this research project is that research is an exploration of a topic that has the potential to lead you down roads you never knew existed. As Thorstein Veblen said, “The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.” I have developed different and new questions related to this topic because of the information that I have found through my research, and I have realized that suburban school reform is a topic that I am intrigued with and will continue to research and learn more about in the years to come. It is with this newfound passion and interest that I am eager to explore the phenomenon of the great urbanization of suburbia as I go out and begin my career as an educator in the Chicagoland area.