This past week yet another set of friends told me they were throwing in the towel. Hardcore urbanites living in a working class section of the city, they had decided to take their two small kids and move just over the county line. As a middle-aged, childless city dweller, I’ve lost track of all the friends over the years who have moved to the suburbs. Almost all of them do so in order to place their children in good schools. The concern over schools is a genuine one for all parents, and most city public schools, including the ones here in Baltimore, are, to put it mildly, one helluva goddamn mess.
On the heels of that news, another friend sent me word of an unusual criminal case in Akron, Ohio. Kelly Williams-Bolar, a forty year-old mother of two girls, was recently convicted of falsifying records in order to get her daughters into a better public school, the one in the district where her father lives as opposed to the one where she and her girls live. At first it worked. But she was eventually found out 
when the school hired a detective to follow the girls. However, Williams-Bolar did not meekly pull her children out, as most parents do when exposed. Instead, she stuck to her story. The school district then had her prosecuted on a grand theft felony charge, claiming that since she did not pay the local property taxes that funded the district’s schools, her actions were tantamount to stealing $40,000 worth of services. She was convicted and ended up serving nine days in jail.
Williams-Bolar actually works as a teacher’s-aide in Akron, thus she had extra insight into the poor quality of those schools. The felony conviction could result in the revocation of her license to practice that job, as well as disqualify her from the loans she’s been using to subsidize her education as she works to become a teacher.
The ironies here are almost too rich to be believed. But beyond the details of this particular case, the larger issue remains. American public education, once envied by much of the world, has fallen into a state of brutal segregation, between excellent schools and awful ones. How did this happen and how can we fix it?
At the core of this problem is the reality that America is still a deeply segregated place. Indeed, one can make the case that in some ways, this nation is more segregated than it was nearly half a century ago, not less. The civil rights movements of the post-WWII era focused on the issues of race, ethnicity, and gender as blacks, 
Latinos, Indians, women, and LGBT people all fought, and in some cases continue to fight, to end discrimination. And of course there have been a great many successes. However, while legally enforced and sanctioned segregation has been banished, actual segregation is still very much with us. Blacks, whites, Latinos, and many other ethnic groups continue to live largely among themselves. Yet that’s not what drives the disparity in our public schools. Rather, it’s the result of a different sort of segregation that has flowered like a rotten fruit over the last several decades.
The problem isn’t that blacks live among themselves, or that Latinos or Indians, or any other ethnic group do for that matter. The problem is that poor people are segregated. The problem is that poor people are clustered together, be it in urban, rural, or suburban settings. This is the real reason that we have such a stark divide among American public schools.
Some want to see inferior teachers replaced. Many blame bloated school administrations for siphoning precious funds from teachers and students. Others point toward unimaginative administrators. And some are concerned about a deterioration in curricula. All of these are important concerns and should be addressed in one way or another. But the segregation and concentration of poverty in America is the critical issue in explaining why, no matter where you go in this 
country, some public schools are fantastic while many others are absolute failures.
When poverty is concentrated in desolate slums, problems are compounded and the ability to generate a positive educational environment becomes much more difficult. Poverty is more apt to breed a lack of job skills, poor education, debt, high unemployment, alcohol and drug abuse, crime, teen pregnancy, violence, domestic abuse, malnutrition, broken families, and other social problems. When social decay of this nature begins to dominate an entire area, the public schools suffer. It really is that simple.
School districts that are immersed in poverty and plagued by its attendant problems fall into a vicious cycle. Many children lack proper support in the home environment. They’re also less likely to have visible examples of success to emulate and encourage them. Both problems, which are much rarer in wealthier areas, impede their ability to do well. Underperforming schools have trouble attracting and retaining quality teachers and administrators, who tend to bolt for better schools or burn out and leave the field entirely. In some places, such as Ohio, where school funding is based on local economies, financing is a serious problem. All of this contributes to and reinforces a school’s death spiral.
In short, if an American public school is broken, it most likely sits amid a broken, impoverished community. If you want to make American schools better, you have to 
make American society better. There is no magic bullet, no one simple solution vis a vis teachers, administrations, or financing that will fix all this.
Many American schools are a mess because many sections of American society are a mess. Schools aren’t the cause, they’re the symptom. And the ultimate irony, which Kelly Williams-Bolar understands all too well, is that they’re also the solution.