The perils of whiteness and wealth -- "How Third World!"

[Csubstance@aol.com]

July 18, 2006

I've tried to suggest that the reason for private schooling, for the wealthy, 
has less to do with academic reality and more to do with class prejudices 
than most would be willing to admit. There is a lingering racism beneath the 
surface of the current era that has to be discussed, even if it makes people less 
than comfortable. And it becomes visible among affluent people when candor 
reigns. I hope people won't mind my extrapolating from an admittedly isolated 
anecdote that I've already shared with many people during our discussions of why 
public schools are under attack, and by whom. 

In this context, people should also know here that recently I've been very 
active in Chicago's immigrant rights marches and, once again (as during my 
teaching career) have been spending very little time with middle class white 
people. The March 10 (at least 250,000) and May 1 (at least 500,000) Chicago marches 
are reported in Substance (see the website below) and my photographs are also 
on line (400 of them from May 1) at the SEIU 73 website (www.seiu73.org). I 
personally consider the isolation of white people from the majority of the 
world -- and wealthy white people from an even greater majority of the world -- as 
one of the most debilitating "educational" realities we should be organizing 
against. But since the enormous and expanding privileges of huge wealth grow, 
the ability of the rulers to go "outside [their] box" becomes less and less 
likely.

Consider the following, about some children growing up in Chicago in the 
1990s and 2000s.

As part of the joint parenting agreement in my divorce from my son Danny's 
mother 12 years ago, each of us received the right to handle religious training 
within reason. Even though I'm not a believer, I want my children to receive 
religious education as well as all the other kinds.

About six years ago (maybe seven), Sharon and I were taking my son Danny (her 
stepson) to Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago because they had a very 
good Sunday School and her small church didn't. Fourth Pres, as it's called, was 
also the "Sister Church" to her family's home church (First Presbyterian, Glen 
Ellyn). Sharon was raised in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and attended public 
schools there. Danny at the time we began taking him to Sunday school was eight or 
nine and in the gifted program in Chicago's public schools. I was long divorced 
from his mother by then, and we had joint custody.

One of the requirements of the Fourth Pres Sunday School was that all parents 
do some volunteer time. On one of our days, we finished early, and were 
leading a discussion with either or ten kids from ages eight to about ten. All 
white. All from families at Fourth Pres.

The subject of school came up. All of the other kids in the Sunday School 
attended Chicago's most expensive private schools (Latin; Francis Parker; Near 
North Montessori). When it came time for Danny, he answered, matter of factly, 
"Beaubien Regional Gifted..."

The other kids had never heard of Beaubien.

"What's that?" they asked.

"It's a Chicago public school," Danny replied.

"How Third World," one of the kids blurted out. The rest looked on in what I 
remember was a kind of amazement that anyone at Fourth Presbyterian Chicago 
would be attending a Chicago public schools.

You can learn more about Fourth Pres (which, by the way, I like very much for 
some things) by going to its website. Probably a singular fact about the 
church worth knowing for this context is that it's the Chicago church attended by 
Donald Rumsfeld when he's staying in Chicago. The ruling class has its places 
of worship, which are open to all. The music is extraordinary, the sermons are 
exquisite, and the social programs are very good. Located on North Michigan 
Avenue, Fourth Pres is across the street from the John Hancock Building and 
Water Tower Place on Chicago's Magnificent Mile. So it serves that "community", 
which includes Chicago's Gold Coast. 

I never forgot that fleeting incident and have repeated the story a number of 
times. Sharon's memory is slightly different. Danny doesn't remember much 
about the experience at all. We now attend a Sharon's small church (Loop 
Christian Ministries), where Josh and Sam can get what they need at ages one and five. 

Danny is now finishing high school. He'll enter 12th grade at Chicago's 
Whitney Young High School in September. At the present time, he has top grades and 
the highest possible scores on all standardized tests, including the six 
Advanced Placement exams he took during his sophomore and junior years. This past 
weekend, with many of his high school baseball teammates, he participated in 
the Babe Ruth 16-year-old state championships, where his team (the most diverse 
in Illinois) took second place, and now goes on to the regional championship 
playoffs in two weeks in Ohio. Danny pitched three days in a row, winning one 
game 11-1, saving one game (a 1-0 victory, a real nail biter) and losing one on 
the third day 4-2 to the ultimate Illinois winner. 

Now I say that partly as a proud father, but also to make what I think should 
be an obvious point about the privileges and prejudices of the children who 
uttered and believed that "How Third World" remark years ago at Chicago's 
wealthiest Presbyterian church.

We have paid fees now and then for special programs since Danny began in 
Chicago's public schools in kindergarten, but public school, in the city that was 
caricatured by that racist pontificate William Bennett as "America's Worst", 
can, by any measure, provide as good an education as a child can get after 
spending $250,000 (which is about what K-12 at Parker or Latin costs).

I still suggest that the basis for private schooling in the USA has little or 
nothing to do with educational "quality" in the sense of challenging the 
child intellectually or in sports, but snobbery and some really deep (and often 
racist) class prejudices. 

Last night at 11:00 p.m. I was sitting with a group of baseball parents in 
Calumet City as the Illinois baseball 16-year-old finals were ending (a double 
header). I was very happy that Danny got the last hit of the game (in a losing 
cause), that he had played well the entire tournament, and most importantly, 
that he had learned in more than a decade in Chicago's public schools to 
celebrate the diversity that was surrounding us. One of the team's players is the 
son of the principal of Whitney Young High School. She was there, too. All of 
the team has learned all those things we want our children to learn at school 
and for life. Most of the team members are also "scholar athletes" in a way that 
anyone can measure, even using tests with which I disagree (ACT, SAT) or 
those I find very good measures (Advanced Placement tests).

And, yes, we were very "Third World." And proud of it. 

And I guess I feel a little sorry for that child who remained insulated in 
private school from both the academic and physical challenges that public 
schooling, even in Chicago, can offer.

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance
www.substancenews.com