Honorable Mention
The case for mixed income schools
by Priya Ramcharan
Redondo Union High School
The other side of the tracks—separating the higher income from the lower income—is perhaps most striking when you look at the public schools on either side of the track.
Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach are some of the most affluent cities in California. However, at Redondo Union High School (RUHS), 17 percent of students come from low-income families (families making 50 percent below the median Redondo Beach income of $123,874).
Schools serving primarily students from wealthy backgrounds receive more investment by way of taxes and donations, which benefit everyone attending those schools. But mixed-income level schools can both bring students from lower-income neighborhoods out of poverty and widen the perspective of the wealthy. Increased access to well-funded public schools, such as RUHS, via school permits is beneficial for all students.
Students born into low-income families and living in low-income communities are enrolled in school districts that are usually poorly funded. These schools can’t provide their students with the resources and opportunities needed to excel that better-funded schools afford their students. Thus, the cycle of poverty is perpetuated. Disadvantaged students can have the desire to work hard, but in schools with no little support for them, they are left in the dust.
Contrary to arguments that schools decrease in quality when there is a wide range in student income, economic diversity can help poor and affluent students learn from each other. A case study at Rosemount Center, a preschool serving both high- and low-income communities in Washington D.C., demonstrates this. An evaluation by the Children’s National Medical Center concluded that compared with national norms, the Rosemount children — well-to-do and underserved alike — had well-developed social skills and relatively few behavioral problems.1
In Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach, most students come from affluent families. Families who can afford to live in Manhattan Beach, for example, make an average income of $169,586 (2021 U.S. Census Bureau) with a poverty rate of 3.1 percent. When kids grow up in private schools and gated communities, they may find it more challenging to understand others’ experiences. When they grow up, because of this lack of exposure and understanding, they may be less inclined to fund programs that benefit others, such as healthcare and education. Additionally, according to recent studies by Eric Chyn, an economist at the University of Michigan, low-income children who grow up in mixed-income neighborhoods make more money throughout their lives than those in entirely low-income areas.
However, some academics have posited that mixed-income schools fail due to micro-segregation, and neither rich nor poor families thrive. Citing cases such as Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD), which became economically more diverse after its racial desegregation in 1970 ( Brown v. Board), such perspectives argue that the mixing of incomes led the school to suffer academically.
But this argument fails upon closer inspection. In the case of PUSD, the suffering of the school was caused by systemic racism; when the school integrated racially, many white families pulled their kids and generational wealth out of the district, according to the Century Foundation. The district as a whole lost funding, which put the school at a disadvantage in resources.
Underserved schools are lower-achieving not because the individuals who attend them don’t come from well-off families, but rather because of a dearth of resources. By creating more opportunities for students to attend well-funded schools by way of accommodating more mixed-income levels at such schools, and ultimately increasing funding nationally for public schools, students from impoverished communities would have more opportunities to thrive.
This is worth trying in communities like the South Bay and among more affluent communities in general. We have so much potential to integrate different economic classes into our high-performance schools, and economic integration can yield numerous benefits. Schools like RUHS should make the change and bring that 17 percent up. Of course, this takes planning
and work—I am not discounting the logistical and practical difficulties of this—but it can be done with money and support. If other affluent communities follow suit, it will help lessen the sharp class divides and inequities among school districts.
