Stories From the Field www.onenationindivisible.org January 2013

Upstream People Can Nebraska Show a Separate, Unequal Nation a Better Way?

STORY BY SUSAN EATON

PHOTOGRAPHS BY GINA CHIRICHIGNO

“There are kids from all over, ike at most elemen - which is one of the cool things Ltary schools, the about our school. And I adults in charge at mean, all over. Everywhere. Omaha, Nebraska’s That kid, there, he lives right Wilson Focus School pro - in Omaha, like near down - vide basic training to town Omaha and him, over students who show visi - there, well, I don’t remember, tors around. Quite unlike but, oh, he lives in another the standard school tour, town near here, but not in though, ours proceeds Omaha. I, myself, I do not unscripted and fails to fol - live in Omaha. And we have low a demarcated route. Diverse City, which is awe - This is not to suggest that some — it’s like a mini-society fifth graders Alyx and that our class made with all Nolan are not competent the things of a society. We have transmitters of facts. businesses. And it’s diverse like the name, or like the “It’s kids in Douglas and world, I guess. Oh, and there’s Sarpy Counties—it’s 11 a bank. But the best things in different towns or some - my opinion are the reptiles. Do you like snakes? I love thing—that can come to our school,” Nolan snakes. Mr. Mitchell, he’s our teacher. He also loves rep - accurately informs us. He explains: “Our school spe - tiles. He lets me take out the reptiles and if you want I cializes in using technology and in helping us be can show you. I know you want to see Diverse City, our leaders.” society, but we can do that later. First I’ll show you the blue-tongued skink...” Further down the hall, he stops and points: “That’s the men’s bathroom where men go to the bath - room.” He pauses, it seems, to allow me a moment — Alyx, 5th grade, The Wilson Focus School, Omaha, Nebraska of contemplation. Her blonde ponytail swishing, Alyx Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

indulges numerous tangents: “Oh! We have to show would contribute to socioeconomic diversity. you the potato garden!...Wait, wait, stop. Let’s see if Students whose presence would help create such we can find me in one of these pictures.” diversity—say, a middle class student going to a pre - dominantly poor urban high school—are given Like the Focus School itself and the ambitious priority in the limited number of interdistrict transfers regional education model that funded each year. Learning came after it, today’s tour is Community dollars also help pay shaped by the passion of its leaders for the Focus School, where Alyx and the idiosyncrasies of this place. and Nolan go. The money also Tucked into an uninspiring indus - helps pay for the Lewis and Clark trial park just beyond the Latino Focus Pathway program, so stu - neighborhoods of Omaha’s south dents can continue with Wilson's side, this little school is an inspir - leadership and technology curricu - ing showcase for what’s possible lum in middle school . The idea is when children cross man-made that, in the coming years, the borders that separate different Learning Community will help races, ethnicities and economic support additional regional schools classes. Educational leaders here with similar levels of diversity. The are hoping to replicate both the Willie Barney, a parent of two and president Learning Community legislation Focus School’s educational of the African American Empowerment also provides funding for a vast approach and its diversity, which is Network in Omaha. array of education-related services uncommon in this extremely seg - and programs—family literacy, regated region and is now engendered preschool and parenting workshops— by an ambitious regional model called The only structure of for children and their families in the Learning Community. The only its type in the nation, Omaha’s poorest neighborhoods. There structure of its type in the nation, Nebraska’s Learning are two centers that house these pro - Nebraska’s Learning Community finan - Community finan - grams: one in Omaha’s predominantly cially links urban Omaha’s public black neighborhood, the near North cially links urban schools with 10 neighboring districts Side and another, more recently, in and allows students to transfer out of Omaha’s public South Omaha’s Latino neighborhood. their assigned school districts. schools with 10 neighboring districts “This was really exactly what we were The Learning Community emerged going for,” says Willie Barney, whose and allows students after anguished but ultimately produc - son attends the Focus School. “If you tive debate about big, messy issues that to transfer out of want your child to go to a school that is most public leaders even in our most their assigned school diverse and that is high performing, progressive metropolitan areas tend to districts. then that should exist.” Similarly, avoid—things like segregation, righting Barney stresses, people who live in the wrongs of past discrimination, social neighborhoods of concentrated poverty cohesion and fairness. This is how the should not have to wait around for seg - Learning Community works and how schools like the regation and poverty to be eradicated but should Wilson Focus School are sustained: Member school have access to programs and services like preschools districts pool money, that is then redistributed via a and job counseling that can “lift them up and needs-based formula. The Learning Community also empower them today.” After a successful career in provides free transportation for students from low- publishing and marketing, Barney now is executive income families and/or to students whose transfer director of the Empowerment Network, a group of 2 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

African American parents, and business, civic and from the central city, modest postwar ranch houses educational leaders, who are, among give way to bigger, newer McMansions, many varied initiatives, reimagining and which give way to sprawling estates. renovating Omaha’s historically black The Learning Iron gates circle the more imperious neighborhood in the north. Community emerged homes, their implausibly green lawns, and sculpted bushes. In the Omaha region, there is still a lot after anguished but of optimism and energy around the ultimately productive There are things to brag about on the Learning Community. But five years debate about big, other side of town, too. Historically after its enabling legislation passed, it is messy issues that most black North Omaha, among the poorest unclear whether this Great Plains out- of the city’s neighborhoods, is the site public leaders even in lier can survive in a place where of an ambitious $12.2 million renova- longstanding segregation and man- our most progressive tion project launched in the fall of made fragmentation have come to seem metropolitan areas 2012. The plan calls for elderly housing, like the natural order of things. This tend to avoid—things mixed income developments, and com- month, a group of state legislators filed like segregation, mercial investment. It will build upon a bill that would abolish the Learning North 24th Street’s history as the center Community. Even though he signed righting the wrongs of for jazz and African American culture the bill that created it, the state’s past discrimination, that had once been anchored by the sto- Governor David Heineman has in social cohesion and ried Dreamland Ballroom. A confluence recent years expressed opposition to the fairness. of negative factors contributed to the Learning Community. evisceration of the formerly prosperous, festive North Omaha, where jazz clubs “You know, we’ve seen a lot of folks once lined the streets and plentiful jobs from all over express a lot of support “We could keep build- in meatpacking and the Union Pacific for something different, for the ing a community railroad helped support a vibrant African Learning Community,” Barney says. where everyone can American community. Job loss follow- “Plenty of folks from lots of [economic ing the restructuring of the meatpacking win. That’s a case we backgrounds] support what we are and railroad industries, commercial dis- doing....And then, well, you have oth- need to make, that investment, police targeting of African ers who maybe liked things the way this is about recogniz- Americans and the assassination of they were and aren’t quite ready for a ing our common Martin Luther King, Jr. contributed to change. But you look around this interests, about lifting three riots in the 1960s. By the 1980s, region and it’s obvious that there is the North Freeway had split the neigh- enough here for everyone. We could all of us higher.” borhood laterally and cut it off further keep building a community where —Willie Barney, from the rest of Omaha. The more everyone can win. That’s a case we Civic leader and promising changes here now include a need to make, that this is about recog- Focus School parent newish, prosperous and fully occupied nizing our common interests, about cul-de-sac where home prices start at lifting all of us higher.” $250,000. But near the shiny newer construction and the signs of progress sit blocks upon blocks of worn- I I I down single-family homes, lifeless, empty streets, and former businesses boarded up with plywood where People from Omaha will tell you that the farther west windows are supposed to be. Several of the empty you go, the whiter and richer it gets. Driving out lots that dot the north side had once been home to

3 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

grocery stores and other local businesses destroyed in easier for school districts to let go of their court- the riots and never replaced. ordered desegregation plans and the shrinking share of white students in many urban districts during that Among large metropolitan areas, the Omaha region period was making desegregation efforts futile. In reports some of the highest rates of inequality 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court made it ever more between whites and blacks and between whites and challenging for educators to maintain diverse schools Latinos, particularly in jobs and income. According to through student assignment and transfer policies that the Urban Institute, Omaha ranks 91st of 100 metros considered a student’s race. Amid this retrenchment, (100 represents the largest gap) on these two meas- though, seven other so-termed “voluntary cross-dis- ures. Similarly, the Omaha region’s high rates of trict desegregation programs” similar in spirit to residential segregation earn it a “D” on the Omaha’s have managed to survive in pockets of the Washington-based Urban Institute’s Metrotrends United States. Some have roots in the civil rights report card. movement and others emerged as remedies in court settlements. A few struggle every year for financial The culture of fragmentation here is probably best and political survival. Others manage to retain sup- exemplified by the way public education is organized. port and popularity. Each pursues “school diversity” Within this city of 415,000 people, a mix of quirky either in socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, or local custom and legislation allows for four of both. All provide transportation, and in some cases Omaha’s neighborhoods to maintain stand-alone, tutoring and other services, for students to attend middle-class sovereign school districts, all of them schools outside the typically racially and economically well within the city limits. The city itself oversees the homogeneous communities where they live. In fifth district, the Omaha Public Schools, referred to Connecticut, not only do students from urban com- locally as “the urban district.” Folks in Omaha say the munities attend suburban schools, but students from place offers up a classic tale of two cities. Just as several regions can choose from increasingly popular much, though, it offers a tragic story of five school magnet schools that draw diverse enrollments from districts. multiple municipalities. About 3,000 students from Boston each year attend suburban schools through I I I one of the nation’s oldest cross-district programs, established in 1966. In St. Louis, officials oversee The Learning Community’s “we are all in this transfer of about 5,300 students out of the city to together” implication makes it an anomaly in divided suburban schools. Omaha, in red Nebraska and nationally. A 2012 Pew Research Center report shows that people are more Last year, 2,246 students transferred through likely to live in economically segregated neighbor- Nebraska’s Learning Community, with about half of hoods today than they were 30 years ago. The those increasing diversity in the schools they UCLA’s Civil Rights Project reports that school seg- attended. About 180 students attended Wilson Focus regation rates for black and Latino students have School, though this number is projected to grow to been rising steadily for twenty years. 250 in a few years. Another few dozen students attend the Focus School program in middle school, In the national civil rights world, Nebraska’s Learning which offers a continuation of the leadership and Community venture piqued curiosity in part because technology curriculum used at the elementary school. it happened so far away from the New York–D.C. This is still a miniscule number, considering that radar screens. But it was equally surprising because it there are about 111,000 students scattered among materialized without a court order at exactly the time the 11 Learning Community school districts. other districts were scaling back, even abandoning, Meanwhile, as is true in the rest of the nation, more integration efforts. Courts in recent years had made it and more Latino and black families are moving out- 4 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

side of the city of Omaha, though that movement is grade.” On a recent Monday, nearly everyone is too still too slow to make much of a dent in the region’s preoccupied, either with making slides for Power- segregation rates. Point presentations about planets, or thinking up questions for an all-class “The Learning Community is a work in “The Learning trivia game, to pay the ringing phone progress. We have here a structure that Community is a any mind. Maya, though, in her role as provides a beginning, a foundation,” work in progress. We Diverse City’s administrative assistant, says Ben Gray, a city councilor in pushes her laptop aside, stands and tilts Omaha. “We need to give this a fight- have here a structure her body forward, leg in the air, yoga- ing chance.” It would be unrealistic, that provides a begin- like, and picks up the phone. Gray says, to think that this effort could ning, a foundation. create diverse schools in every district in “Hello, Diverse City,” she tells the We need to give this a just a few years, that it alone could fight caller. “We are all equal.” back the forces of racial and economic fighting chance.” segregation. It may be a light counter- — Ben Gray, Omaha Maya covers the mouthpiece with her weight, Gray says, but it is a “crucial” city councilor hand. “Mr. Mitchell! Mr. Mitchell!” she one. shouts. Glenn Mitchell, a burly, warm African American man, is occupied with The Native American word “Omaha” translates from quizzing two boys about Saturn’s position in rela- the Hokan-Siouan language to “the upstream peo- tionship to the sun. Somehow Maya’s whispers cut ple” or a tribe that travels “against the current.” through classroom chatter. There is something of that against-the-grain mental- ity in this contemporary effort. It also reflects a kind “Umm...it’s for you.” of pragmatism in which Nebraskans pride themselves. “Thank you,” Mr. Mitchell tells her, nodding. “Now, “I love telling people that 30 percent of Nebraska’s please take a message in a professional manner.” children under the age of five are Latino. I love say- As Alyx notes, Diverse City keeps an impressive col- ing that because people just don’t believe it and it lection of reptiles, including her beloved Australian makes them pay attention,” the Learning lizard, the blue-tongued skink. Fifth grade offers a Community’s CEO Ted Stilwill says. “People have standard diet of mandatory reading time, science their image and their stereotypes about Nebraska, reports, math drills and oral presentations. Its leader- that it’s cornfields and white people. But of course ship theme and its constructed society also nudge the data is right there. It tells the story about the fact children into constant negotiations with each other to that we are changing, that we really need to provide collectively solve problems and to balance individual ways for all children to prepare for that diverse world, desires with community needs. to be part of that world.” In Diverse City, a messy desk can get you a citation I I I from the police. It’s not something the rest of the community should have to look at, after all. And if At the Focus School, our convivial guides Alyx and you are always rifling through papers in search of a Nolan, their classmates, and Glenn Mitchell, their missing assignment, your disorganization wastes teacher, are not only preparing for a diverse world: everyone’s time. They’ve created one. “You can sue people,” explains student Nicholas “Diverse City” is the name students have given the Vollmer. In hushed tones, Nicholas details the con- mini-society, also known as “Mr. Mitchell’s 5th tentious charges leveled against a Diverse City graphic 5 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

design company over an “alleged” copyright viola - of the increasingly black and brown city to develop tion. “But you don’t want to overdo that because and settle in sprawling suburbs. suing takes time and money and there are other things that are more productive for people to be I I I focusing on, you know, things that benefit other peo - ple. Usually, the The diminishment goal is to get to Omaha’s suburban sprawl of Omaha’s schools some peaceful kind and concomitant of resolution.” rise of suburban If you get cited— ones follows a story say, for an line much like those overflowing desk— of America’s other or sued, you can formerly grand hire a lawyer to urban centers. defend you. A Unlike most other socially concerned states, though, student thought this Nebraska permits arrangement unfair so-called “metro - to people who politan class” didn’t have money to throw around on defense cities—in this case, against frivolous lawsuits. So, Diverse City’s town only Omaha is considered “metropolitan class”—to mothers and fathers established a public defender’s “annex” or take over land so as to capture the office of sorts. Kids alternate jobs, though they have growth, sprawl and the tax dollars that come with it. to interview and get hired for each one. Nolan, a cop Thus, in the years before about 1940, as the city’s one week, may next week defend an accused messy limits expanded, so did the enrollment and the tax desk keeper. Next month, Maya, Diverse City’s base of Omaha’s public school system. administrative assistant, might be elevated to city Custom began to change in 1947, though, when sev - councilor. eral then still rural and semi-suburban districts in the Mr. Mitchell is proud of the students for having come city’s west side got together and formed their own up with the classroom name, “Diverse City.” “They mostly white, middle and upper-middle class educa - really get it,” he says, “That having that diversity—be tional enclave, District 66, also known as “Westside it racial, socioeconomic, cultural, in learning style, Community Schools.” The state Legislature even whatever it is—is a reality of life and that our diversity passed a law expressly preventing the Omaha Public that we have here is going to help them learn how to Schools from ever taking over District 66. As subur - be leaders. More than that, they can’t really be great ban housing kept expanding through the 1950s, leaders if they can’t communicate and interact suc - people continued to move their families west, both in cessfully in a diverse setting. Isn’t that obvious? I the city of Omaha and in other less populated places mean, it seems pretty obvious to me.” such as Millard and Gretna. Over 20 years, from 1950 to 1970, the number of people living in The suburban students who pile onto buses bound Omaha’s expanded city limits rose by almost 40 per - for the Focus School in South Omaha are accus - cent—from about 250,000 to nearly 350,000. tomed to the ride by now. But they are new pioneers of a sort, taking the exact reverse course of scores of “It’s a little confusing,” says Sheri Vollmer, who lives children and families who for decades had headed out smack dab in the middle of Omaha and within the

6 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

borders of District 66, which means her kids would South Omaha near the meatpacking plants and then not attend the city’s public schools. She chose to send moved on to other sections of the city, especially as her kids to the Focus School in South Omaha development ramped up to the west. instead. “We are right in Omaha but not part of the school district? So, why is that? I’m not sure people By the late 1960s, with suburbia still sprawling, the really know why at this point.” city of Omaha looked to annex the neighboring city of Millard. Once a sleepy little village settled in the District 66’s website, boasting a “tradition of excel - 1880s, Millard began to grow soon after Western lence” in “the heart of Omaha,” explains its Electric opened a manufacturing plant there. formation in 1947 as an expression of residents’ Millard’s local government leaders resisted annexa - desire to “maintain quality education.” That vague tion with more indignation than had been seen in justification may very well be true. But it’s also true previous towns. Millard officials even annexed a that in 1951, the year that the state Legislature cemetery in neighboring Sarpy County with the hope granted District 66 special protection from Omaha, that the court would not allow Omaha to annex a school desegregation was being pursued in earnest municipality that had property outside Douglas throughout the nation, including within the former County. Things were different in Omaha now. As Border States. In 1949, lawyers had filed the desegre - Steve Marantz chronicles in his book, The Rhythm gation case, Briggs v. Elliot , from South Carolina. It Boys of Omaha Central: High School Basketball at the would be consolidated into Brown v. Board of ‘68 Racial Divide , tensions between whites and Education , which was filed in 1951, with a plaintiff blacks were intense during this period. North from Topeka, Kansas, which sits a mere 180 miles Omaha, once a fairly prosperous place, had hit hard south of Omaha. times. Between 1955 and 1969, Marantz shows, the meatpacking industry alone accounted for the loss of For decades already, African American residents had 6,500 jobs, many of them held by African Americans. been attracted to Omaha by jobs in the city’s railroad In 1964, a survey had shown that had it not been for and meatpacking industries. (Union Pacific Railroad, restrictive real estate covenants, 29 percent of north still headquartered in Omaha, had built the first side residents would move out. Worse, 48 percent transcontinental railroad in the 1860s. Many porters, said they wanted to move but did not have enough cooks and waiters were African Americans who lived money to do so. That year, half of the city’s “deterio - in Omaha.) By the late 1950s, about 5 percent of rated housing” was in the black neighborhoods of the Omaha’s population was African American and grow - north side. (Until 1963, Nebraska law forbade whites ing. According to census figures about 90 percent of and blacks and whites and Asians from marrying each African Americans still lived in the city’s north side. other.) Marantz notes that in 1965, a census survey showed that Omaha and Birmingham, Alabama had During this period, racial covenants, discriminatory identical levels of residential segregation. lending practices, redlining and zoning regulations worked in tandem to prevent African Americans from In 1968, the Alabama segregationist and candidate buying homes in the prosperous neighborhoods of for U.S. president, George Wallace, stepped into the Omaha’s western section, where District 66 was city’s racial tinderbox. On an afternoon in March, located. Government loan programs encouraged the Wallace landed at Omaha’s airport to the tune of purchase of new homes, which were most often “Dixie.” A group of protesters responded with the found beyond urban areas. And these were precisely ballad, “We Shall Overcome.” Wallace spoke at the places where African Americans were rarely able Omaha’s Civic Auditorium right near Central High to buy, even if they had the means. Omaha’s immi - School. A racially mixed group of protesters heckled grants, however, did move over time. Polish, Italians and yelled. A fight broke out. Police chased down and other immigrant groups often settled first in protesters running from the melee. 7 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

“[Wallace] had come to Omaha to campaign for pres - 4,000 students with overall enrollment up to 9,100 ident. He brought the Deep South—‘segregation students by 1976. now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever’ and the jackboots of Selma—and set it down two blocks Suburbs like Millard were exempt from the kinds of from Omaha Central High School,” Marantz writes. desegregation-related challenges that Omaha faced Marantz’s affectionate portrait of Omaha Central for the obvious reason that there were hardly any High School during that period depicts a place where African American children in places like Millard and white and black teens, through much struggle and District 66. And by then, it was clear that the U.S. tension, and gaping inequalities, quite often bonded, Supreme Court had the suburbs’ backs. Just two formed friendships and even fell in love. years before, in the 1974 case, Milliken v. Bradley , the High Court had ruled that cities could not include It was within this larger context of social upheaval suburban districts in their desegregation plans even if that, after a protracted legal battle, Omaha did finally a dwindling share of white students in urban schools annex Millard in 1971. Unlike previous annexations, would make court-ordered desegregation impossible though, under the terms of this agreement, Millard’s to achieve over the long term. public schools would not be folded into Omaha’s. So, as black student enrollment continued to rise in “In the short run, it may seem to be the easier course Omaha, Millard’s school district — like District 66 — to allow our great metropolitan areas to be divided would remain wholly independent. up. . . one white, the other black,” Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in his dissent in Milliken , “but it is a In interviews she conducted for her 2009 case study course, I predict, our people will ultimately regret.” of the Learning Community’s genesis, University of Texas Assistant Professor Jennifer Holme found a I I I “general consensus” that Omaha officials stayed quiet about the maintenance of Millard as a sovereign At the height of Omaha’s desegregation struggle, a school district “due to political pressure to keep the young Omaha native named John Mackiel was teach - predominantly white and middle class district sepa - ing English at the city’s Burke High School. Not rate” from the Omaha Public Schools. In the coming long out of the University of Nebraska, he wasn’t years, Millard’s sovereignty would exacerbate the paying rapt attention to the details of desegregation. racial polarization that began with the post-World He needed to focus instead, “on the challenge of try - War II suburban housing boom. ing to get teenagers interested in Beowulf .” Mackiel, a Several years later, in 1975, a federal court found the product of Omaha’s working class Midtown neigh - Omaha Public Schools guilty of intentional borhood, taught at Burke for a few years, went on to segregation. Evidence showed administrators had work as a guidance counselor and then in the late purposefully assigned students to schools based on 70s, began his career as an administrator in the sys - race and allowed for transfers of white students out of tem, initially recruiting high school teachers. In the more racially diverse schools. Implementation of the 80s, while Mackiel was in law school, he was the dis - desegregation order, in 1976, no doubt sped up trict’s chief labor negotiator. (He would earn his law white flight out of Omaha and into the sovereign degree in 1984 from Antioch.) In 1997, after white districts around it. In 1971, the Omaha Public Mackiel had worked in the system for a quarter cen - Schools had enrolled about 64,000 students. By tury, the Omaha school board voted unanimously to 1976, Omaha’s schools had lost more than 10,000 hire him as the school superintendent. kids with most moving to schools in the suburbs. During the same period, Millard’s schools gained

8 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

Scholars who study educational leadership blame long tended to be better able to mitigate the negative hours, the stress of having many bosses and unstable effects of poverty. Graduation rates tended to be political contexts for the rapid turnover of urban higher for all students. As the years went on, numer - school leaders, who stay in their positions an average ous studies would show a strong association between of about 3 years. Undoubtedly, attendance at socioeconomically this revolving-door leadership or racially diverse schools and contributes to the instability that higher relative test scores in characterizes urban school dis - math, science and reading. tricts. John Mackiel, though, would for four decades remain As poverty increased in Omaha’s utterly devoted to Omaha’s pub - public schools, by the mid- lic schools. He and his wife 2000s, the already small share of Debi, a schoolteacher turned lower-income students in some university administrator, and nearby suburban districts, such as their two daughters were settled Elkhorn and Bennington, got and perfectly happy in the city. even smaller. A state program Unlike many of his contempo - initiated in 1989 permitting stu - raries, Mackiel had no interest in dents to attend school outside of using his first superintendent’s the districts where they lived job as a springboard to a bigger intensified disparities like this. system. He was content. But by Because transportation was not the early 2000s, Mackiel and his John Mackiel provided, the plan further advan - colleagues in Omaha found taged children whose family themselves up against a complex mix of forces that incomes and flexible schedules allowed them to pro - threatened the health, and perhaps even the survival, vide such transportation. Since Omaha was under of Omaha’s “urban” district. court order to desegregate, administrators there had initially been allowed to deny transfers that would The share of middle class students in Omaha contin - exacerbate racial segregation. Once the school district ued to shrink over the years and, the share of the ended its mandatory desegregation order in 1998, district’s students who lived in poverty kept growing. though, officials no longer had the power to deny The social problems related to poverty—instability, such transfers. Policymakers paid no heed to the fact stress, exposure to violence, even hunger—seeped that the transfer program was creating more socioe - into classrooms and hallways. Research on the detri - conomic isolation. Of the 2,700 students who left mental effects of high poverty schools—teacher Omaha’s public schools under open enrollment in instability, constricted curriculum, low relative 2005, Jennifer Holme and her colleagues report, achievement—was clear by then and would only three-quarters were white and came from families mount in the years to come. As research by Professor who earned “higher incomes.” Douglas Harris at the University of Wisconsin demonstrated, there were certainly some high- The tax base of Omaha’s schools also continued to poverty, racially isolated schools that beat long odds. erode. Unlike the city of Omaha whose borders (and But there were not many of them. (Harris found just tax base) had expanded through annexation, remem - .3 percent of such schools registered higher than typi - ber that the school district’s borders had been frozen. cal test scores for three years in a row). On the other Omaha’s public schools, thus, received no tax money hand, at predominantly middle class, racially diverse from highly appraised property, including homes and schools, research told a different story. Educators commercial buildings, sitting within the city lines but

9 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

outside the school district borders. To add to the ing,” places where educators had been left alone, problem, when city officials set about developing the without adequate support, to try to reverse the corro - downtown area, they provided tax breaks to entice sive effects of poverty, family instability, isolation and businesses and corporations to renovate urban build - growing social inequality. ings and move there. The deal was that new corporations and businesses would pay greatly So, in 2003, Mackiel was eager to sign on with other reduced taxes in the first “higher-poverty” school few years with payments districts that had filed a increasing gradually. lawsuit in state court This meant that for claiming that Nebraska’s several years, the city’s funding mechanisms schools would receive discriminated against no benefit even from them. As tends to hap - development within the pen with lawsuits, this downtown area. In rap - one would barely move idly developing western in the years that fol - Omaha, in contrast, lowed. Mackiel’s hope new businesses paid that there might be a their taxes in full. court-ordered Accordingly, school resolution to the well- districts out that way documented fiscal A classroom in Omaha's Central High School reaped the benefits. inequities began to fade in the months and then The long road that placed John Mackiel at this dead years that followed the lawsuit’s filing. It was around end had been decades in the making. The son of a this time that the city of Omaha was trying to annex Polish immigrant father, Mackiel had grown up hang - nearby Elkhorn. If Omaha succeeded, it would be its ing drywall alongside immigrants from all over the first annexation in more than three decades. world and African Americans from the north side who’d worked for his father’s small business. He John Mackiel picked up the newspaper one morning. could still remember Omaha as a small city, ringed by An article about the proposed annexation fueled his farms and woods that were now tamed into suburban frustration. sameness. Omaha had, too, morphed into a corporate “So, the article says that if the city annexes Elkhorn, community, with the headquarters of five Fortune the Elkhorn Fire Department will become…the 500 companies within its borders. John Mackiel knew Omaha Fire Department. The Omaha Police that he wasn’t going anywhere and he refused to qui - Department, the Omaha library system…the Omaha etly preside over the schools’ devolution into what he Parks and Rec system will take over the Elkhorn portended: “Just another hollowed out, abandoned, departments,” Mackiel remembers reading. “But. isolated urban school district.” Mackiel had no sus - But!” Mackiel’s voice rises. “It then says the Elkhorn tained work experience outside Omaha. But he was Public Schools will remain the Elkhorn Public an informed observer of urban education across the Schools. And that started the conversations internally country. He saw Omaha headed down the same road where the question became, well: ‘Why? Why? Why?’ as Newark, New Jersey, or Hartford, Connecticut, What would warrant five separate school districts in a where the rise of suburbia had rendered the city city the size of Omaha? Five superintendents? Five schools places of last resort, places that teachers boards of education?” He did the math. If one were wished to avoid, places dubbed “troubled” and “fail -

10 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

to combine all the students in the five separate school into an eroding tax base. And certainly, it would have districts within the city of Omaha, that number a far more racially, ethnically and socioeconomically would be smaller than the number of students who diverse student body. had been enrolled in the one “urban” Omaha public school district in the 1970s. And, Mackiel points out, The very next morning, Mackiel and his school board there has long been a history of consolidation in appealed to the Legislature to delay removing the Nebraska. The state Legislature had, not many years newly discovered 79-409 from the books. With the back, joined together rural school districts suffering law still technically in effect for the time being, similar enrollment declines, with the goal being to Mackiel and his colleagues decided to go further. streamline operations and reduce costs. But among In June 2005, the Omaha school board voted to the 11 school districts in Douglas and Sarpy counties, begin annexation of 25 schools within the Omaha there were just about 111,000 kids, or roughly city limits, per Nebraska State Law 79-409. In other 10,000 kids for each district. words, Omaha would be taking over what people It forced an obvious question. Why not operate just long assumed were the sovereign districts of Elkhorn, one school district? Millard and Ralston. This plan, dubbed “One City, One School District,” Mackiel and his board mem - “Oh, everyone knows why,” Mackiel answers. “They bers reasoned, would be the first step toward racially, just won’t say it. But I’ll say it. Race and class are ethnically and economically diverse schools, a fairer why.” distribution of money and a shared responsibility for overcoming educational challenges that grow from I I I poverty. Annexation, the data showed, would increase the city schools’ enrollment from about 46,500 to about 60,500. The Omaha schools’ tax base would Well past regular working hours in the spring of increase about 35 percent, adding affluent neighbor - 2005, Mackiel and a few colleagues sat around a con - hoods and hundreds of prosperous businesses, ference table reviewing the proposed bills up for shopping centers and strip malls to the rolls. consideration in the Omaha Legislature. They’d ordered some pizza to keep themselves energized. “Multiple school districts in Omaha land lock the One bill perplexed them—a “technical clean-up bill” Omaha Public Schools,” Mackiel told an Omaha would have struck several unused laws from the World Herald reporter after the board’s vote. “They books, including one referred to as 79-409, which stratify our community, they create inequity, and they had been enacted in 1890. compromise the opportunity for a genuine sense of community.” A little research revealed that the law slated for removal had not been used in several decades. But this hardly rendered it useless. It said: “Each incorpo - I I I rated city of the metropolitan class in the State of Nebraska shall constitute one…school district.” In Just a few days after John Mackiel’s clarion call for other words, as the city of Omaha expanded, this law community building, people began threatening to kill said, the school district was supposed to grow, too. him. The anonymous threats came by telephone to So, as it turned out, if officials had simply complied his house in Omaha, to his office and via mail. with this clearly stated law during the period that Meanwhile, superintendents in Westside (District 66), Omaha was swallowing towns to capture revenue, the Elkhorn, Millard and Ralston created an anti-One public schools would not have lost huge swaths of City, One School District coalition, which sponsored students. Neither would the city’s schools be locked public meetings and organized opponents to the

11 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

plan. At the suburban gatherings, parents and subur - one’s position and vantage point led them to see ban school board members streamed to microphones John Mackiel, though, his One City, One School and expressed outrage over One City, One School District plan rendered previously invisible school District. At the time, the Republican candidate for boundary lines suddenly, starkly visible by acknowl - governor, David Heineman, had been trailing in the edging their role in creating separate and unequal polls against the far more popular former U.S. schools. John Mackiel forced matters of race, class, Congressman and University of Nebraska football inequality and fairness onto the political agenda in his coach, Tom Osborne. Soon after Heineman city, the region, the state and briefly, even the nation. expressed support for the suburban battle against Love him or hate him, he had at least done that. One City, One School District, his popularity surged. He ultimately beat Tom Osborne who had publicly I I I supported One City, One School District.

In the leafy residential sections of Omaha, including State legislators immediately stepped into the border Millard and Elkhorn and Ralston, signs popped up battle. They rushed to write two bills aimed at reading, “No Thanks!” In the territory of Omaha appeasing Omaha and quelling suburban anxiety. It where kids went to the city’s public schools, many was during this time that Education Committee parents, educators and community leaders affixed Chairman Ron Raikes, a farmer and economics Ph.D. “One City, One School District” bumper stickers to from rural Waverly, first introduced the Learning their cars. As Osborne had, several prominent civic Community concept. The law of his imagination and business leaders in Omaha, including the billion - would have created a common levy, along with mech - aire investor Warren Buffett, endorsed the One City, anisms to increase economic diversity in schools One School District plan. The story of suburban through regional magnets called “Focus Schools.” rage, however, dominated most news outlets. John But it would not have required nor would it have Mackiel, full of hope and ever the dutiful citizen, con - even encouraged socioeconomic diversity outside of tinued to show up at public forums in the suburbs. those Focus Schools. The bill also would have He came ready to answer questions, he recalls, to cemented suburban borders in place, similar to what “engage in productive dialogue with folks.” Mostly, legislators had done for District 66 years ago. though, people yelled at him. Then things got complicated. A longtime community Rage, death threats and political wrangling eclipsed activist and African American state senator from the values undergirding Omaha’s One City, One Omaha named Ernie Chambers came out in opposi - School District. Words like cohesion, fairness, effi - tion to Raikes’ bill and to another similar one. He’d ciency and integration were quickly erased from most argued that his African American constituents should public conversation. As is true of most heated contro - have more control of schools within their neighbor - versies, where you stood on the matter of One City, hoods. Raikes tried to satisfy Chambers and worked One School District depended on where you sat. Or with him to amend his “Learning Community” bill. in this case, it depended upon what school you The new bill that emerged still froze the suburban attended, in which community you taught or what district borders and allowed for establishment of school district you had been hired to oversee. So, Focus Schools and a common levy. But now it cre - among people in that ostensible “community” John ated even more fragmentation and racial and class Mackiel had hoped to build and cohere, he became segregation by splitting the Omaha Public Schools’ both villain and hero. He had acted rashly or just in current district into three smaller, separate ones. the nick of time. He was impolitic. Or, he was sensi - Under the bill, each of these districts would have ble. He was foolish; he was discerning. However “attendance areas which are contiguous and whose

12 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

student populations share a community of interest.” the law. The Council of Great City Schools, a mem - The only way to make the plan work to that specifica - ber association of the nation’s largest urban districts, tion, though, would be to purposefully draw school had been scheduled to hold its annual conference in borders along racially and ethnically Omaha. It boycotted and went to segregated neighborhood boundaries. Atlanta instead. Warren Buffett, This meant a disproportionately white “Multiple school Omaha’s favorite son, whose children school district would sit to the west, a districts in Omaha and grandchildren either had been or nearly all Latino district would be estab - land lock the Omaha were currently enrolled in the city’s lished in the south and finally, an almost Public Schools,” public schools, expressed dismay. David exclusively African American district Sokol, CEO of the major regional Mackiel told an would enroll students from the north - employer, MidAmerican Energy ern part of the city. In April 2006, on a Omaha World Holdings, told The New York Times : vote of 31 to 16, the Nebraska State Herald reporter after “This is going to make our state a Legislature passed this bill. Governor the board’s vote. laughingstock.” Dave Heineman signed it into law just “They stratify our hours afterward. Then the national I I I spotlight shone harshly on Nebraska. community, they create inequity, and Within a few days, the national media “My first tip of the hat goes to they compromise the Nebraska State Legislature which voted was mostly finished writing and laugh - opportunity for a to split Omaha…schools into 3 pro - ing about Nebraska. But at the Omaha posed new districts—one predominately genuine sense World-Herald , reporters continued to white, another predominately black, of community.” cover the developing story and its larger and a third predominately Hispanic—a significance with a rigor and depth that veritable Neapolitan race-cream…” is unusual for small metros. The One comedian Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report , City, One School District debate had helped inspire told a cackling studio audience. “All the Nebraska local journalists to chronicle not only the day-to-day legislators are saying is, ‘we don’t see whites, blacks, controversy, but also to explore the myriad factors and Hispanics. We see children; children who would that led to such stark inequality and segregation in be a lot happier sticking with their own kind.’” the first place. For the paper’s publisher, John Gottschalk, this was no joke. He’d felt “personally Well, that was embarrassing. PBS NewsHour and The humiliated” by the national coverage. Reporters at New York Times ran unflattering accounts of the paper he oversaw would take this quite seriously Nebraska’s legislation. Nebraska’s lawmakers had and they would “not write about any of this as if it forced national journalists to review basic American were just an argument that someone was going to history. In 1954, they reminded readers, a unanimous win or lose. This was a matter that brought all of our Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education out - most important questions to the table. It was going lawed intentional racial segregation in public to express our values and whether we were capable of education. The local NAACP chapter appeared in solving big problems.” federal court asking for an injunction against splitting Omaha’s system into racially identifiable districts. The Gottschalk believed he knew a Nebraska that the Chicano Awareness Center filed a lawsuit in state national media did not have the patience to try to court. The state court ordered a stay on the legisla - understand. Big name journalists would not be pres - tion, preventing it from going forward. The U.S. ent for the next stage of discussion and negotiation, Commission on Civil Rights convened hearings on but the role of the local media, he believed, was to

13 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

contribute to a discussion in good faith. Gottschalk, a solution that was fair, equitable and aimed at bringing respected, civic-minded leader locally, is also former people together. If suburban leaders weren’t inter - national president of the Boy Scouts of America and ested in cooperating out of goodwill, they knew that was a key player in George W. Bush’s America 2000 Omaha still had that One City, One School District initiative, which engaged the nation’s governors and law that Mackiel and his board were willing to put civic leaders in setting high standards for public edu - right back into play. cation. A registered Republican who cares little for ideology, Gottschalk had many neighbors and friends Gottschalk was uniquely situated to see both sides. who were upset by Mackiel’s One City, One School He admired Mackiel’s leadership abilities, his “true District campaign. But Gottschalk viewed Mackiel’s courage,” and understood him to be in a “real bind move as “born entirely from frustration.” He’d not of his making.” On the other hand, he could thought of it “mostly as a good thing, a necessary imagine being in charge of a school district that does thing.” A true Nebraskan, Gottschalk likened it to not enroll many students who live in poverty, or football. where educators have no experience with kids who do not speak English, or where administrators have never “I figured, well, at least now, the ball is in the air,” he had to work their way through racial tensions and remembers thinking. There was going to be a play. sorting out cultural differences. He knew a lot of Whether it would be intercepted, fail or be com - these educators had to answer to constituents “who pleted, “we just didn’t know.” The potential benefit unfortunately” are people who want to be isolated post-One City, One School District, Gottschalk “from those kinds of challenges.” It should come as thought, was that people from across the region no surprise that this set up might lead a suburban might finally be forced to talk about how to create a superintendent to “pray that those challenges do not more equitable, cohesive region, a conversation he come over the border to my district.” As Gottschalk saw as “way, way, way overdue.” saw it, the fragmented structure, coupled with the long-standing concentration of poverty and racial Just days after the bill splitting up Omaha passed, diversity in the city, was causing otherwise reasonable Gottschalk reached out to his longtime friend, Ken people to dig in their heels. What folks needed, Bird, then the superintendent of District 66. Next, he Gottschalk believed, was “a space, an opportunity” to reached out to John Mackiel. He liked and respected see that they were not only representatives of one both men enormously and believed that if he could entity but “members of a larger community.” just get them to sit down and talk, a solution to “this awful mess might come into being.” Gottschalk’s optimism turned out to be well- founded. Bird and Mackiel came into the serene office space Gottschalk was developing in west Omaha. It was a “You know, it really was not that hard to do this,” quiet place surrounded by tall cedar trees and walking Mackiel recalls, still sounding astounded years later. paths. Gottschalk dropped the keys to the meeting “I don’t know how it started, who threw this idea space on the table. They could come and go as they out, but we agreed somehow that we would let our - pleased, he told Bird and Mackiel. And they could sit selves imagine for a moment that we aren’t working and talk or walk and talk or a combination. No one for particular boards of educations, that we aren’t would know they were here, not even the reporters at located in a particular place, with particular prejudices his newspaper. The only requirement, Gottschalk about the way things are supposed to be….We all said, was that eventually, they’d have every school agreed that just for the moment, let’s just pretend leader from the 11 districts in Douglas and Sarpy that we are working together to do what’s best for Counties sitting around the table working toward a kids.”

14 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

Mackiel continues, “We agreed very early on that in Now, a 18-member Learning Community this scenario, of course, absolutely, the schools would Coordinating Council collects taxes and redistributes be integrated. There were other things, of course. those dollars based on a formula that accounts for a There would need to be enough money and it would range of variables including the number of students be distributed based on how much each school from low-income families and students who are still needed. And yeah, it went without saying that a learning English enrolled in a district. The common school district with more children from low income tax levy is designed to reduce funding disparities families, more English Language learners, would between wealthier, property-rich suburbs and need more money than the white middle class dis - Omaha, where 72 percent of students come from tricts where nearly everyone came from an families who live below the federal poverty line. In English-speaking family.” And while Mackiel wasn’t Omaha, 30 percent of students are Latino and 26 thrilled with this part of the deal, the group reached percent are African American. Omaha’s schools have consensus that local schools would remain local. the largest population of Sudanese refugee students District 66 would remain District 66 and the same in the United States and Swahili is one of the most was true of the other districts. In other words, the common of the 100 different languages students boundary lines would not change. The borders just speak. As is true of many metro areas in the United would not be so powerful, so determinative of educa - States, some nearby suburban districts are growing tional opportunity, of exposure and experience. There more diverse, especially as poverty increases every - would be a structure now that encouraged cohesion, where. However, even the “suburban” districts sitting collaboration, sharing and fairness. within Omaha’s city limits remain solidly middle-class and predominantly white. “You know, I never really saw this as related to school desegregation,” Gottschalk recalls. “I saw this as a sit - The stated goal of the Learning Community’s cross- uation where the city was facing all these educational district transfer program is to achieve an equal challenges, where the teachers in OPS were just over - distribution of students from families with low whelmed and where, well, these inequalities in our incomes in every school in Douglas and Sarpy region were rooted in these disparities in education Counties. Ideally, each school’s “low-income” popu - and this was not good for anyone. Not for the kids in lation would roughly mirror the average found in the the public schools and not for people who were inter - two counties. In 2012, that share was about 41 per - ested in building a prosperous, competitive state, for cent, up from about 36 percent just a few years ago. people thinking about investing here. It just was not The legislation’s power, though, is extremely limited. practical. We had to come up with something better, It sets no mandates. It does not sanction school dis - fairer and that had the future in mind.” tricts that don’t actively try to or fail to increase socioeconomic diversity. A former Speaker of the Nebraska Legislature, Kermit Brashear, also took part in the discussions. At Looking out from a hill just beyond a suburban ele - Gottschalk’s urging, he helped translate the educa - mentary school playground, other obstacles to tors’ principles into the particular language of regional cohesion come into clear relief. Unvaried legislative proposals. The resulting bill was introduced single-family houses and monotonous condo devel - by and strongly supported by Education Committee opments snake for miles toward a limitless horizon. Chair Ron Raikes and had also won key support from On the street below, a billboard advertises a new sub - Senator Ernie Chambers. It passed 42-0 in January division. Amenities include a swimming pool and 2007. The Learning Community accepted its first 24-hour security. In the upper right corner, large, students two years later, in 2009. All the lawsuits bold print screams: “Gretna Schools.” against the state were dropped.

15 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

“That sign is a kind of code for: ‘white children,’” district. Nicholas was in second grade at the sought- John Mackiel says, shaking his head. “Everyone has after Oakdale Elementary, just down the street, when learned to read that code.” a flyer with an application to the Focus School arrived in the mail. Sheri and Nicholas filled it out, Sheri Still, there is, at least recalls, “not really for now, a Learning knowing anything Community. There is about the Focus a Focus School and School.” They fig - one diverse Focus ured they’d take a program each at the chance on it, though, middle and high because Nicholas had school levels. All these not been terribly creations appeal to happy at his neigh - people who don’t buy borhood school, in into that code—peo - spite of its stellar rep - ple who not only utation. Westside’s imagine something race and class homo - better than status quo geneity—“It’s very segregation, but who white, basically,” as live it. Sheri describes it— did not appeal to her I I I and Greg.

After the Vollmers Take the Vollmer opted to send their family—Sheri, Greg boys into South and their three sons, Omaha to attend the Focus School, Sheri commonly Nicholas, Joey and Shawn. They live on a quiet, tree- faced a rhetorical question from friends and neigh - and mailbox-lined street in a spacious, modernized bors: “You are giving up Westside?” This “getting ranch house on Omaha’s west side. Birds chirp; into Westside,” is a familiar middle class aspiration in maple tree branches blow in the breeze. You can just Omaha. barely hear the whir of traffic from the highway beyond. Sheri is a dance instructor. Greg, a registered “A lot of people will move into this neighborhood nurse, works at the same local hospital where Sheri’s just so they can go to Oakdale [Elementary School],” father is a research scientist and doctor. When Sheri Sheri explains. But, Sheri counters, “[The Focus was a child, her father’s job required lots of moving School] gives you more of real life. You have kids and long visits to different places around the country from all over, every creed and from every socioeco - and the world. The Vollmers, though, chose to settle nomic setting and they need to come together…” in Omaha for several reasons. It’s affordable, for one, and also, they feel lucky that their boys were selected It is not primarily the diversity that attracted Sheri by lottery to attend the Focus School. and her kids to the Focus School, however.

The Vollmer’s street sits within Omaha’s borders. But “The teachers are just awesome, they really, really get it is part of “Westside Community School District”— to know our kids,” she says. The array of after-school that sovereign entity created in the 1940s and activities reflects the fact that “the teachers aren’t try - immunized against takeover by the Omaha’s urban ing to force kids into these little boxes. They really

16 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

nurture kids’ individual interests and then put it on “Some of my friends were confused,” she recalls. the kids to have solid relationships, work out issues if “But I don’t care because I just know I’m getting a they have them.” better education.”

Nicholas focuses on less weighty Similarly, Shannon Dillman, a matters. He likes his school Sheri Vollmer self-described “math nerd,” had where “everyone pretty much visited Central as part of an aca - gets along and kind of cheers demic competition. Walking up each other on.” At recess, he Central’s main entrance, she’d plays football or, he says, “just been enchanted with the beauti - punts a football around and I fully preserved, majestic kicked it into the basketball building from the early 1900s. hoop by accident and I was the She was impressed, too, as she first person to kick it into the walked by the alumni Hall of basketball hoop that we know Fame featuring photos and of! People were amazed.” plaques honoring accomplished Central grads. Hall of Famers The lack of controls and over - include the actor, Henry Fonda; sight around the Learning the R & B singer, Wynonie Community’s cross-district Harris; two Nobel Prize winners transfers probably means that it and several professional athletes. will not anytime soon dramati - Another Hall of Famer, and one cally alter the racial, ethnic and "[The Focus School] that students especially like to note, is economic segregation that characterizes gives you more of real Gerry Thomas, who invented the TV the region. Prior to the Learning dinner in 1952. Finally, though, life. You have kids Community, remember that the state Shannon was swayed as much by the did offer an open enrollment program. from all over, every strong curriculum as by what she calls But because the Learning Community creed and from every “the spirit” of the place. provides free transportation for students socioeconomic setting from low-income families and/or to “Everyone was just so friendly and wel - and they need to students whose transfer would con - coming and really nice,” says Shannon, tribute to socioeconomic diversity, it come together…” who would have attended the neighbor - means that Omaha children who live in —Parent Sheri Vollmer ing Papillion–La Vista school district, poor neighborhoods are now far less just southwest, had she not chosen likely to be forced to attend high- Central. Central’s students, “because of poverty schools. It works in reverse, the diversity,” Shannon says, have the too. Suburban kids aren’t trapped in schools that look best chance to “break” stereotypes that exist in the nothing like the world beyond them. larger society. Kids from beyond Omaha’s school dis - trict boundaries have long transferred into Central Consider Elissa Wiener, a vivacious teenager who, through the state’s previous open enrollment plan. after elementary and middle school, chose to leave Now, though, Learning Community supporters stress her “way more elite” and “way more white” subur - that the little-documented, generally positive experi - ban district, Millard, and enroll in Central High ences these students have demonstrate the potential School in downtown Omaha. of cross-district transfers under the Learning Community.

17 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

In an English classroom at Central, a teacher wearing to stay in the PLSD,” the district declares on its a deep purple Central Eagles windbreaker reads from website. Harper Lee’s masterwork, To Kill a Mockingbird . She asks students to reflect on the quote: “You never In February 2012, the Nebraska Supreme Court really understand a person until you consider things overruled a District Court judge and declared the from his point of view…until you climb into his Learning Community’s common levy to be constitu - skin and walk around in it.” tional. The Sarpy County Farm Bureau, along with eight property owners, had filed a lawsuit claiming Listening in, Central’s principal, Keith Bigsby, inter - that the “scheme” directed money to some districts at rupts briefly to offer students in the class a hearty the expense of others. The ruling came as a relief to “Go Eagles” and a fist pump. He walks into the hall - Learning Community supporters. However, now that way, leaving students to ponder Harper Lee’s words. the lawsuit has been resolved, Learning Community supporters expect the state Legislature will take up “Okay, so, did you hear that teacher’s question?” the battle. Political observers predict that bills aimed Bigsby asks. “Well, I would argue that our kids here at destroying the Learning Community will be up for at Central, because of the diversity, because of their debate during the legislative session that began in daily experiences in diversity are a lot better equipped January 2013. The state senator Ron Raikes, who led not to just reflect on the meaning of that quote, but the legislative effort to create a common levy, died in to really, truly understand that basic human experi - a farming accident in 2009, just after retiring from ence, to develop that quality of empathy.” politics.

I I I Even the lauded Focus School has struggled to keep its doors open. The school’s test scores match, and in some areas outdo, far more affluent nearby schools. It Over the past year, UT Austin Professor Jennifer recently won accreditation from a national organiza - Holme has interviewed suburban educators and local tion that ranked the school a rare “exceptional” in leaders whose districts are members of the Learning seven out of seven categories, again outdoing many Community. Many of them have replaced the people suburban neighbors. More and more families want to who’d helped to work out the original Learning enroll their children there, as evidenced by the grow - Community agreement at Gottschalk’s property sev - ing waiting list. But in 2010, Omaha’s then partners eral years ago. Holme’s findings reveal resentment in the venture, Westside Community Schools and animosity over how the Learning Community is (District 66) and the school district of Elkhorn, funded and governed. Several educators said they pulled out of the project, leaving Omaha’s already don’t think it should even exist. Some school boards cash-strapped district as the only funder. Parents ral - have even knowingly appointed Learning lied. Students testified at the State Capitol. Then, Community adversaries to the Learning Community Susie Buffett, philanthropist and daughter of Warren Coordinating Council. This means that people who Buffett, put up the money to save the school. In have been openly opposed to the Learning 2012-2013, money for the Focus School comes from Community’s very existence now sit on the board Omaha Public Schools’ budget, from Susie Buffet’s charged with overseeing the Learning Community Sherwood Foundation and, since 2011, from funds and charting its future course. Administrators in the allocated through the Learning Community. Papillion–La Vista school district, for example, south - west of Omaha, have in recent years been vocal in In late August 2012, John Mackiel retired after 15 their opposition to the Learning Community, even years as Omaha’s school superintendent and nearly though they are also members of it. “The District 40 years working for the school system. Some six believes that resources generated in the PLSD need

18 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

years after One City, One School District, he Mackiel keeps abundant faith, though, in kids like remained a controversial figure in the suburbs. In his Nicholas Vollmer and in our Focus School guides, home city of Omaha, Nolan and Alyx, in par - though, Mackiel main - ents and civic leaders like tained consistent support Willie Barney and the from his school board, hundreds of others who, and among school prin - by virtue of the Learning cipals and parents. Community, cross the Retirement is generally a lines, and travel against time of perfunctory the current. Some of hopefulness, softening Omaha’s suburban resentments, making neighbors are slowly peace and moving on. becoming more diverse, Television and newspa - with the share of stu - pers even covered dents living in poverty Mackiel’s retirement increasing in places party, where he and his where it had been wife Debi hugged and uncommon just a decade greeted hundreds of supporters during a spirited ago. Similarly, more Latinos have moved to nearby gathering at a city high school decorated with thank rural communities for jobs in the meatpacking and you cards created by Omaha students. food processing industries. Diversity is coming one way or another, and Mackiel can only hope that “I can honestly say every day was a high point,” schools in these changing communities don’t become Mackiel said that night. “Whenever you’re blessed to segregated and that adults will adopt some of the be able to work with young people, and you’re con - qualities found among kids in the Focus School or stantly dealing with that element of hope, that hope among suburban kids who’ve opted for urban Central for the future, there is no bad day.” High School.

After four decades, though, platitudes would take “Sometimes I think that if we just get the adults out him only so far. of the way and provide opportunities for the kids build to something different…” Mackiel says. “I “I don’t think we gave integration a chance in the think if we can do that, if it’s through the Learning 70s. And I don’t think we are giving integration a Community model, through the Focus School, then chance in the 21st century,” he says. After all that we will be all right.” struggle, all that anguished debate and hard won compromise, he worries now that the Learning Community may be undermined by a lack of strong I I I enforcement mechanisms for creating diversity, by a lack of public enthusiasm, or by more sinister forces. Outside the realm of public education, there are other people in Omaha who see that moving forward “There are people who want us to fail,” he says. in a demographically diverse society will require com - “People who benefit from the status quo…I fear that ing together and giving up the false security of as we demonstrate success, the sort of success so evi - isolation. On the site of a former country club in west dent at the Focus School, that we will see things go Omaha, earthmovers level the ground. Men in hard backward—more borders, boundaries between com - hats secure steel girders to form the skeleton of the munities and between people.”

19 Stories From the Field One Nation Indivisible January 2013

nation’s first “interfaith campus.” By late 2013, this Somalia and the Sudan. Through his work with the land will be home to a synagogue, a mosque, an Empowerment Network, Barney’s strong sense is that Episcopalian congregation currently led by a Latino families whose kids have experience with the Learning minister, and a fourth building that will Community are more than satisfied. welcome congregations and groups of They are thrilled. That’s especially true any faith to gather. The fate of the “It is all right here in of the Focus School, he reminds me, Learning Community may be unclear, front of us. If we get where parents of many racial, cultural but the impulse that created it may and economic backgrounds rallied a fighting chance, prove immortal. together to save a school that enabled maybe we will sur - their kids to learn in a rigorous, innova - “What if Omaha, Nebraska could really prise everyone. Maybe tive environment that approximates the become an example of how to create a Nebraska really will society kids will join as adults. If they truly diverse, healthy community?” be the place showing have to, the parents will be back up at Willie Barney, the parent and civic the Capitol in Lincoln to do it again the way.” leader, asks. He turns his small SUV this year, he assures me. They’ll fight for around in the interfaith complex’s —Willie Barney the Focus School and for the structure soon-to-be driveway. The region cer - that enables it, the Learning tainly has the demographics to make it Community. happen. It has abundant wealth and an active philanthropic community. It has a large, deeply “It is all right here in front of us,” Barney says. “If we rooted African American community and an ever- get a fighting chance, maybe we will surprise every - growing Latino population. Refugee resettlement has one. Maybe Nebraska really will be the place showing brought Karen people from Burma, people from the way.”

Susan Eaton and Gina Chirichigno are co-directors Special thanks and recognition to Jennifer Jellison Holme, of One Nation Indivisible www.onenationindivisible.org . assistant professor at UT Austin and her colleague Sarah Susan is also Research Director at the Charles Hamilton Diem, assistant professor at the University of Missouri, Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law whose rigorous research on Omaha and interdistrict School. Gina is also Outreach Coordinator for the school desegregation provided extensive and rich histori - National Coalition on School Diversity cal and contextual information. www.school-diversity.org .

Thanks to Kelly Garvin at the Houston Institute for her “Stories from the Field” is an occasional publication of editorial assistance on this story. One Nation Indivisible. To share a story from the field about efforts to create, sustain or improve racially, culturally or linguistically integrated schools, communities or social institutions, please visit our website and click on “Share Your Story.”

20