Fine line how most American Kids are kept out of the best Public Schools. Were so excited the book store can bring authors and works to community during this uncertain time. Well continue to host virtual event. Our next event is tomorrow, monday, may 18th, at 6 00 p. M. With dr. A discussion of the book, boneheads and brainiacs. For regular updates on Upcoming Events subscribe describe to our our virtual presentation will end with a qea. If you see a question on the list you want for our speakers to answer click the like button and well try to answer as many questions as time allows. If you want to purchase a copy of the book you can click on the green purchase button directly below the viewer screen. The link will direct you to our website where you can continue your checkout process. Were open for Curbside Pickup so we can offer that. With that being said let me introduce our speakers this evening. Hell he, everybody. Hi, gilbert. Jill stewart is the managing editor of this the former manager editor of the he l. A. Weekry and former manager direct of the doings serve l. A. She an experience radio commentator. For seven years she was a metro reporter with Los Angeles Times focus many topics he teaches journalism at Chapman University and is a free lance editor, analyst and strategics, Gloria Romero is an education reformer, in 2001 she was elected to the 24th senate strict of california representing east los angeles. She was chose into serve as Senate Democratic caucus chair and as Senate Majority leader. The first woman to ever held that leadership position. And she is also evidence as chair thereof see Senate Education committee. Tim deroche is has worked wife clients k through 1 education, serving Public School stricts, Charter School networks. He is an alumnus of both the International Consulting firm and the pbs producers academy. His first book, the ballad, a retelling of huck finn on the Los Angeles River was featured on cbs sudden morning. So thats everybody for the evening. Im going to pass it off to jill stewart so she can give us a little bit. Thank you for being here. Take it away. Okay, well good to a video soon, i believe, but first a little bit of background on the book. Im going to read something from the back of the book from a former departmentty secretary of education under president obama, and he said that the mustread for education reform. Leaders, policymakers parents, anybody anyone who believes his childs zip code should not prevent him or her from accessing the best education and School District offers and ill give yaw hint about the book. The fantastic tim deroche suggests a number of ways for the public to start suing the government to get this rolling. So thats just a hint out about this not a this is a lovely book filled with beautiful maps but not a safe book its a wonderfully interesting, daring book. Thats it. Thank you, jill. Im so gravity for the book store for hosting this event. We hoped to be in the store today. With many of you in the store celebrating the launch of this book and talking about the difficult issues, but really this is a great way to do this, given the pandemic and were just so grateful for vromans and one of the few advantages of the pandemic our launch party right now is accessible to folks not in los angeles. So i have very fond recollections of the launch of our first book at the last book store in downtown l. A. So very happy to have you all here. This book is something that ive been working on for send yearns since i met gloria, and really gloria and i started with this kernel of curiosity. I lived in silver lake here in l. A. And some elite Public Schools and areas, and i know that people pay we knew that people paid quite a bit to live in the zones for the schools and start with this basic curiosity, what is the legal basis . If a family of young family is a taxpaying member of the district, constituent of the district and they live within walking distance of one of these schools but theyre on the wrong side of one of these lined, what this districts legal basis for excluding them from saying turning them away from that school. So, that one bit of curiosity led us down a rabbit hole, led me down a rabbit hole of research and i uncovered surprise after surprise after surprise how these things actually work in the real world. And i learned that id been working in education reform off and on for 20 years, put really there were a lot of things going on that i was up aware of, and a certain opinion unaware of and at a certain point it became clear there was a great untold story and that i could tell a story that would be fun and fascinating to read about american democracy and public education, but might also generate some interest in change. So what im going to do right now is quickly our friend sang created a great video, which is a summary of the book and well play a few minutes of the video and you can get a feel for what were talking out and then jill with smell good, tough questions for us. So let me do this. Just a second. Share screen. Okay. A persons zip code shouldnt determine their educational destiny. Im tim deroche, the offer of a fine line pow most American Kids are kept out of the best Public Schools he book is about policies that assign children to schools based on where they live, and specifically im shining a light on attendance zones the lines drawn by a district that determine who bees to which school and who gets preferential enrollment at the best Public Schools. To me this book goes to really the essence, the heart of what i saw as a policymaker, as a legislator, in sacramento. I helped us to connect the dots. Very exciting hearing for the that Education Committee. Im retired, california state senator, Gloria Romero. Was actually the very first woman to if achieve the leadership position, being elect told be the majority leader, and also i was on the Education Committee for most of the 14 years that i served. Gloria romero is a hero of mine. So honored when she agreed to write the after word to the book. She fought for kids when she was in the senate. She was always willing to speak truth to power. Is it right to have these artificial lines drawn by some unidentified bureaucrat that this the front door through which you can enter or this is a door that says closed and you must in elsewhere. Most people heard of district brians, legislatively determine bounded but what mays an outside rolled ofm the lines drawn by the strict staff showing which kids are directed to which school and the lines only have mean north best schools. Keeps the population of that school separate from the broad are community of the district. These lines have existed for decades in our state in our nation, and its about time that theres a spotlight on these little fine lines that people never see and really become determinant of who gets a high quality education and who is prevented. Redlining was a practice during the 1930s, during the new deal era. The government drew maps showing who or wasnt eligible for federal housing its sis stance and so they would shade certain areas of the city green or blue and those people could get Housing Assistance and then shied areas red or yellow and those areas were not eligible for Housing Assistance the government used the map to discriminate against people and we found in many cases the outline of the attendant zone kind of mirrors the shape of the desirable area from the redlining map, from 80 years ago. This is really something that happens across the country. I believe that when readers pick up this become, they will have this ahha moment. Theres so much that needs to be done to change the system but the first one is awareness. You can talk to parents of all different income levels who have had their lives affected by the policies. Poor minority parents excluded from these elite Public Schools in cities. Middle income parents who had to sell the home where they raised their kids, wealthy parents in malibu who paid a friend for their utility bill. Its really extraordinary, the length that people will go to mav gate these policy navigate the policies. Have the courage to raid this book and understand that this is an opportunity, its long past time to erase the lines, to recognize them and dismantle them, the save way we have taken on political gerrymandering and banking redlining. Take on education redlining for every family that wants to have access the american dream. All right. Thank you, everybody. Just picked up a good representation of what were trying to do with the become. Become over to you, jill. I have a hard question for you right off the bat. Page 51, tim calls a School District in chicago and states he is a parent to trying to get into the school. Tell us about that call. Once you realize that parents were lying to get into the good schools, making up addresses and later in the book well get to this being arrested, being followed and arrest i for lying but their addresses so their kids could get into the Better School just don the street. Tell us about the phone call to chicago. Yeah. So, the book is based on these pairs of the book he centered on these pairs of schools. One elite school and one Failing School right next to each other, and they share an attendant zone boundary and the pad concern is the same where you see your debt any is determined whether youre on one side of the line or the other, and people are paying significant premiums to live in the zone in the privileged zone, for the elite Public School, so what that does is drives up real estate prices and the divisions, the social divisions grow over time because middle class people and lower income people cant afford those houses, cant necessarily afford those houses, and so we identified these schools, the pairs of schools, and one the best example is in chicago. There is a School CalledLincoln Elementary, which is a very elite Public School, one of the shining stars of the chicago Public Schools and then a mile away is a School Called minero elementary and last year, over 80 of lincoln students were proficient in reading and then the school a mile away, the zero percent of the eighth graders were proficient in reading last year. So, a i was like i got to confirm what is going on here. So i just called the school and said i called Lincoln Elementary and said im moving to chicago and want to get my kid into your school. What die have to do and they confirmed you have to buy a house or rent an apartment in this zone. Right . And if youre on the wrong side of the street you dont have a chance of getting. In were full up. And i did this with any number of schools across the country. In seattle the woman said, the person who answered phone said you better buy a house in the right area, and i said doesnt really seem fair, there must be a way if im on the other side of the line. She said if we didnt have a line no one would want to go to that other school. If we didnt draw a line no one would want to go to that cool and that was very telling. So this is an american problem. We have schools in new york, philadelphia, atlanta, dallas, los angeles, san francisco, the bay area, seattle, this is not unique to one area of the country. This is across the country. Gloria, id love to ask you a question. In the book tim shows that some of the schools lie about having enough seats. Dont want to let people know they have any sort of way to get in if you dont live and they lie about the number of vacancies and on page 59, as tim get sneeze fact that lausd says it only had two i believe two open seats out of 275,000 seats. Gloria, is that a real number . Before i good into that, let me just say and thanks to people who join it, thank you, jill, thank you tim especially, because todays historic. Today is the anniversary of brown v board of education. But its been 66 years. Think about it. With all deliberate speed and the pretext that was used for little linda brun, not getting into a good school, was skin color. Today is a tim points out and what i saw when i was serving in legislature, its about the lines that we dent even know exist. That is the issue. That theyre out there and oh how do we start explaining school a, school b, gallon schools and bad schools. What i saw and tim saw over and over, chronically kids get trapped into schools. To going back to the question that you raised, jill, i dont know exactly what those numbers are. I. Dont now if i believe a whole lot of thing that come out of l. A. Unified but the inis they do the counting, do the limiting and do these right around in terms of the numbers they give us to us based on arbitrary lines that the state allows or even mandates across the country for lines to be drawn and yet some unelected bureaucrat deep in the bowels of a for l. A. Uniflite or any districted in the country they drew with political gerrymandering, we can see the lines and develop commissions to fight and dismantle those lines. But todays 66 years post brown v. Board there are lines that exist and we arent even aware of them. Tim you did such Great Research in this book. You contacted l. A. Unified but not just them. Many districts around the country and they were pretty open about keeping kids out, and lausd said theirs no way they would tell how many open seats there are because people would be trying to get into l. A. Unified didnt tell me. That was consultant who helps families get access to schools if theyre not zoned to a great school these consultants help them. Theres one here in l. A. Who made that comment, that a lot of these schools are not full, and theyre not fully advertising the open seats. One of the key things we did is as a certain point we started looking at the analogy between this policies and the redlining practices, as we said the video, of the 1930s in which certain neighborhoods were discriminated against and its all this is not a racial issue. There are people of all races living in those neighborhoods, and who are being kept out of these schools and if you look at it was a big, big moment when i said, okay, let by try to look at this old, old map and try to superimpose the redline the current attendant zone for ivanhoe elementary in silver lake. Superimpose that on the red lining map from the 30s and just surprising, those patterns still exist in many places. Brooklyn, dallas, seattle, indianapolis, a couple schools in l. A. , and you just see these patterns where these zone lines really seem to exclude areas that are thats have higher percentages of minorities and immigrants but there are many cause indication families in those areas, too are becomessed out of the schools and boxed out of the schools and is and gloria is a great champion of these people who have been tried for lying about their address. Lying about your address is something that goes on up and down the economic spectrum in america, right . Everybody does it. Ive had certain people tell me why you writing about the book. Of course everybody lies but their address to get access. The problem is the only people being prosecuted are lower income people. We know tons of people who im sure everyone on this call knows people who have lied but their address and its just its very problematic, sets up a dynamic where many districts surveil children. We found an article from fraud magazine. E. Posting how to do surveillance on a children. Have a long lens, have a female pi taking pictures because people freak out if they see a man take pictures of children. And theyre not these policies it up a dynamic and they have to do that and the people being surveilled are not just the people who are lying. The people who are being surveilled is everybody, all the kids in the school. I want to talk to you but page 65 where you were talking to meredith richard, professor at Southern Methodist university and she studied attendant zones in massachusetts because all states have these readlining and she found the zones lead to greet egg drag of racial separation that would have emerged if students had simply been assigned to the Public School closest to home. Theyre not knowing the Public School closest to their home. Thats the case in many cases. Not always the case but it is the case often times, and some folks say the school in that neighborhood in that area will be a little better no matter what. What i point out is in chicago, if you look at north avenue as the dividing line between the two Elementary Schools and have a thriving school, a are school versus a Failing School, if you look the Health Clinics in neighborhood, theres a Health Clinic on the north side of in that neighborhood, north of north avenue and a Health Clinic south of north avenue. Look at the patient rate little of the two Health Clinics theyre the same because people are allowed to freely pass over north avenue to go to whatever Health Clinic they want. I if one was failing people would go to the other one they would both have an incentive to serve and to there isnt the degree of separation of the community for the Health Clinic and you get better since and better levels of performance. Whereas the schools are tent separate and as glory glory ya point gloria has pointed ou