Dream town Shaker Heights and the quest for racial equity

Shaker Heights, Ohio, is a Cleveland suburb that has been recognized as a town of ideals since its beginning in the early 1900s. While the community was founded with the same racial exclusivity and racist housing policies that enforced segregation in cities across the North, by the 1960s, Shaker Heights was an example of a successfully integrated community. Author and Washington Post journalist Meckler grew up in Shaker Heights, and in 2019, reported on its school district's progress in racial integration for the newspaper. The town voluntarily started a busing program in the 1960s to create racial balance in its schools, years before other Northern cities would be ordered to by courts. But despite drawing families into the community for its excellent school system, policies within Shaker Heights created a racial achievement gap that persisted through 2020. Meckler chronicles the history of Shaker Heights to understand how residents worked toward housing integration, socioeconomic integration, and school integration. Through detailed research and interviews, Meckler tells a remarkable story about a town that continuously strives to achieve the ideals it long ago set for itself.

Journalist Meckler debuts with an in-depth analysis of desegregation efforts in her hometown of Shaker Heights, Ohio. Developed in the early 20th century as an affluent, white suburb of Cleveland, Shaker Heights remained that way for decades because real estate agents refused to show homes to Black home buyers, neighbors declined to give required approvals to nonwhite potential neighbors, and banks denied loans to mortgage applicants deemed "undesirable." Over time, various organizations attempted to integrate Shaker Heights, but it wasn't until the civil rights movement of the 1960s that those efforts met with any measure of success. Meckler details how Ludlow, one of the first neighborhoods to integrate, sought to counteract white flight by recruiting white home buyers and promoting the benefits of a "racially diverse community," and delves deep into the persistence of the racial achievement gap in Shaker Heights's public schools. The case study of a well-regarded white teacher who was placed on administrative leave after being accused of "humiliat and embarrass" a Black student in her AP English class sheds light on the racial tensions at play. Throughout, Meckler draws on extensive interviews with parents, teachers, community leaders, and students to present the various controversies from multiple perspectives, resulting in a nuanced and impressively detailed study of the barriers to racial equality. Policymakers and social justice activists should take note. (Aug.)

A study of the complexities of school integration. Award-winning educational journalist Meckler, a national education writer for the Washington Post, makes her book debut with a thorough examination of the school system of Shaker Heights, Ohio, which for the last 70 years has been committed to fostering diversity. However, despite a "decades-long, nationally recognized track record of racial integration," it has also experienced "a persistent achievement gap in education." Black students, writes the author, "were doing worse even though they were taking easier classes. The higher the level, the whiter the class. Ninety-five percent of students in the lowest level were Black, and in Advanced Placement, the top level, just 12 percent of students were." Herself a product of the Shaker Heights school system, Meckler augments her own experiences with more than 250 interviews, on-site visits, and research in school and community archives to tackle the question of why this gap persists. For a community intent on diversity, housing integration posed the first obstacle: Banks and realtors tried to block Blacks from buying homes in the once all-White neighborhoods; when Blacks did move in, those same institutions tried to incite whites to flee. In 1957, the Ludlow Community Association formed with the explicit goal of maintaining the viability of a community open to all races and religions, and a funding initiative offered mortgage assistance to families. Meckler focuses each chapter on an individual--student, parent, school board member, administrator, teacher--whose experiences elucidate how the schools evolved to meet myriad challenges. One strategy with mixed consequences was busing students into and out of Black and white neighborhood schools. Still, the achievement gap persisted, raising concerns: "What happens," for example, "when some kids can stay after school and play on the playground, fostering friendships while their parents trade gossip and news about the school--and others can't?" Meckler applauds the community's values while honestly revealing its pressures and problems. A detailed, incisive portrait of a community's shared quest. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.