A couple of years ago, I was a part of a two day racism emersion experience. During the experience, there was discussion of "systemic racism." It was a term I had heard, but really did not understand. As I reflected on that experience and the conversation on systemic racism, I began to realize that it was happening in many of our public school systems in the United States.  There are a number of excellent private schools in most metropolitan areas in the United States. Many people sacrifice significantly to allow their children to attend one of these fine institutions. As people with resources choose to remove their children, and their resources from the public school system, it continues to deteriorate. Those who remain are the children whose parents do not have the means to make that same choice. Many of these families are people of color.

                Albert Hirschman addresses this in his book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. He describes just this phenomenon when he says "if those who have the greatest influence on quality of output are also, as is likely, more quality-conscious than the rest of the members, any slight deterioration in quality may set off their exit, which in turn will lead to further deterioration, which will lead to further exits, and so on." (100) Parents move their children to private schools which then no longer have the benefit of their child's knowledge and leadership and deprives the school of the extra resources that dedicated parents invest for their children. The educational possibilities deteriorate which causes other children to exit, which causes further deterioration and further defections...you get the idea.

                Hirschman suggests that loyalty can change this. If parents realize the effects of their decision on other children, their community, and the general welfare, they may decide to remain in the public school system and work to improve it with their presence and resources.(101) Our family lived in such a community. There were very few private schools, the majority of students attended public schools. Parental support and resourcing, parental involvement and the involvement of top students in the overall educational process made both of these schools "Blue Ribbon" schools - a high achievement in the United States. All children in that community had the opportunity to experience excellent educational  settings because people were loyal to the schools, kept their children there, voiced their concerns in ways that enhanced the quality of their child's (and all children's) education.