Making Westborough reflect the community

I have often wondered, how does a person or an organization or a community make equitable representation, particularly for people of color, matter for white people. I think I have an answer.

Following the numbers released regarding the glaring discrepancies between the percentage of people of color in communities and their lack of representation on police forces, I am hoping people are not surprised by the fact that whites tend to overpopulate state, city and town salary rosters, particularly in the higher salary positions and especially in communities with significant populations of color.

So, what does this mean for Westborough? Currently, the district serves a population of roughly 25% Asian & Pacific Islander students (23.8), 66% white (66.2) and 10% of other communities of color (5% Latino, 1.8% African American and 3.1% mixed race). Please note, these are numbers for 2013-14; numbers for the current year won’t be available until the school year is nearly completed. As Westborough, and that nation, increases in diversity, it is reasonable to expect these numbers to be higher for the proportion of students of color and lower for those who self-identify as white. However, the Asian representation of teachers/administrators in the district is .547% (2.6 Asian/PI staff divided by the 475.2 total staff, of whom a whopping 85.25% are female--405.1 divided by 475.2). Not surprising how hard it is for a dad of color to muster the courage to walk into any of the schools. As I noted before, not surprising given a lack of adequate representation, not just in schools in Westborough but in the Police Department, Fire Department and DPW.

The question is, how to make the all white school committee and town selectmen care. If you ask them, or the leaders of either party’s town committee, they either downplay any need for affirmative action (I am for a Westborough that does not change--as one official told me and one party’s leader laughed at the thought that the state wanted an affirmative action position on her town committee and she does all she can to ignore or sideline the idea). The question is, how to make these white rulers (white new School Superintendent--not surprising that the white school committee neglected to attract a single candidate of color; white Police Chief--who, let’s be honest, is hardly in shape to serve as a police officer role model, and white Fire Department Superintendent, plus the elected school committee and town selectmen), how to make them care about equity in representation? It is clear there is fear of religion in schools, as the Superintendent recently ordered nothing that might be considered religious in any school celebration--oh, wait, except for the TWO Jewish holidays (given the relative to Asian low numbers of Jewish students, this is surprising).

Everyone in Westborough who owns property is sadly aware of the steadily increases in property taxes. These property taxes are used mainly to fund salaried positions (primarily in the nearly all white female school staff, but also in the other departments mentioned) and to fund their retirements and health care benefits. In other words, the revenue from property tax disproportionately funds white salaries, and disproportionately funds higher salaries for whites than for the minuscule number of persons of color on the town’s payroll. Thus, I have a suggestion which would likely make this a much more urgent issue for whites, and in particular white voters, than it is now. This is simply, ask property owners to pay their taxes using a multiple representing their over (or under) representation in town salaries. I am using the school district numbers as they are reported annually by law (though even then they fudge the numbers as several central office administrators are not listed as such but instead as school administrators which is justified by putting an office with their name on it in a school, even if they are never there). If you’d like to see the numbers for Westborough Schools (again, for 2013-14) simply go to http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/profiles/ then look up public districts, then Westborough, then click on students, then on teachers and “staffing data by race, ethnicity and gender.” It is all there and not looking likely to change, especially as Superintendent Block seems determined to keep ‘things from changing’ by blocking any Asian holiday, even as a celebration, and highlighting Jewish holidays. She also oversaw several hires this year and, surprise, surprise, they were all (nearly all) white, like her, and female, like her.

Thus, to make this a matter of urgency for white property tax payers, simply create a multiple relative to representation in salaried positions (to be fair it should be in proportion of total salaries paid as whites are paid more on average, but I’ll keep this simple). Using the school district as an example, 66.2% of the students are white and 99% of paid teacher/administrator positions are white. Thus, whites are overrepresented in the school district by a factor of 1.4954, or 1.5 to make it simple. Based on my proposal then, white property owners in Westborough should be required to pay their current taxes times a factor of 1.5, or with a 50% increase over what they now pay. For those who are underrepresented, Asians for example, the multiple would be 23.8 for the percentage of students who are Asian/PI divided by 2.6, which is the percentage of teachers/administrators who are. For Asian property owners in Westborough then, based on my proposal, their current property tax would be multiplied by 10.9 (which is 2.6 divided by 23.8), meaning their tax bill would DROP by 89%. Suddenly, I foresee that white property owners would be clamoring for a better representation of each demographic in positions funded through town property taxes.

I know, how radical, white people would suddenly be scoring those networks for people of color--a beautiful thing.