An Education Point of View:
By Dr. Mary Elizabeth Beach
President Bush’s new education legislation, No Child Left Behind (NCLB),enables parents to move their child from a Title I school considered “underperforming” to a school not classified as underperforming. This is one of many sweeping changes to elementary and secondary public education under the legislation signed into law more than a year ago. The goal of NCLB is to provide parents an opportunity to be more involved in their child’s education, and to hold schools and districts accountable for the academic achievement of all students. Among families exercising the choice to move their children, districts must give priority to the lowest-achieving students from low-income families. But all children attending low performing schools must (subject to health and safety requirements of a particular building) be given an option to transfer.
Some critics say that offering parents the choice to move their children will upset current desegregation orders, like the one Springfield has operated under since 1974. Springfield could, in fact, face a serious dilemma as it implements this additional choice requirement. Currently, Springfield allows parents a school choice option each year, with the selection of students for various schools restricted to some degree by the desegregation plan ordered by the state Supreme Judicial Court in 1974. The desegregation order requires that the student body within each school must be within 10% of the racial and ethnic makeup of the district’s entire student body. (Currently, the student body is considered 29% Black, 48% Hispanic, 21% White, and 2% Asian.)
The choice provision under NCLB could interfere with the racial balance requirement. Thus a parent or student could, for example, request a transfer to a particular higher-performing school but face restricted options because that school already meets the racial balance in the desegregation plan and has no openings in a particular racial or ethnic category. If the intent of the legislation is to provide parents with options—and it is—many feel that restricting such options based on a desegregation plan constitutes a major conflict. The U.S. Secretary of Education, Rod Paige (who is the first African-American Secretary of Education), has clearly told all states that if a school district cannot meet the NCLB choice requirements within the parameters of a desegregation plan, the district must seek court approval for amendments to the plan that meet the intent of NCLB and allow a transfer option for eligible students.
Springfield will, in fact, be seeking an amendment to its current desegregation plan, but not solely to meet the requirements of NCLB. Over the 28 years since the state Supreme Judicial Court desegregation order was put in place, Springfield’s racial and ethnic makeup has changed significantly. The current plan divides city schools into six zones. A new plan might better serve the needs of students by dividing the city into three or four zones. Such a change would offer more flexibility for student assignments and ensure that the 25:1 student/teacher ratio could be met in the early elementary grades while still maintaining racial balance.
The process to amend the desegregation order requires a request to the Massachusetts State Board of Education to take a new proposal to the state Supreme Judicial Court on behalf of Springfield Public Schools, and changes would not be granted for at least one or two years. Until that time, the school district will implement the choice provisions of NCLB as fully as possible within the restrictions of the current desegregation plan.
Dr. Mary Elizabeth Beach is Special Assistant to the Superintendent of the Springfield Public Schools for Accountability and Program Evaluation. This is a first in a series of columns she will write about Presidents Bush’s No Child Left Behind education agenda. In future columns she will address the expectations for achievement for minority students, supplemental service opportunities for students who remain in underperforming schools, and the requirement that recruiters for the armed services be provided access to the names and addresses of all secondary school students.