Will choice segregate schools?

Even NAACP leaders debate whether the Pinellas program is wrong if separate, equal schools are the result.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 27, 2003

ST. PETERSBURG -- The consequences of Pinellas' new school choice plan in the city's predominantly black neighborhoods are reviving a decades-old debate over the value of integrated schools.

While nine of 10 students who participated in choice will attend one of their top two picks this fall, large numbers of black students will be shut out of gleaming new schools in their neighborhoods. They will be bused to other areas of south Pinellas to comply with racial ratios, leaving empty classrooms closer to home.

That revelation has inspired a blunt reassessment of whether the high-minded goal of diversity in schools is worth the sacrifice it often requires of black students.

On the table among board members at the St. Petersburg NAACP is the idea that it may be time to end the mind-numbing struggle for racial balance in Pinellas schools, to accept the societal forces that separate the races and to concentrate on ensuring fairness by giving black schools and white schools equal access to money.

The competing argument in favor of diverse schools is strong as well. But talk of abandoning the struggle for diversity is a startling development for an organization with a legacy of fighting for court-ordered integration. In other cities, NAACP members have been ousted for even suggesting such an idea.

Nevertheless, it has begun to take hold in Pinellas as advocates for black students get their first look at the computer-generated numbers that will dictate where students go to school in August when the choice plan begins.

Darryl Rouson, president of the St. Petersburg NAACP, said Wednesday that some black parents have been calling members of the organization's Executive Committee, saying, in his words, "I'm not so mad if resegregation occurs -- if there could be an absolute guarantee of equality of money and materials." Some members of the committee are considering that position themselves, he said.

"Some of the Executive Committee members have called and indicated that we probably need to step up and get involved in some of this," Rouson said. "I can tell you it's going to be a hot topic."

Rouson, like the organization he heads, is conflicted.

On one hand, he grew up going to Catholic schools with white kids. He attended law school at the University of Florida and found that competing against his white classmates "gave me confidence."

Beyond that is the "beauty" of a school filled with kids of different races. "There's a richness in diversity," he said.

Yet he has talked to people who remember when Gibbs High School was all black. In that environment "there was so much unity and love and esteem-building," he said. "Gibbs for them was a confidence-building experience."

He admitted that his first reaction to the new choice numbers was to want to drop the diversity push, "to say let those black kids fill those seats."

Other advocates outside the NAACP ascribe to that view, including Jim Barrens, a onetime member of an advisory committee on the choice plan.

"We all know where this is headed. . . . We're moving inexorably in that direction, and we need to be honest with ourselves," said Barrens, who is white. The school system, he said, should be planning now for the day when it will allocate money between two sets of schools: one mostly white, the other mostly black.

The district contends that "attractor" schools in black neighborhoods will bring in white students in a couple of years, allowing more black students to stay closer to home. But that's unrealistic, Barrens said.

"If we go down that path, we're taking a pie-in-the-sky approach," he said. "The black kids are going to get left behind again."

Barrens left the choice committee over differences about its direction. There was always a "rumbling under the table" about how some black students might bear the burden of meeting racial ratios, though no statistics, he said. "But we're all adults here," Barrens added. "What we're finding out is that we knew the answer all along."

Opposing that view are people like Gulfport businessman Poul Hornsleth, a 29-year veteran of the NAACP's Executive Committee and one of the handful of whites on the panel.

Ending the quest for diversity in schools would be an "unacceptable" step backward, defying the realities of a racially mixed world, he said.

A return to segregation, he said, "would just make the road to success that much more difficult for the average student of color."

What's needed to rescue the choice plan is a "more spirited" effort by school officials to tell white parents about new schools in black neighborhoods that offer attractive programs, he said. "Now they're playing catchup."

He added: "I think a lot of (white) people didn't even look at the opportunity there because of imagined fears."

In the past, the NAACP's Executive Committee, a body of about 20 people, has been unanimous in favor of court-ordered integration, Hornsleth said. More recently, some members have supported the notion of "separate but really equal" schools. The idea is expected to be on the agenda when the board meets Tuesday.

"It's easy to give in that way," Hornsleth said. "But I hope the fight for diversity wins the day."

-- Times staff writer Stephen Hegarty contributed to this report. Thomas C. Tobin can be reached at 727-893-8923 or at tobin@sptimes.com.

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