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A Times Editorial
With the difficulty of maintaining proper ratios at some south Pinellas schools, the choice plan could end up being one of resegregation.
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 3, 2003
After maintaining racially diverse schools for more than three decades, Pinellas County has promised that a new choice student assignment plan will do the same this fall. But the numbers the computers have spit out so far suggest that goal won't be easy, and the administration's sleight of hand doesn't help.
The choice plan is designed to let parents decide which schools their children attend, but it could ultimately lead to resegregation of some schools. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which accepted the plan as part of the settlement of the 1971 federal court order governing school desegregation, understands that possibility. That's why Defense Fund attorney Enrique Escarraz asked for a reasonable concession: Maintain racial ratios for the first four years, so that no school would be more than 42 percent African-American.
The ratio requirement was made more difficult by the construction of three new schools in predominantly black neighborhoods in southern St. Petersburg. After sorting through the choice applications, the district reported last week that only 145 white students picked James Sanderlin and Douglas Jamerson elementary schools and 145 chose Thurgood Marshall Middle School. That leaves the school system with a tall order: It will have to assign hundreds of white students who did not choose the schools and then win them over so they will stay; then it must hope future white students will follow in their footsteps.
The three new schools are only part of the dilemma, though. The district is facing difficulty maintaining proper racial ratios at a number of south-county schools and challenges in filling a variety of other schools that few students chose. One of its tactical responses has been to artificially shrink capacities at schools that relatively few students are requesting. That has the effect of making choice appear more politically popular but violates the board's own choice plan and its agreement with Escarraz.
The plan says that "capacity should be assigned before . . . students and parents are allowed to choose a school." Yet the capacity numbers have changed so frequently that unitary status director Jim Madden advises people to ignore the ones posted on the district's Web site and the ones formally presented to the School Board in October -- prior to the application deadline. Madden acknowledges he and other administrators changed capacity numbers as recently as two weeks ago -- after they learned which schools were chosen the most and which the least.
Those tactics generally put black students at a further disadvantage, because capacities were increased at some schools chosen by high numbers of white students and decreased at some schools that few white students have chosen. In St. Petersburg, the three new schools might open with some empty classrooms, sparking criticism of the district's methods and renewed debate about the value of integration. Darryl Rouson, St. Petersburg NAACP president, says some black parents are saying: "I'm not so mad if resegregation occurs -- if there could be an absolute guarantee of equality of money and materials."
Such talk is premature, at best. The court settlement requires ratios, and Escarraz still insists on them.
"I feel very strongly that if you give up on the concept of integration, black kids will suffer," Escarraz said Thursday. "There have been periods in our history when there has been progress in race relations, but then there is always backsliding. If we abandon integration, it's not like we can have 'separate but equal.' It has to be one America, black and white."
Little about this transition to choice will be easy, and there will still be children who will be bused to schools they didn't choose. The challenge for the district is to treat black and white students fairly, to help the community understand the value of racial diversity, and to be willing to adapt to change.