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THOMAS C. TOBINFederal officials say Pinellas' school plan does not conflict with the No Child Left Behind Act.
Federal officials have decided the Pinellas school choice plan can stand, averting what could have been a messy collision of two public education policies.
The U.S. government, which wants to give students the ability to flee failing public schools under its No Child Left Behind Act, has agreed that the choice plan achieves that goal.
The Pinellas plan gives students "a wide array" of options if they want to switch schools, the government said in recent conversations with Florida Department of Education Officials.
Government officials soon will put that in writing, Jim Warford, chancellor of the state's K-12 schools, told Pinellas officials in a letter made public Tuesday.
Warford and Gov. Jeb Bush brokered the action, speaking to federal officials on behalf of Pinellas. The change avoids a showdown in Tampa federal court, where the Pinellas School Board filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday to decide whether it should comply with the choice plan he approved in 2000 or the No Child Left Behind Act signed by President Bush in 2002.
The two mandates were headed for a public policy train wreck.
Here's how:
The choice plan relies on a system that caps the enrollment of black students in schools at 42 percent, sets capacities for each school and establishes waiting lists to get into schools that fill up.
The system is supposed to get black and white families in Pinellas accustomed to trying schools outside their neighborhoods so they will integrate voluntarily after the race ratios expire in 2007. The plan was negotiated as a way to phase out busing.
Pinellas officials said the rules for No Child would create chaos in the choice plan because of its liberal transfer provisions. Under No Child, students at schools that receive federal Title I money have the right to transfer if their school fails to show sufficient learning gains among students of different races, incomes and ability levels. Race ratios and waiting lists do not matter.
Last year, more than 80 percent of Florida schools failed to meet No Child's standards.
If Pinellas had been forced to follow No Child to the letter, district officials predicted that several schools would have quickly reverted to predominantly black enrollments for the first time since 1970, the year before busing began.
They also were concerned that federal transfer students could step into magnet or fundamental schools, ahead of families that had won the right to get on waiting lists for those schools.
Officials estimate that 1,647 students at 44 Title I schools in Pinellas will elect to transfer under the No Child Left Behind Act, though it could be significantly more. Under the choice plan, only 949 seats would be available, the district says.
The federal government's decision to give ground does not eliminate the right to transfer. A student still will be allowed to do so, but under the rules of choice.