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School daze on ratios

The Pinellas Board fails to set direction as a critical race issue nears.

Maybe lawyers always get front-row seats when the subject is race and education, but Pinellas School Board members on Tuesday looked conveniently deferential in letting their attorney resolve a critical conflict of timing next year.

Board attorney James Robinson may be right that the agreement ending three decades of court-ordered desegregation prevents the district from keeping racial ratios for one extra year to provide an orderly transition. But the lack of sharp questioning by board members suggests they were looking less for legal guidance than for political cover.

The board faces a quandary next school year that was not envisioned when it approved the choice plan six years ago. The plan has generated unforeseen costs, political resistance and educational obstacles. As a result, the district is working toward a significant overhaul for the 2008-09 school year. The problem is that racial ratios were set to be eliminated in 2007-08.

If it does not extend the ratios for one additional year, that puts the district in the awkward position of offering two dramatic changes to student assignment in two consecutive years. Can that be educationally sound?

Robinson said that extending the ratios for one extra year - they've been in effect for 35 - would invite a legal challenge. But such challenges often accompany decisions related to integration. The test for policymakers is whether the challenge is likely to be sustained and whether the issue is worth fighting.

Board members who are eager to get rid of ratios next year can't easily dismiss the broader implications, either. Yes, institutional forces tend to keep school populations somewhat stable. But what might happen at a middle school next spring if the incoming sixth-grade class, which represents one-third of the enrollment, is mostly one race? Would existing students seek a choice elsewhere?

If the board deems that ratios would be unconstitutional next year, then what about the other uses of race in assignment? Robinson says the racially calibrated zones and the racially based "diversity preference" can be left in place. But wouldn't those similarly be subject to legal challenge?

The board also has set no direction for existing magnet schools, other than to continue to operate them. But those schools were created for the expressed purpose of fostering voluntary integration. The district, in its draft application for a new $7-million federal magnet grant, actually writes that "race may be considered as a variable" under certain circumstances. Would magnets, too, be subject to legal challenge?

Attorneys are paid to be cautious, and wise decisionmakers never discount what they say. In this arena, though, the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to establish clear boundaries on whether and how districts can employ race as a factor in student assignment. And it is hard to ignore that Mary Brown, the board's only African-American, argues in favor of keeping ratios one extra year and racial diversity as an overarching long-term goal.

Brown heard the same attorney speak, but she is not so paralyzed by the legal uncertainties. Why are her colleagues?

[Last modified September 27, 2006, 23:16:41]