BlogWood: MT Archives

Hillsborough schools achieve goal of resegregation

Predictably, Hillsborough County’s new school choice plan has resulted in a return to the days of separate but “equal” education, with poor and minority students being crammed into schools lacking such basics as bathrooms and books.

The number of Hillsborough schools with high concentrations of poor students nearly doubled this year, with some lacking basic supplies and facilities.

Washington K-8 and James K-8 schools started the school year without enough books, teachers and working toilets.

Students at two others, Oak Park Elementary and Franklin Middle, remain in portable classrooms for a second full year. There's limited computer access for Franklin students because their portables lack enough security.

Admittedly surprised by the spike, district officials rushed extra tutors to some of the schools in advance of this week's FCAT testing. They will begin special teacher training in the summer and plan a separate teacher recruiting day, where they will offer more money to experienced teachers.

Frustrated parents are taking note.

``As far as this school getting a fair shake, I don't see it happening,'' said Dwayne Ellis, Franklin's PTA president. His two daughters attend the school.

A year ago, a dozen Hillsborough public schools reported nearly 90 percent or more of their children qualified for free or reduced-price meals based on federal guidelines.

Now there are 23 such schools, a transition tied to a district plan to let some families choose their own schools.
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Hillsborough is following a nationwide pattern of resegregation as it enters its first year of school choice.

The choice plan, which went into effect in August, allows families of certain students to choose from schools in their assigned region as long as there is room. That includes families living in Tampa's generally impoverished inner core, where forced busing to the suburbs took place for decades to desegregate schools. It ended this year.

Few families from the inner core ended up choosing schools, so most were assigned to their neighborhood schools.

``This was a predictable outcome,'' said Sam Horton, president of the Hillsborough County branch of the NAACP and a retired educator. ``It was about this way in 1954. It's no different now.''

Yeah, this outcome was very predictable, especially considering that it was by design. The Tribune innocently reports that “The choice plan, which went into effect in August, allows families of certain students to choose...” without detailing which lucky students get to make a choice.

The only students required to make a choice are those who were previously bused to nice schools from their blighted inner city neighborhoods. Guess what: the poor and under-educated parents of those kids often failed to make a choice, and even when they jumped through all the right hoops, they were told “sorry, but the nice schools are all full...”

Estella Gallegos was turned down Tuesday when she asked that her 13-year-old daughter, Maria Hernandez, be allowed to return to Mann Middle School in Brandon in August. Children from her neighborhood have been bused there to desegregate schools in the suburbs. The choice plan is ending forced busing, but Maria wants to go back.

The mother and daughter were attending a hastily called meeting of parents from Tampa's urban core. The students are being assigned by the district to two schools in their neighborhood - James and Washington - that will re- open in August as kindergarten through eighth-grade schools to provide necessary space.

About 2,000 urban core families did not apply for the program and were assigned to mostly urban schools, the district said.

Gallegos, who speaks little English, said through her daughter that she never knew she could apply to have Maria return to the Brandon school or she would have.

Maria says, ``I don't mind the bus ride'' from her home near Ybor City.

Under choice, the district is divided into seven regions, and families eligible for choice were supposed to be able to choose from schools within their region. The district would provide transportation to some of those schools.

Families eligible for choice this year were those with children entering kindergarten, sixth and ninth grades and all those living in the county's urban core. About 45,000 students districtwide were eligible.

As of Tuesday's sparsely attended meeting, letters had not been sent to all the affected families notifying them of their assignments, district officials said. Families that attended were confused, and some did not like their options.

Left Feeling Deflated

Derwin and Loretha Bozeman applied for choice by the Jan. 9 deadline. They showed up with a worn notification card saying they got their first choice of Tampa's Wilson Middle School for their daughter, Bianqa, who has been attending Pierce Middle School. They then got a letter saying they failed to participate in choice and needed to come to Tuesday's meeting, they said.

``We were told we can go to either Booker T. Washington or back to Pierce,'' Derwin Bozeman said. ``We want Wilson. It's the only blue-ribbon school in the area, and we live closer to Wilson than Pierce.''

As of Friday, the family had made no decision. ``This is like a big evacuation of air from the balloon. We don't know what we're going to do.''

The Bozeman family is among a group of 1,500 families the district erroneously assigned to already-crowded schools. They were all supposed to be called, but the Bozemans said they never were.

As a result of overcrowding at the nice schools, 2 old schools were reopened: Washington K-8 and James K-8 schools, the same schools that lead today’s article because they lack basic necessities.

The school choice plan was designed from the beginning to be burdensome to those who were least likely to have the time or expertise to navigate its confusing rules. The game was rigged to bring back segregation, and that’s exactly where we are today.

In fact, back in February of last year, Hillsborough educators blamed a computer glitch for assigning poor kids to wealthy white schools, and decided to turn away many poor kids who had actually been assigned to the school of their choice.

Then they found ways to make room at those same schools for other kids whose parents were resourceful enough to call the right people at the school board and complain.

So, the bottom line is that poor and minority kids who were previously attending desirable schools were reassigned to schools like Washington and James and essentially written off as not deserving of books or teachers or bathrooms.

For background on this fiasco, see this detailed BlogWood post from June of 2004, which is just chock full of yummy links and tasty factoids, and which correctly foresaw the very mess in which we find ourselves today.

BlogWood: Norwood's Fair and Balanced Nattering: School choice separate but equal