Gotta love this from today's O about the school district limiting high school transfers:
" 'What are we going to do?' [Director of Secondary Education Steve] Olczak said. 'Where are we going to put these kids?' "
Where indeed?
As I wrote just yesterday, there are only so many "good" schools available to high school students in Portland --"good" meaning mainly white and solidly middle class, and with good test scores, which are demographically driven and therefore virtually synonymous with white and middle class.
It's clear, at least to me, that Portland's transfer policy encourages parents to pull their students from lower class schools. The end result of such a disastrous and short-sighted practice is evident in the vast enrollment discrepancies between the four poorest district high schools --Marshall, Madison, Roosevelt, and Jefferson-- and the other six. Jefferson, the district's smallest high school, now has 1000 students fewer than Grant, the district's largest.
What's disturbing is that the district is only now awakening to the existence of a self-created educational "apartheid" in Portland, a condition that Steve Olczak calls two separate (and unequal) systems:
" 'We can't continue to run two school systems, ... . We're trying to get balance because there is a problem at both ends. Both sides are losing.' "
Both sides --the haves and the have-nots-- are indeed losing. The desirable schools grow too large, with class sizes pushing thirty and above, while the poorer, less desirable schools become smaller, and even poorer:
"Because students who aren't in poverty and white students are more likely to apply for transfers, the moves tend to concentrate poverty and ethnic minorities at the smaller schools."
The ultimate irony of the district policy, especially in combination with the mandates of No Child Left Behind, is the apparent failure of school choice to raise student "achievement", one of its putative goals. I said that yesterday, and district data confirms it, according to the Oregonian article. In fact, transferring to a "better performing school" may have the opposite effect:
"District analysis of standardized test scores also indicates that students who transfer from the smaller to larger schools might make slightly less progress on standardized tests than those who remain at their neighborhood schools."
In testimony at school board meetings, I've reminded the board that it has both the authority and the obligation to reconsider the district's school choice and open enrollment policies. Now may be a good time to start.
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