U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Using Race as a Factor for School Assignment (edit this)
We have to choose hope and we have to work together to make hope a reality. Ted Shaw, Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
On its last day of its judical calendar, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Jefferson County Public School District in Louisville, KY and Seattle Public School District #1 on using race for school assignment.
Both school districts had used race as a criteria for school assignment in order to ensure that their schools were diverse and resources were equally divided among all students. The cases were Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (05-908) and Meredith v. Jefferson County School Board (05-915).
Fifty-three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional in Brown vs. the Board of Education, the most conservative members of the Supreme Court (led by Bush-appointed Chief Supreme Court Justice Roberts) stated that the constitution was “color-blind” and struck down the use of race in school selection.
Surprising, Justice Anthony Kennedy Kennedy who voted with the majority, issued his own opinion, saying racial diversity in public schools is a legitimate goal, but that it generally must be pursued by such measures as designing attendance zones or locating new schools to minimize racial isolation rather than assigning individual students on the basis of their race.
Most advocates took comfort in the minority opinion, led by Justice Stephen Breyer, a Lowell High School alumni. (His father who was the first legal counsel for a school district in California, would have been proud. Irving Breyer was the legal counsel for years for SFUSD.)
The Chronicle reported that Breyer said, “The last half-century has witnessed great strides toward racial equality, but we have not yet realized the promise of Brown. To invalidate the plans under review is to threaten the promise of Brown. The (Roberts) position, I fear, would break that promise. This is a decision that the court and the nation will come to regret.'’
At the last regular board meeting, SF Board of Education President Mark Sanchez noted that the District was eagerly waiting for the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Jefferson County and Seattle lawsuits to try and reduce segregation with SFUSD.
SFUSD had used race as part of its student assignment process for schools with waiting lists from 1983 to 1999. During that time period, SFUSD also had a cap that the maximum percentage of students for any racial/ethnic group-45% for non-alternative schools (i.e. neighborhood schools with attendance areas) and 40% for alternative schools.
A group of parents sued the district under Ho vs. SFUSD. The court ruled that the district could not use race as a factor for school selection, but they appointed a lawyer to monitor the desegregation efforts of the District.
In his last report of December 2006, the Consent Decree monitor noted that the District’s schools had become more segregated over the time period and more troubling, SFUSD’s schools had become more segregated within the schools themselves-such as special education and advanced placement classes.
Currently, SFUSD uses the following five factors in school enrollment:
These are the five factors:
• Extreme Poverty: Does the student live in public housing? Is the student a foster youth? Does the family participate in a homeless program?
• Socioeconomic Status: Does the student participate in any of the following programs: free/reduced lunch, CalWORKS, and/or public housing?
• Home Language: This is determined by the answers to the Home Language Survey on the application form.
• Academic Performance Rank of Sending School
• Academic Achievement Status of the incoming kindegartener’s preschool and the grades of students entering at 2-12th grade.
In the fall of 2007, SFUSD released a report on the district’ school assignment process. In the report, SFUSD staff noted that:
1. Under the current school assignment system, both the number of schools with high concentrations of a single racial/ethnic group and the magnitude of such concentrations have increased since 1999 (the first year of the settlement agreement with the Ho versus SFUSD decision that eliminated race from student assignment).
2. The applicant pools are not racially/ethnically diverse. Approximately 44% (43 schools out of 97) of the applicant pools had more than 45% of one racial/ethnic group.
3. The most requested schools by ethnic groups vary. The number #1 most requested elementary school for African American families is Dr. Charles Drew Elementary School, 50 Pomona (Bayview). The number #1 most requested elemenary school for Chinese American families is Lawton Elementary School (Sunset). The #1 most requested elementary school for Latino families is Buena Vista Elementary School. The #1 most requested elementary #1 school for “Other White” is Claire Lilienthal in Laurel Heights/Inner Richmond. (The District did not provide a definition for “Other White.”)
4. After Round 1, 53% (51 schools) were receiving new student populations that were more than 45% of one ethnic group. 17% (16 schools) received students that represent more than 60% of one racial/ethnic group. In other words, resegregation is happening with the current school selection process.
5. The schools with the highest number of requests usually are filled at Round 1 (deadline-January 16, 2007). At the kindergarten level, 50% (250) of the African American students that are attending school the next school year do not submit application on time for Round 1, compared to 5% (59) of Chinese American students and 15% (69) of Other White students. So African American families are less likely to get into the most popular schools-because they are not participating in the enrollment round where they would have the best chance of getting to a highly requested school.
6. Less than 30% of the applicants are requesting their attendance area school as their first choice. In other words, families are not choosing their neighborhood school.
7. 29 SFUSD schools do not have attendance areas. Due to a number of attendance schools closing, an increasing number of applicants do not have an attendance area school.
While it is extremely discouraging to have the U.S. Supreme Court rule against Jefferson County and Seattle, Ted Shaw is right. You have to have hope and work to make it a reality.
June 29th, 2007 at 6:52 am e
Re applicants without an attendance area school: I think this applies entirely to high schools. My home address doesn’t have an attendance-area high school, for example, because we were in the area for a school that’s now closed. When you don’t have an attendance area, your first-choice school become designated your attendance-area school: Thus, if we listed Balboa as first choice, we would get the same preference boost for it as we would if it were our attendance-area schoo.
June 29th, 2007 at 9:29 am e
It’s a sad day in America when the country’s highest court turns a blind eye to ethnicity. Ethnicity is a major factor in all areas of American life. Pretending that it isn’t doesn’t serve anybody.
I hope the district will set up some kind of program to educate minority parents about the many options they have for sending their kids to SF public schools. For the cost of keeping one lawyer on staff, you could set up an outreach program for minority parents. It would help them understand the system and point their kids to good schools.
June 29th, 2007 at 12:31 pm e
There are various, longstanding efforts. SFUSD and Parents for Public Schools regularly run free informational workshops in all neighborhoods, definitely including the Bayview and Mission, on public-school options. PPS also has a grant funding additional extensive outreach to the Latino community, and they’ve run some well-attended events.
June 29th, 2007 at 8:57 pm e
guys, please!
read that rocket science oriented enrollment process again. the supreme court just did us a favor. lets start focusing on the kids for once and not the enrollment. how about that?
i’m quite happy to hear our new superintendent mention in the chronicle today that 50% of a class will be reserved for neighboring kids. its a great start.
the sad reality from above, only 30% of san francisco has a school that people next door to it want to attend. you missed that in your never ending attempt to justify the ass backward choices program.
we need to strive for every parent and child wanting to attend the school they live next door to, nothing less.
June 30th, 2007 at 8:18 am e
In my post on Nov. 29, I noted that the Education Placement Center announced that less than 30% of the applicants are requesting their attendance area school as their first choice. In other words, families are not choosing their neighborhood school.
Approximately 21% of the schools had more first choice requests than seats available. Approximately 19% of the schools have fewer total requests than seats available.
In other words, the majority of “neighborhood schools” are enough seats and more than 60% of the applicants are choosing schools that are not in their neighborhood-but ones near work, Grandma’s house or the babysitter’s house. But the crunch comes from schools like Lincoln High School where suddenly on paper, the Sunset District gets a flood of new 9th graders each and every year.
As Caroline noted, 29 SFUSD schools do not have attendance areas. Due to a number of attendance schools closing, an increasing number of applicants do not have an attendance area school.
So the new Superintendent might want to actually look at the numbers that the Education Placement Center has and revise his statement to reflect what parents want-more access to the most popular (29%) schools that are in their neighborhood, but get filled in Round 1 of the enrollment process.
June 30th, 2007 at 8:57 am e
i’m ok with everyone requesting the most popular schools but you have to let some of those folks that live next door get a crack at them too. sounds like we finally have some common sense on the boe in the new superintendent and he’s going to do just that, letting 50% of those seats go to the neighbors.
the rest of us in fringe areas or in non-attendance areas will just have to figure out how to help make some other schools more popular.
why do we have so many non-attendance area’s? is it time to revisit the locations of our schools?
June 30th, 2007 at 5:23 pm e
There are two separate issues here: addresses with no attendance-area school (such as my home address for high school); and schools with no designated attendance area.
It really works fine for us to have no designated attendance-area high school, because whatever high school we list, we get the same preference as if it were our designated attendance-area school.
Re the schools with no designated attendance area: Those are mostly alternative schools. They began in the late ’70s for a few reasons — to give families options, as experiments in voluntary desegregation, and (at the time) to offer schools with a specific focus or specialty. Some of the schools lost their specialty after Prop. 13, but continued for the other reasons. Some are very popular schools that are hard to get into (Rooftop, Clarendon, Claire Lilienthal), but not all. Lowell and SOTA also have no attendance area.
Re this point: … 50% of a class will be reserved for neighboring kids. its a great start. …
The ideal number has been debated for years, and I’m not sure what it is now, but in fact my understanding is that all the popular schools (such as Lincoln and Washington) are FAR over 50% attendance-area kids now. So even if there’s no set percentage set aside now, that addition to the process would make no difference.
As Kim noted, this is really not true:
… the sad reality from above, only 30% of san francisco has a school that people next door to it want to attend. …
In neighborhoods that are pockets of poverty, the schools tend to face serious challenges. But if 81% of SFUSD schools have more total requests than seats available, obviously most schools are getting applications.
July 1st, 2007 at 6:55 am e
Kim, thanks for making this important point:
“more than 60% of the applicants are choosing schools that are not in their neighborhood-but ones near work, Grandma’s house or the babysitter’s house”.
There are lots of reasons why a parent might prefer a school in another part of town, regardless of how “good” the school across the street from their home might be. A parent might, for example, want a specialty program like language immersion which is not available at the “good” school close to home. Or, a working parent who also wants to be able to volunteer regularly at their child’s school might prefer the school closest to their workplace. There might be a better afterschool daycare at a school farther from home or, as Kim has stated, a school closer to the child’s babysitter or grandparents might be a parent’s preferred option.
Obviously the ideal is for everyone to feel that the school closest to home is a “great” school, but even if that were true, there are still schools which will fill up before everyone in the neighborhood is accomodated. Back when my kids started school in 1991, you just walked into your neighborhood school with your two proofs of address and signed up. However, I was advised to get there on the first day, because those in the neighborhood who waited until the second day would find that the Kindergarten classes were already full. So even under an assignment system which was pretty much just “first come first served”, there were still people who couldn’t get into the school closest to their home.
July 1st, 2007 at 9:33 am e
great points kim and nest. i wonder how many of those folks showing up with documentation saying they lived in that neighborhood were being honest.