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District will take a look at funding for magnet programs
Debate heating up over SJUSD's policy on desegregation
By Kate Carter
An ongoing discussion of desegregation policy at San Jose Unified schools continues to intensify as the district gears up to begin an evaluation of the program.
Speakers who packed a Dec. 14 meeting were eager to give input on how the district spends the desegregation money it gets from the state.
The district is subject to the terms of a 1984 desegregation order that calls for district schools to be desegregated by giving students a choice of schools.
Schools in neighborhoods with large white or Hispanic student populations were provided with expensive magnet programs, in an effort to attract students from other areas of the district and proportionately balance the schools' ethnic mixes. The state gives the district $30 million each year to implement the court order.
Proponents of the district's current policy say the magnet programs are needed to achieve desegregation through choice. They point to the success of Lincoln High School's arts program and San Jose High Academy's International Baccalaureate program.
They also stress the importance of school choice as a benefit of desegregation that should not be taken away.
But critics say the district's policy creates disadvantages for students at schools without those magnet programs, such as Willow Glen High School and Willow Glen Middle School. Those schools were considered "naturally desegregated" at the time of the 1984 court order, with large populations of both white and Hispanic students, and did not qualify for magnet programs.
The critics of the district's policy have been more outspoken in recent months, charging that SJUSD is not putting its money where the real academic needs are: schools such as Willow Glen High School and Willow Glen Middle School.
Those campuses have large Hispanic student populations that don't always measure up on standardized tests, those critics say.
But others say concerns like that are rooted in racism when they equate "Hispanic" with "underperforming."
Over a dozen parents, students, teachers and other community members addressed the board on Dec. 14, about the allocation of the district's desegregation funds.
Most of the more than a dozen speakers were parents of students at Lincoln High and San Jose High Academy schools. They expressed concern that funds for the successful magnet programs at those campuses would be reduced.
Only a handful of community members at the meeting said they were dissatisfied with the allocation of the funds. Those who did said that WGHS and WGMS should get a bigger cut of the desegregation funds.
Last spring, the district started planning for a two -year evaluation of desegregation in its schools. At the Dec. 14 meeting the board approved a contract with an outside evaluator, JH Grate Associates, to begin the evaluation this month.
The parents who spoke in favor of retaining the current level of funding for Lincoln's program and San Jose's programs referred to the success of those magnet programs. They also said that the opportunity of parents to choose their children's schools was too valuable to remove.
"Parents want a choice, parents need a choice," said Jim Evers, president of the Lincoln High School Foundation. "I ask the board tonight to protect our successful programs and to work to build other successful programs throughout the system, but not at the expense of the successful ones."
Kathy Stark, a board member of the Willow Glen Middle and High School Foundation, said that she didn't want huge programs at those schools. Rather, she said, the money should fund additional arts or college prep classes.
She said students at Willow Glen High have a hard time getting the resources they need to prepare for college. "Willow Glen has become, in effect, a safety-net magnet school, and it is attracting students accordingly," she said. "No one wants to dismantle any programs anywhere. However, we want a piece of the action, too."
Stark also said her concerns were not with the district's desegregation policy, but with how it uses the desegregation funding.
Lincoln High Principal Oreen Gernreich and Willow Glen High Principal Pat Day gave the board a statement in support of the district's desegregation policies. They welcomed the evaluation and said they would support reapportioning the funding, if it was needed.
Area 3 Trustee Carol Myers, who represents Willow Glen, said she welcomed the evaluation and said that the community needed to see a full disclosure of how the state desegregation funds are being spent in each of the district's schools.
"Myself and other community members, who have unfortunately been maligned by some people, are advocating for the very Hispanic children that are residents of our community," she said. "We intend to keep advocating for them, because they need to have the very, very best programs."
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
