True choice would be picking a focus or interest that you feel is important for your student. It isn't a choice when it means choosing between a basic education or a magnet school, when the magnet school offers a longer day or enrichment programs that are no longer available at most campuses. That form of school choice forces schools to recruit against each other for students, without equal funding—and that is patently wrong.

When one campus can offer more programs or periods than another, it is at a distinct advantage. That it can do so under the guise of magnet program without actually becoming desegregated is a huge flaw that the district needs to address and should not ignore.

The original desegregation litigation was meant to narrow the academic performance gap between poorer students in the downtown schools versus wealthy students in outlying areas. Magnet programs were the original means to provide this end result.

Willow Glen schools were already racially more balanced than most of the district due to our central location, which meant magnet schools were not part of our landscape. So not only did we not get extra funding, the district also took away our music and art programs. In order to concentrate those offerings in the magnet schools. Sadly, lost a lot of our neighborhood families in the process.

We have fought hard to recreate these essential programs with tremendous success, and we've done it without magnet labels or funding. We have also seen a huge increase in local families coming back to our neighborhood schools. We have been successful because of the many neighborhood families that have remained committed to the concept of community and neighborhood schools.

However, when a magnet fails to reflect the racial and socioeconomic realities of the district, it has failed in it's mission and has used funds for its students that were clearly intended for others. This has gone on for far too long and needs to be addressed.

If the district truly wants to meet the needs of the lower achieving students, extra desegregation/magnet money needs to directly follow them to the schools they attend, not only to magnet programs that aren't entirely achieving their stated goals. Each school needs to start with equal funding based on student numbers. But extra funding must be directly tied to the specific programs that address the educational needs of the students that the original desegregation plan was intended to help. If a school draws those students to it by providing them programming specific to their needs and interests, then the additional funding should follow.

While we could have chosen magnets for our children, we felt it was more important to give them a sense of community and keep our support with our neighborhood schools.

It is a tragedy that the district's funding disparities have created a situation where all our schools and their families are pitted against each other. As residents of Willow Glen, we should all be interested in keeping our neighborhood schools at levels that are among the best, even if only to benefit our local property values. This isn't about wanting one school to remain open while another one gets the pink slip. This is about the district being honest with the families that it serves.

We need to work together to demand that the district creates fair solutions that supports all of our students and schools.

Teri(Ravel) Kane is a Willow Glen native, who graduated from Willow Glen High School in 1975. Her children are third generation Willow Glen High School students and graduates. Her mother, Sally (Levy) Ravel was in the first Willow Glen High School graduating class. Kane's grandfather owned Bloom's Shoe Store, which was located on Lincoln Avenue and in downtown San Jose on First Street until the late 1960s.