Posted on 02/05/2004 7:06:55 AM PST by chance33_98
Berkeley Schools Redraw Plan for Integration
Following more than two hours of lengthy debate last night, the Berkeley Board of Education finally decided to adopt a new plan to integrate Berkeley schools that plays down the importance of race in favor of parental income and education levels.
The plan passed three to one, with one absention, despite some board members’ concerns that it left the district vulnerable to lawsuits from those who believe the new plan is in violation of Proposition 209.
The current plan assigns students to schools based solely on which racial category the students fall into: black, white or other.
The new plan will assign students based not directly on their race, but on a pre-drawn map of Berkeley that divides the city into three types of profiles.
The more affluent areas, where the students—mostly white—have parents with higher incomes and education levels, are assigned the orange profile. The poorer areas, populated by mostly black and Latino families with lower income and education levels, are colored in blue. Purple areas contain residents in between the two other profiles.
The students would then be placed into schools according to the proportions of the map.
But although most school board members agreed on the concept of a “much more expansive view of diversity,” the proposal vote was held up by whether the schools should continue to take race into account at all.
By using race as a factor in placing students, the district is leaving itself open to lawsuits from those who believe it is breaking state law, according to board member Shirley Issel.
In the current legal climate, a student assignment plan that factors in race could lead to a “complex, costly and unnecessary legal battle,” Issel said.
Back in August, the Pacific Legal Foundation sued the district on behalf of a Berkeley school parent who alleged that the district’s current assignment plan violated Proposition 209, which bans discrimination or preference on the basis of race, sex or ethnicity in any state organization.
Board members said the new plan, which reduces the weight of race in the student placement process, was not drafted in response to the lawsuit that parent Lorenzo Avila and his two children filed.
“(It is) to make us a more inclusive school system,” said Berkeley Superintendent Michele Lawrence. But, she added, “race is important and race counts.”
About 25 people, including Berkeley parents, teachers, and members of UC Berkeley’s pro-affirmative action group BAMN, gathered outside council chambers before the start of the board meeting, clutching signs to protest the board’s impending vote on the new plan.
The protesters said the plan diluted the strength of Berkeley’s current desegregation plan by reducing the importance of race.
“What we’ve had for 40 years has been successful,” said Jeff Bruno, whose son attends Rosa Parks Elementary School. “Why is there a need to change it now?”
What else do we need to know?
How's that? You just love categorizing people? And making them do things?
Oh in that case, you're probably doing the right thing--or at least what you want to do. Sorry about the interruption. I was just wondering.
It was formerly named Columbus Elementary, and we just couldn't have that now could we?
Don't worry, in the same "city," Jefferson elementary is about to meet the same fate.
Stalin has nothin' on these people, except the Gulags, and that, I fear is next for us.
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