DIVERSITY IN THE CLASSROOM (A Liberal sees the light!)

Harding Elementary School PTA President Meredith Brace has led a battle for several years to stop her white neighbors from transferring out of the heavily Latino Westside campus.

Now she's joining them, saying she's not willing to make her son the guinea pig any longer.

The Braces are like hundreds of other local families who, over the years, have sought transfers out of neighborhood schools that are filled with mostly poor Latino children.

"I'm gone," said Mrs. Brace, who on Tuesday requested and was granted a transfer for her first-grade son out of Harding and into the more affluent Hope School, within the nearby Hope Elementary District. "I've just got to the point where, 'Sorry guys, I need what's best for my kids and there's a school that's two miles away that offers all those things I want.' "

About 40 percent of the 462 students at Hope School are there on transfers from the Goleta or Santa Barbara elementary districts.

Some school officials and neighborhood families view Mrs. Brace's departure as a red flag. If someone who has advocated so fiercely against white flight won't stick it out, who will?

A liberal whose father is Superior Court Judge George Eskin and stepmother is former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, Mrs. Brace had been considered over the years as the Great White Hope for Harding.

"This is a major blow," said Santa Barbara school trustee Bob Noel. "Meredith was kind of like Supermom in terms of doing things for her school. . . . You can read racism into this, but I read more of an issue of social class. People don't want to look and see their kid is in a classroom where most of the students are underachievers and where friendship circle possibilities are very, very small because they don't speak the same language."

Harding is 90 percent Latino, 6 percent white. Hope is 73 percent white, 20 percent Latino. Hope families have raised enough money every year to keep on staff an array of specialists in art, music, computers and science -- all the "extras" Mrs. Brace wants for her son, who is 7, and her 4-year-old daughter.

As PTA president, Mrs. Brace said she has tried to start after-school enrichment programs in art and theater at Harding.

"We made it so affordable, $20 for a six- to eight-week session. We told everybody, 'Come on, do something extra for your kids.' We had so few people sign up, we had to eliminate a lot of the classes," she said. "I've met some very lovely people, but we have nothing in common. Every time my husband and I would go over for an event, my husband would feel like it was his first time. We haven't made any friends."

Harding parent Cristina Hernandez said she's seen the school's racial mix change, but that Mrs. Brace shouldn't give up.

"I've been here 14 years now, and all of a sudden we turned around and all the white parents had gone," she said, speaking in Spanish. "They don't want their children side by side with our children. (Mrs. Brace) shouldn't leave. She should stay and keep fighting."

It was about three years ago, before her son entered kindergarten, that Mrs. Brace started going door to door touting Harding's achievements, trying to convince her neighbors to join her in giving the school a try. She even took on the PTA president post before her son had entered kindergarten.

Once her son started, she remained PTA president, volunteered in the classroom, boosted fund-raising efforts, and continued to hold regular neighborhood meetings to make other white families feel comfortable with the campus. While she said she's not bilingual, she used the Spanish she picked up while living in Costa Rica and Mexico to try to connect with Latino parents.

Some of the white families she had convinced to enroll their kids at Harding later bailed out. She said her son has struggled to make friends.

"He hasn't been invited to a birthday party. There is absolutely no after-school interaction," she said. "For his birthday, he invited four of his classmates. Only one came."

Then she was miffed that her skills -- she's a credentialed librarian -- weren't capitalized on in her son's classroom.

Another Harding mother and friend of the Braces, Brenda McDonald, said she had independently decided to transfer her kindergartner out of the campus. Mrs. McDonald is also considering Hope School, or Washington Elementary, which is still within the Santa Barbara district.

"At Harding, the teachers are wonderful. The principal is great. It's the socioeconomic chasm. It's not a gap, it's a huge difference in the population," said Mrs. McDonald, who described herself as a middle-class professional. "We don't have a lot in common with the other families. At the same time, do I want to drive five days a week now every day for the next six years? Then again, if half of the Westside is going in that direction, maybe we can carpool."

Superintendent of Santa Barbara schools Brian Sarvis granted Mrs. Brace's transfer request it "with regrets."

"It's a big loss to the school," Mr. Sarvis said. "But I see Meredith as a parent making the best choice for their child, and other parents making other choices for their children. I don't think any one parent is that critical, but that's not to take anything away from Meredith. She has been wonderful."

Mrs. Brace says she'll stick with her PTA president post until a replacement is found, even though her son starts at Hope School today. Over the years, she has criticized district officials for maintaining open enrollment as an easy way out. Now it's a policy she is taking advantage of.

"They keep telling me, 'No, Meredith, we've got to keep options open to parents or they'll leave.' It's so plain and simple. It's created such segregation. It's left us with a situation that is almost gotten beyond repair."

She said the policy allowing transfers within the district -- and outside of the district when a parent comes up with a valid reason -- has destroyed many neighborhood schools by exacerbating white flight.

With her 4-year-old daughter getting ready to enter kindergarten, Mrs. Brace had recently been courting a dozen other white families in her neighborhood who have children of the same age.

"Every single one of them is going somewhere else, and they had all looked at Harding," she said. "I said to myself, this is not getting any better, so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. This is not the teacher's fault, or the principal's fault. They're wonderful."

At Harding on Wednesday, mom Amy Voss and her son, second-grader Eric Voss, said they're pleased with the school and planning on staying.

"I like Harding a lot," Eric said. "They got good friends, good teachers. Mrs. Schwyzer is the best."

Teacher Carol Schwyzer has been at Harding since 1991. She described Mrs. Brace as heroic for even taking on the challenge.

"It's sad to see Meredith go. She had such wonderful energy. But is it OK? Yes, we are OK," she said. "We are doing the best we can with who comes through the door. We love our students."

At the same time, Mrs. Schwyzer isn't pleased that Harding has gone from the diverse school it was when she first arrived to the racially isolated campus it is today.

"It's not OK, but it would take a major shake-up on a more systemic level to fix things now," she said. "That balance has tipped too far.

"You see what Meredith was fighting against. She had a vision of how things should be, and she didn't see why she couldn't bring other people along. We have to be sad that it didn't work out."

I am generally yes on vouchers myself.

I was just playing devils advocate. I believe that WindOracle is probably right, that the elite schools will kick up the tuition dramatically to keep out the riff-raff.

But if vouchers are to be used, I WOULD LIKE THEM TO GO TO LEGAL UNITED STATES CITIZENS ONLY!

While I amm'm generally for vouchers, I should point out my reservations. These are based on what the federal guvmint has done to our universities. The got private and public institutions hooked on grant money and such and now can but pressure in a whole host of areas, from admissions to course of study particulars. I would hate to have the guvmint federalize private schools in a defacto sot of way. There need to be protections. The block grant idea is just one, but we need more.

Remember who we are dealing with. The Education establishment is a bunch of socialists, They will seek to control all education in a socialist/fascist manner. It is their way. It's who they are. It's what we are up against.

This is why vouchers should be granted to those whose kids are actually in the private schools, and not to the schools themselves. Parents who care enough about the kids to go to the trouble of placing them in private schools will do a good enough job of making sure the kids are actually learning something. I know that I am not going to pay money for my son to continue in a private school that does not produce results. And I am under no illusions that the govt will ever reimburse me the WHOLE amount I am paying, with or without vouchers.
Such vouchers should be payable to the PARENTS when they have demonstrated expenses. It probably should be done as some form of deduction from Income Taxes, since that would seem to me to be the easiest angle to handle it, but I am sure that it could be worked out some other way if needed. Whatever the case, you are correct, we cannot allow it to be set up in such a way that the govt gets control over the schools themselves. The schools must remain accountable to the PARENTS.

When a private school accepts a government voucher, and then submits it for payment. The government then has a form of control over the school, especially when a large portion of income of the school becomes vouchers ("large portion" being as little as 15-20%). If parents apply for reimbursement instead of schools, then the bureaucrazy to implement the program goes through the roof.

The question I have is "how do we protect the integrity of the program from the Education Nazi's?"

I do not know why it would be unworkable, or need a huge bureaucracy to administer it. It could be something as simple as adding one line to the 1040 form. That line could be placed at the end, where it tells what you owe or what refund you will get. Schools could be required to give parents a single document, for proof that the kids were in that school. At that point the person would be allowed to enter a standard amount, whatever the voucher amount would be per student for that year, and that amount deducted from taxes owed, or added to the refund.

First of all, vouchers should apply to citizens only. Secondly, poor families need the money upfront not at the end of the year. Thirdly, someone has to verify the proof, (unless you think it should be run the way welfare was.)

I don't think the idea is unworkable or without merit. It just has issues that need to be worked out. Especially for the reasons previoulsly stated.

That's what liberalism is, forced "pie in the sky" attitudes with government coercion. Usually the liberal/communist has enough insulation to not be impacted in her own life. This one actually believed all those canards and exposed her kids to a third world school.

Now her views and values will strictly be for other people. She'll be a more traditional Demmie in the future I'm sure.

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