Posted on 12/19/2005 7:06:26 AM PST by Millee
BOULDER - The neighborhood around Columbine Elementary School is 87 percent Anglo. But enrollment numbers indicate that many neighborhood kids are going elsewhere. This year, the school in northeast Boulder is 82 percent Hispanic.
"Most of the parents who are involved in this would not say they were (engaged in) 'white flight' - they were simply choosing options that were better for their children," says Julie Phillips, who stepped down in November as Boulder school board president.
But Richard Garcia, a member of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education who put six children through Boulder schools, is more blunt:
"My feeling is the problem is racism," Garcia says. "I think people are leaving Columbine because they don't like to be with brown kids. I know I'm going to get killed because I said that, but I'm going to call it as I see it."
'Tweaking with choice'
Under Colorado law, parents have wide latitude in selecting among schools within a district, or even in other districts, to enroll their children.
In Boulder, Anglo parents are choosing schools other than Columbine.
Similar patterns are emerging in south Boulder and Lafayette, which is part of the Boulder district. The district's two bilingual schools are lopsidedly Hispanic.
"A lot of the flight on the surface is because of the programs that parents want their kids to go to. But underneath at some schools, when a percentage of minority kids or poor kids gets to a certain level, people have not wanted to put their children (there)," says Superintendent George Garcia, who is not related to Richard Garcia.
Garcia says the district can't do anything about the state's open enrollment law, but a citizen task force in June suggested several strategies to disperse the district's students more equitably.
That could include enrollment targets for minorities and economically disadvantaged students at Boulder schools. The targets would be achieved through enrollment caps and preferences.
For example, students eligible for free and reduced-cost lunch, a main measure of poverty, would be given preference at schools with mostly middle- or upper-income students.
Students from low-income families would be provided transportation so they can take advantage of open enrollment. Families now must provide their own transportation when enrolling outside their neighborhood school.
The board of education will discuss those ideas in January, Garcia says.
The issue could be explosive, says school board President Helayne Jones.
"We take it seriously and want to do something about it. We also recognize that any time you try to touch these issues it can be politically sensitive," Jones says.
"Any time you start tweaking with choice - which I think a lot of parents hold very dear and feel it's their right - any time you try to limit that, you can ruffle a lot of feathers," she adds.
School segregation has been a subject of discussion - and embarrassment - for the past five years in Boulder, a community that considers itself the most progressive in the state.
"For a liberal community, we aren't looking so liberal in the white flight we've experienced from some schools in the last 10 years," says Phillips, who was barred by term limits from seeking a third term on the school board.
Scores and segregation
The increasing segregation of Boulder schools was highlighted in a 2000 study by University of Colorado education school professors Kenneth Howe and Margaret Eisenhart.
"Whites are disproportionately requesting open enrollment in schools with high test scores; Latinos are disproportionately requesting open enrollment in bilingual schools," Howe and Eisenhart wrote.
Still unclear is whether attendance patterns are a factor in the low test scores of Hispanic students. Boulder has the widest gap in the metro area between scores of Anglo and Hispanic students on state achievement tests.
Evidence of a link between test scores and ethnic segregation is inconclusive, Howe says.
"That's where we are right now. We don't really know," he says.
But numerous studies over the past 40 years have shown a strong correlation between low test scores and concentrations of economically disadvantaged students in a school, Howe says.
At Columbine, Hispanic kids and poor kids are mostly the same. Hispanics were 82.9 percent of the students in 2004-05, while 83.2 percent of the school's students were eligible for free or reduced-cost lunch.
Columbine received a rating of low - one step above unsatisfactory - on state school report cards issued Dec. 6. Three nearby, mostly Anglo, schools were rated average, high and excellent.
Poverty and ethnicity shouldn't make a difference in whether students learn, says Richard Garcia, who is a former social studies teacher and principal.
"Any school worth its salt, with good teachers and good principals and good attitudes, can get these kids to achieve well," he says.
Jared Polis, a member of the Colorado Board of Education and a Boulder native, says the school district should stop blaming open enrollment for school segregation and do more to attract Anglo families back to schools like Columbine.
"Merely claiming racism can be an excuse not to take action, and sometimes that's what it becomes," Polis says.
"I think that parents of all colors care most about the quality of the school and achievement," Polis says. "If there's a school where their kids are getting a good education, and the teachers are good and the program is good and their child is happy, I don't think they care what color the child that sits next to them is."
George Garcia said the district is trying to provide incentives to attract Anglo students to schools that are disproportionately Hispanic.
Pre-engineering and International Baccalaureate programs are slated for Centaurus High School, between Louisville and Lafayette, which has been trending Hispanic in recent years.
"So we've been working on it," the superintendent says.
As for Columbine, Principal Lynn Widger says Anglo parents shun the school because they believe their children will be more challenged elsewhere.
"I think it's a concern around that, vs. racism," Widger says.
But, she says, Anglo parents would find a rich curriculum for their children at Columbine and teachers who are skilled at tailoring lessons to the needs of individual children.
"I don't want them to come here necessarily because they would serve our Latino children," Widger says of Anglo kids. "I want them to come here because it would be a good environment for them.
"And, yes, they would learn about diversity, as well as our children here would have more intercultural interaction."
Segregation will continue to be a hot topic.
Howe is conducting further research on minority children in integrated and segregated schools in Boulder. The Piton Foundation is funding another such study in Denver.
CU will host a conference on the subject in January.
Enrollment patterns
Figures are for the current school year:*
• North Boulder
School Anglo Hispanic
Columbine 13.5 82.0 Crest View 69.9 17.4 Foothill 90.5 3.3 Whittier 68.3 17.2
• South Boulder
School Anglo Hispanic
Creekside 52.4 29.7 Bear Creek 86.2 1.7 Mesa 93.7 1.9
• Middle schools in Boulder
School Anglo Hispanic
Casey 42.9 47.8 Centennial 83.5 11.1 Manhattan 71.3 18.5 Southern Hills 87.7 3.8
• Lafayette
School Anglo Hispanic
Sanchez 30.4 63.9 Lafayette 70.5 20.7
• Bilingual schools
School Anglo Hispanic
Pioneer 36.9 59.4 University Hill 27.0 69.7
* Blacks, Asians and American Indians omitted
One of the major problems I can see in the situation described by the article is Bilingual schools. They make integration into American life slower, and therefore are as counterproductive as welfare.
racism...........blah, blah blah, blah..................
Well, it sounds like everyone has an agenda here, not just the "Anglo" families. If the Mexicans want integration, they can just start choosing schools without the bilingual curriculum. Maybe the MEXICANS are the racist ones, or maybe they should JUST LEARN ENGLISH.
Incidentally, for those unfamiliar with Colorado, the teachers' union urgently supported a referendum that passed recently that authorized bilingual education, so it is state law that it has to be available.
"Is this the same Columbine where there was a shooting a few years ago?"
No. But be patient...
The right to do this without picking up and moving your residence to a new district is actually quite rare in the U.S. DUH.
Au contrere! You are looking very liberal, Mr. Phillips. That is liberalism by definition. Liberals want one thing for themselves, and then preach to the "common man" about what he should be doing, which is quite different.
Also the state flower of Colorado.
Hopefully that will now change with the new immigration legislation that passed in the House.
Sanctuary cities are about to see some consequences, and about time, too.
"Over half of the cheerleaders at my daughters school will not graduate this year because they are pregnant. All Mexican. "
And probably Roman Catholic. No abortions for these girls. It's another reason for the large families. We should be cheering.
Not to mention test scores. Anyone can look at the California STAR test results online, the invariable result is that the higher the hispanic component of the student population, the lower the overall test scores.
"And just where in the nation do parents NOT have this latitude? DUH."
Uh, in a lot of places. Most cities do not have open enrollment like this. In many large school districts, the district decides which school children go to.
You are joking, right?
More "do as I say, not as I do." Should be the dem/lib/socialist motto!
< "Any school worth its salt, with good teachers and good principals and good attitudes, can get these kids to achieve well," he says. >
Ummm, well, maybe. But while the kid that doesn't speak English very well gets extra effort by the teacher, a kid who speaks English twiddles his thumbs waiting for the other kid to catch up.
Bottom line: The lesson has to be dumbed-down to fit the non-English or little-English speaking kid afloat. The whites are not leaving because they're white and the kids are brown. They're leaving because their child's education is suffering due to the Hispanic child's lack of English skill.
Aha! That explains it. Thanks for explaining it to the horticulturally challenged!
I suspect that the arrival of hispanic students means that the levels of achievement have deteriorated and this is the driving force behind the 'flight'.
It's not racist, it's making sure your child gets the best education possible.
"ecause I thought that just about everyone in Boulder was middle-class at worst."
Actually, you are not far off. Boulder has one of the lowest minority populations of anywhere in Colorado. As one who lives in the county (but NEVER the city), I have watched as minorities are driven out by land use policies that force home prices through the roof. Also, the anti-chain mentality (snobbishness to the max) makes shopping in Boulder much more expensive.
It is not only the normal population that is this way either. The University has only a miniscule minority enrollment.
Basically, Boulder is a white elitist town with a "just for show" minority population living in subsidized "affordable" housing. "Five square miles surrounded by reality" is they way we like to put it.
Home owners that pay property tax ares sick of paying to educate the kids of parents who have no business being in this damn country. Liberals love to blame everything on white racism.
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