Are Some Schools in Our District Better Than Others?

This is a disturbing question. The Hilliard School District is a community comprised of families who are quite wealthy, and those who are barely getting by. Some parents have high-powered jobs and move in circles that include the power brokers of Central Ohio. Others are employed day by day, and barely speak English. Some bring faith traditions which are strange and unfamiliar to the those who have always lived in a society built around Judeo-Christian values.

As a member of the 2007 Redistricting Committee, I was distressed at the comments I read from some members of our community - those who wanted to preserve the perceived quality and perhaps safety of some schools by segregating the immigrant and economically disadvantaged populations to other buildings, away from their own kids. What does this say to the families who send their kids to the buildings with the greater populations of minority kids? More importantly, what does it say about the minority kids?

I understand that other districts in central Ohio have also had to deal with this issue as their communities have grown. Friends who live in the part of the Dublin School District east of the Scioto River say they are perceived as the "po folk" of Dublin, who should be kept at Coffman (Scioto and Jerome are the other two high schools, serving the more affluent parts of Dublin).

Southwestern City Schools, just south of us, now has four high schools, serving a total of approximately 6,000 students. 12% of their high school students are African-American, and 80% are White. However, at Franklin Heights High School, 21% of the kids are African-American, while at Grove City High School, only 3.3% are (and 94% are White). Are these kids getting equal education?  If so, why does Grove City High score a Performance Index of 101.3, while Franklin Heights was given a score of 89.1?

Nonetheless, the solution to this situation is not necessarily the forced socioeconomic balancing of the populations of our schools. Forcing things rarely works. I'm encouraged, for example, to read that some in our government believe that Iraq should be allowed to divide into three sovereign nations. The alternative is perpetual civil war, or resolution by genocide. We should be grateful that the American Civil War wasn't fought with 21st century technology.

Nor does forced busing necessarily work, as the U.S. Federal Courts found when it ordered the Columbus Public Schools to implement such a program. It lead to the White Flight to the suburbs and triggering many of our area's school funding problems. Today the Columbus City Schools are Blacker and poorer than ever, and dependent on huge state subsidies, yet still struggling to meet the standards.

In fact, it may be true that the best way to mainstream the immigrant kids into our school system is to, for a time, put those students in a transitional environment where they don't have to learn new subject matter and a new language at the same time. My understanding is that Columbus Public Schools uses the concept of 'gateway schools' in this manner, and that a similar concept is being tried in our school system. I think this is a good thing.

But we should not permit ourselves, at an institutional level, to believe that the socioeconomic makeup of one school makes it better or worse than another. As parents and community members, our kids watch what we do, and what kinds of decisions we make. It is one thing to congregate a population of kids so that special services, like language instruction, can be delivered effectively.

It is something quite different to segregate based on race, creed, color, or our 21st century analog: wealth.

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Last modified: 09/20/09