Evanston/Skokie School District 65 met its integrated school goal this year for only the second time in more than 30 years– an accomplishment that could be short-lived if a new school in the Fifth Ward is ever built.
The district currently uses several methods, including busing students, to ensure that no ethnic group makes up more than 60 percent of any school’s population. Implemented in Evanston schools in the late 1960s, the guideline has been successfully met only during the past two years.
“That was our goal and we’ve been working on it for a long time,” said Lynn McCarthy, District 65’s assistant superintendent.
But the guideline recently has come under review. A proposed Fifth Ward school forced administrators to question whether or not the new school will uphold the old standard. The Fifth Ward is composed of mostly black residents, and some people have raised concerns that not busing students from the district could change the racial proportions in other schools.
Ald. Joseph Kent (5th), who teaches at the Washington Elementary School in the Fourth Ward, said the district may have to rethink the guideline.
“We haven’t proposed to eliminate (the 60 percent integration guideline),” Kent said. “But, if we continue with it, what comes into play is whether or not white parents will want to bus their children into a predominantly black neighborhood.”
District 65 Superintendent Hardy Ray Murphy remains a firm advocate of the guideline and believes in the importance of diversity in Evanston schools.
“Integration is essential to local schools because it helps integrate society,” Murphy said. “The diversity it brings enriches all professional and personal relationships.”
Murphy said he wants to keep integration, but perhaps re-evaluate the degrees at which the guideline is set.
According to Murphy, the district has relied on three methods in order to meet the goal: redrawing district lines; implementing magnet schools, which offer specialized programs and draw students from every area of the city, and transferring students from areas where they are the majority to those where they are the minority.
The majority of the transfer students are bused from the Fifth Ward in order to balance the racial ratios in neighboring schools, said Mary Erickson, District 65 school board vice president .
“The guideline has been a good tool,” Erickson said. “Unfortunately Fifth Ward students have really borne the burden of the guideline.”
Although official studies have yet to be done, busing students into faraway schools can have detrimental impact on students’ academic performance, Kent said. Because of this, many of these Fifth Ward students have done poorly in school, he said.
“The largest problem of being bused far from home is that children lack ownership of their school,” Kent said. “They attend a school that does not feel like their own and don’t feel attached to any particular community.”
School Board President John Chatz said he does not think busing has been equitable because those bused have included primarily black students. But he questions how much busing affects a student’s performance.
“No one has shown that the mere fact that kids get bused results in low performance,” he said. “No research shows that students who are bused have significantly different test scores then those who walk or ride their bicycle.”
Chatz said upholding the guideline would not benefit the proposed Fifth Ward school.
“I suppose we could (bus white kids into the district) but I don’t know if that serves the purpose,” he said. “My view is that if you open the school to raise the poor performance levels of black children, then why bus in white children who have traditionally done well?”
Chatz and Kent both agree that raising performance levels is the ultimate goal.
“The community supports the guideline because they see diversity as important,” Chatz said. “And it is important, but maybe not as much as it once was because today the focus maybe should be on performance and not whether black and white kids are in the same classroom.”
