Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Board needs to consider both costs and benefits of proposed attendance zones

When the school board was debating its Diversity Policy last year, I had mixed feelings. It does seem wrong that the district’s low-income families are packed very disproportionately into three or four elementary schools, and it’s not hard to imagine how that could put a strain on the resources of those schools. The Diversity Policy was an attempt to address that problem. It did so by requiring that the percentage of kids receiving free- and reduced-price lunches at any school—the district’s proxy for low-income status—be no more than fifteen percentage points above the district-wide average. What bothered me about the Policy, and the reason I ended up opposing it, was that it committed itself to those numerical goals without any inquiry into what it would take to meet them. I don’t think it makes sense to adopt a policy that pursues one value with no consideration of its effect on other, possibly competing values. (In fact, that kind of approach is the cause of many problems in education policy today. See posts here and here.)

I didn’t get too worried about it, though, because I knew that any implementation of the policy would need to get board approval, so the discussion of costs and benefits could wait until there was a concrete proposal for meeting the diversity goals. Now the superintendent has recommended specific redistricting maps for portions of both the east and west sides. This means we can finally get a sense of just what it takes to reach the diversity goals, and just what the concrete disadvantages are. My fear, though, is that the board will argue that it has to adopt these maps to “comply with the policy,” and that we will never get the discussion of whether the benefit of pursuing the goals outweighs the cost.

In the community meetings that the district held to get public input into the map-drawing process, the issue of whether to pursue the goals was always kept off the table. People were asked only to discuss how to pursue the goals through redistricting. It’s as if the district is determined to implement the policy without ever discussing—or seeking public input on—whether the costs outweigh the benefits.

But there are costs, and not just fiscal ones. The map-drawing process has made it clear that the burden of meeting the goals through redistricting falls primarily on the kids from low-income families. There is no way, for example, to bring Kirkwood’s FRL rate down without sending many of its FRL kids to schools much farther from their homes. For complicated domino-effect reasons, it also requires sending many FRL kids who go to Coralville Central to a more distant school, too, even though Coralville Central’s FRL rate is close to the average.

The same is true of FRL kids at Twain and Grant Wood schools. In some cases, it’s very clear that low-income areas (e.g, Broadway and Dolphin Lake Point) have been singled out to be sent to more distant schools. (I understand that the construction of a new school on the east side means that some redistricting has to happen there. But it’s clear that some of the choices of how to do that were driven solely by meeting the diversity goals.)

When you live off Fifth Street in Coralville, walking to Lincoln is a very different task than walking to Kirkwood. It’s especially a concern when you’re talking about families who have fewer resources and may be less able to drive their kids to and from school—for example, in bad weather. The district could offer a bus, but taking a bus to school is also different from walking to a nearby school, and could, for example, make it harder for kids to take part in after-school activities.

There are also legitimate concerns about the intangible costs of identifying some kids as being from low-income areas and as being brought into a different school for the stated purpose of spreading the FRL kids out. (I don’t even like using the phrase “FRL kids,” but that is how the policy works, and “low-income kids” is an even worse shorthand.) And there are concerns about how welcome those kids will feel, and about how their destination schools will respond to their presence there.

There will also be disruption for all kids, rich or poor or in-between, who are affected by the boundary changes. At Coralville Central, for example, eighty percent of the current students will be assigned to other schools. Maybe that kind of short-term disruption should not carry much weight if there are clear long-term benefits—though that’s easy to say if you’re not the third-grader who has to go to an unfamiliar school while her friends go somewhere else. Either way, it’s still a cost that should factor into the analysis.

Do these possible costs outweigh the possible benefits? There is no obvious right answer. My inclination is not to presume that I know better than the people who are supposed to benefit from the policy. But I’ve seen no evidence that the district’s low-income families on the whole support this policy, or that they agree that they’ll be better off as a result of these proposed attendance zone changes. That would make a big difference to me, but (so far, at least) it just isn’t there. Without that, the board shouldn’t adopt such large-scale boundary changes that would send so many kids from low-income families to schools much farther from their homes.
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17 comments:

Anonymous said...

The school board seems hellbent on moving forward with this regardless of the cost or potential for negative outcome. I suggested to Brian Kirshling that the policy should be re-evaluated and was met with a quizzical look as if this is impossible.

Anonymous said...

Chris, you have very good insight and I encourage you to present it to the board. At this time, I think it is very much hopeless. I have no faith in the board and their capability to look at the issues from a different angle. Hopeless indeed.

Anonymous said...

Spot on, Chris, as usual...I do not live in any of the affected areas, but as a former teacher of "at risk" kids, I just can't see the benefit of the DP as it is currently written.

Anonymous said...

Discussion at the school board meeting was quashed even though there was a huge turnout, so much for community involvement, Marla Sweeney, Jeff Mcginnis, Sally Horseface and Brian Kirshling all voted to table discussion of the rezoning proposal and nobody was allowed to speak about it.

Chris said...

Anonymous -- I don't censor comments and I agree that the board's decision not to let people speak was awful, but making fun of people's names is pretty low.

Anonymous said...

The misspelling is because I did not know how to spell her name off the top of my head, I was just trying to get close enough to get my point across.

Anonymous said...

Your comments make sense. I always come back to: How do we incorporate the balance of "low-income" students in IC school district without balancing affordable housing in the various neighborhoods in the cities that are part of the district?

Anonymous said...

It is the same old same old. The board passed the DP when everyone was on winter break. They are pulling the same trick. By making this a "work session" they block off public input. By delaying it to June, they hope to ram this through when a lot of people will be on summer vacation.
Now, how do we replace the board? They are obviously not able to work together, and they are playing this as if it is some sort of little kids game. Seriously, how do we replace the whole board?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous - you said "How do we incorporate the balance of "low-income" students in IC school district without balancing affordable housing in the various neighborhoods in the cities that are part of the district?"

The whole point is what if that's not the right goal?

Who likes this busing, I mean "diversity" policy? If the High FRL school families don't want it, and the Low FRL school families don't want it, the teachers don't want it, the administrators don't want it, who is left?

Maybe we should look for a better way?

Anonymous said...

Chris, NPR's "On Point" with Tom Ashbrook today, interviewed the reporters responsible for the New Yorker article you referenced on Twitter. It was fascinating-so much so that I sat in my car until it was over and then listened to it again on my computer. I thought some of your readers might be interested as it certainly relates to our situation in ICCSD.

Anonymous said...

I think it is time to stop dancing around the real issue and acknowledge it head on. The real issue being the wealth and power in our district controlling things to only their benefit. We would not have the DP if wealth in one part of the district had not refused to send their kids to CHS. We would not have the policy if wealth in another area of the district had not retaliated. The real issue is that this district is lobbying for it's perceived best and brightest to have wants over needs. This is why we have million dollar turf at both HS's and are building new schools in the rich areas of the district while the underprivileged students get shuffled around like pawns and we close elementary schools. The SB won't hear the public because they were bought out in the election by the wealthiest campaign contributors. There is literally no one on the board currently who is physically going to task for under privileged students in our district. I for one am not buying the act from those board members who claim to care about these students and then do nothing solid to help them. This is not just a problem with the SB or the Superintendent. This problem exists because of the greed and unwarranted self importance that continues among the self proclaimed elite of this district who are only concerned with their own agendas and not at all concerned with the impact on an entire community.

Chris said...

Thanks, everyone, for the comments. I'm sorry I haven't been able to respond much -- just haven't had enough time to tend to the blog.

I'm not sure why everyone seems to be defaulting to commenting as "Anonymous," except that I know Blogger makes it easiest to comment that way. I don't mind anonymous comments at all, but just for the sake of keeping the different commenters straight, I recommend choosing the "Name/URL" option and using a screen name. You can leave the URL field blank.

Anonymous said...

It is simple,,if you agree with the school boards plans your input is valued, if you don't you are an obstructionist and have no right to be taken seriously. Got it.

Anonymous said...

At one time the ICCSD probably made sense but with the growth of the north end it might be time to split it and have Coralville and North Liberty have their own district.

Chris said...

Anonymous (3:36) -- Thanks for the tip about the NPR show. I'll see if I can find a link.

Chris said...

Here's the link to the NPR story mentioned by Anonymous (3:36).

Yasmeen Elsayed said...

thanks ,,,,,,,,,,