Drawing lines

Redistricting would benefit A2 students

After a five-hour wrestling match with Ann Arbor Public Schools' redistricting software last Wednesday, several parents unveiled a plan for reapportioning students between Ann Arbor's several elementary schools. The parents' proposal comes after district-wide objection to an administrative proposal that many residents say forces too many students to change schools. While the parents' proposal would transplant only 300 students into new schools - about 400 fewer than the administrators' plan - it fails to sufficiently remedy a racial imbalance at Carpenter Elementary, where the student population is 41.3 percent African American. In light of this flaw, the district should remain committed to developing a plan that adequately preserves diversity within the elementary schools before the scheduled March 25 board vote - even if such a proposal disrupts students' transition into the 1998-99 academic year.

The administrators' push to offset the racial imbalance at Carpenter stems largely from its wish to adhere to district policies that dictate that African American enrollment at each of Ann Arbor's schools should fall between two and 32 percent. The district set the range in accordance with recommended 1977 state guidelines. While the parents' proposal does reduce black enrollment at Carpenter, the plan only trims the proportion of African Americans to 37.8 percent - more than five percent higher than the administrators' plan.

By approving a plan that falls so short of establishing adequate racial heterogeneity, the school board would far understate the importance of diversity. Though the state Department of Education has not monitored the guidelines since the early '80s, the need to maintain diversity in schools is no less important than it was 21 years ago, when the state established the guidelines.

A 1996 report by Washington, D.C., urban policy consultant David Rusk found that Michigan is the most racially segregated state in the nation. Although the city of Ann Arbor is the least segregated among the major metro-Detroit communities, its component residential communities exhibit strong racial segregation, yielding a housing index of 50 - indicating that 50 percent of local minorities would have to move so that each census tract in the area would encompass the same percentage of minorities found in the area as a whole. Because students do not regularly come in contact with children of other races in their residential communities, diverse schools are one of few opportunities to establish a thorough understanding of peers of other ethnicities.

A racially diverse environment plays a crucial role in students' education. In addition to sharpening social sensitivities, it yields children a multi-dimensional picture of the world. This factor proves paramount in light of the fact that much of students' instruction - even in contemporary education - largely focuses on the Eurocentric components of American society.

As the vote on the proposed redistricting of Ann Arbor's elementary school zones is more than a month away, administrators and parents have sufficient time to collaborate on a new proposal. While a plan establishing diversity may initially cause disruption by making students change schools, all students deserve - and need - a heterogenous environment to preserve the quality of education.

02-16-98