Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 4, 1994 TAG: 9405040143
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
But the city says the limited neighborhood schools plan that started in the fall of 1986, while it has weaknesses, has made progress in helping youngsters overcome the disadvantages of their circumstances.
The 62-page report by the Project on School Desegregation at Harvard University concluded that dismantling integrated schools ``will not provide an equal educational opportunity'' and urged a return to biracial schools.
The report issued today was timed to coincide with this month's 40th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, the historic Supreme Court decision that outlawed ``separate but equal'' school systems for blacks and whites.
The 1954 ruling set off intense opposition to school integration in Virginia and elsewhere in the South. Virginia adopted a Massive Resistance policy that shut down some schools for a time, including Norfolk's.
After Massive Resistance collapsed, integration was still slow and piecemeal. Norfolk wasn't ordered to implement extensive busing until 1971.
Four years later, the city's schools were declared fully integrated. But by 1983, Norfolk was considering alternatives to busing as a way of stemming the loss of whites to the suburbs.
With neighborhood schools, city officials argued, Norfolk could better compete with Virginia Beach and Chesapeake for middle-class residents. Also, parents would be more involved in their children's education if schools were closer to home, city leaders said.
But the Harvard report said the city was wrong on both counts when it set up the 10 neighborhood schools in 1986 after becoming one of the first cities in the nation to partially get out from under court-ordered busing. The plan created 10 virtually all-black elementary schools; it left Norfolk's 25 other elementary schools largely integrated.
According to the Harvard report, the number of white students in Norfolk had stabilized in the waning years of busing, which is still in effect for middle schools and high schools. The report said the growth of the adjoining cities could have resulted from factors other than busing, such as a higher crime rate in Norfolk.
As for parental involvement, PTA membership in Norfolk's 10 all-black neighborhood schools fell from 1,934 in 1985 to 1,374 in 1992, even though enrollment at those schools increased, the Harvard researchers said.
``It is obvious that the policy of putting a school closer to a student's home is simply not a cure for low parent participation,'' the report said.
George Raiss, a Norfolk schools spokesman, acknowledged that busing was only one element of the population shift to Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.
In the last year before busing started, about 60 percent of Norfolk's students were white. Now, about 60 percent are black in a total school population of 35,000 students. About 20,000 attend elementary schools.
``The significant thing is that white enrollment has remained steady'' since the neighborhood plan started, Raiss said.
When elementary busing ended, city officials set up several programs to help the all-black schools, including reducing class sizes and providing additional funding and more highly trained teachers.
The Harvard report dismissed those efforts as failures since standardized test scores indicate neighborhood school students lag their counterparts in integrated schools.
For example, 60 percent of students in the all-black schools passed the state's fifth-grade literacy test in math and reading in 1993; passing rates were 79 percent for math and 73 percent for reading in the other schools.
``Of course, children from disadvantaged backgrounds score low on standardized tests for a variety of complicated reasons, not all of which can be traced to school policies,'' the report said. But it said the gap in achievement between the two groups has widened since the end of busing.
Raiss said school officials have been disheartened by low scores from some all-black schools and are trying to improve results.
But, he added, ``There are pockets in the 10 schools of steady achievement growth.''
But, the Harvard report said, ``In Norfolk, the only clear results of the city's abandonment of school desegregation ... has been severe racial isolation and an increase in concentrated poverty.''
by CNB