Beth Slovic published these maps on Willamette Week’s blog.

The numbers then (based on 2006 enrollment) showed increases in students qualifying for free and reduced lunch, as well as increases in non-white percentages in each of the Jefferson, Madison, Marshall and Roosevelt clusters.

Ruth Adkins was quoted as saying “We’re concentrating poverty and segregating by race.” But a year later, nothing has been done to address this increased segregation, or, much more disturbing, the fact that we’re concentrating ethnic minorities and poverty-affected children in schools with dramatically less academic opportunity.

This is truly one of the greatest shames of our city.

On another note, I am product of a PPS high school. I attended a “red zone” school in the late 80′s – early 90′s. This was before NCLB and the liberal transfer policy.

At that time, we all attended our neighborhood schools. You could apply for Benson, with solid test scores and letters of rec. You could audition for the Jefferson Dancers. That was it. We all went to our neighborhood school.

Consequently, we all had the choice of a full array of electives, advanced math, advanced science, and 3 langauges to choose from. We took AP classes, had a speech team and a drama program. We also had auto shop, enough students to fill all sports teams, and several computer labs.

Of course, we all took the same classes as freshman. We were “tracked” so that we were with similar students in either advanced, regular, or somewhat remedial classes so that all student were being challenged at their level in a particular subject. This naturally happened as students got older, as some moved onto physics, calculus and French 7-8. But the opportunity for those classes were available to all.

It is amazing how well this system worked. Those who were inclined went on to higher education: Stanford, Brown, University of Portland, U of O.
We had all the opportunity to discover what we wanted from life, be it college, career, trade school, or parenthood!

When did this system break? How are YOU, members of the school board, going to fix it!?!

Benson — 56.6 percent free and reduced lunch
Cleveland — 23.4 percent
Franklin — 48.0 percent
Grant — 22.4 percent
Jefferson — 72.6 percent
Lincoln — 7.5 percent
Madison — 64.4 percent
Marshall — 75.0 percent (estimate for three campuses)
Roosevelt — 75.0 percent (estimate for three campuses)
Wilson — 16.5 percent

I want to be clear that I don’t think smallness is a bad thing. I think it would be a great thing… if we paid for it.

But we don’t have the money to pay for it, so we’re making the students who don’t transfer pay for it in lost opportunity.

The truth is, we can’t afford to pay for it this way, either.

I’m glad to hear the district is working hard on the funding formula (even if it comes 3-5 years after smallness was designed into the system).

But as I said in the post, shifting existing funds around to pay for smallness means schools that don’t suffer from smallness (Cleveland, Grant, Lincoln, Wilson, and the remaining middle schools) will be “equalized down” in order to “equalize up” the rest.

Is that really what we want to do? Will families at these schools tolerate program cuts to pay for programs at Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Roosevelt and the K8s?

That’s why we need to look at balancing enrollment. It’s not a zero-sum game; in fact it’s a win all around.

Everybody knows that Cleveland, Grant and Lincoln have significant over-crowding issues. They can solve that problem and keep their rich curriculum.

The current system just isn’t in anybody’s best interest, as far as I can see.

I am waiting for the district to take the next step and stop the tranfers for freshmen, just like you suggested. If they can foist k-8′s on us with no input or feedback, they can certainly change the transfer system and restore equity to our district.