Brick-and-Mortar Busing. Hmmmm.
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re a school district that has a large number of economically disadvantaged, mostly minority kids with low academic achievement levels attending schools that are badly underutilized, some of them near half-capacity; and you have a bunch of relatively affluent, mostly white kids with decent to above-average achievement levels crammed into schools that are really overcrowded.
Now let’s say as a school district, you had for years ignored population trends and, for whatever reason, refused to build schools in areas where growth was exploding; along the way you still managed to pile up capital debt to the point where you’re scratching for cash and facing serious budget problems.
How do you remedy the situation? Close and consolidate the schools that are under capacity? The superintendent and his staff have said that’s an option, but it really wouldn’t produce much of a bang for the buck, and most of the under capacity schools are ones with low-achievement levels, so you really wouldn’t want to lump two poor performers into one, would you.
Move to year-round schools? Same financial dilemma, your school brass says; there’s not huge cost-savings unless you do it for a whole lot of schools. And really, who wants that hassle? I mean you have to fight the state just for minor tweaks to your school calendar; and families with kids in the district, well, most of them aren’t too wild about the prospect of year-round schools.
How about adding special academic programs and initiatives for the under-capacity, low-performing schools, to try to convince families from fleeing them? Or maybe building some new schools to relieve pressure at the overcrowded ones? Good grief, man, where are you going to find the loot to do any of that? Have you not seen this year’s budget and projections for next year?
No, you are well and truly stuck. Unless. Unless. Just a wild idea, here, but how about if you move some of those rich, over-achieving white kids stuffed like sardines into those crowded schools into some of those half-empty schools? Or maybe take some of those low-income, low-performing minority kids and ship them to new schools? Hmmmm. It’d probably raise a stink, but it’s not like you really want to do it. You’re financially tapped out, and some of those other options; you’d prefer them, but they’d either cost a load or not save much cabbage. Heck, moving some of those kids around might even bump up the academic achievement levels at other schools and balance out some equity issues; good for the whole community, you see.
You’d probably have to really sell the public on the idea, but you have a crack PR department and an engaging super. Maybe hold a bunch of community forums; give the initiative a fancy name, something like Building Blocks for Consistent Achievement; but do it over the summer when most folks are on vacation, and make sure you give yourself a tight timeline to implement any sweeping changes. You’re working to save the district and prevent a looming crisis, after all.
Hey, this doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
Just saying.
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