Mike Thomas
COMMENTARY August 18, 2009
Orlando Sentinel

It is a foolhardy exercise in wasting time and resources, not to mention the disruptions and massive public backlash that will accompany such an exercise.

This march to madness came about earlier this year when the School Board scuttled plans to close small schools in minority neighborhoods.

The uproar spurred board member Kat Gordon to call for a "major rezoning" of schools to achieve racial justice. She was backed by local NAACP President Randolph Bracy.

There are various proposals on the table, including "economic integration." Under this scenario, the district would ship kids around according to their household income, with the goal being to avoid loading down schools with too many low-income students.

This is the latest craze in school districts, a politically and legally acceptable alternative for racial integration.

Whether or not it is a good idea depends on your perspective.

If the goal is to use schools to salve the wounds of past injustices, then this is a good thing.

If the goal is to improve the performance of low-income, minority students, then it is a diversion of resources.

Nobody would argue that the Orange school district was rife with racism in the 1960s.

But times have changed and so must solutions, particularly when the old ones are not working.

And they are not.

For 47 years, Orange has been under a court-ordered desegregation plan.

At one time, it served a purpose.

But now it is an outdated relic that has spawned a confusing maze of transfer policies, including the majority-minority transfers. A student who is in the majority at one school can transfer to another school where he will be in the minority.

The idea was to open white schools to black students. What it did do was drain schools in black neighborhoods, shrinking them and making them easier to ignore.

Meanwhile, years of test results have shown that moving kids around does not make them better students. Students from predominantly black Jones High who transferred to predominantly white Winter Park High did no better, and many of them transferred back to Jones.

Shipping kids around is a 1960s solution that is out of place in modern Orange County.

Orange schools no longer are 80 percent white and 20 percent black. There now are about an equal number of white, black and Hispanic students. If you look at future demographics, the percentage of white students is going to keep shrinking.

How many ways are there left to rezone this pie?
Educators should worry about one thing and one thing only: improving student performance. And researchers are unanimous in agreeing that the best way to do that is improving teacher quality.

That is the biggest focus of the Obama administration under the leadership of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

In doling out $5 billion in stimulus money under its "Race to the Top" fund, the administration is requiring school districts to link teacher evaluations to the test scores of their students.

Pinpoint failing students. Pinpoint teachers who can help them. Get the two together.

In a speech earlier this year, Duncan said, "I am a deep believer in the power of data to drive our decisions. Data gives us the road map to reform. It tells us where we are, where we need to go, and who is most at risk. ..."

The goal is to make it worthwhile for good teachers to teach in low-performing schools. This requires significant bonuses, plus strict school discipline that creates an atmosphere conducive to good teaching.

And then you make it easier to get rid of that small percentage of teachers who do nothing but waste their students' time. For too many years they have populated low-income schools, encouraged to stay on the job with tenure protection and raises that don't depend on the quality of their work.

Teachers are the center of the universe in education.

The reason reformers such as Duncan embrace charter schools is that they increase competition. They force traditional public schools to upgrade their teaching.

A new generation of teachers is the 21st-century reform that will replace the failed reforms of the 20th century.

This is where the Orange School Board needs to direct its energy. If each classroom had a quality teacher, there would be no need to change boundaries and fill up yellow buses.

It's not who is sitting next to a student. It is who is standing at the head of the class.

Mike Thomas can be reached at 407-420-5779 or mthomas@orlandosentinel.com.