voiceofsandiego.org: Opinion... Why San Diego Needs Transportation for Dedicated Magnet Schools

Thursday, March 19, 2009 | The SD Unified School District Board of Education last week voted to eliminate transportation for all magnet programs in the district, yet another short--sighted effort by the board to deal with the budget crisis handed down by the state. This move is particularly harmful for dedicated magnet schools, meaning schools where 100 percent of the students attend for the special program and no one attends simply because they live in the local neighborhood. The six dedicated magnet schools in SDUSD are Language Academy (K--8), Longfellow (K--8), Crown Point Elementary, Millennium Tech Middle, Creative and Performing Media Arts (middle school), and School of Creative and Performing Arts (high school). Why should San Diego taxpayers support transportation for dedicated magnets? The answer lies in the budget, the principles, and the future.

"This move is particularly harmful for dedicated magnet schools, meaning schools where 100 percent of the students attend for the special program and no one attends simply because they live in the local neighborhood."

The budget of bad math and poor research: Supposedly, the elimination of buses for magnet programs would save $10.5 million. According to the district transportation office, 262 buses serve ALL magnet programs. Does this really add up to $10.5 million? We don’t know, because the Board of Education has not offered to show us the math. Dedicated magnet schools are served by only 96 buses, or about 37 percent of the total, or about $3.8 million, if one uses the district’s own numbers.

Is the Board of Education really unable to find $3.8 million elsewhere to cut? What was this decision based on? Surely not the survey that the school district put online a few weeks ago?

That "study" was flawed because (1) only people with computer access could participate, meaning that results are not representative of lower-income families or those who are computer--challenged, (2) there was no way to ensure that participation came from only those who were supposed to participate (parents and students), and (3) there was no mechanism to prevent one person from participating multiple times. Budget decisions should not be based on biased information collected from questionable participants in an online-only survey; they should be based on solid research and good principles.

The principles of equal access and social justice: Historically, magnet programs were designed to facilitate racial integration in public schools. At Language Academy, 57 percent of our student population is bused. A very large proportion of those who take the bus to our school come from parts of town that are either low-income and/or racially diverse. Because our school is located south of I--8, the voluntary enrollment exchange program, or VEEP, does not apply to us. Transportation is the ONLY way for more than half our student population to come to Language Academy.

Elimination of transportation for our and other dedicated magnet schools means that people must choose to either drive their kids to school or send them to neighborhood schools. Clearly, not everyone can afford the time or expense of driving; thus, elimination of transportation for dedicated magnets becomes an issue of equal access to public education. Furthermore, many people choose magnet programs in the first place due to the poor educational quality of their neighborhood schools; thus, elimination of transportation for magnet programs means robbing families of the right to school choice and condemning the most vulnerable segments of our population to inadequate education and correspondingly bleak futures.

Eliminating transportation to dedicated magnets is an issue of unequal access to public education and an issue of social injustice. Providing transportation to dedicated magnets like Language Academy supports racial and economic integration. Why is this important?

The future of San Diego: Census Bureau projections indicate that, in the years to come, our country will continue to see an increase in the percentage of racial and ethnic minorities in our population. In the future, even more so than today, the United States will need business and civic leaders who speak many languages and understand many cultures. Despite this reality, demographic studies indicate that people usually choose to live with people who look like themselves. This means that neighborhood-based schools usually serve children who are economically and racially homogenous. The best way for our children to meet people different from themselves, to learn to negotiate diversity in all its forms, to develop at an early age a tolerance for human differences, is to send them to schools -- like dedicated magnets -- that support the principles of equal access, social justice, and diversity. Teaching our children about multiculturalism today will benefit our city and our country tomorrow.

On behalf of the parents and students at Language Academy and other dedicated magnet schools, I strongly urge the Board of Education to restore the proposed cut of $3.8 million in transportation funding to provide busing for dedicated magnet schools. This issue goes beyond the budget -- it’s about equal access, social justice, and the future of San Diego.

Bey--Ling Sha is the PTA president at the Language Academy.

Fundamentally, we are approaching that knife's edge in our society where we cannot afford the values we profess without making some tough choices. Education is the arena this will play out vividly. I am a parent with two kids in schools; but should everyone pay for education when I chose to have kids? I don't know if the argument everyone benefits from a strong public education system washes very well these days; a many schools are failing regardless of funding, the drop out rate stays too high and childless members of society might prioritize affordable health care or public transportation than education. I know if I have to pay any more taxes, I will plan to leave CA. My Fed and State taxes = my mortgage. That mortgage is growing based on what the Feds have just done. I can't afford to pay

Posted by nenebird | reply to this comment
March 19, 2009 6:50 pm

Nenebird believes we are at a point "...where we cannot afford the values we profess without making some tough choices...." for always-limited dollars. Affordable values? I'd say we need to restore our communal values that have been shredded over the last 35 years in the name of rugged individualism. Let's bury the notion of these false "choices" -- that only so much Social Good can be "afforded," that everything's relative, that there is no compact among neighbors or fellow citizens, that it's only about Me and My Tax Bill. Lately we have "afforded" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, crumbling highways and bridges, lots of families without health care, assaults on Social Security, cowboys and thieves on Wall Street. In November we decided we could afford a little hope. I hope we will decide to keep San Diego magnet schools and their essential yellow buses.

Posted by Frances O'Neill Zimmerman | reply to this comment
March 20, 2009 9:14 am

The overwhelming majority of adults in a given neighborhood don't have children who attend school in it. Those adults' educations were paid for by people who weren't their parents. Pay it forward. I have no children, and I have zero qualms about paying taxes for schools so kids in my area can be educated. The "failing school" argument is politicized horse plop.

Posted by BeHiResident | reply to this comment
March 21, 2009 5:21 pm

Bey-Ling Sha has laid out the battle lines. The school district is sabre-rattling, playing with its families by running bogus "surveys" and presenting illogical numbers without justifying them. The Superintendent and the Board ought to be ashamed. To bray that they will eliminate busing for dedicated magnet schools would suit some Board members very well: everything would revert to a "neighborhood" school and there would be no galling enclaves of multiculturalism or academic specialization left. I don't think people in this community are going to give up their good magnet schools and the promised transportation required to get kids there. The politicians at 4100 Normal Street need to take another look at this issue.

Posted by Frances O'Neill Zimmerman | reply to this comment
March 19, 2009 7:33 pm

It is time to cut OCILE Programs. We must not sacrifice education in the classroom for field trips. Balboa Park, Old Town, and 6th Grade Camp should be eliminated. Combine classroom presentations with a one day trip to any of those locations and students can learn plenty about our history, our museums, and our mountains.

Posted by Middle School Mom | reply to this comment
March 19, 2009 7:54 pm

Thank you Ms. Sha for your intelligent analysis of the San Diego Unified School District's decision to essentially end magnet programs in San Diego. I agree with you that the numbers do not add up. The direction the district would be taking if it were to follow through with the proposed ending of bus transportation to dedicated magnet schools would surely hurt efforts to create a more peaceful community. I have been working at the Language Academy for 14 years and have marveled year after year at the diversity of our student population. Kids growing up with peers from diverse economic, ethnic, and nation of origin backgrounds leads to a society where empathy for fellow human beings helps to erase divisiveness and social tension. Why do our leaders not understand this?

Posted by Scott Mullin | reply to this comment
March 20, 2009 6:48 am

If every parent and other interested party would consider writing a check made payable to the SD Unified School District and in the memo insert MAGNET SCHOOL BUSING, and if this were done by many, many people, it just may call attention to the busing, before that, too, gets swept away. Try it, it has worked in other situations. Good luck. Also, maybe a website dedicated to the subject would help. To force children to be segregated by the very nature of their place of residence and the whim of the School Board, without allowing the option of going to the magnet schools (or at least eliminating busing, which will force segregation) is not fair.

Posted by San Marcos says, | reply to this comment
March 20, 2009 7:43 am

Interesting. You think it is unfair for kids to go to school in the communities where they actually grow up?

Posted by shawn1874 | reply to this comment
March 21, 2009 9:26 pm

Well, thank God for Private Schools. Social injustice because a kid has to go to school with his/her peers. Oh dear, what has the world come to???

Posted by Reason | reply to this comment
March 21, 2009 6:37 am

"Reason" surely has noticed that "going to school with one's peers" in most American cities means going to a regular-curriculum school in one's neighborhood -- usually an enclave of residents with the same color skin and from similar economic backgrounds. (The same-only-more-so applies to those private schools that you appreciate.) A magnet school attracts students of all sorts from across the city to participate in an educational experience that has a specialized focus, such as art or performance or foreign languages. The way magnet kids get to their magnet schools is by district-provided transportation -- the lifeline of the whole brilliant and successful idea.

Posted by Frances O'Neill Zimmerman | reply to this comment
March 21, 2009 9:24 am

Going to school with their peers is not the issue here. Having choices, options, or alternatives with public tax funds is. Attending dedicated Magnet schools allows students' studies to have a different emphasis than what the neighborhood schools may have to offer. It is a beautiful thing to offer parents/students choices in their education. Why not? What's wrong with that? My children attended private and public schools & I know the benefits of both. Private schools are for those who can afford them, and desire something different; Kuddos to the families that can. Students at Magnet Schools (whose parents cannot afford pvt. schools, esp. in these economic times) are able to learn from an array of programs. Cultural diversity takes part in most magnet schools and the children are better for it. Our world requires we teach diversity in both the cultural & academic areas of their lives! Let'smakeitapriority

Posted by Oscar V. | reply to this comment
March 21, 2009 9:30 am

Magnet schools are each other's peers even more so because they're there for a common specialty. That said, I'd like to see those specialties go where the students are. The cynic in me wonders how much of the magnet movement is based on what is best for adults and not for students, because the would-have-been-clos schools that are kept open via magnet are always in nicer parts of town. No one fought to make Jackson Elementary a magnet school.

Posted by BeHiResident | reply to this comment
March 21, 2009 6:03 pm

Thank goodness for those parents willing to homeschool. If folks continue to depend on the government to solve problems then they should continue to expect failing schools because that is what you will get from the control freaks that are currently ruining our school system. You get what you pay for. In the case of people without kids you get nothing for what you pay a tremendous amount for. Don't have kids? Don't worry, the government will make sure that you are forced to pay for everyone else's.

Posted by shawn1874 | reply to this comment
March 21, 2009 9:27 pm

It is amazing to me that the school district convened a committee for 4 months to identify 5 small schools to close at a savings of approximately $400K per school, taking into account hard and soft factors, including the disruption that would occur to the students, families and the community. But when the district proposes cutting $10 million in transportation funding to magnet schools, it does so without a thought of the disruption that will occur to far more families and children.

Posted by Barbara Flannery | reply to this comment
March 22, 2009 7:37 pm

Why San Diego Needs Transportation for Dedicated Magnet Schools

By Bey-Ling Sha