Hillsborough County Schools achieved a long term goal this year: resegregation.
In a nutshell, the school system implemented a school choice plan which ensured that there would be no room for black kids in desirable schools.
The School Board even went so far as to reverse itself, blaming a computer error on the fact that some poor and minority students were somehow accepted into some of the nicer schools. Those students were subsequently shunted off to other, less desirable schools.
So many poor and minority students were displaced that the county was forced to reopen a couple of old school buildings. The kids who were stuck at these moldy old campuses lacked such basics as toilet paper and books, but aside from that, their separate educational experience was practically equal.
Well, except for the fact that they aren’t learning.
Buried within the data are discouraging numbers about resegregation. Many of the inner-city schools that added minority and low-income students this year with the end of court-ordered busing suffered setbacks.
Robles Elementary School, for example, received an F grade from the state in 2002. It improved to a B last year, when 32 percent of Robles third-graders scored at the lowest level in reading. This year, 40 percent scored at the lowest level.
What changed? Robles students became poorer – 87 percent were considered low-income this year compared with 83 percent in 2004.
The story is similar at two other inner-city schools that earned F’s in 2002. And at two new schools filled primarily with poor students who had been bused in the past, the results also were low.
Just Elementary, on Spruce Street near the interstate, saw 68 percent of its third-graders fail FCAT reading. More than 90 percent of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
Washington K-8, near Tampa Park Plaza, has 59 percent of its third-graders facing retention. Almost 90 percent of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
On the other hand, West Tampa Elementary – Hillsborough’s only D elementary school in 2004 – saw improvement. This year, 43 percent of its third-graders scored at grade level or above in reading, compared with 27 percent last year. After school choice began, the school saw its economically disadvantaged population shrink, though it remains a relatively high 81 percent.
At the other end of the spectrum, schools with much smaller concentrations of poor children saw their performance continue to rise.
The percentage of third-graders scoring at grade level or above in math rose from 91 percent to 95 percent at Bevis Elementary in Lithia, where fewer than 10 percent of the students are considered economically disadvantaged.
