Changing Choice

This past week, the School Committee had to revisit its student assignment policy for unforeseen reasons.

After kindergarten registration closed for the first cycle at the end of January, the administration informed us that not only was there a large jump in the number of families registering (see "Kindergarten Registration Jumps"), but the percentage of middle-class families registering had also increased from 63 to 69 percent compared to last year.

These two factors meant that for the first time since we adopted socioeconomic (SES) balancing, the school system did not have enough seats to offer "paid" families, or those who do not quality for free or reduced lunch.

It meant that before the kindergarten lottery could be run, the Committee had to change its current policy known as "controlled-choice." This is the policy that governs how classrooms are balanced between "paid" and "free/reduced" seats for in-coming kindergartners and other transfers into CPS elementary schools. (A different, random process is used for assignments to the Small Learning Communities at the high school.)

It also meant that, unfortunately, despite our intention to move up the mailing of kindergarten assignments to March 1, we missed that goal. On the positive side, the jump in kindergarten numbers clearly indicates a vote of confidence in the Cambridge Public Schools, a reversal in falling enrollments, or both.

Let me try to explain what happened and how the School Committee has voted preliminarily to correct the problem. [Note: if the SC votes the new policy on "second reading" this Tuesday night, kindergarten assignments could go out in 5-10 business days.]

One of the problems is that the current policy is not sensitive to demographic changes in the entering school-age population, and Cambridge has been undergoing some demographic changes.

Kindergarten (and grade 1-8) seats are divided according to the SES balance in the CPS elementary population as a whole (+/-10%), which at this time is 55% paid and 45% free/reduced. This means that even though 69% of the registrants are in the paid category, only 55% of seats would be set aside for "paid" families.

Another problem is that despite the fact that the schools are more evenly chosen in recent years, there were some schools that were overchosen. Because of this, it appeared that 73 families would not get any of their three school choices and would receive a mandatory assignment instead. This number, 73, is unacceptably high. Mandatory assignments have ranged from a low of 24 to a high of 55 over the past six years.

The policy that was adopted on "first reading" last Tuesday would do three things:

1.) Align the apportionment of seats directly to the SES balance of in-coming families averaged over the past two years or 66% paid/34% free or reduced (+/- 10%) for '07-08.

2.) Reduce mandatory assignments for paid families from 72 to 26, while only slightly increasing from 1 to 6 the number of mandatory assignments for free/reduced lunch families. These are based on simulations run by the school department.

3.) Add an additional kindergarten in two highly-chosen schools, Haggerty and Tobin Montessori, while also allowing 10 percent more English speaking families into the Amigos kindergarten for next year. (Amigos is one of two programs where assignments are based on home language due to its language immersion model.)

There is some concern that the altered policy will leave too few free/reduced seats for the smaller (monthly) registration cycles after cycle one. During the meeting, administrators said they felt that there would not be a problem because more families in general were registering in the first cycle and that many in-coming families replace those who transfer out before the school begins.

After reading all this, you might ask, why do we bother with such a complicated assignment system?

The roots of controlled choice go back to the '80s when the city, believing in the importance of racial integration to the well-being of society, voluntarily desegregated its schools. More recently, with the emphasis on student achievement, the School Committee switched to using to SES, rather than race as a basis of assignments. According to national studies, low-income students do better in mixed SES schools than when isolated in high-poverty schools. (Cambridge has a recent history of isolating poor students in schools and two of these were closed during consolidation.) Middle-class families who advocate for balance believe their children get many benefits, too, from attending diverse schools. (See "How Not to Pick a School.")

Of course, the best way to create balanced schools is to make sure that existing schools have strong programs that are seen as viable and attractive by both middle class and low-income families. To me, one of the strengths of the new Montessori program is just that, and, indeed, the families who chose the new program for next year reflect a strong balance. But the Tobin is by no means the only school in our system drawing respectably from both free and paid categories. There are also several examples of Cambridge schools that changed their demographics dramatically, becoming more balanced, by adopting new programs and other means.