Should Iowa schools move students to achieve economic balance?
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School board discussion of a proposed plan that seeks to balance the number of students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunches in the Iowa City Community School District focused not on diversity but rather on consistency.
Both district residents and board members aired their issues with the policy’s language and targets during its first reading at Tuesday’s regular board meeting.
One repercussion of the plan involves moving students to different buildings in order to achieve that balance and alleviate the current chasm between district schools, a move that educators believe will reduce the challenges faced by schools with high concentrations of those learners.
The current draft of the policy calls for “at least 95 percent of the capacity of the permanent secondary building capacity should be utilized,” before adding on to current junior and high schools or building another school, such as the oft-debated potential third high school in North Liberty.
What do you think of the plan? Should Iowa City force some students to attend other schools in order to better distribute students from low-income homes?
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I lived in Michigan, in the 60s, at a time of forced busing in Detroit and Pontiac. My advice is that forced busing should be avoided at virtually any cost. It created some horrendous problems.
Back in the ’60s, Mr Greer, we were all taught to hate and fear each other. Times have changed. Sort of.
Besides that, we are talking about ICCSD which means we are talking about elementary schools. Evening out the FRL rates is one way to reduce problems associated with uneven distribution of resources and parental involvement. It’s also a way to introduce children to other children who are not exactly like themselves.
Our highschools and middle schools are already integrated economically.and we don’t see the kind of problems that you had to deal with fifty years ago. I sincerely doubt that kids in the 5 to 12 year old age bracket are going to be staging violent gang wars on the playground because some of their class mates come from families at or below the poverty level or vice versa.
So why don’t we lower the volume and stop stigmatising children based on their family income. Please
No to moving students. Moving students just moves the problems. Diversity isn’t a problem, corrupt, inefficient, immoral, socially engineered education is. The solution is to provide the students, all of them, a decent, proper education and the perceived problem of diversity (or lack of) will not exist. It is the self serving, political decisions of the Board of Education that cause of the problems not the students. Diversity is a fact of life not a political state of being.