It is pretty easy to compile a list of objections to the recently released Harvard University study of ethnic concentrations in the Denver Public Schools.
The main objection is that the study, sponsored by the Piton Foundation of Denver, relies on language apparently intended to foster a sense of local shame.
It is said, for example, that the Denver schools have sharply “resegregated” and that today’s racial and ethnic concentrations are more extreme than when the federal courts got out of the school supervision business in the 1990s.
The authors of the study clearly want to link what has happened since 1995 to events that preceded the Denver school desegregation case filed in the 1970s. The only possible purpose is to make Denver parents feel guilty and open up the possibility of yet more changes in enrollment policy and school assignment.
The Piton Foundation, in fact, is quite open in support of attendance policies and practices that take family income into account. The theory is that the public will tolerate policies based on income that they wouldn’t accept based on race.
But do Denver residents have any reason to feel guilty based on the school enrollment data gathered thus far?
The Harvard study found that with some exceptions, black and Hispanic students tend to go to their neighborhood schools, resulting in high ethnic concentrations, while white students more readily use transfer options to travel to certain schools with high white enrollment and reputations for high academic standards.
There is nothing sinister in this. Denver schools offer a wide array of attendance options. There may be a number of explanations as to why one ethnic group uses them more than another. It is simply unfair to suggest that race is the main or only factor.
Families seeking education for their children have every right to look at the issue rather narrowly. What is the best school for my child? Where is he or she most likely to feel comfortable and academically challenged?
It has been obvious for years that the ethnic and economic makeup of the Denver district has been changing. Families are poorer on average and minority enrollment has been going up while white enrollment has been going down. Currently, the district is 57 percent Hispanic, 20 percent white and 19 percent black. Those numbers can be arranged and rearranged from now until next Christmas and they will still produce a district characterized by a lot of minority schools.
The federal courts struggled with numbers like these for better than two decades and finally concluded that the search for the perfect racial and ethnic balance was an impossible dream.
What the Piton Foundation apparently wants is another round of fretting over these same numbers. But what is more important is the educational quality of the school district’s offerings and whether those offerings are readily available to all of its students.
The Harvard study doesn’t suggest that the ethnic concentrations that now exist are the result of deliberate policies, but there is certainly the suggestion that the result is not a good thing and needs correction.
Unfortunately, the study’s inflammatory use of the word “segregation” doesn’t do a thing to produce an even-handed public debate about school attendance. It has the effect of focusing attention on the bitter past and not on the future.
DPS Superintendent Michael Bennet was among those who said he wasn’t surprised by the study’s findings, but he added a strange comment, saying the school district is committed to improving academic programs to “cultivate the kind of diversity in the student body that we all want.”
On close reading, that sounds like two different things. Why isn’t it enough to provide equal access to improved academic programs? Why is it necessary for the superintendent to promise “the kind of diversity we all want”?
There is now a 30-year history that demonstrates that not everyone agrees on how much “diversity” there should be. Another 30 years of effort isn’t likely to change that result.
It would be far more promising, and beneficial, if the educators and the Piton Foundation concentrated on the issue of educational quality and gave the ethnic and racial calculations a rest.
Al Knight of Fairplay (alknight@mindspring.com) is a former member of The Post’s editorial-page staff. His columns appear on Wednesday.
