Public school choice: Implications for African American students

Journal of Negro Education, The, Winter 1994 by Peterkin, Robert S, Jackson, Janice E

PETERKIN'S PRINCIPLES OF IMPLEMENTATION

To avoid these problems and to effectively implement controlled choice, we must ensure adherence to the principles of process and protection. Process is the involvement of the community in the development of a system of controlled choice. Protection is the guarantee by the governing authority of equitable treatment for all citizens. While curriculum content and pedagogy to be emphasized in schools of choice are most appropriately local school concerns, governmental authority must ensure accountability. Equality of high expectations and high academic outcomes must be assured for all students, especially for those who lack political power such as poor or minority populations.

The Cambridge Plan is based on two guidelines: race and space. Students have access to any of Cambridge's 13 elementary schools if (1) there is an available space in the appropriate grade level, and (2) their assignment meets the racial goals of the district's voluntary desegregation plan. The Cambridge system of controlled choice has been the prototype for similar programs in 12 school systems in Massachusetts and in the large urban school systems of Seattle (WA), Boston (MA), and Indianapolis (IN).

Based on his experiences as superintendent of the Cambridge public schools and subsequent experiences as superintendent in Milwaukee (WI), Peterkin (1990/91, 1992; Peterkin & Jones, 1989) has elaborated nine principles for fashioning and implementing a system of controlled choice:

(1) Careful Strategic Planning. Numerous opportunities for public debate and input should be provided to advocates and detractors, who have the responsibility for full disclosure of their proposals and counterproposals. Both sides must set forth the anticipated impact of the controlled choice plan on the educational outcomes for students. Pertinent data from other controlled choice districts must be thoroughly presented and reviewed. Such full public debate can enable parents to appraise the value of controlled choice and determine how it relates to other community goals, the comprehensive school reform agenda of the district, and parents' aspirations for their children.

Thomas Payzant (1993), the current Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education of the U.S. Department of Education and former superintendent of the San Diego City Schools, suggests that greater parental choice has the potential to fuel systemic reform among the nation's public schools:

The national debate about educational choice is not a new discussion, even though new dimensions and arguments continue to be introduced. The significance of this debate should not be underestimated. It has the potential of completely reshaping American public education. It could energize and accelerate school reform movements everywhere, or it could result in diverting already limited resources from existing reform efforts and causing setbacks from which public education might not ever completely recover. (p. 6)