The Politics of School Districting

Anne Arundel County Maryland is the site of a third fight between parents and the school district to change the districting lines for two local high schools, the higher performing Arundel High and the lower peforming Meade High. From the article in the Baltimore Sun:

About 43 percent of Meade students passed the state algebra test last spring, and 52 percent of students passed the state English test. The portion of Arundel students who passed those exams were 61 percent and 68 percent, respectively. A third of graduating seniors from Meade go on to a four-year college, compared with 43 percent from Arundel.

The school board is proposing to move 344 students from Arundel to Meade in a move desinged to reduce the crowding at Arundel, which has an enrollment of 300 students above capacity.

The problem is that the districts planned move is being described as racist and an attempt to resegregate the schools.

Arundel High is 31 percent African-American, and Meade High is 55 percent African-American.

School officials have denied that race has played a role in the proposal, maintaining that their goal is to clear space at Arundel High. The school, which is more than 300 students over capacity, would remain crowded even after a new science wing is built if some students aren't moved out, schools planning director Chuck Yocum said.

At a meeting Monday night, more than three dozen Seven Oaks residents lobbied the school board to reject Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell's proposal.

They filed into an auditorium at Meade High School, walking past a mural that said: "There is more that draws us together than drives us apart."

The Meade feeder system, which includes nine elementary schools and two middle schools, is more than half minority. It serves Fort Meade, two public housing complexes and other nearby neighborhoods that are filling up quickly with professional and upper-middle class families who say they bought their homes on the promise that their children would attend Arundel High School in Gambrills.

While Meade has suffered from a negative public image, school officials say that the perception is changing, due in large part to moves by the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission which voted to alter nearby Fort Meade's mission.

But the impending base realignment and closure process that could infuse the Fort Meade area with top-level engineers and scientists and create at least 14,000 white-collar jobs has spurred school officials to beef up the academic program at Meade High. Meade has expanded its college preparatory track with more than 20 Advanced Placement courses, the International Baccalaureate program and a pre-engineering program.

Schools ebb and flow in terms of their respectability in most suburban counties and Anne Arundel county is no different. I suspect that due to the crowding problems, this time the redistricting is likely to go through.