The San Jose Unified School District's longtime efforts at school desegregation came to a head Sept. 30 when the board of education and Superintendent Linda P. Murray held a workshop session to evaluate the desegregation process.

The district had hired John Grates of J.H. Grates & Associates in December 2000 to inspect the district's dual goal of reducing racial isolation through the use of choice programs and improving the academic performance of the district's Latino students.

The district had enacted the "minority to majority" ("M to M") system to integrate the Latino population in its northern region with the mostly white population in its southern region. Magnet schools were created at both ends of the district with the goal of attracting ethnically mixed populations. Parents have the choice of where to send their children.

"I thought the report was quite good," board member Carol Myers told the Resident after the meeting. "Grates made some great recommendations, but is the district going to take them seriously?"

During the session, Grates and Chuck Benjamin, also of the consulting company, showed the pros and cons of the district's desegregation process.

"The 'M to M' movement of students to neighboring schools is essential to the success of voluntary desegregation through choice," Grates stated in his presentation.

All of the district's secondary schools are involved in the desegregation by choice process. Also, more than 40 percent of secondary—middle and high school—students do not go to a school in their own neighborhood, preferring to go elsewhere.

"The district needs to increase central support for recruitment and marketing for schools that fail to attract a targeted population to achieve racial balance." Grates' report stated.

Results from a survey conducted in June 2001 indicate "overwhelming support" for allowing students to choose their schools. But Grates warns that the district's racial demographics are shifting and therefore the district needs to use some foresight to anticipate "segregative pressures."

Myers later told the Resident that Willow Glen schools are perfect examples of such segregative pressures.

"We lose more students to private schools because of the misperception that Willow Glen schools are run down and bus in kids from other neighborhoods," Myers said.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a desegregation court order in December 1985, when SJUSD schools were found to be voluntarily segregated.

Grates found that the district has seen performance improve and dropout rates lessen, but the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) poses a new challenge.

In order to graduate, students are required to pass the exam, which will be implemented in the 2003­04 school year.

Grates' report claims that over the past five years, School Testing and Reporting (STAR) exam scores of Latino elementary school students in the district have improved by 39 percent in reading and by a "remarkable" 105 percent in mathematics.

Scores for Latino middle school students improved by 8 percent in reading and by 50 percent in mathematics. Latino high school students improved their reading score by 16 percent and their mathematics score by 37 percent.

However, the STAR results may seem benign compared to how well Latino students would score on the CAHSEE. The state had all public schools take a preliminary CAHSEE in the spring of 2001. Where 70 percent of non-Latino students in the SJUSD passed in English/language arts and 52 percent passed in mathematics, only 52 percent of Latino students passed English/language arts and 31 percent passed in mathematics.

"The district faces a significant challenge to insure that the CAHSEE does not provide a serious challenge to Hispanic students to stay in school and graduate with their class," Grate's report warned.