Change in Ethnic Ratios Called Threat to Schools

In an impassioned reaction, Los Angeles school board member Roberta Weintraub said Friday that a proposal that could reduce the percentage of white students in the popular magnet program poses “a real threat to magnet schools and all desegregated schools in the district.”

Weintraub called on a group of parents representing magnet schools in the San Fernando Valley to rally against a proposed study that could lead to a 10% decrease in the percentage of white students at some of the district’s 86 magnet schools.

The Board of Education is scheduled to vote on the plan Monday.

If parents don’t fight the plan, Weintraub said, “this could be Custer’s Last Stand.”

“I’m really tired of our Valley schools getting shafted,” she said. “My perception is that we will have a massive pullout of the middle class.”

Court-approved guidelines establish a ratio of 60% minority to 40% white at most district schools. The proposal would initiate a study on changing the ratio to 70% minority to 30% white at some magnets.

Behind debate over ratios at magnet schools is the question of what an integrated school is. Some board members believe that, with 82% minority enrollment in the district, as a whole now 82% minority, the old 60-40 ratio in unrealistic. Many magnet schools already have ratios closer to 70-30, as well as long waiting lists of minority students.

These board members want to give minorities more opportunity to attend magnet programs by changing the ratio at all the schools.

Most magnet schools with predominantly white enrollments are in the Valley and on the Westside. According to district officials, several hundred white Valley students also are on magnet-school waiting lists.

Magnet schools were created to enhance integration through specialized programs that focus on a particular area of study, such as science, mathematics or the arts. Attendance is voluntary and a complex formula is used to determine who may enroll, based on such considerations as ethnicity and whether a student’s neighborhood school is crowded.

Weintraub said proposals to change ethnic ratios at magnet and regular schools, plans to convert the entire district to a year-round calendar and a study that could lead to reductions in district funding of Valley schools, are alienating Valley parents.

She was particularly incensed by the proposal to change ethnic ratios because it could decrease the chances of white students getting into magnet schools. If the ratios are changed, more minority students would have to be recruited, whereas fewer white students would be allowed to enroll.

The suggestion to review ethnic ratios at magnet schools was made last month by board member Jackie Goldberg, who represents the Wilshire and Hollywood areas. Besides furthering integration, Goldberg hopes that changing the ratios would ease crowding at other schools.

The existing 60-40 ethnic ratio guideline was established to help desegregate the district’s schools. Goldberg’s proposal would initiate a McKinney analysis, designed to measure community perception of whether an increase in the number of minority students would cause the school to be viewed as segregated.

According to guidelines based on McKinney vs. Oxnard, a landmark California school desegregation case, increasing minority enrollment to 70% on campuses that historically have not had a minority enrollment that high can be done only if the surrounding community says it would not perceive such a school to be racially segregated.

Community perceptions are determined through three attitude surveys, one of administrators and faculty, one of community groups such as chambers of commerce and one of parents.

The study must also contain an analysis of racial makeup of the school’s faculty and the racial composition of students participating in athletics and other extracurricular activities.

In the last two years, the ethnic ratios at 90 Los Angeles schools have been studied. The ratios were changed to 70-30 at 79 of the schools, district officials said. The remaining 11 stayed with the 60-40 formula.