Black Officials Oppose Boston Plan to End Busing of Students

A plan to end 15 years of court-ordered busing, hailed last month as a sign of racial healing, has drawn the opposition of all four black members of the Boston School Committee.

They say the plan, which would give parents some choice in the schools their children attend, will not work unless the city commits money and effort to improve the weakest schools, many of which are in black neighborhoods.

“This plan is being rushed through just to try to get out from under the court order,” committee member Gerald Anderson said Sunday.

Court-ordered busing, imposed in 1974 amid brawls and rock-throwing, triggered a flight of middle-class students--black and white--to suburbs and private schools.

In spite of some of the highest per-pupil expenditures in the nation, the dropout rate in the Boston public schools doubled to about 14% and white enrollment plunged from 60% 15 years ago to less than 25% this year, effectively resegregating the schools.

“The reality is, there is virtually no middle class left in the Boston schools,” said Ellen Guiney, education adviser to Mayor Raymond Flynn.

The plan, devised by two of the state’s leading minority educators, would allow parents to choose which schools their children attend, as long as there is space and racial balance is maintained.

The idea is to stimulate competition among schools, giving principals and teachers an incentive to make improvements and, perhaps, lure back some of the 25,000 students lost. The plan calls for failing schools to make changes and to replace administrators if no improvement is shown in two years.

The black school committee members contend, however, that the plan could send the weakest schools into a tailspin of declining enrollments, lower budgets and loss of motivated students and teachers.

They also object to a clause allowing all current students in special, limited enrollment “magnet” schools to remain in them. In practice, Anderson said, that means little space would be available in the most desirable schools.