From the August 28, 1996 Daily Report Card:
-> *4   FOR THE GOOD OF THE CHILD:  OR OF THE SCHOOL?
->    A "gifted" eight-year-old Montgomery County, Md., student
-> has filed suit against a school system that would not let her
-> transfer to a school with a strong gifted and talented program
-> outside her normal attendance boundary.  The decision was based on
-> race:  the girl is white, and the Montgomery County Board of
-> Education ruled that her departure from Strathmore Elementary
-> would "harm" that school's racial balance (Beyers, WASH POST,
-> 8/24).
->    "No one has any control over his or her race," said Charles
-> Fuller, a lawyer who filed suit on his daughter's behalf.  "We're all
-> born as we are, and we should all be treated equally."
->    The POST writes that the suit, filed last week in U.S.
-> District Court in Greenbelt, could "represent the biggest test
-> yet to the county's controversial policy of using racial
-> headcounts to make decisions on school transfers."  Last year,
-> parents of two part-Asian kindergarten students complained of
-> Montgomery school chief Paul Vance's attempt to deny their
-> children admission to a language immersion program based on their
-> ethnicity.  Eventually, the Board of Education voted to overrule
-> Vance by removing race and ethnicity from its criteria for
-> admission to language programs.
->    Board members explained that the Asian students were
-> justified in their complaint because language programs are not
-> available across the county.  However, they claim that gifted
-> programs are located at all schools, although quality and
-> quantity vary, writes the paper.  "The fact of the matter is that we
-> don't offer equal academic opportunity to all students," said school
-> board member Stephen Abrams.  "There is a range of
-> equality we offer, and I'm not sure the courts would hold us to a
-> rigid requirement that we must offer absolute equality."
->    The paper notes the criteria used by Montgomery County
-> school officials in deciding on school transfers outside student
-> boundaries, including:  whether space is available at the
-> receiving school and whether the student's departure leaves a
-> school underused.  School officials each year produce charts that
-> show which racial and ethnic groups can transfer into and out of
-> county schools, "based on enrollment trends over a three-year
-> period," reports the paper.  The charts are used to guide school
-> officials, not serve as strict quotas.  According to the POST, it is
-> that "element of the policy that the Fullers hope to
-> overturn."
->    Fuller notes the irony of the situation.  His family has
-> contacted a real estate agent to help them purchase a new home in a
-> county neighborhood that does not have a prohibition on school
-> transfers by white students.  "It's ridiculous," he said.  "We
-> live in a diverse neighborhood now, but to play by their rules we
-> have to live in a less diverse neighborhood in order to transfer.
-> It's all gamesmanship."
--- PCBoard (R) v15.22/M 10
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