Desegregation Aftereffects Anger Parents

Pr. George's Still Uses Race To Fill Magnet School Slots

Prince George's County continues to assign children to its magnet schools on the basis of race, despite a federal judge's recent decision ending three decades of court-ordered desegregation and a demographic shift that has left the county school population decidedly African American.

That practice is drawing protests from parents in College Park, who say that white children have fewer options for specialized middle school programs, even though they represent a minority in the school district.

For instance, Sharon Krosel wanted her son to attend Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Center -- the best-performing middle school in the county. In March, the 34 black students in her son's elementary school magnet program received letters from the school system inviting them to enroll in the highly coveted Beltsville school this fall.

But Edward Krosel, who is white, and 16 other students were informed that the only magnet program open to them was at Nicholas Orem Middle School, a Hyattsville school that is on the watch list for possible state takeover because of poor academic achievement. The middle schools have similar demographics, with black students representing 57 percent of their population, according to October 2001 attendance figures.

"I'm not a racist. I'm not a bigot. I have really, really tried hard to treat people with respect and teach that to my child," said Krosel, whose son attends Paint Branch Elementary School. "And now my child is being treated differently."

A federal judge last month ended a 30-year-old desegregation lawsuit and declared the school system "unitary" -- meaning that there are no vestiges of the segregated system that provided unequal educations. But the Paint Branch situation has raised a complex question for the school system: How do you define diversity in a county that is majority black?

"Once you are declared unitary, you can come up with different ways to define diversity," schools chief Iris T. Metts said.

When magnets were first created, the county was only 40 percent African American. Now, the school system is 77 percent African American. Yet the guidelines for admitting students into the 53 magnet programs have not changed, leaving many parents and even some school officials to question what the purpose of the programs with a specialized curriculum should be.

"I certainly understand where the parents are, but I think where we are is caught in a demographic quagmire," school board Chairman Beatrice P. Tignor said. "We're trying to make equal that which is unequal based on population."

As part of the lawsuit, the school system has agreed to reevaluate the magnet program, which was created in 1985 as a desegregation tool. The lawsuit also ordered the school system to return students to their neighborhood schools, further clouding the future of the magnet program, which draws students from all over the county.

Susan B. Miller, director of the magnet schools office, did not respond to requests for an interview. In a letter to Krosel dated May 31, Miller said that the guidelines for placing students in a magnet program are based on a desegregation order to make the specialized programs racially diverse. Paint Branch Elementary students have had the same middle school options since 1989, she said.

But the parents argue that the guidelines are outdated, and they plan to keep fighting the decision because, they say, it violates their equal rights.

"The whole magnet program is contradictory to what it was set up to do," Krosel said. "It's created a whole set of inequalities that it was supposed to address."

Tignor said the school board would try to agree on the proper criteria for the magnet program.