OP-ED; Flaherty's stance isn't very moving

Thomas M. KEANE, Jr.
775 words
19 April 2002
Boston Herald
All Editions
025
English
(Copyright 2002)

Busing is the third rail of Boston politics, a swamp of deep emotional power. It's particularly so within the City Council, where even ostensibly mundane issues such as seat belts on buses have quickly turned angry.

That's the mess Council President Michael Flaherty waded into last week when he vowed to take a hard look at spending on school transit. His promise, to the new president's apparent surprise, has generated a storm of attention.

For his part, Flaherty argues that his concern is purely budgetary. But he frames his argument by also saying, "It's time we return to neighborhood schools." In doing so, he evokes one side in a contentious argument that for some engages ugly memories of riots and racial segregation.

To be sure, transportation costs, budgeted to be $55.9 million, are a seemingly obvious target for savings. That's particularly so because Laidlaw Education Services, the independent contractor that manages busing, has for years been the sole bidder. That lack of competition, many believe, has boosted costs.

Fair enough. But Flaherty overstates his case by saying transportation costs are "spiraling out of control." Those assertions aren't credible. First, well over half the transportation budget goes to bus children attending private, parochial, charter or special education schools. Transportation for children attending regular schools will cost $23.8 million next year.

And in fact, next year's transportation budget is $670,000 LESSthan this year's. Since 1997 it has grown by an annual average of only 4.7 percent, similar to the average increases in the overall city budget.

So what's really going on? At stake are two competing visions of education: school choice vs. neighborhood schools.

Busing became a dirty word in Boston in 1974, when U.S. District Judge W. Arthur Garrity, after concluding the city had intentionally segregated its schools, ordered immediate desegregation. The court assigned students to schools based on their race; it used buses to get them there. Opposition from white communities was fierce. Many left the city altogether.

Some have read the turmoil of the times as an example of white racism, but that's an oversimplification. In truth, the battle was over the right of each of Boston's fiercely independent neighborhoods to control of its own destiny. Schools, particularly high schools, were as much centers of the community as they were places of learning. To many, forced busing tore the heart out of each neighborhood.

Over time, the court changed its requirements, and in 1986 handed back school control to the city. No kids are now assigned to schools based on their race.

Still, busing persists, in part because of the legacies of the 1970s. Mandatory busing has morphed into school choice. Boston's three exam schools, its pilot schools and other schools with strong reputations attract students from across the city. The city pays to transport them.

There are practical limitations on choice. Popular schools are oversubscribed, meaning many don't get their first choice. Moreover, as populations have shifted, schools are frequently no longer where the kids are. West Roxbury and Brighton, for example, have more seats available than students.

At one level, of course, the goals of school choice and neighborhood schools can be in harmony. In September 2003, for example, three new schools will open in Roxbury and Dorchester, and provide more choice to two growing communities that are now underserved.

But at broader level, there is a conflict between the two ideals. Busing and school choice changed the face of the city. Citywide schools - as opposed to neighborhood-based schools - broke down many barriers that insulated one neighborhood from another. Measured by ethnicity and economics, neighborhoods are far less homogeneous.

To many that's a good thing. Today's diverse and largely peaceable city, they argue, would have been almost unimaginable 30 years ago.

To others, though, it comes at too high a cost. Once strong enclaves like South Boston, the North End and Charlestown are rapidly losing their identities. The solution, they argue, is to go back to the past: to return to neighborhood, or "walk-to," schools.

Thus, the discussion of transportation is not a dry dollars-and- cents conversation. School choice does cost money, but it has helped create a Boston that is the envy of many cities. Abandoning those ideals means returning to an older world that many Bostonians thought - and hoped - was gone forever.

Tom Keane can be reached at tom@tomkeane.com.

Graphic: FLAHERTY: Contary to his claim, transit costs aren't spiraling.

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