Monday, March 28, 2011

How School Choice Has Changed the Face of Public Schools - voiceofsandiego.org: Schooled: The Education Blog

How School Choice Has Changed the Face of Public Schools - voiceofsandiego.org: Schooled: The Education Blog

How School Choice Has Changed the Face of Public Schools

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  • Ninety percent of students at Golden Hill K-8 School are Latino — yet the neighborhoods it draws from are actually more racially diverse.

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From the Reporter
Why I Chose This Story
I’ve often heard people say that the vast menu of school choice in San Diego helps to integrate schools. I wanted to know if it really did.
What Surprised Me
Some schools would actually become less segregated if all the students went to their neighborhood school.
My Unanswered Question
Does it harm schools to be segregated by race and class? Scholars and educators dispute its impact.

Posted: Sunday, March 27, 2011 2:50 pm |Updated: 7:59 am, Mon Mar 28, 2011.

Once upon a time, you just went to the public school down the street in your neighborhood. That was how Karen Calderon remembered it. But choosing a school for her son was anything but simple.

Her neighbors warned her about iffy scores at their nearby Clairemont school. So she scoped out other schools, gauging their test scores, what time they started, which middle schools they fed into. Calderon toured five schools and wrestled with her choice, changing her mind over and over.

Even now she wonders if she asked the right questions. Calderon snagged a spot