Century Foundation Fellow Links Economic Integration to High Student Achievement in School President Bush Visits Wednesday

5/7/2002

From: Christy Hicks of The Century Foundation, 212-452-7723, hicks@tcf.org

NEW YORK, May 7 -- When President Bush goes to Wisconsin tomorrow to discuss his education initiatives, he will visit Logan High School in La Crosse. The school was chosen because although it has a higher poverty rate than the state average, its students have a high rate of achievement.

While the president is likely to highlight good teaching and high standards, Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, says the school owes its success to an additional factor: economic integration.

Kahlenberg describes the transformation of Logan into a successful high school in his book, "All Together Now, Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice." He writes that until the late 1970s, Logan was a school that served a predominately blue collar population while the other high school, Central, served a more affluent population. In a highly controversial move, then superintendent Richard Swantz encouraged the school board to move the school boundaries, so that some Central students were required to attend Logan, producing an influx of middle class students into Logan. With the middle class students -- and their parents' involvement -- came higher standards and better course offerings until, over time, both Logan and Central were equally high performing schools. What is significant is that the academic success of all Logan students -- not just the middle-class students -- improved significantly. The success of the economic integration of La Crosse's high schools was the basis for a subsequent decision by the city's school board to redraw elementary school district boundaries for economic integration.

Richard Kahlenberg is the executive director of The Century Foundation's Task Force on the Common School, a group of education and policy experts, including Richard Swantz, which is looking at economic integration of public schools. The task force is chaired by Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., former governor of Connecticut. The task force will issue a report in September.

Richard Kahlenberg is available to comment on President Bush's visit to Logan High School in La Crosse, and on general education reform issues. Contact Christy Hicks at 212-452-7723 to schedule an interview. For more information on the task force activities and education reform issues, visit the education reform Web site: http://www.equaleducation.org.

------ The Century Foundation is a research foundation that undertakes timely, critical, and analytical studies of major economic, political, and social institutions and issues. Nonprofit and nonpartisan, TCF was founded in 1919 and endowed by Edward A. Filene.