#7
View attachment 414741
May 1st, 1981
The Des Moines Register
Headline: DMPS to Join NATCO Pilot
The Department of Education has announced that Des Moines will join the list of 150 school districts across the country in a large-scale pilot program that will, if successful, eventually expand a version of Secretary Heckler’s Boston-based METCO program nationwide.
The METCO program, successfully reformed by then-Lieutenant Governor Heckler in 1971, issues state education funding based on a sliding scale related to something called “dissimilarity,” which measures the level of a school district’s racial integration to the surrounding community. The new program will do the same with federal education dollars. The hope is to encourage schools to voluntarily desegregate via the carrot of increased education funding on the one hand, while threatening them with the stick of withheld funding on the other.
The Federal program requires a school district to maintain a low dissimilarity based on a weighted average of local, county, regional, and state demographics, in an effort to forestall white flight from one jurisdiction to the next. This “nesting demographics” method makes it very difficult for parents to move to avoid at least some level of integration.
Once the NATCO Program begins nationwide, it will be coupled with a 200% increase in per-district federal education funds, as well as additional incentives to encourage states to enact statewide unified school district policies. This will ensure that an equal amount of state and federal funding reaches every school in the country and will see the end of local funding by property taxes, which is currently the most popular school funding model nationwide.
Many Iowa politicians have expressed concern about where the money is coming from to pay for this new system. [CONT’D B4]
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July, 1984
Six angry parents have demanded a meeting with the bursar at an elite private school in the suburbs of Washington DC.
“How can the school justify a 200% raise in the cost of tuition? This is insane!”
“I’m sorry, everyone. I wish we didn’t have to. This is the cost of doing business now.”
“Georgetown Prep isn’t raising costs half this much.”
“That is a parochial school, madame. They’re partially exempt from the new standards.”
“Maret isn’t parochial and they aren’t dealing with this kind of spike in tuition.”
“Maret is...well…”
“What he’s trying to say is Maret lets in black kids.”
“Sir, that’s-”
“So this is about diversity? Can we just stop dancing around it and cut to the chase?”
The bursar sighs and pulls out some notes.
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, let’s cut to the chase. Last year we had an open session of the board. Parents were invited to comment. The new federal rules were gone over in detail and we took great effort to make sure everyone understood. The consensus from all present was clearly in favor of maintaining our historic admissions practices. We took a poll of parents in the room and I have the results here: 116 in favor, 39 against. I happen to know that all six of you were in the room at the time. Do you remember how you voted?”
They all remain silent.
“So. The new federal policy states that exemption from the Dissimilarity Index comes at a price per pupil that reflects the burden which decreasing the diversity of student experience places upon the community.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Basically, the Department of Education has research that says that if students attend diverse schools, outcomes for economic and racial minorities are better. They end up in better jobs, fewer turn to crime, they even have better health. Beyond that, wealthier students end up with the same outcomes as they would if they attended exclusive schools. So the government attached a dollar amount reflecting the cost to society of keeping a student in an exclusive environment, and here we are.”
“So basically the government are calling us racists and asking us to pay for the privilege?”
“Look. I don’t like it any more than you do. The alternative was a change of admission practices coupled with a scholarship program and we calculated the cost at something like a 30% rise in tuition. That was not the path that was taken. This school therefore has a lot of new costs to absorb. This is the price demanded by the government. It’s a lot for anyone to take in and your anger is understandable. I would just suggest that you should not be directing this anger at the school. Would you agree?”
They’re not happy. But what’s another few thousand dollars to these people? They can absolutely afford it. This semester’s tuition check won’t even be the largest one most of them write today. That honor will go to the checks they send to the Conservative Party Election Committee.