
"It’s not a choice process because there’s really not a lot of choice . . . The whole aura it sets up has made it tough in our house." - an East County parent (see article)For ten years, each of the three Northeast Consortium high schools serving East County - James Hubert Blake, Springbrook and Paint Branch - has had a special focus and allowed East County eighth-graders to choose a school that best fits their interests. When I went to Blake, I met a lot of people who shared my interest in art, and I had a better education for it.
Shouldn't that be enough for Montgomery County Public Schools, who's been denying an increasing number of students their first-choice school to give Blake a more diverse population reflective of East County's demographics? Four years ago, 100 percent of students in the Northeast Consortium got to attend the school of their choice; today, only 85 percent have the same opportunity.
The result: Blake, which was already a hot commodity in the Consortium, has a lot of parents and kids worried about what are, essentially, the next four years of their lives. To me, the idea of giving kids on reduced lunch a preference in assigning high schools is a little close to the idea of mandatory busing. Racial or socioeconomic diversity is not the be-all, end-all goal of a school, especially when the community it serves (be it a farm town or simply kids who like to draw) may not be inherently diverse.

The area served by the Northeast Consortium, which covers all of East County, is by nature a diverse one - everything from $1,000/month apartments to million-dollar homes. No matter what's taught in a school, that school will reflect the diversity of this community. We don't need to toy with hundreds of East County families each year by promising them a school their kids won't be able to attend. I say that the Choice Program be just that - a choice of the people - and let the chips fall where they may.
pictured: scenes from Blake High School, May 2005.
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