By Jeffrey S. Solochek, Times Staff Writer
Saturday, December 11, 2010
To deal with crowding, the Pasco County School Board is redrawing attendance zones for middle and high schools in the eastern part of the county. As the Times reported last week, one of the upshots of the proposed new boundaries is an increase in the number of low-income students in Dade City schools — particularly Pasco Middle School, which will near Title I status — and a corresponding decrease in the socioeconomic diversity of students in the Wesley Chapel schools.
Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan but liberal-leaning Century Foundation, is one of the nation's leading proponents of economic integration. He spoke with the Times about the implications and possible outcomes of shuffling the students.
Schools' need to cope with crowding, financial constraints and other factors is real, Kahlenberg acknowledged. But simply rezoning children into more economically segregated ...
