Parents Satisfied With Bussing Plans

The Harvard Project on School Desegregation presented the findings of a study on the Metropolitan Project on School Desegregation (METCO), a Boston area program, at the Kennedy School of Government yesterday.

This represents the first study performed on METCO in more than 25 years.

METCO, a desegregation program which busses Boston city students to suburban schools, has been highly successful, according to the panelists who presented the findings.

The results of the study, were based on a survey of more than 2,400 parents.

The results show very high levels of both parental and student satisfaction with the program and also highlighted METCO's need for some improvements.

"We received an extremely positive report from both parents and children," said Gary Orfield, professor of education and social policy at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) and the director of the study.

METCO was established in 1963 by black parents and educators from the Boston area. It is the oldest large-scale transfer program of inner city students to suburban high schools and is extremely popular, with a waiting list that goes into the thousands.

The purpose of the survey, according to Orfield, was to look at basic questions such as the opinions and experiences of the students and parents involved in the program.

Orfield also discussed the unusually high 75 percent response rate and the great diversity in the education and income levels of the parents surveyed.

At the same time, Orfield said that about half the students said they encountered some form of discrimination from other students at their schools.

"There was a reasonable amount of concern about discrimination" from the peers of students participating in METCO, according to Orfield.

At the same time, Orfield said that only about 4 percent of students said they actually experienced extreme discrimination.

Orfield also said that METCO has helped to make parents extremely involved in their children's school communities.

"Parents say once their kids go to suburban schools they [themselves] become extremely involved in the school," he said.

Jennifer L. Arenson, a student at the Graduate School of Education, supported Orfield's comments by presenting a companion study of students at three METCO schools which she conducted for the Harvard Civil Rights Project.

According to Arenson, 83 percent of those surveyed said they believed that the positive effects of METCO outweighed the negative effects associated with the program.

Ninety-one percent of the METCO students surveyed reported that they had a good or excellent experience in learning to get along with people from other backgrounds, according to Arenson.

On the other hand, Arenson said that there are differences between student interaction and student unity.

"There is a difference between desegregation and integration," Arenson said.

Jean McGuire, the Executive Director of METCO, complimented the work of the Harvard Project.

"[METCO] does everything possible to make [minority students] shine," she said.

METCO Directors, Sheryl Goodloe and Cheryl Prescott, and Jeff Young, superintendent of the Lexington public school system, spoke of the advantages METCO has provided to the participating suburban school communities by increasing minority representation.

According to Orfield, the most important aspect of METCO, however, was not so much the interracial experience but the educational and psychological advantages for minority students of attending affluent schools where students are encouraged to succeed.

This was the primary motive for 80 percent of parents to enroll their children in METCO, Orfield said.

Tanika Edwards, a senior at a Newton High School, said she believes she has grown from her experience with METCO.

Edwards, who enrolled in the program 12 years ago as a kindergarten student, said she initially felt "horror getting into a bus to go to a place far away" and that she then underwent "trials and tribulations of racism, sexism and classism."