Moving closer: an achievement gap remains, but parents and officials say the Evanston school district is making progress.

For four years, west-central Evanston resident Marjorie Smith piled her son into the family van every morning to make the two-mile trip across town to Lincolnwood Elementary School on the city's northwest side.

Shortly after they pulled away from the curb in front of their home, they passed Martin Luther King Jr. Laboratory School, another elementary school in Evanston-Skolde School District 65 located half a block away.

In fact, most students in the largely African American neighborhood were not assigned to the school. Many were bused or driven to Lincolnwood and three other schools in mostly white north Evanston because of the district's school attendance zones and integration policy. Known as the "60-percent guideline," the policy mandates that no racial group make up more than 60 percent of students at any elementary school.

This school year, the transportation crosscurrents have reversed for Smith's son and 15 other children who live within safe walking distance of King Lab. They were admitted to the magnet school as part of a newly adopted policy that sets aside 20 percent of new admissions to the school for west-central Evanston children. Normally, the district uses a lottery to select new students for its two magnet schools.

For Smith, the main advantage is the convenience of walking her son down the street to school in the morning--and of being a stone's throw away for teacher conferences and other events.

"I don't have to hop in the van and fight the traffic, and I avoid the aggravation of parking and everything," said Smith. While she attended events at Lincolnwood the past few years, she plans to be even more involved at King Lab. "All I have to do is walk out the door."

Another 11 kids in the neighborhood just north of King Lab took advantage of a similar policy that sets aside 20 percent of new admissions at Timber Ridge, the district's other magnet school, located a bit farther away in northeast Skokie. Those students may still have to be bused or driven to school, but, in some cases, not as far as they did previously.

Parents and activists in west-central Evanston have lobbied the district to scrap its integration plan and build a new school in the neighborhood, charging that the children there were bused excessively, hurting them academically. Among elementary school students in District 65, about nine of every 10 whites met or exceeded standards in reading and math, compared with about five of every 10 African Americans in reading, and six of every 10 in math, according to state figures.

District officials and activists from west-central Evanston do not entirely see eye to eye on how to address those concerns--but they're talking.

The district wants to keep its 60-percent guideline intact. But the set-asides were introduced to allow west-central Evanston children to attend school closer to home and to help boost their test scores. Of the 27 students taking advantage of the set-asides, 25 are African American, one is white and one is multiracial, according to the district. "The board's feeling was that those students should have an opportunity to go [to King Lab] because, arguably, [the school] is in their neighborhood," said Superintendent Hardy Murphy, who is black.

Activists have also suggested establishing an African-centered curriculum for black students. While district officials haven't jumped at the idea, on Jan. 10, the school board agreed to form a committee of staff and community representatives to study it.

Meanwhile, the activists want a school in their neighborhood and remain unconvinced that the set-asides will close the gap in test scores. However, they consider the set-asides meaningful, and they are encouraged by the district's willingness to talk about new ways to reach black children.

Terri Shepard, a former school board member, said black students at schools that employ an African-centered approach, like the Woodlawn Elementary Community School, a public school in Chicago, outperform black students at Evanston's schools. "The kids [at those schools] run circles around our kids," she said.

In 2004, nearly 74 percent of third-graders met or exceeded state standards in reading at Woodlawn, where all of the students were black. Almost 83 percent did in math. In District 65 last year, about 52 percent of black third-graders met or exceeded standards in reading and 69 percent did so in math.

Lorne Love, co-founder of Woodlawn Elementary, said the African-centered curriculum is "vital" to reaching students whose roots in America can feel fragile.

She said the traditional educational system has never taken into consideration the complete history of African Americans.

"We have been made to feel like we are from ... a land of savages instead of being the mothers and fathers of civilization, which is what we really are," Lorne added. "Whose shoulders are we supposed to stand on if we are not taught, 'Somebody who looked like me did this.'"

At the Jan. 10 board committee meeting, Shepard delivered a presentation on African-centered curricula to school board members. She was among several parents and activists in the group known as the Coalition for African-American Equity who strongly pushed the idea of African-centered education at a new school in west-central Evanston.

"The [proposed] school was on the table not just as a building, [but as] the fight for greater expectations, the fight to review programs to make sure there is proper attention paid to educating all children, particularly African American kids left behind," said Evanston 2nd Ward Alderman Lionel Jean-Baptiste, also a member of the coalition. "[The set-asides policy] is a step in the right direction, but there is still a problem to be resolved."

Jean-Baptiste said teachers must demand the same things from all students. "We'll have kids who demand more of themselves," Jean-Baptiste said. "There's been a lot of discussions from the administration on the question of teachers expecting more of their students, and, in a sense, judging themselves by the success of their children. That's what has to be done."

The district concluded that it didn't have the funds to build the new school. Instead, officials commissioned a study to determine if black children were bused in excessive numbers and whether busing affected student performance.

As part of its "60% Guideline Report," released in October 2003, District 65 reported a modest difference in busing rates among white and black children--and little connection between busing and test scores.

The report showed that in 2003-04, 34 percent of white students and 42 percent of African American students were eligible for busing.

The district provides busing for those who live at least one and a half miles from their assigned schools. Busing is also provided for students who would have to cross dangerous intersections, and also for those attending magnet schools or other special programs, like bilingual education.

But more than twice as many black students were eligible for busing because of distance. A total of 78 white students lived more than one and a half miles from the schools to which they were assigned, compared with 165 African American students. Much of west-central Evanston is more than one and a half miles from the schools in north Evanston, meaning busing for families like the Smiths.

The district's research found no statistical link between busing and student attendance, discipline problems or parental involvement.

"Riding the bus does not explain differences in achievement among the various demographic groups," the district's report concluded.

However, Murphy cautioned that the district's sample of students-about 2,700 out of roughly 6,600 students ride the bus--was probably not large enough to draw general conclusions about potential links.

With no strong evidence linking busing and achievement, the school board didn't make any radical changes. Still, Hecky Powell, interim president of the school board and its only African American member, considers the set-asides a monumental step forward.

"I think we accomplished something huge by just doing what we've done," said Powell, who believes the school board would support a new west-central school if money were available.

"There's a lot of people who were happy about [the set-asides], especially families around King Lab," he said. "Some of those kids were getting bused out all over the place. They are happy about it because it is right in the neighborhood."

But the district still gives higher priority to making sure no schools are overcrowded, and that each adheres to the 60-percent guideline-meaning students eligible for the set-asides could be turned away from the magnet schools if their admission would push any racial group over 60 percent at the magnet schools or their old schools.

For many, a new school with an African-centered curriculum is still the preferred remedy to limit busing and improve test scores. "It would bring pride back to the neighborhood--just bring that neighborhood to parity with the others," said Shepard.

Many west-central Evanston children have not attended an elementary school in the neighborhood since Foster Elementary was closed shortly after the district integrated the schools in the late 1960s.

Shepard said a new school would allow students to do their homework together while parents would share more of a common bond. "It would create cohesiveness," Shepard said. "Black people haven't taken ownership of the schools since Foster."

Even if the new school isn't an option, Shepard and others want the school board to tackle the achievement issue more aggressively. They cite at least two shorter-term options the district could pursue: additional training for teachers to improve the learning experience for minority children, and the introduction of a more focused African-centered curriculum, which could be moved to a future west-central school.

The Rev. John F. Norwood, who retired in January as senior pastor of Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church after 28 years in the pulpit, said teachers unfamiliar with students' communities have a more difficult time reaching them.

"I don't think teachers really get a chance to know their students anymore, to know the environment from whence they come," he said. "So they have to be purely scientific in their approach, and not from personal knowledge of why Johnny looks so sad in the morning."

Bennett Johnson, former president of Evanston's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said racism in society as a whole has wrecked the confidence of many minority children. And their self-esteem takes another hit when they are face-to-face with teachers who don't believe in them. Johnson said boosting the self-esteem of those students starts with teachers raising their own expectations.

"They should be more forthcoming on the need to train classroom teachers on the subtleties and nuances of handling African American and Hispanic children," said Johnson. "Even if the teacher is black, they often bring an attitude that doesn't help create self-esteem and a high comfort level."

Johnson gave one example of how such training might play out in the classroom: the teaching of Mark Twain's classic but sometimes controversial novel "Huckleberry Finn." Teachers would want to be especially careful to lay out the book's 19th century backwoods context, he said, "so that when it comes to the words 'Nigger Jim,' it doesn't insult or intimidate the black children in that integrated classroom."

Johnson added that he believes District 65 has "high quality" schools and is open to alternative teaching methods.

"It does provide a lot to our children, collectively, black and white," he said. "But Evanston has to overcome this gap issue."

The activists say a more African-centered approach would better engage black students in the learning process.

"The fact that blacks do achieve should be an ordinary part of the curriculum, rather than [being limited to] African-American History Month," Johnson said. "Include them in the history and the curriculum as you would anything, in a natural way."

Murphy said the district is not making any promises but will explore the idea. "It may be that that kind of Afro-centric approach will yield some results," he said. "I am open-minded about it. I understand the theoretical and educational rationale for that point of view."

Murphy added that such a curriculum might help strengthen bonds among parents, students and teachers, leading to higher achievement. "General affirmation translates to motivation, and that's what we have to reach for," he said. "Whether that's through an Afro-centric curriculum or through other experiences parents have through relationships with teachers and school administrators."

But he believes teacher training will remain at the forefront of the district's efforts to make sure all students are being turned on to learning. While the superintendent said he has increased the amount of teacher training, he hasn't done so with the goal of helping any one particular group of students. "Sometimes people have a hard time grasping that because they're operating from the assumption that you have to have something very different for African American or low-income students in order for them to succeed in school," he said. "I have taken a different approach. We have tried to address that through training teachers, training our principals, looking at the distribution of resources for our students."

Murphy sees the achievement gap in a broader context. "Not only is there an achievement gap, there's a healthcare gap, there's an income gap, there's a longevity gap, there's a quality-of-life gap that extends beyond education," he said. "The schools do play a part and have a responsibility, so that when students walk through those doors, we have crafted a curriculum that acknowledges those differences."

Powell said the district is doing the right things to train teachers. "A majority of teachers are setting the bar higher [for students]," he said. But he doesn't believe one can generalize about how best to teach students of a particular race.

"Everybody's an individual, and they learn in their own way," he said.

Although Jean-Baptiste believes that the district is working hard on the problem, he said the city of Evanston is "collectively tolerant" of an achievement gap that has persisted for years.

"It's not normal for one group of kids to perform less than another group of kids based on skin color," he said. "We, as a society, as a community, have to not be tolerant of achievement gaps and disparate performance."

The Numbers

Closing the Gap

In response to concerns from black parents, District 65 officials have set aside up to 20 slots at its two magnet schools, Timber Ridge and Martin Luther King Jr. Laboratory, for elementary school children from mostly black west-central Evanston. Officials hope the move will boost Illinois Scholastic Achievement Test scores for black students.

BLACK STUDENTS MEETING OR EXCEEDING
STATE STANDARDS

                   All     Timber   King
                 Schools   Ridge    Lab

3rd Grade
Reading            52%      45%     55%
Math               69%      65%     68%
Writing            63%      57%     48%
5th Grade
Reading            48%      50%     70%
Math               64%      82%     82%
Writing            59%      68%     54%

Source: 2004 Illinois School Report Card.