Last November, 58% percent of the voters passed Initiative 200. The measure passed in every county of the state except King and in every part of that county except Seattle. Initiative 200, now law under RCW 49.60.400, says "the state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting."

The purpose of the new civil rights law is to end the government’s 30-year practice of making official distinctions among citizens based on race. It is surprising therefore, to find that the state’s largest public school district, Seattle, is continuing to use preferential treatment based on race for assigning students to schools.

The continued race-conscience admissions policy appears contrary to the direction laid out a few years ago by local education officials when they ended the District’s failed mandatory busing program. At the time, Superintendent of Seattle Schools John Stanford, said, "I don’t have to sit next to someone of another color to learn." 1

The Seattle School District now acknowledges that race-based busing proved to be a failed attempt at social engineering. Now is the time for the district to do the same with racial preferences. Denying students the opportunity to go to their neighborhood school based on race will not build real community schools. Don Nielsen, Vice President of the Seattle School Board was quoted in the Seattle Times saying, "We are not resegregating our schools. We are reintroducing parental choice and 90 percent of parents want their kids to got to school close to home."2 Following this initiative, removing the integration positive policy would help empower parents to foster a real sense of ownership for their community schools.

This study will outline the criteria the district uses for assigning students to schools. Also, the study will describe the policy of integration positive, which gives preference in school enrollment based on race, and assess the impact of this policy in relation to Washington’s newly-enacted civil rights law.

A. A Closer look at Seattle schools

The Seattle School District is one of the largest public school districts in the county. This June, the district has enrolled 47,073 students in its 93 schools for the coming school year. The District’s general-fund operating budget is $359 million annually. Before 1997, the district spent about $7,134 on each student in the system.3 Today the District has adopted a different funding formula. The District provides a base amount of $2,485.98 per pupil. Additional funds are then added for individual students who are part of the federal free lunch program (an indicator of poverty) or who are enrolled in bilingual education.4

The majority of the students in Seattle’s schools are non-white. There are 11,423 Asian American students (24.3 percent of total), 10,777 African American students (22.9 percent), 4,444 Hispanic students (9.4 percent), and 1,410 Native American students (3.0 percent). White students make up the largest single ethnic group, with 19,518 students or 40.4 percent of all enrollees.5

B. Six criteria used in admissions

With the end of mandatory busing, the District’s admissions policy now seeks to give parents their first choice in what school their child will attend. When that is not possible, the District applies six priority criteria as "tiebreakers" to determine what school a student can attend.

The first consideration is whether the student has a brother or sister at the same school. Preference is given if a sibling is already enrolled at the school of the parents’ choice. Next, the District looks at whether the student lives in the chosen school’s Regional Reference Area.

For the third criteria, the District looks at race. In school records each student is assigned the status of "integration positive" or "integration negative," depending on whether the student’s race, color, ethnicity or national origin matches the racial quota the district has established for the school parents requested. Below is the description of how the integration positive policy works.

"Integration Positive: Each school will be designated as integration positive for whites, non whites or for all ethnic groups. Preference will be given whenever a minority student is applying to a school where the percentage of white students in the receiving school is more than 10% above the district white average, or a white student is applying to a school where the percentage of minority students in the receiving school is more than 10% above the district minority average." [emphasis added].

The forth criteria is whether the student has been part of an academically gifted program. Students with elementary alternative school or Spectrum program experience are given preference when applying to those programs.

The fifth criteria is the distance of the student’s home from the school measured in a straight line. The sixth criteria is a lottery, using a computer-selected, random three-digit number given to each student. All these criteria are described in more detail in the appendix, based on information received from the Seattle School District’s Office of Student Assignment.

C. The school district’s policy violates Initiative 200

As illustrated above, all but one of the District’s "tiebreaker" criteria for determining school assignments use race-neutral information about students and do not interfere with their civil rights by discriminating or granting preference based on race.

The District’s third criteria, however, clearly violates Initiative 200, the Washington Civil Rights Act. School policy holds that "preference will be given" to any student that helps meet the pre-determined racial quota education officials have set for the chosen school. The relevant parts of the Initiative 200 law bars any "government entity" from "granting preferential treatment" based on "race . . . color, ethnicity or national origin" in "the operation of . . . public education."

The District’s policy further states that "Each school will be designated as integration positive for whites, non-whites or for all ethnic groups." Students who do not meet the race criteria for a given school are denied this preference, thereby violating the part of Initiative 200 which bars public schools from discrimination based on race. In fact, in the District’s admissions policy, race is given higher priority than three race-neutral factors in determining what school a student may attend.

The District’s discriminatory policy is already at work. A child of one Seattle family was denied entrance to the neighborhood school only six blocks from their home, and were instead assigned to a different school over a mile away. The student, who is white, was denied admission after being designated "integration negative" for the school the family can see from the windows of their home. Six other students, who were listed as "integration positive," were moved ahead on the preferred school’s waiting list.

The policy can work equally against Seattle’s minority families. If the percentage of black, Asian, Hispanic and Native American students at a particular school is more than 10% above the percentage of minority residents in the area as a whole, then white applications will receive the "integration positive" designation and be granted a preference over non-white students.

The admissions policy exposes the School District, and taxpayers, to costly civil rights lawsuits if students can show they are being denied an educational opportunity because of their race, color, ethnicity or national origin. The District’s own policy, and the real-world impact it is having on some families, would provide strong evidence in court that government-based discrimination had taken place.

Dropping the third priority criteria, "integration positive," would bring the Seattle School District into compliance with current state civil rights law. Racial preferences would then no longer be used as factor in admissions to public schools. The other five criteria are not based on a student’s race and do not violate Initiative 200. Eliminating race-based admissions would be fairer to students and parents of all races, and would protect the District from legal action by insuring full compliance with the law.

The Equal Citizenship Project is made possible by grants from The John M. Olin Foundation and The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Appendix

Criteria for Student Assignments to Seattle Public School

Q. What happens when schools are full?

A: Over Subscription and Tiebreakers

If more students choose a school than there is space available, timeliness of application, in-district residency and tiebreakers will determine which students receive assignment to the school. The priority order of tiebreakers are:

1. Sibling: Preference is given to a student with a sibling already attending, and anticipated to continue, in the chosen school. Linkage is provided to a sibling applying new to the same school.

2. Regional References: Area or School Boundary: Preference is given to middle school students residing in the regional reference area of the school. (For secondary alternative schools the regional references area will be the entire district. For non-traditionally graded schools with both elementary and secondary grade levels, the designated elementary clusters are secondary grade levels, the designated elementary clusters are considered the region). This priority does not apply to high school assignments.

3. Integration Positive: Each school will be designated as integration positive for whites, non whites or for all ethnic groups. Preference will be given whenever a minority students is applying to a school where the percentage of white students in the receiving school is more than 10% above the district white average, or a white student is applying to a school where the percentage of minority students in the receiving school is more than 10% above the district minority average."

4. Special Program Preference: For three years, beginning in 1999-2000, applicants for the sixth grade with elementary alternative school or Spectrum experience receive preference when applying to those respective programs.

5. Distance: Distance is calculated as the straight line distance from the home to the school. Distance is considered equal for all cluster based K-5 + schools, alternative secondary schools, all city programs/schools and programs for which a student must meet an eligibility requirement.

6. Lottery: A computer selected random three digit number. Lower numbers results in higher priority.

Source: Seattle School District Q and A publication, "In Case You’re Wondering..."