By ROBERT McCLORY
Chicago's reaction to 'Access'
GIVEN THE long, tortuous route which has brought the Chicago public school system to Access to Excellence, no one should be surprised that the program is viewed with suspicion and hostility by a considerable segment of the population. Indeed, it was in anticipation of an initially negative response that Chicago School Supt. Joseph Hannon, with the aid of Chicago's major newspapers and with funds from several foundations, has attempted a full-scale public relations blitz. Some 75,000 copies of a booklet outlining and extolling Access have been printed and handed out. A special supplement on the program was distributed through the Sun-Times, and a Spanish version was later printed. A film strip explaining the elements of the program was produced by the Chicago Board of Education, with copies turned over to each of the city's school districts. A speakers' bureau has been formed. The Chicago media have provided Dr. Hannon every opportunity to tout Access to Excellence, and he assured newsmen in mid-summer that public interest is so intense that some components of the program may have to be expanded. (For a description of Access to Excellence, see box on pp. 16-17. Complete article on how it became Chicago's plan starts on p. 14.) But as the new school year approaches, it is difficult to find anything in local school districts to justify such unreserved enthusiasm. With some notable exceptions, Access to Excellence has received rotten pre-performance reviews from parents, community leaders and educational experts. In interviews with a cross-section of knowledgable Chicagoans, Illinois Issues uncovered reactions generally ranging from intense skepticism to absolute loathing. This is not to say, of course, that the program is doomed. It is to say that the selling of Access to Excellence has a long way to go. Black perception of the program has been molded largely by the responses of respected black spokespersons. School board member Dr. Edgar Epps declared from the beginning that Access to Excellence was essentially a scheme "not to frighten any more whites into leaving the city." Carey B. Preston, board vice president, branded it "Access to Ignorance." And James W. Compton, executive director of the Chicago Urban League, was scarcely kinder, calling it "elitist by design, ineffectual in scope, misleading in the goals it purports to achieve and dishonest in character." Meanwhile, white reaction has been typified by anti-Access lawsuits and by loud rumblings from the Southwest side, where parents are pledging to move to the suburbs rather than submit to the "unnecessary shuffling of students" called for by the program. Endorsements of the plan have been rare, and even the Chicago Region Parent Teacher Association statement of support was vague and highly qualified. The organization backs Access to Excellence"in principle," explained Harriet O'Donnell, PTA president, because the concept of magnet schools, career orientation and basic education programs is "educationally sound." However, she added, the PTA takes no position on the merits or demerits of Access to Excellence at this point in Chicago's history or on its alleged value as a desegregation tool. "We encourage autonomous viewpoints from our member chapters," added O'Donnell. In a general (and oversimplified) sense, it can be said that major opposition to Dr. Hannon's program is coming from three main sources: minority groups who feel the desegregation effort is too small and half-hearted; white groups who feel any desegregation attempt, even a voluntary one, is a grievous mistake; and mixed groups
ROBERT McCLORY 18/September 1978/ Illinois Issues who resent the imposition of the plan with little or no community input. Since minorities comprise 78 per cent of the public school enrollment, it is inevitable that the most numerous objections come from those in the first category. Beyond these general divisions, parents from individual neighborhoods have their own quarrels with Access as they anticipate it being implemented in their communities. Beverly, Morgan Park The far Southside 18th School District, which includes large sections of Beverly and Morgan Park, is an interesting case. The district is a virtual microcosm of the city, with a substantial black community, a smaller integrated one, and a still smaller all-white section. "Access to Excellence won't help us a bit," said Edouard Boncy, a community development specialist with the Chicago Urban League. "Real integration requires that the races deal with each other on an equal footing, but there's no equality out here and never has been." Boncy has been trying to prepare the area for integration for two years under a federal Emergency School Aid Act grant secured by the Urban League. The pattern, he said, is that the white community gets what it wants from the school board, while families in the black community, frequently unaware of how the school system really works, get the short end of the stick. "Nothing will change under the new program," he predicted. Boncy noted, by way of example, that Vanderpoel School has been designated an academic interest center for the 18th District, but the five schools selected to participate include three that are all-white and two that are integrated. Boncy said a Vanderpoel official confided to him that a decision has been reached to hold enrollment in the center to one-third black. "Do you call that integration in a district that is two-thirds black?" asked Boncy. The Rev. Mabel Elliot, advisory council president at Esmond School and an 18th District parent, agreed the Hannon plan won't help. "It's a sham," she said, "a lot of beautiful ideas like whipped cream on a cake. Only we don't have a cake. The purpose of the plan is to appease and please whites. A small percentage of students may benefit from all this but not many." Mandatory integration is the only answer, said Elliot, suggesting that whole classes exchange places in black and white schools "at least a few days a week. Then we'd have an exchange of culture." "We've had mandatory integration in the 18th District for years," she said, with students from largely black and overcrowded Morgan Park High School selected by lottery for transfer to Northside high schools, "but nobody yelled about it as long as it was blacks who were shipped out." Southside 20th District Similar discontent was expressed in the Southside 20th School District, which includes heavily black Brainerd, Gresham and Auburn Park. "Don't tell me Access to Excellence has anything to do with excellence," said Niles Sherman, a local parent and former president of the district council. "We've been trying to get quality education out here for years. But the money appropriated for new buildings, supplies or rehabilitation got rerouted to other purposes. We see ourselves as an orphan district." The 20th District got a harsh taste of integration last fall when children from the overcrowded Barton School were bused to Stevenson School in the all-white Bogan area, amid taunts, threats and insults. " Many parents from Barton and other schools around here were so upset they want nothing to do with integration plans, moderate or otherwise," said Sherman. "Of course, some will sign up their kids just to get them out of here. But there's no confidence in Hannon, the school board, or anything they do." Grand Boulevard Farther northeast in the Grand Boulevard area, one of the most poverty stricken black ghettos in Chicago, E. Toy Fletcher, president of the District 13 Education Council, lamented the board's failure to consult with concerned citizens about specifics of Access. "We don't have enough information to even get angry," he said, "just enough to be confused." Fletcher cited board plans to turn the Dyett School into a citywide magnet. "The people in the district thought another school could have been converted more conveniently and cheaply," he said. "But we were never asked." He predicted that very few students from outside Grand Boulevard would come in voluntarily under the permissive transfer plan, but said local high achievers may well depart for other schools. "All this is gonna do is drain off our best kids," said Fletcher. Judson Hixson, education director for the Urban League, said fears of drainoff are common in many black districts. Although Access to Excellence lists inner-city high schools as potential receiving schools, he said there is little doubt that most of the traffic will be out of these districts. "The top students will go," he said, "turning our schools into one great slag heap." Pilsen area "Hannon's plan is a bandaid on a cancer and it stinks," said Mary Gonzalez, a parent from the predominantly Hispanic Pilsen area (District 19) and a member of the Citywide Advisory Council (CWAC). "There's nothing in it for the great number of low achievers." In fact, noted Gonzalez, to the extent the program actually desegregates Latino schools, it will also weaken or wipe out bilingual programs, since special teachers and support services are alloted on the basis of the concentration of Spanish speaking students. Like the citizens of Grand Boulevard, Pilsen residents are distraught and confused, said Gonzalez, adding, "There will be some fierce resistance to all this in September." Gonzalez also criticized some peculiar aspects of Access to Excellence, citing the Clemente High School in District 6 as an example. "The only program assigned to the school under Access is advanced placement for accelerated students. Yet Clemente has a 60 per cent dropout rate. It looks like the basic needs are being ignored." Austin area In the black Austin area on the West Side (District 4), Illa Daggett, an outspoken activist and mother of three students, suggested a simpler and cheaper way to desegregate. "All schools should have a totally open enrollment, and the board should be able to place any teacher wherever she's needed, regardless of tenure. We don't need some fancy, expensive plan." September 1978/Illinois Issues/19 Daggett, who also serves on CWAC, admitted neither eventuality is likely soon. But she is proceeding anyway on a plan to organize a parents' union to counteract the power of the teachers' union. "Control the [teachers'] union," she said, "and things will happen." Under Access to Excellence, she said, nothing will happen "because the board is gonna do what it wants. It's not interested in integration. It just wants to get the state board off its back."
Austin has had a small but successful busing plan in cooperation with several all-white Northside schools for 11 years. Daggett, who is generally considered the mother of that plan, said Access to Excellence may, in fact, ruin its effectiveness through downtown bureaucratic interference. She also predicted that few students from Austin would volunteer for openings at Marshall, Crane or other Westside high schools. "To go back there would be a psychological regression for kids out here," she said. Northside District 3 In some Northside school districts with a greater racial mix, less flat opposition to Access was expressed, although general agreement abounded that it would not bring about any meaningful desegregation. The major outrage here was over who is calling the shots for the program. In Lakeview, parents have been feuding with Dr. William Rohan, District 3 superintendent, over charges that he has circumvented the input of the local education council. Among those resisting Rohan is Harriet O'Donnell, who is an activist parent and member of CWAC as well as head of the citywide PTA. Also engaged in the conflict is the Lakeview Schools Coalition. The community is about 30 per cent minority, said John Ayers, of the coalition, and there is no organized keep-out-the-blacks attitude in Lakeview. "Our problem is manipulation by the board of education," he said. "I think if we give people a good program, they'll be willing to think about their prejudices. But if you shove something down their throats, they'll never cooperate." Uptown, Edgewater Equally estranged from the board over Access plans are members of the education council for District 24, which includes much of the Uptown and Edgewater neighborhoods. "We have an extremely integrated district already," said parent Penny Kajiwara, a CWAC member whose Hawaiian-Chinese-Japanese background bespeaks the community's cosmopolitan character. "And we have succeeded through organization and pressure in getting quality education programs here. Now we feel we may lose what we have." Last April, a cluster program involving four local schools was started following years of local planning. Despite objections, this program has now been lumped into Access to Excellence where, said Kajiwara, "it will probably get fouled up and could even lose its funding. We're just ignored by Hannon. He wishes we would disappear." Kajiwara's attitude is typical of many CWAC members who spent months producing a desegregation plan. This overall proposal was ignored by Hannon, and though CWAC still meets irregularly, its view are not being sought concerning preparations for Access. Since CWAC includes extremely dedicated school activists and leaders from every community in the city, the snub is not being taken lightly — or silently. The organization recently filed a protest of their status with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Marquette Park, Bogan CWAC indignation, however, is mild compared to the animosity toward Access to Excellence in some all-white communities. In the Southwestside 15th District, which includes the Marquette Park and Bogan areas, the antagonism to Access is bluntly expressed by school leader Marjorie Sullivan: "We will not accept Access to Excellence in any shape or form. And if they force it on us we will either move or enroll our kids in Catholic schools. There is no other choice." Sullivan, a district council member and local PTA president, said no desegregation effort, however small, will be tolerated. Without quite admitting she wants a separate school system, she declared, "We demand local schools for local people. Our parents just aren't interested in some other community miles away." She said there were "quite a few" incidents at Stevenson School this past year involving the mistreating of white children by blacks who were bused in from Barton. "But you won't read about that in the papers," she said. "You never do." There is absolutely nothing of value in the Access program (even prescinding from its intent to desegregate), said Sullivan. Career training and academic interest centers she dismissed as "unnecessary slotting of children before they know what they want." The Chicago Board of Education, she said, should sue the State Board of Education for attempting to force it to do the impossible. "People are moving from around here every day," she said. "They claim whites are 22 per cent of the school system. It's closer to 18 percent now. I'm afraid there will be violence this September if this plan is implemented." West Elsdon, Gage Park "The only thing Access to Excellence will teach is how to ride a bus at the taxpayers' expense," said Doris Galik, an active parent in the West Elsdon and Gage Park areas of District 12. "I don't know what we're gonna do, but we sure have to fight this one. It's a slap in the face." Galik stressed the preeminent value of neighborhood schools overall other considerations and said any busing or shifting of pupils is harmful and destructive. She said she was among those who picketed the local Tonti School last September protesting the busing of 21 children from another district. "We deeply resented their coming," she said. "And that goes for the three whites as well as the 18 blacks." White Southwest side students will not sign up for any component of 20/September 1978/Illinois Issues
Access," she declared, because "the whole thing stinks." Stiff resistance surfaced already this summer, she said, when students from all-white Hubbard High School were assigned to summer school classes at Kenwood High School, eight miles away and in the midst of an all-black ghetto. "There were other schools in closer and safer neighborhoods that could have taken our kids," said Galik, but the board said no. It was Kenwood or nothing. That's their altitude and that's why families are either getting out or preparing to fight." Similar views were echoed by parents in several white Northwest side areas, but the expressions of resentment were usually not so vehement. "Frankly, I haven't heard of anyone who likes the plan," said Judy Gottsegan, who heads the Chicago Public Education Project for the American Friends Service Committee. Gottsegan, who deals regularly with concerned parents all over the city, said even those not militantly opposed to Access are worried about how it may disrupt their community, how it will be organized and what it will eventually cost them. 'A small first step' However, there are some parents and independent leaders militantly supporting Access — not many, but some. One of the most visible is Doris Leftakes, from the Northwest side District 1, which includes Jefferson Park and affluent Sauganash. Leftakes, education chairman for the Chicago Region PTA, is so convinced of the program's potential that she donates considerable time explaining its merits to parent groups. "Sure, it's a small first step," she said, "and it's slow and it's entirely voluntary and it's aimed at holding white families. I don't apologize for any of that. The fact is we're losing 2 per cent of our white children from the public schools every year. I don't think anyone, white or black, wants this city to become another Detroit. Well, you can't reverse the trend with threats or mandatory regulations." But it is just possible, she argued, that quality educational programs, if they are good enough, can change the picture, and she believes it is unfair to dismiss such an approach out of hand before it has even been tried. Leftakes spoke of meeting an adamant anti-black mother from the Bogan area recently at a special career training program in air transportation conducted by the board of education at Midway Airport. The Bogan lady's son was in that program, said Leftakes, and she was delighted with it, despite the fact that the program was entirely integrated and involved a lot of busing. "The quality of that program made her forget her prejudice," she said. Leftakes said she believes many parents will assume a wait-and-see attitude toward Access to Excellence this September. "But I'm sure the concept and components are so sound, many more will gradually enroll." Extreme opposition, she said, is confined to a small, always vocal minority which is not truly representative of any community, including Bogan. The fact that black communities are uninvolved in preparations for the program and confused about it Leftakes blames on black leaders. "Why don't the people who are running down Access go out and explain it to their people so they could make up their own minds?" she asked. "That's their responsibility as leaders. That's certainly what I'm trying to do." But no matter now persuasive Leftakes and other Access to Excellence missionaries are, there is little chance the public mood will alter notably before school opens. Whether it is ever to shift depends on how smoothly the program goes during the first year. Ultimately, Access is based on the undisputed premise that most Chicago parents desperately want the school system to work. "I suppose it could work and it could help stabilize the city," said a Hyde Park parent. "It's not impossible. Look what Moses did to the Red Sea." September 1978/Illinois Issues/21
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