Ed School Considers Desegregation Center

The Graduate School of Education is planning to open what would be one of the only academic centers in the country devoted to desegregating public school systems, administrators said yesterday.

Proposed by Professor of Education and Urban Studies Charles V. Willie, the center would serve as a clearinghouse for research and practical advice to cities seeking to increase the racial balance of their school populations.

While the Ed School has yet to formally approve the project, Associate Dean Jerome T. Murphy said yesterday the proposal will be reviewed by the school's educational planning and social policy faculty.

A final decision on the project, to be called the Institute for Educational Planning and Innovation, would then be made by President Derek C. Bok.

Willie hopes to focus the institute on his model of "controlled choice" in school desegregation, an innovative system in which families are allowed greater latitude in choosing the schools which their children will attend. Traditional school desegregation plans rely on mandatory student assignment to achieve racial balance.

"It is my hope that some sort of institution like this be established before the end of first semester," said Willie, who developed the controlled choice system with Michard Alves, former head of Massachusetts' school desegregation office.

Controlled choice plans are already being implemented in several Massachusetts cities, including Lowell, Fall River and Cambridge. Boston is in its first year of a controlled choice system, and Milwaukee is considering adopting a similar plan.

"In order for us to be continually helpful to the [Boston school] system, we think it would be very effective to have an institute," said Willie.

Alves said, "You have to have a vehicle in which the [Boston] mayor, the School Committee, the state and parents can come and work and get assistance in terms of planning."

The proposed institute would not be the first at the Ed School to deal with public policy issues, Murphy said. "We have had several policy research institutes," he said. "The product of their work is advice and we [the Ed School] are in the business of trying to improve practice."

Administrators at the Ed School stressed Willie's commitment to the proposed institute when discussing the plan yesterday.

Said Ed School Dean Patricia A. Graham, "Professor Willie has done some very important work in this [desegregation] area."

And former Ed School Dean Francis Koeple '38, who worked with Willie on the desegregation of the Boston public schools in the 1970s, said, "He [Willie] has spent his life on desegregation and made a major contribution."

Joshua A. Sharfstein contributed to the reporting of this article.