BY MARK SKERTIC
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The NAACP wants to revive the desegregation lawsuit that overshadowed policy and spending decisions in Cincinnati Public Schools for more than two decades.
The Cincinnati branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People plans a news conference Tuesday to announce it will move to reopen the Bronson vs. Board lawsuit in U.S. District Court.
Relations between the school board and NAACP have deteriorated in recent months. At an NAACP-sponsored forum April 19, branch President Milton Hinton accused the board of putting students on "academic life support."
If a federal judge agrees to reopen the suit, it could mean court oversight and review of decisions made by district administrators. NAACP officials have been vocal about their unhappiness with low test scores on state exams and a dropout rate that shows about half of those who start high school do not finish. NAACP leaders have said the board needs to pay more attention to public concerns, and the group has sought more influence in choosing a superintendent to replace J. Michael Brandt, who will retire in July.
School board members have developed a strategy to reverse district-wide problems and need the support of parents and community groups, said board President Arthur Hull.
For more than a year the district has provided the Ohio Department of Education with information needed to determine whether CPS is meeting its desegregation commitments, said general counsel John Concannon. Reopening the case before state findings would be premature, he said.
The commitments and the state's review of CPS' efforts are part of an amended consent decree the district and NAACP signed in 1994. The district's enrollment is 70 percent African-American and 27 percent white. About 64 percent of students are from families receiving public assistance.
William Taylor, the Washington, D.C.-based attorney who represented the NAACP in Bronson, said he has made several trips to Cincinnati to discuss reviving the lawsuit.
"The NAACP has very serious concerns about the state of compliance with the consent degree," he said, adding there are particular problems with academic progress being made in schools with large numbers of poor children, he said.
Mona Bronson vs. Board of Education of Cincinnati was originally filed in May 1974 on behalf of Mona Bronson and 19 other black students. It alleged the district had unconstitutionally segregated schools. The suit was settled in 1984 when the district made a series of promises intended to decrease segregation and better serve children at low-income schools. That consent decree has been amended several times.
Among the things it requires:
Enrollments reflecting the racial balance of the entire district.
Efforts to improve student performance at select schools.
Poorly performing students not to be retained except after grades 3, 6 and 8 and then only to repeat curricula in which they failed to demonstrate proficiency.
Unbiased discipline.
