As Dexter Hunter prepared to move from Germany to the Baltimore area, he immersed himself in Internet research, seeking a community that provided excellent schools and a welcoming embrace for interracial families like his.
His search led him to Columbia, where his daughter could take advantage of a county school system that ranks among the nation's best, in a community noted for diversity.
But as his daughter prepares for kindergarten at Running Brook Elementary School, and the family contemplates buying a home, Hunter is re-examining his choice. Troubled by a creeping segregation that has hit many older Columbia elementary schools -- Running Brook's student body is 57 percent black, for example -- he's looking for another school that better reflects the country's racial balance.
"We'll probably make it a short stay because I'm really concerned about where Columbia and Howard County are going," said Hunter.
Others share his concern. If recent trends continue, they say, county schools may soon mimic the national urban-suburban pattern, with Columbia's older elementaries becoming mostly black, while other schools stay mostly white. That would be a dramatic departure from the vision of Columbia founder James W. Rouse, who sought a community with a rich mix of racial and economic backgrounds.
White enrollments at elementary schools in Columbia's oldest neighborhoods have dropped sharply over the past decade. While African-Americans make up 16.7 percent of the countywide school population, eight elementary schools in the villages of Wilde Lake, Harper's Choice, Owen Brown and Oakland Mills are 35.5 percent to 57.4 percent black -- nearly double the range in 1990.
The changes in elementary schools suggest that the racial makeup of Columbia neighborhoods is changing, although conclusions are hard to reach because census data are 9 years old. What is clear is that a trend is under way, and some people are disturbed.
"We have to make sure our schools reflect our community," said County Executive James N. Robey.
Robey, elected in November, indicated that he was unfamiliar with the enrollment figures until shown them by a reporter. They are compiled routinely by the school system and have not provoked high-level public discussion, though at the grass-roots level, people like Dexter Hunter seem aware of the changes.
Top school officials say they're not concerned and the phenomenon reflects ordinary growth trends. More blacks with school-age children are moving into what were mainly white neighborhoods, replacing aging residents whose children are educated and others who yearn for newer homes elsewhere, these officials say.
"The demographics are shifting as more people move to Howard County," said county schools Superintendent Michael E. Hickey, who doesn't expect racial imbalances to deepen. The racial trend in school populations, he said, reflects "the natural moving up of people who came here and lived in Columbia a number of years, and moved to larger houses."
In 1990, the last census year, Columbia had an African-American population of 18.5 percent, and the elementary schools -- Bryant Woods, Dasher Green, Jeffers Hill, Longfellow, Phelps Luck, Running Brook, Swansfield and Talbott Springs -- more closely mirrored the community.
The change has been driven more by the 928-pupil decrease in white enrollment in that period than by the 609-pupil increase in African-American enrollment. Considering that those changes occurred as white elementary enrollments in the county increased 37 percent, some people see signs of racial flight.
'It will spread outward'
These observers say whites and affluent people of both races are disdaining communities and schools perceived as lower quality. They fear that Columbia's core will one day appear racially and economically segregated, and that neighborhoods and schools will suffer.
"It's white flight, it's middle-class flight," said Joanne Heckman, a Harper's Choice resident with children at Longfellow Elementary who helps run a nonprofit after-school program. "If we don't reverse the trend it will spread outward.
"People don't recognize that Columbia is following the pattern of a traditional urban area," said Heckman, who is white.
One factor driving parents from the older elementaries and neighborhoods of Columbia is that these schools post standardized test scores below the county average. Parents shopping for schools on the basis of test results is not a new trend, but it rankles principals.
"Scores don't begin to tell the story," Running Brook Elementary Principal Marion D. Miller told eight parents of prospective pupils at an informal coffee in April. "Because such a low number of kids take the test, the scores are skewed by just a few who don't speak English well, or who come from other places.
"We're not lowering standards for anyone. We're raising standards," she said, referring to special programs and lower class sizes at the school.
With an enrollment this past year of 317, Running Brook has 44 Hispanic children, some of whom are learning English as a second language. Fifty percent of its pupils qualify for free and reduced-price lunches; 31 percent enroll in or leave school during the academic year, a high turnover rate.
These factors contribute to lower Maryland School Performance Assessment Program test scores, Miller says, but they do not mean the quality of education and caliber of teaching resources are inferior.
For parents like Norman Winkler, the choice between Running Brook and Hollifield Station Elementary in Ellicott City, for example, is easy.
Winkler, 38, grew up in Wilde Lake. The father of a school-age son, he moved in September to a townhouse near Daniels so his first-grader could attend the newer Hollifield Station school, where scores are above county averages, with 70 percent to 78 percent of third-grade pupils scoring satisfactorily in reading, writing and math.
At Running Brook, 22 percent to 37 percent of third-graders scored satisfactorily in reading, writing and math last year, compared with countywide averages of about 60 percent. Fifth-graders did better, but they were 13 percent to 19 percent below average.
"The general perception, right or wrong, is that there has been a degradation of older schools," Winkler said. "If you look at the [MSPAP] scores, that pans out.
"Race doesn't make a difference to me," said Winkler, who is white. "What does make a difference is the affluence of people."
With many of Wilde Lake's middle-aged baby boomers living in single-family houses and no longer having elementary-age children, more of Running Brook's pupils come from apartments and subsidized housing, he said. That means more pupils from poorer, more transient families, often coming from outside the county.
'Generational evolution'
Winkler predicts that as middle-aged people sell their homes, younger, more affluent families of both races will move in, changing the demographics of the community and of Running Brook.
"It will swing back. It's a generational evolution," he said, echoing the view of some top county school officials.
Hickey, the school superintendent, said the racial trend in the older schools and communities reflects in part the "availability of low-cost and subsidized housing" in the areas near the schools. To Hickey, the changes under way are a "normal economic progression."
"I don't think it's at all an issue of white flight, although I'm not denying there are some people leaving because they don't like the changing look of our community," he said.
"In the most ideal of worlds, our schools would reflect the racial population of the county," he said. "But there's not much point in worrying about it."
School board Chairwoman Karen B. Campbell agreed. "I honestly believe this reflects very simply the increase in African-American population across the county," she said. "It is no more significant than that."
County black leaders also minimized the significance.
"I don't see a concern," said Natalie Woodson, a retired Baltimore school principal who is education committee chairwoman of the county's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "What we deal with is the quality of education."
"What usually happens, the white students gravitate toward the newer schools, and the African-American students are usually stuck in the older schools," said the Rev. Robert A. Turner, president of the African-American Coalition of Howard County. "My concern is not where people are moving, but what is being offered in school."
'Race is a factor'
One exception is state Del. Frank C. Turner, an east Columbia Democrat and one of two elected black officials in Howard. "Race is a factor," he said. "Nobody wants to talk about it."
At some schools, the change has been rapid: Running Brook, one of two Columbia schools with majority black enrollments, saw its white student population drop 26 percent from 1997 to last year.
A few Columbia elementaries stand apart from the trend. Stevens Forest in Oakland Mills, whose open enrollment policy has attracted white pupils who otherwise might go to Talbott Springs, is 62 percent white, 26 percent black and 12 percent Asian and Hispanic. Atholton, Clemens Crossing and Thunder Hill, on Columbia's fringes in areas with mostly single-family homes, have black enrollments of 14 percent or less.
In middle and high schools, the trend is visible, but diluted by the larger school populations, which come from broader areas than the student bodies of elementary schools.
Harper's Choice, Oakland Mills, Owen Brown and Wilde Lake middle schools have the largest African-American enrollments in the county, ranging from 30 percent to 40 percent, about double the percentage of black pupils in middle schools countywide. Wilde Lake, Oakland Mills and Long Reach high schools follow the same pattern.
If Columbia follows the national pattern, its older schools and older neighborhoods will become increasingly black, experts say, and whites will tend to look for schools and homes elsewhere.
"If it's a long-established trend, one would expect the trend would continue," said Gary Orfield, director of the Harvard Project on School Desegregation. "The more the school is out of line with the community" in terms of racial makeup, "the more reluctant people are to move in."
But Rouse wanted to break from the national norm. People bought into his vision, making Columbia a diverse, successful community. The question, longtime residents like Jan M. Schmidt wonder, is whether the founder's spirit is still there.
"Columbia was built on a different dream," she said. "I think people are afraid to live that dream."
Pub Date: 8/02/99