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One of the most significant problems–and the reason Amerigis designated our region as “at risk”–relates to the regional school district. Like Amerigis, I see schools as leading indicators of community health: when the perceived quality of a school declines, it often sets in motion a cycle of middle-class flight and disinvestment, a cycle that has begun in my community.

My school district presents a unique set of problems because it is not directly controlled by any of the municipalities it administers. With a separately incorporated board, separate taxing authority, and a complex set of competing parochial concerns within the board, the regional school district has the capacity to advance or thwart the revitalization efforts of each small municipality within its boundaries.

The town’s schools are now fighting the perception that they provide an inadequate education, a belief shared by many black members of the community and held almost universally by the white residents. Whites perceive an aura of failure around the school, thinking that the racial mix itself, when it has shifted to a black majority, has adversely affected the quality of education. In reality, predominately minority schools in Pennsylvania, as a rule, are underfunded. Consequently, physical plants deteriorate, classroom and administration technology are out of date, and curricula and faculty are poorly supported–all bolstering many whites’ perceptions that majority-black schools don’t work.

Both to promote the school district’s positive features (of which it has many) and to correct real inadequacies in the school, my community has added a new tool to its revitalization effort: the local education fund (LEF). Local education funds have been used in Portland, Oregon, Chattanooga, Tennesee, Buffalo, New York, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Paterson, New Jersey, and Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, among others.

LEFs actively promote involvement in public education by all segments of their communities. They research best practices for public school operation and then facilitate the integration of those practices into local schools. In Massachusetts, the Boston Plan For Excellence In the Public Schools tests out promising approaches and shares findings with the district. Its design for reform, known as Whole-School Improvement, is now the district’s core work plan to improve literacy and math instruction.

LEFs can also facilitate public dialogue about educational values and objectives and increase the community’s commitment to public education. In Morristown, Tennessee, The Education Foundation developed a public engagement campaign entitled “SCHOOL: The History of American Public Education,” which brought together parents, teachers, school administrators, students, civic leaders, policy makers, and members of local organizations to discuss the challenges and opportunities of their public schools.

Finally, and most importantly, LEFs generate resources for public education by pursuing and managing investments from government, businesses, and philanthropic organizations. For instance, in response to funding cutbacks, the Portland LEF organized “The Campaign for Our Schools,” which raised $10.6 million from thousands of community members to bring back over 200 teachers that had been cut from the rolls. In Boston, the LEF has raised more than $60 million since 1996 to fund reform work.

My regional LEF, called All Students Achieving, is in the early stages of development. Our first task will be to bring stakeholders in the school district together and develop a consensus on the needs of the school district and on what resources or programs must be developed to address those needs. The LEF will then drum up support among the larger populace for these programs.

In the broadest sense, the LEF must develop a strategy for making the regional school district competitive with those in the exurbs to which white (and other) middle- and upper-middle-class families are relocating. The goal is not to force all whites who are leaving back to the area schools, or to return to the days when Lansdowne was 95 percent white–I only wish to reach those who enjoy living in a diverse community. Still, segregated schools hurt our town’s economic competitiveness, and segregation cannot be reversed if reform and revitalization efforts only focus on making the community more supportive of the poor or minority population.

Some people may criticize any explicit focus on retaining white families as racist.

But it is silly of us to pretend that race is not the major factor driving the abandonment of urban and many inner ring suburban communities. As a member of government in my town I have had protracted discussions with citizens who were preparing to leave about the importance of staying and helping to fix what is wrong. In the end these discussions fall on deaf ears because the urge to leave before the town becomes even further segregated outweighs any altruistic impulse that I could ignite.

Any effort to preserve my own and other inner ring suburbs must include a process to understand and address the reasons that white families are fleeing. It must also include initiatives to get them to stay and return. There are many possible approaches, but I believe that any successful initiative must include making the schools competitive with those in the exurbs.

This article appeared in the October 2004 issue of Next American City magazine. SUBSCRIBE NOW!