A recent report by NJ Education Commissioner William Librera concludes that the magnet school choice program at Englewood's Dwight Morrow High School (DMHS) is worsening the very problem it was designed to address -- the long-standing segregation of black and latino students in the public high school.

The report, dated January 14th, concludes that the DMHS remains highly segregated – 97% black and Hispanic -- even though Englewood's population is almost equally divided among whites, blacks and latinos. The report also concludes that the magnet "Academies@Englewood" choice school established within DMHS has not improved racial balance, but instead is making the school even more segregated. The Academies "school-within-a-school," launched in 2002, was approved by the NJ State Board of Education to address the decades-old problem in the high school and the district.

While the magnet Academies school has attracted a diverse student body, the Commissioner's report finds that the numbers of black and latino students enrolled in the Academies continues to decline each year. The Commissioner also "remains concerned that so few students from Englewood's middle school appear to qualify for admission" to the program in the first place. Moreover, "progress toward integrating either the Academies@Englewood and DMHS programs....continues to move slowly." Instead of fostering racial balance, the separate magnet Academies have created "a new pattern of segregation within Dwight Morrow which may lead to even more serious problems than those that existed before the implementation of the Academies program."

The Commissioner's report is required by a 2003 State Board order. The order is the latest ruling in a 20-year old desegregation lawsuit involving the Boards of Englewood, Englewood Cliffs, and Tenafly.

A 2000 Appellate Court ruling authorized the Commissioner and Englewood to develop a voluntary plan to integrate DMHS, after the State Board refused to order the consolidation of the Englewood, Cliffs and Tenafly districts. Englewood, backed by the Commissioner, designed the Academies@Englewood magnet school which, since 2002, has operated four public high school programs of choice within DMHS. Students from the Academies follow a separate academic program from DMHS, use separate facilities, and operate on separate class and elective schedules.

In directing the Commissioner to regularly report on DMHS, the State Board recognized that the magnet school choice approach may not reduce racial segregation at the school, and that further action may be required to ensure a racial balance in the student body.

Prepared: February 25, 2005