Don't expect Wake County school leaders to prove that their policy of trying to strike a districtwide balance on the number of low-income students at each school helps those children academically.

They just can't.

Wake school leaders know and can show that having too many poor students drags down an individual school's test scores. But they haven't done the comprehensive research to prove that moving these economically disadvantaged students, sometimes to schools more than a dozen miles from home, improves their test scores.

Despite this lack of proof, school leaders insist their nationally acclaimed policy of reassigning students to spread diversity helps keep schools strong -- a stance seized on by some critics in academia and angry parents.

"The policy is meant to promote healthy schools, and the evidence is compelling that it's succeeding," said Chuck Dulaney, assistant superintendent for growth and planning. "We don't have low-performing schools."

Wake's diversity policy will take center stage Tuesday when the school board votes on a revised student assignment plan that would move 6,454 elementary students to different schools this fall. One goal of this year's plan is to make sure schools in the same area have roughly the same percentage of students from low-income families.

At least 20 percent of the moves are aimed at changing the percentages of low-income students at schools. This figure doesn't include reassignment where diversity is considered a secondary reason.

In most cases, the plan calls for sending lower-income students to schools in a more affluent neighborhood; in a few instances, students from higher-income families will be moved to schools to help lower their poverty rate.

The lack of a study proving that reassigning poor students helps them academically leaves Wake school officials open to critics such as Abigail Thernstrom, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute, a policy research organization that supports school choice.

Thernstrom said more effective teaching is the best method for educating low-income students -- not reassignment.

"It seems to me the most unfortunate statement to say if your parents don't make a certain amount of money, the school doesn't know what to do with you except to have you sit next to more- affluent kids," Thernstrom said. "I don't like that message."

Grades, poverty linked

Supporters counter that Wake's policy is backed by extensive research showing that high-poverty schools are less likely to do well academically.

"If you can give all kids the chance to attend good middle-class schools, they will perform better than if they are segregated in high-poverty schools, and I think what Wake County is looking to do makes a good deal of sense," said Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow with the Century Foundation. Kahlenberg has analyzed socioeconomic integration in school districts across the country, including Wake.

Kahlenberg added that high- poverty schools are less likely to have qualified teachers and strong parental support -- key factors in students' academic success.

Dulaney pointed to the problems that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system has had getting teachers to work at high-poverty schools despite large bonuses. Test scores are also still low at these schools despite an infusion of additional money. The poverty levels have risen sharply at some schools since Charlotte abandoned its diversity efforts.

Additionally, while Wake's low-income elementary and middle school students performed slightly below the North Carolina average on state end-of-grade tests, the district fared better than other large school districts in the state.

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