Having good schools is an essential attribute of any community. People are attracted to Oak Park because of the reputation of the schools. Realtors often list their offerings according to the school district. Since Oak Park became integrated problems in the schools have become a source of great concern to many villagers. Recently these concerns have reached fever pitch and the weekly newspapers are now filled with anxious letters and propositions for solving the problems.
Many people regard the Oak Park school system as being in serious trouble.
The explanation for this apparent discrepancy is rather simple. I will revisit this issue in more detail in a web page about introgression. The school district has undertaken two measures to insure a diverse school population - the creation of two junior high schools and busing. So as the African-American population of a particular school increases, the test scores for that school decrease. Thus a school with a large African-American population becomes less attractive to newcomers not necessarily because of any prejudice but rather because parents want their children to go to a school that evinces quality because the students do well on tests.