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Portland Public Schools has dialed back students' ability to transfer in recent years, with the goal of reducing enrollment disparities among schools. The district is studying further changes to its enrollment and transfer policies.

(Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian)

Big-city school districts have tried every possible way to encourage middle-class families to attend their neighborhood schools. Only one way works: making those families want to go.

Not forcing them. Not guilting them. Not closing off their other options, and then accusing parents of snobbery or selfishness if they're still not confident in the neighborhood school. Superintendent Carole Smith and the Portland School Board should keep this in mind as they

under a misguided notion of fairness.

In decades past, Portland Public Schools provided students with guaranteed access to their neighborhood schools

and

gave them ample opportunities to transfer elsewhere in the district. The city of Portland has managed to stay attractive to tens of thousands of middle-class families with school-age children in no small part because of this liberal transfer policy.

Here's why it worked: People wanting to raise families in the Portland metro area knew they wouldn't have to leave the city if their neighborhood school seemed like a poor choice educationally. People knew they could find a good fit somewhere in the district, so they stayed, bought houses and put down roots.

For many years, the Portland School Board supported this liberal transfer policy and respected the fact that families are not a captive audience. But recently, the board and school district have chipped away at the transfer policy and

. Today, some district staff and parents favor shutting down transfers altogether.

This summer, a citizens' committee convened by the superintendent is revisiting the district's transfer policy.

who generally favor limiting students' ability to transfer. The superintendents' group will hear from others this fall.

These meetings are motivated by a

among schools. Neighborhood schools with low enrollment do have a hard time recovering once the surrounding community loses confidence in them. Middle-class and affluent families are more likely to seek transfers than high-poverty families because they are better able to provide transportation. However, experience in other big-city school districts suggests that rebuilding a school's enrollment by trying to force families to attend is a losing strategy.

A better strategy is winning over families' hearts and minds, instead.

It does make some sense to cap enrollment at the district's most popular schools to limit overcrowding. The

. It also makes sense to have the transfer process as straightforward as possible, so that it's accessible to all families -- not just the ones who know how to work the levers.

But transfers aren't an evil to be stamped out. In some cases, they're a natural reaction to educational problems, such as the district's

. In other cases, transfers are a healthy reflection of the quality and diversity of the district's schools: Parents

like

having choices, even if most parents do choose the school closest to their home.

Several low-enrollment neighborhood schools in Portland have transformed over the past decade into highly sought-after schools through stronger leadership, better community engagement and innovative programming. Portland should replicate that excellent work. Trying to fix low-enrollment schools by manipulating the transfer policy is an understandable impulse, but it's not a sound educational strategy.