Local schools favor people in name game

Schools named after James Madison are out. Schools named after manatees are in. And the country is worse off for it.

That's the gist of a report published this week by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative New York-based think tank that explored trends in naming public schools in seven states across the country.

The study found that school districts are increasingly likely to name schools after things found in nature, such as lakes, rivers and animals, rather than people found in history books, such as presidents, social leaders or athletic heroes.

"The names we give our schools both reflect and shape values," said Jay Greene, a senior fellow at the institute and co-author of the study. "Schools without heroes are lacking something -- a civic mission."

Greene said many districts opt for more benign names as a way to avoid controversy.

California wasn't included in the study, and the Sacramento region, despite recent school-naming controversies, appears to buck the trend.

The Sacramento City Unified School District has four schools named for presidents. Of the 10 most recent school names in the district, nine have commemorated civic leaders.

And the district's list of potential future names is overwhelmingly populated with scientists, such as Marie Curie and Thomas Edison; writers, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; and local dignitaries, such as Gold Rush-era Sacramento Mayor Hardin Bigelow and the late judge Lorenzo Patiño.

"Naming a school after a person gives you a little bit of history and allows you to align your programs to their values and what they stood for," said Trustee Rick Jennings, a member of the school-naming committee. "We have some champions here in Sacramento we'd like to showcase."

The fast-growing Elk Grove Unified School District also has a long-standing policy to name schools after locals, especially when it comes to elementary schools.

The district has elementary schools named after sheep rancher John Ehrhardt, Elk Grove Citizen publisher Roy Herburger and Arlene Hein, a longtime school district executive assistant.

"I think it helps build a sense of community," said Elizabeth Pinkerton, a member of the Elk Grove naming committee since the early 1970s who has helped christen some 50 schools.

The Rocklin Unified School District takes a slightly different tack. Although the district has named its last two schools after civic leaders, in recent years it has favored geography.

Breen Elementary is named for Breen Drive. Rock Creek Elementary is near Rock Creek. And Valley View is, well, named for its view of the Valley.

"We just solicit names, choose the best one, and away we go," said Larry Stark, an assistant superintendent who heads the school-naming efforts. "We don't have a preference, whether it's people or places."

Sometimes, the people school districts choose to honor draw the spotlight, for better or worse.

Last month, the Sacramento City Unified board removed Charles M. Goethe's name from a Meadowview middle school after evidence surfaced that Goethe supported the eugenics movement and believed in the superiority of the Nordic race. The school will be named for civil rights activist Rosa Parks when it opens in the fall.

Also last month, Gen. Vang Pao's arrest in Sacramento prompted a school board in Wisconsin to remove the Hmong leader's name from a proposed elementary school. Vang is charged with plotting to overthrow the Laotian government. Wisconsin officials have not yet selected a replacement name for the school.

Still, naming a school after an element of nature is not always a safe bet, as the Folsom Cordova Unified School District discovered after voting in 2005 to change the name of Lago Vista High School. Officials opted for Vista del Lago High School after realizing the original moniker didn't correctly translate into "view of the lake."

Of nearly 3,000 public schools in Florida, five honor George Washington, while 11 are named after manatees, the research group found.

About the writer:

• The Bee's Todd Milbourn can be reached at (916) 321-1063 or tmilbourn@sacbee.com.