Inside a large, yellow concrete building located a few blocks from Mather House, an educational controversy is brewing.

At stake is the future identity of the two Cambridge elementary schools housed there.

Although their students eat in the same cafeteria and share the same gymnasium, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School and the King Open School are strikingly different.

The King School receives more funding per pupil but its students score worse on state-wide math and reading tests. Two-thirds of its students are from minority groups; 60 percent receive free or reduced-cost school lunches.

Students at King Open--an alternative school that branched off from the King School in 1993--score significantly better on standardized exams. Half its students are from minority backgrounds; less than a quarter get free or reduced-cost lunches.

At the crux of the debate is a recent report commissioned by the Cambridge School Department that recommends the merger of the two schools.

Released last month, the "Master Plan on the Location of Programs and the Use of Facilities for Cambridge Public Schools" argues that a merger between the King School and King Open would result in a more efficient use of the building.

The report was written by Charles V. Willie, professor of education and urban studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (GSE), and three other authors.

It stated that combining the schools would help the city's School Committee meet its affirmative-action mandate, which commits the school system to "increasing cross-cultural understanding."

But some parents and officials on both sides say they feel the merger would most hurt those it is designed to help: the students.

Differences Persist

The report recommended the merger of the two schools "because of their current similarities and the complementary benefits that each school could bring to the union."

Parents and administrators argue, however, that although the schools have grown more similar over the years, the common perception is that fundamental differences in school culture still exist.

Joseph McKeigue, principal of the King School, said that the perception of the King School is of a "minority, free-lunch school and the King Open [is] more a majority, middle-class school."

Test scores of students at King School are markedly lower than those at King Open, a testament to the socioeconomic differences between two schools, according to McKeigue.