The average King School fourth-and eighth-grader scored at or below the school district average on the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) administered in 1993-94.

Most fourth- and eighth-graders at King Open scored well above the school district average on all sections of the 1993-94 MEAP.

"Test scores usually correlate [strongly] to socioeconomic status," McKeigue says.

In addition, the King School receives a much higher level of city aid per student.

According to the 1996-97 Cambridge Public Schools Annual Budget, $9,862 was budgeted per student at the King School compared to $7,316 at King Open.

History

When King Open began as a developmental program in 1975, it "started off as an alternative pro- gram" according to Mary Eirich, the current principal of the school.

With students not sitting in rows and calling teachers by their first names, the school was a "reflection of '70s culture," Eirich says.

The King School is more of a traditional school, says Gordon R. Thompson, co-chair of the parent-led King Open Steering Committee and the father of two girls who attend King Open, one in the third grade and one in the eighth.

Though the principals at both schools are quick to point out the amicable nature of relations between students, faculty and administrators of the two schools, Thompson says that there were a "variety of instances of friction" when the King Open program was growing.

"Because the school cultures are different and aspects of the curriculum and teaching style are different, it is inevitable that there would be friction and indeed there was," Thompson says.

Thompson says tensions have subsided since the position of a separate King Open principal was created.

Mary Eirich, who began as principal at King Open last September, says that administrators at both schools do not have formal meetings everyday but do "run things by each other."

Conflicting Opinions

The possibility of a merger has drawn strong criticism from parents at King Open and a more lukewarm response from parents at King School.

"You can't treat communities of people like two liquids in a chemistry experiment where if you mix liquid A and liquid B they will average out and stay the same," Thompson says.