In the first study of the METCO program in more than 25 years, an overwhelming majority of parents said their children's teachers were excellent or good, that they participated in suburban school parent meetings, and a significant proportion (20 percent) said they would move out of Boston if the program were not available.

METCO Ñ the oldest major city-to-suburban desegregation project in the country Ñ invited the Harvard Project on School Desegregation to assess the program, which enrolls 3,200 Boston schoolchildren in more than 30 participating school districts. While METCO could not offer funding for the study, it did ensure researchers a high level of participation, resulting in what may be the largest unfunded study of school parents in the country. The study was largely underwritten by the Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government.

In perhaps the most significant compliment to the 32-year-old program, more than one-quarter of the METCO students are registered before their first birthday.

"What was so surprising to us was the extraordinarily high level of parent satisfaction with the education their children were receiving," said Gary Orfield, professor of education and social policy at the Kennedy School and the Graduate School of Education, and the project's director. "While parents certainly had plenty of suggestions for improving the program, they were offered not from a cynical or critical perspective, but from a foundation of improving a positive experience."

The study found that parents enrolled their children in METCO for academic reasons, with 70 percent saying it was the most important factor in choosing the program. When asked what they would do without METCO, only 25 percent said they would enroll their children in a local Boston school, and another 25 percent said they would seek a magnet or exam school. While the remaining half said they had other plans, 20 percent of the METCO parents said they would probably or definitely leave Boston if METCO were not available, and only 50 percent said they would keep their family in the city.

"The survey results confirm what many of us have perceived for a long time," said Sheryl Goodloe, president of the METCO Director's Association. "The results dispel many rumors which unfortunately may have negatively influenced legislators and funding in the past. I am excited about this research and pleased that it was done by someone as well respected as Gary Orfield."

In other significant findings:

¥ 82 percent of students surveyed reported a good or excellent experience with the academic program;

¥ 79 percent of parents said their children's teachers were excellent or good;

¥ 91 percent of students said that they had a good or excellent experience in "learning to get along with people from other backgrounds";

¥ 60 percent of students and 61 percent of parents said that there had not been any serious discrimination by administrators and staff;

¥ 48 percent of students and 50 percent of parents reported no discrimination from teachers; and

¥ parents' top priorities for improving the program were more minority teachers and more work on multi-ethnic curricula in the suburban schools.