9:08 p.m. - Amid a conflict-filled meeting that sometimes recalled the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, Wake County's new school board majority took the first step today toward implementing neighborhood schools, the News & Observer reports.By a 5-4 vote, the board gave the first of two approvals needed to pass a resolution calling for abandoning busing for diversity in favor of assigning students to schools in their community. Supporters hailed it as a step toward providing families more stability while critics complained it would lead to resegregation.
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'Nobody's going back to Jim Crow days'
So says the new Wake County school board chairman, discussing a proposal under debate today to do away with diversity-based busing.
Chairman Ron Margiotta vowed that the proposed change is in the interest of students because it would allow parents more options and refocus families on the schools in their neighborhood, according to an Associated Press story.
He bristled at any suggestion that the move had something to do with race."It's something that offends me," Margiotta told AP. "Nobody's going to go back to Jim Crow days."
According to the story: "...when Wake County decided to do away with race-based busing to desegregate schools, local officials came up with a novel solution to maintain balance.
The new method of assigning students by their socio-economic background rather than race helped to keep campuses integrated. Adopted in 2000, it quickly became a blueprint for other school systems.
That policy, however, has never sat well with many suburban parents — often white and middle class — who argue that the student assignment plan sends their kids too far from home. And a new school board, swept into office by those vocal parents, appears poised to scrap it in a vote scheduled for today.
The issue has brought the term "segregation" and the weight of history into recent school board meetings. Some parents and students around the state capital are now imploring their newly elected leaders to back away from their plan to drastically alter the diversity policy.
"Please preserve the New South. Don't take us back to the Old South," parent Robert Siegel told the school board."
Once again, as noted in an earlier post about a Sunday New York Times story, critics of neighborhood schools point to Charlotte as a bad anecdote:
"Now the state is increasingly starting to mirror an era many thought had past: On one side of the state, in the coastal town of Wilmington, an elementary school of several hundred students has just one who is black. On the other, in the banking hub of Charlotte, a primary school of similar size has just one student who is white."
And:
"At Beverly Woods Elementary, just north of the Quail Hollow Country Club that hosts a namesake PGA Tour event, 79 percent of the students are white. A few miles up the road, at Montclaire Elementary, only 4 percent of the students — just 19 out of 450 — are white."
The kicker:
"Pamela Grundy, a parent in Charlotte who has decried the divisions within the school district, said leaders in Raleigh should take notice. "The lesson of Charlotte is that desegregation will go away so quickly. Once you lose it, you can't get it back," she said.
- Doug Miller
Chairman Ron Margiotta vowed that the proposed change is in the interest of students because it would allow parents more options and refocus families on the schools in their neighborhood, according to an Associated Press story.
He bristled at any suggestion that the move had something to do with race."It's something that offends me," Margiotta told AP. "Nobody's going to go back to Jim Crow days."
According to the story: "...when Wake County decided to do away with race-based busing to desegregate schools, local officials came up with a novel solution to maintain balance.
The new method of assigning students by their socio-economic background rather than race helped to keep campuses integrated. Adopted in 2000, it quickly became a blueprint for other school systems.
That policy, however, has never sat well with many suburban parents — often white and middle class — who argue that the student assignment plan sends their kids too far from home. And a new school board, swept into office by those vocal parents, appears poised to scrap it in a vote scheduled for today.
The issue has brought the term "segregation" and the weight of history into recent school board meetings. Some parents and students around the state capital are now imploring their newly elected leaders to back away from their plan to drastically alter the diversity policy.
"Please preserve the New South. Don't take us back to the Old South," parent Robert Siegel told the school board."
Once again, as noted in an earlier post about a Sunday New York Times story, critics of neighborhood schools point to Charlotte as a bad anecdote:
"Now the state is increasingly starting to mirror an era many thought had past: On one side of the state, in the coastal town of Wilmington, an elementary school of several hundred students has just one who is black. On the other, in the banking hub of Charlotte, a primary school of similar size has just one student who is white."
And:
"At Beverly Woods Elementary, just north of the Quail Hollow Country Club that hosts a namesake PGA Tour event, 79 percent of the students are white. A few miles up the road, at Montclaire Elementary, only 4 percent of the students — just 19 out of 450 — are white."
The kicker:
"Pamela Grundy, a parent in Charlotte who has decried the divisions within the school district, said leaders in Raleigh should take notice. "The lesson of Charlotte is that desegregation will go away so quickly. Once you lose it, you can't get it back," she said.
- Doug Miller
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11 comments:
Thanks a bunch Cary, Apex, and Wake Forest. Your precious snowflakes will be sheltered in the burbs. But wait until they get out in the real world. What a shame these Northerners ruined Charlotte and now are trying to do the same to Wake County.
Marshal, go back to school and learn to spell.
Seems like integration did not save poor Marshall. He obviously thinks that getting a white woman is the pinnacle of success and status. Tell me Marshall..who's zooming who?
Marshall.
We be sho de wite wimmen cain't
reezist you witcha
Pants on da groun,
pants on da groun,
lookin like a fool
witcha pants on da groun...
Well, it looks like the only thing the "black" posters can do is threaten the whites.
Proving the point of every segregationist who ever lived.
Is Marshall the new mayors spokesman?
Bragging about "bruised in every way possible"?
I hope they bus my children
all over town just to make these
black kids look good.
Because God knows they'll never be able to do it themselves.
Somehow, 3 generations removed it's still the whiteman's fault. Weeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzz....did you see that? That's the Latinos making your race obsolete.
Give me a break, people. Busing is the best thing that ever happened to this state. Anyone who is for neighborhood schools is just a racist.
Spreading black children throughout white schools is the only way the white kids will learn that black people are just as smart and kind and caring as they are. It's like putting section 8 housing in rich neighborhoods. It has to be done for the good of society.
If you can't understand that, then tell me why we just elected Obama? HAH! Get over it, whitey. You lost. Your entire race will be extinct within 100 years according to most experts.
Forced bussing is a black eye (or camoflauge) to any society. Schools should be local to where poeple live. If follows the fact that the strong make it and the week fall behind. It is that simple. For the socio-econmically challenged group that continue to slide through school, apply for and receive federal programs only to spend the money on cars, cell phones, cigarettes, booze, drugs and clothes ... you perpetuate the cycle of poverty that goes from generation to generation. Why should tax paying, productive members of society keeping paying your bills? If it weren't for the liberal a-holes, you would slowly die out. Keeping kids close to home will once again bring prosperity to neighborhoods blighted by people who tried to ruin them by using interest only, zero down mortgages which brought the housing industry to its' knees. If you don't like it, move. End of the lesson!
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