a subset of derek

Here’s a story from The Takeaway about Wake County, NC and how they want to do away with their current busing system based on socioeconomic status. Some believe like the woman in this interview that Wake County is diverse enough and well distributed enough and there are many that disagree.

Another article from the AP talks about this situation.

When North Carolina’s 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, took the first step toward scrapping the plan Tuesday night.

The board that governs schools in Raleigh voted 5-to-4 to stop busing students to schools outside their neighborhoods. The change requires final approval at a meeting later this month.

The question is: why do people need to be bused away from their neighborhood schools? Are the schools inferior because they are inferior schools or are the students predisposed to being inferior because they lack privilege? If so, why are they inferior and when can we start rectifying this? What about students that stay in inferior schools? Are they just written off?

I wrote a paper about the failure of Cleveland’s race-based busing program from the perspective of a graduate of the Cleveland Public Schools/CMSD. I was bused to a magnet elementary school for Kindergarten through third grade , an elementary school for honors classes 4th through 6th grade and an intermediate school for honors classes in 7th and 8th grade so I have spent lots of time on school buses! The issue of the lack of resources of schools on the East Side of Cleveland was never addressed by the powers that be much less rectified. Parents that would have their kids going to these schools didn’t want their kids going to theses schools with good reason. So, most parents (black AND white) with means left Cleveland and those that couldn’t leave put their kids in private or parochial schools (Cleveland had a huge parochial school system…one of the few winners when it comes to the shortcomings of Cleveland’s schools). All that was left was poor folks and other folks without the political pull to push the powers that be into action. Unfortunately, because blacks and whites blamed each other, we were unsuccessful at creating change and many folks fell through the cracks..

Wake County, don’t let this happen to you.

While busing can be a good solution, it isn’t the permanent solution. We need to look at developing more mixed-income communities. Even though segregation was bad in many ways for African-Americans, one aspect was positive. There was lots of income diversity in the resulting black communities. People of multiple socioeconomic strata lived together in healthy communities. Why can’t we do that with folks of all races? Poor kids who live near a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher will see them as role models who are accessible and they will emulate them. Because poor kids don’t get a lot of exposure to role models in their local community other than their parents, they are relegated to using entertainment to find inspiration and that can be and has been extremely dangerous. This is why there are a lot of good kids that go bad because of the lack of direction in poorer urban AND rural areas.

Adequate educational opportunities can bridge these gaps. The question is, can middle-class to rich folks get over themselves and let it happen.