Republicans end model school-integration program in NC

Link.

It's no secret that the school system in this country is deeply segregated by race, and one of the few districts that has tried to ameliorate this segregation, and was successful in doing so, has a new majority-Republican school board that's ending the policy.

Discuss.

Wait, the party of charter schools is trying to justify this by claiming it's just about sending kids to the closest schools? What if the students (I suppose their parents could be asked too) want to stay?

Actually, it must be a secret, and a very well kept one at that, since as far as I've ever been told, it's been illegal to segregate schools by race for decades now.

In fact, last time I checked, the norm was for schools to accept any students within the bounds of their district.

edited 12th Jan '11 3:53:55 PM by Wanderhome

Illegal to segregate schools by race, yes.

Neigborhoods, however, were segregated way before it was illegal to segregate them. And neighborhoods don't exactly pop back into shape the moment Congress says you can't refuse to sell your shit to black people. So the neighborhoods are still segregated de facto, which means the schools are still segregated de facto.

In fact, last time I checked, the norm was for schools to accept any students within the bounds of their district.

According to EI's definition, that is segregation.

Edit: Ninja'd, although Black Humor's way of putting it was more detailed and less snarky.

edited 12th Jan '11 3:58:19 PM by silver2195

^^^The districts are what's (self-)segregated, causing the schools to be functionally segregated. The article pointed out that the integration practices in Wake County had begun to focus on poverty issues more than race at the turn of the century.

edited 12th Jan '11 3:58:09 PM by Funnyguts

as the board moves toward a system in which students attend neighborhood schools,

It's extremely hard for me to see how attending the closest public school instead of being bused to a more distant one is worse for children.

This means that, insofar as neighborhoods are segregated by income, the student bodies will be much less economically diverse. That's not racist; it's just letting children attend the nearest public school rather than busing them to achieve the goals of elected elites who have now been voted out of power. There's "disparate impact", but it's not like middle class black children are being locked out of their local middle class school.

So, what was their solution? Importing minorities to the schools to increase diversity?

^Not just minorities, but the article points out that a school could only have a certain percentage of students requiring free lunches, which is the school proxy for poverty.

The article also points out what happens to high-poverty schools, and how the kids seemed to be getting a better education from diversification. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it helped.

Didn't read the whole article, but are they forcing kids to stay at their neighborhood schools or can they stay where they are/go to one out of district?

So far there have been about 700 transfers planned, determined by the school board. The kids will presumably be moved to the schools closest.

edited 12th Jan '11 4:15:04 PM by Funnyguts

Just one more reason for me to home-school my kids. A pity that it's rather hard to do that if both parents work, or if there's only one parent present.

If you fall in a certain neighborhood, you go to a certain school - that's how it works in Hawaii, anyway. Every so often, they'll redraw the disctric lines and you'll end up going to another school, for better or for worse. One school may have air-conditioned classrooms, whereas the other one doesn't. They try to draw the lines up so that no school gets over or under-crowded.

So, I would suppose that if your neighborhood is all one group of people, then that translates into a school that is primarily that group as well. Not the schools fault it's like that.

^It's not the schools' fault, but they still have an ability to mitigate the issue.

On a related note, the school board in my county is deliberately gerrymandering the districts in order to concentrate poor students as much as possible. That way, they get more Title I funds (which go directly to the bureaucracy, the actual schools don't get a cent).

^ Okay, now that's screwed up.

The worst part is, economic integration is what I've been saying for some time now is what we really need. And to the extent that racial lines sadly tend to go alongside economic lines, combating economic segregation also combats racial segregation. It does sound like the program had some issues, but killing the program altogether is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.