Raleigh, North Carolina, is known as the "City of Oaks," which conveys a sense of permanence. It is also the seat of Wake County, where significant change in the last decade has made its public schools a role model for others. The county is just over 70 percent white, 27 percent black and 9 percent Hispanic. But when their schools are called "integrated," it's really more about economics. Whether a school is located in the suburbs or in poorer neighborhoods, you'll find a mix of wealthy and working-class kids.
A newly Republican school board in Wake County is working to undo that progress:
over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives ... has abolished the policy behind one of the nation's most celebrated integration efforts.
And as the board moves toward a system in which students attend neighborhood schools, some members are embracing the provocative idea that concentrating poor children, who are usually minorities, in a few schools could have merits - logic that critics are blasting as a 21st-century case for segregation.
American Prospect blogger Jamelle Bouie agrees with the latter assessment:
This is ridiculous ... Simply put, high-poverty schools come with a huge host of problems. They are situated in environments which -- typically -- include high unemployment, low parental engagement, and high crime rates (as well as closer ties to criminal networks). They have a hard time recruiting good teachers and administrators, and their students score far lower than their peers in higher-income schools, from everything to reading and math to music and art. These schools have lower graduation rates and lower rates of college attendance for their graduates.
Conservative school board members might support extra funding for the schools that inevitably revert to concentrated poverty, but the fact is that additional funding does little to ameliorate the problems that come with high-poverty schools. If these conservatives really cared about poor students, they would support the consensus that has benefited Raleigh schools for more than a decade.
After the jump, Bouie also reminds us that the walkback from Brown v. Board of Education has long been underway -- not just in Wake County, but in the Supreme Court that ruled on it in the first place.
Bouie writes:
In the 1991 Dowell case, the Court ruled that a federal desegregation order could be ended even if it subsequently resulted in resegregation. The next year in Freeman v. Pitts, the Court held that a school district that had been under judicial review for school segregation could be freed of this review, even if some desegregation targets remained. This was followed by Missouri v. Jenkins in 1995, where the Court overturned the ruling -- from a lower court -- that the state was required to correct for de facto segregation in its schools. And in 2007, Chief Justice John Roberts -- writing for himself, Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito -- ruled that racial balancing for the purpose of diversity is unconstitutional, with Roberts capping his argument by disingenuously asserting that "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
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From the linked Wash Post article: "This is Raleigh in 2010, not Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s - my life is integrated," said John Tedesco, a new board member. "We need new paradigms."
"The new school board has won applause from parents ... who say that promoting diversity is no longer a proper or necessary goal for public schools."
"Tedesco said he and his colleagues are only seeking a simpler system in which children attend the schools closest to them. If the result is a handful of high-poverty schools, he said, perhaps that will better serve the most challenged students."
and finally,
"If we had a school that was, like, 80 percent high-poverty, the public would see the challenges, the need to make it successful," [Tedesco] said. "Right now, we have diluted the problem, so we can ignore it."
What? WHAT?!
ARGH!
I wish I was a lawyer sometimes, so I could be better equipped to fight against this sort of thing.
John, for a conservative, you are pretty damn cool.
Thanks, Don, but I don't feel very cool. If I were cool, I could come up with a passionate argument against this guy. If I were cool, I could go there and talk to people and change their minds.
If I were cool, I could say or do something...something that would make a difference, but I can't do anything but sit here and be frustrated at injustice and say that it is injustice. That doesn't feel very cool, or heroic, or anything remotely resembling good.
Stories and situations like this make me feel powerless, because this is not the kind of thing I spent a military career defending. I thought I was defending truth, integrity, reason, and justice. Not a perfect union, but union and people that were honestly striving to be more perfect. Some days, I feel like I wasted my time, if this is what the country is coming to.
No, I don't think I'm very cool at all, not today.
This isn't the sort of topic one should be cool about. It's infuriating. Apart from the idiotic and insulting assertion that, in essence, we no longer need to fight for integration (the position these nits are taking argue that it is), there is what I regard as the fact that in order to live up to our ideals of equality we must strive toward greater integration, not to relax and slide back. It is a fact, unfortunately, that right-wing individuals (as opposed to most actual conservatives, I have to point out) are more comfortable with strict hierarchies (among other traits) with everyone staying in their assigned place. But, at least theoretically, school integration blurs the divisions somewhat; right-wingers like these school-board members are out to sharpen them again. That's an effort that ought to inspire outrage and condemnation.
Roger that, John... roger that...
You can bet your sweet bippy that, ummm, certain people will be fervently repeating Tedesco's talking points as if they were divinely inspired everywhere they can.
John, you have no idea what a moral victory it is that you even care about this stuff, that it moves you. Pisses you off. More to the point, you are right.
So far as answers and solutions go, what is needed to do the opposite of what Wake County is proposing. Everything that has been done on the front of public education since Reagan has been wrong. This includes Bush's No Child Left Behind, and Obama's Race to the Top. If we really want to bring our nation back to its place of educational pre-eminance in the world, we need to go back to the Great Society and intergrationist policies of the Johnson Administration. We have to drop the idea that it is acceptable to write off ANY segment of our society and that we can afford to leave even the poorest and most disavantaged uneducated.
The educational divide is one of the largest factors contributing to income disparity. People with only high school diplomas have been stuck in stall for a long time. People without them have been rolling to the bottom forever. We are now trailing behind third world nations, and that's no place for us to be.
As an interesting side note, there have been a number of recent articles about how the US is lagging in education behind India and China. On Glen Beck today (I know, I know, but I get information from all kinds of places), he had a guy on that said the best thing we can do for our kids is to teach them Mandarin Chinese.
That's where we are at, 10 years from now we'll need to speak Chinese to function in the world marketplace.
As the US stumbles along in it's 3rd century, I think we are in for some big big changes.
Please check your demographic numbers in the first paragraph - they add up to just over 106% I believe. Not important to the sense of the article, but the kind of fact that niggles your brain as you read.
You can be both white and Hispanic.
Without having their information in front of me I can only speculate but maybe the 6% accounts for those students who can claim a mixture of ethnicity. Seems like I recall seeing on the last form I filled out an option to claim "White/Caucasian" with a secondary option to choose "Hispanic/Latino". Again pure speculation on my part.
There are those who identify as White/Hispanic and those who identify as non-White/Hispanic, as well as individuals who are mixed race and might identify as White, Hispanic, and/or Black (if given only these categories to choose from), which explains why the numbers appear to be off -- this misunderstanding being ONE of many reasons why, contrary to John Tedesco's statement, diversity is a proper and necessary goal for public schools.
Rachel , You have only hit the tip of the iceberg for North Carolina :
You got a lot of sheets here that need to be pulled back ! !
Bigotry , prejudice and total ignorance is still alive and well . Sounds like the perfect place for Sarah Palin to re-establish camp , oh the minds here are fertile , and waiting to be plowed ! !
i am with you, i also hate the usa
For me, it's not about hating the USA, but loving it enough to want to change things for the better for all citizens!
Okay the Sarah Palin comment.... totally uncalled for. I am a mom in Wake County and a democrat to boot. I have a son who is going to be entering kindergarten this year. I am for neighborhood schools but I am not for de-segregation. I live in a middle class neighborhood and do not support the idea of bussing my 5 year old to help fill a quota. When we moved here we looked long and hard at the schools we were districted for in fact it was the number one consideration for me. I want my child to go to a school nearby for a variety of reasons like safety, and for ease. I am raising my children to accept everyone regardless or race, creed, or sexual orientation. I want my children to have the best education possible.
Hi, Rebecca. I'm curious, I have a child in a Wake County Elementary School. What neighborhood are you in and what school would your child be bused to? The vast majority (approx 95%) of kids in Wake DO go to the closest school. Of those that don't, many VOLUNTARILY choose to be bused to magnet schools. The relatively small amount of involuntary busing involves sending some poor children in the inner city to middle-class suburban schools.
I just love those "I'm a Democrat, but..." people. :-/
I went to a magnet middle school in Tulsa Oklahoma. The people I went to school with were as smart as I was and most of them even more motivated.
You don't support de-segregation, wow. (I guess/hope you meant re-, not de-.)
But still: Is there really less busing or is it that busing that doesn't desegregate is okay for you?
Can we please not start with the knee-jerk South bashing? The school board members stirring up this trouble are Tea Partiers from New Jersey, namely John Tedesco and Ron Margiotta.
Prior to this, more than 90% of residents reported being satisfied with Wake County's current system. The reforms were put in place decades ago, and were considered quite progressive.
Part of this problem is the high number of Northeast transplants in the Triangle area, who want to change the current school district to mirror the ones they came from.
I don't think Jason is South bashing. I think he's merely trying to call attention to our plight. I do understand that folks from other places may not understand the nuances here.
But this is Tobacco Road. Before RTP, other than the positive influences of the great schools in the area, what can you associate with the place other than a poisonous crop growing in crappy soil?
I do agree that in general, this is a progressive area, but I live in Cary, and I think the joke about Cary being an acronym for Containment Area for Relocated Yankees could be taken a step futher to Containment Area for Reactionary Yahoos.
Ron Margiotta is from my district. My neighbor is one of the leaders of this mess - but will claim he has nothing to do with the Tea Party - as most do when confronted. Reminds me of the days when folks would be "normal" during the day - only to hide their identities at night...
Anyway, you did hit it right on the head. Our versions of Joe the Plumber and Rush Limbaugh are a big piece of this mess. And recent history does show that the Northeast seems to do the bigotry thing really well.
awesome...where I live has made it featured on the maddow blog...but not so awesome for the reason why... :( :sigh:
as a North Carolinian I share your sentiments exactly! Lord only knows who many times I have cringed while watching TRMS as they report on folks like Virginia Foxx. I just wanna cry!
One of the biggest things that the Supreme Court missed in Brown V Board of Education decision, is that while at the time race was significant indicator of social status in regards to income, the real thing that created unequal public schools was not race per se, but income. I've often asked conservatives who stupidly blame teacher unions for the downfall of schools to show me one failing school in America where the kid's parents were wealthy. So far, no one has answered me yet. Americans need to become far more aware of class, and the effect it has on this country.
I totally agree. I'm for de-segregation as much as the next person, but simply shuttling students around makes as much sense as desegregating businesses by forcing half your white staff to move to India.
The root of the problem is not the schools or the children, but economic inequity. Thus, instead of doing this 3 card monty trick, why not use some funds to create more charter schools and academies based in poorer neighborhoods? Why not spend it on taking on more teacher's aides in the classroom (especially for the lowest grades) and for more tutoring for struggling students once they get older? Then maybe the students will graduate, better their own economic position within our society and help actually solve this problem. Or we could just force 6 year olds onto a bus. Yeah, that's easier.
It's funny how racial tensions start to disappear when we all start moving up in the world. . .
Are you unaware that 'charter schools' are just for-profit private schools? There's no money in poor people, you know, and 'charter schools' achieve their results primarily be excluding/kicking out under-achieving students. If you really want to improve education in America, sod the for-profit 'charter schools' and work on improving public schools. Nothing that is in the public interest should ever be privatized.
Plus pulling children out of public schools and putting them in charter schools serves only to weaken and degrade the public schools' ability to serve the children who have no choice. That is a gross three card monte.
Don: That weakening & degrading of the the public schools by you-know-who has to be deliberate.
I think the actual definition of charter school varies by state... it must, because in Colorado, school are reassigned as a charter school if they fail their CSAPs, the statewide standardized tests. Charter schools here are still public and definitely not making any money.
As for putting better schools in low-income areas... Love the idea. Capital is an issue... but check out KIPP schools (kipp.org). There's one based in Denver, and I believe they're located in large cities around the nation with pretty much that idea in mind. They're public schools with much higher classroom time and some of the most devoted teachers you can get.
Mmm...not to sure about the definition thing. They all receive public money. But so do arenas and private prisons. In all cases, so far as I know (no guarantees on how far, naturally), private entities of some sort are doing the actual operating despite the public funding; and so long as a non-public entity is collecting public money, that counts as profit in my view.
The solution is better socioeconomic integration of neighborhoods by government design. Why try and fix the problem of concentrated poverty in the schools? Just put more affordable housing in wealthy neighborhoods. The number one predictor of success in school is what the median income of the child's neighborhood is, even more than the economic level of the family itself.
Well yes. The suburbs are doing okay with that. But it seems the opposite is a little harder. Gentrifying downtown neighborhoods is not always okay with the current residents as they lose their houses and their neighbors, and affordable tax rates. Many have stayed in their previously-settled old neighborhoods to take a stand against the poverty and crime that seems to seek inner cities.
Property values in the second and third rings around town are skyrocketing. Now the middle and working class are looking for affordable housing as the very rich rebuild communities in their own image. Its a mixed up fruit basket now.
Imagine the reaction. If you can't, look up the reaction to desegragration busing.
I think a Federal program that compensates the underfunding of poor schools would be a great idea. While it could be done at other levels, it should safest from attacks at the Federal level once established.
Rachel, I hate to bring this up here since it is so off topic, but I don't know any other way to communicate this to the people at Huffingtonpost as they have reached a point of arrogance that is remarkable. They have never once answered an email in all the years I have written them.
HOWEVER, the problem is the incredibly heavy handed censorship going on over there. I don't know who else to turn to. That they have obviously hired more right wingers to work there than progressives or liberals is becoming more and more obvious to the point where it was just revealed that two of their top people are moving to Fox. BUT comments that are non offensive but take the side of progressiviness and liberals are being refused to be put on and I know of friends who post there and we compare notes, we write nothing offensive or use bad language but the comments are refused. Whereas, the trolls are taking over Huffingtonpost completely. They write offensive material, troll constantly looking for fights and contribute nothing. Responses to them have to be so carefully worded as to be ridiculous up to and including mis-spelling words, and spreading the words out to beat whatever the mods are looking for.
This is getting out of hand. In one two day period I had exactly one out of over 40 posts allowed through and it was just a two word sentence and even it had been held up for "moderation".
YET we continue to see a downward slide from HP to letting the trolls take over. Word is being talked about that they are hoping to attract more of Fox's readers in order to increase revenues while turning their backs on the people who made the place famous to begin with. Headlines are completely misleading, leading in some cases for one to think they were on a rightwing site.
Is there ANYTHING you can do? Pass this on to Howard Fineman for instance because writing directly is beginning to feel like sending letters to the warden. Nothing is going to happen.
If you don't believe me go check on the site and look at the complaints (when they get through) and how trolls are just ruining the place.
Help us Rachel,you're our only hope.
Roswell, I thought it was just my comments that were not allowed on Huff Post and was beginning to get paranoid, until I read your post above.
I, too, noticed the trolling has increased. What a shame the site has deteriorated. I surely won't attempt to post there again.
They have been censoring for the past two years. They have an agenda and it is anti Obama and anti Black, and anti Democratic party.
If you are against all of the above you will not have a problem posting anything. The Democratic party has been hijacked by libertarian, naderites, and so called ex republicans. All who claim to speak for the Democratic party.
My question for you is why would u be asking Rachel to help u on this issue?????
She is one who "claims' to be speaking for the "base," as for many at MSNBC.
LOL - please look up the Greek trojan horse story.
The sort of problem you are speaking of is everywhere in the US and it has been going on for a long time. Conservatives (whatever they may call themselves) are not held to any meaningful standards and are allowed to get away with all sorts of unsavory things, especially in the media and on the internet.
Exactly! How are u allowed to rail against the leader of the Democratic party and its policies and still say u speak for the base? How many of these "Dem" media types wanted to kill HCR, kill financial reform and then dismiss/ignore everything else the President has done for the past two years?
These so called Dem media types are right wingers posing as journalists.
Is this why my campaign to de-couple the campaign donation info from Facebook personal information has gone NOwhere? It's all on Huffpo's Political Fundrace tab and I've been hollering about it since last September because I feared some crazy person would use a 2nd Amendment Solution on a liberal political donor somewhere. Oh my...gee...look what just happened in Tucson.
RE: Wake County School Board and the Tea Party. The TP is alive and well and spreading its filth all over the south. I called it racist back at its beginning and nobody listened. Harrumph! Y'all deserve a fanswat upside the head for not believing me. Lots of work to do to get these people to go back into the woodwork where they belong.
Carolinalady: For too many years, too many avowed non-conservatives have acted like they are compelled to be "nice" to conservatives at the expense of all other considerations.
The Carolinaladywithfan is ALWAYS polite, even to the worst hatespeakers, Edgar. It is bred in the bone, so to speak, and she considers that she must be an example for others. The worst she will do is a figurative swat with her trusty fan -- be very careful that you do not deserve one!
By "nice", I meant providing conservatives a forum when there was no legitimate requirement to do so, and pretending that obvious hogwash was a "point of view", etc. If that merits a swat from your fan, that's your call. Me, I think that manners are often over-rated. For example, Wm. F. Buckley was usually oh so polite and lofty, but even so, he made my skin crawl.
Sadly, Buckley is representive of a tact, decorum, and reasonableness now lacking in the Conservative echo chamber.
Don Q is right on the subject of WFB. I used to have slew of Eastern Liberal Republican relatives of the Rockefellar stamp. They tolerated WFB because he was polite and because, solely through his pontifications, the more -- let's also be tactful and call them 'instransigent'-- conservatives of the McCarthy and John Birch ilk were driven OUT of the movement for 2 generations. If we have the same ambitions about their reconstituted movement through the TeaParty and want to help the GOP regain its Grand stature, we'll take those courteous notions to heart.
Regarding Buckley...your mileage may vary. I remember seeing one of his less erudite admirers (this was years ago) quoted as gushing something like "I don't understand anything he says, but I love hearing him say it." I suspect that the decline in Buckley's influence was due to many factors, one of them being that the "great unwashed" on the right simply got tired of him, and another being that the more aggressive conservatives became more clever. Let's face it, saying that Dwight D. Eisenhower was a commie may have been useful to the Birchers as a sort of "separate the sheep from the goats" tactic, but it was very foolish as a means of trying to convince people in general. The more aggressive conservatives eventually developed slightly more plausible rhetoric, things that more people wanted to hear, even if they weren't actually true. Finally, I'm sure that many people from left to right simply found Buckley to be hopelessly affected.
He also got old. So did Rocky. So did Reagan, Mondale, and all the other cold-warriors. That is the nature of things; torches pass and styles change but truths hold true. That is MY beef. I have a problem with political rhetoric repeated as fact until it becomes "true" by "fair and balanced" media outlets that ar supposedly news reporting services.
The problem with reasoned debate and discussion now is that you cannot reason with people who are maddened by fear -- and that's what has happened through the dumb-making process of plying the electorate with brainless entertainment while encouraging it to spend its way into hopeless debt and then scaring the crap out of it with all sorts of lies (not to mention cutting every educational budget to the bone and leaving ALL our children behind all other developed countries in math, science, reading, etc.). Mark Twain said that laughter is humanity's only real effective weapon...I suggest we begin to use it.
"over 70 percent white, 27 percent black and 9 percent Hispanic" really?
Again, as was stated earlier, a person can claim more than one ethnicity (since many are bi-racial). Therefore, the numbers will add up to more than 100%. Hope that helps.
Great idea for the Wake County School Board: Mobilize the community to build low cost housing in all of your neighborhoods and distribute impoverished students throughout the community. That will solve the neighborhood school and the concentrated poverty school dilemma at the same time! As the school board member said, "My life is integrated," so this new integrated housing initiative shouldn't raise any objections. "Y'all come!"
In reality, just compare Charlotte's unsuccessful concentrating of impoverished students in neighborhood schools. The dropout rate is huge, despite herculean efforts on the part of the school administration and teachers. Now add to this the impact on 1,500 impending layoffs as the recession's second wave hits school funding in North Carolina. If conservatives are seeking a return to past years, they're going to get it. It's enormously discouraging.
I realized years ago that conservatives quite seriously want to either destroy public education or take control of it.
Why don't you get it? You black people are inferior to us white people- just stop trying already. The second that we stop all this "equality" bull is the second us white men start feeling bigger. You want to know why we have to carry around guns? Cause seriously...my you-know-what aint larger than a black man's....but more than likely my gun is!!!
If you want to Will you can erase this one too...it was funny at first, but now I'm not sure if the point got across. I'll leave it up to you. Thanks, regardless. Love what you do man- keep up the good work.
LOL - point taken, Mickey!
Hey, I've encountered people like that.
A family's socio-economic status is the #1 predictor of academic success of a child. Using socio-economic status in school zoning creates many positives for everyone: teachers, administrators, parent community, and most importantly, students. If demographers assist districts to create "balanced" socio-economic schools, it holds that, typically, there will be a stronger degree of racial balance as well. The creation of "middle class schools" instead of "rich schools and poor schools" pays off -- in many different ways -- student performance being the most important.
I live in a city in Texas where socio-economic zoning is used to create attendance zones (really -- in Texas! I know....surprising!) for our secondary schools (grades 6-8 and 9-12). It has worked well but our school board will be under a lot of pressure to change this practice within the next year when they have to redraw the lines to balance enrollment numbers. The local Tea Party folks are already talking about eliminating this successful practice. The push to go to strict "geographic" or "neighborhood" zoning is a thinly veiled way to create more racially homogenous schools.
A good reference: the works of Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow, at The Century Foundation.
It's a hard job segregating by Socio-economic status. One that I don't approve of. I would like to see all those low economic status people pull themselves out of that status and into a nice solid middle class...then what...redraw the school lines? There is a reason those parents don't participate as fully in schools as rich folks--they're working.
There are good reasons to let the classes cross. Wealthy parents contributing to schools (either in presence or presents) are a boon for those not so wealthy kids too. Yes, the attitude of have and have-nots will exist. It exists in the "real" world so why not let the kids find ways to cope with that while they still have respectable guides and models. Students of this generation are more likely to help each other than tear each other down (not that THAT won't happen) than at any other generation. The not so wealthy kids benefit from that. The wealthy kids benefit from that as well.
This district seems to be working well as is, why mess with it?
When we had the Great Society and magnet school programs put in place to overcome and reverse segregation, our education system was the best in the world.
As a counter to that, whites fled the cities for the suburbs to spare their darlings the horrors of having to grow up with black kids.
Reagan attacked and began defunding the education reforms of the previous decade. 31 yrs later look at where we are at. How's that public education is the enemy thing working out for you all? If we are serious as a nation about returning America to its pre-eminance as a country in terms of education, we have to turn the clock all the way past Reagan and start from there. Reagan was a meat puppet.
And there's also the effort to privatize public schools, via so-called 'charter' schools. Why 'charter'? Just call them private schools. Or anything else that makes sense and describes what they are, which is just another front of the right's war effort to privatize everything that's in the public domain (not forgetting their war to prevent that domain from, Offler forbid, expanding).
I graduated from this school system in June. I'm one of the crazy kids that with the help of the NAACP and a few local religious leaders have been fighting tooth and nail against these guys. I'm a product of the system they're trying to do away with in the best way possible - I chose to go to a school in a "ghetto" because even though I couldn't walk around at night and gang violence was just a fact of life, it had some of the best teachers in the county and a strong arts program. Without the socioeconomic diversity policy, the high school I went to is going to dissolve into another school where kids go until they can drop out. It's already starting to go that way, anyway.
I know none of what I just said is particularly important, but I just had to say it. My high school produced kids like me who took too many AP courses and watch TRMS and go to schools like MIT and Yale and NYU. We're smart kids. Doing away with the system is going to make it impossible for a kid who doesn't happen to be smart AND rich to do much with themselves. And that STINKS.
As the Doctor would say, who said that's not important?
Economic segregation abounds in this country. It pretty much always has. The real problem is having the wealthy, middle class, and poor segregated in separate areas in any given town or city. There needs to be a mix of economic status and ethnicity in any given neighborhood, as well as, equal funding for ALL schools.
The first step to fixing schools is to eliminate neighborhood schools. As long as the wealthy and the poor are segregated, schools will continue to show unequal levels of success.
In general, I agree with you. We keep looking at whether the schools are showing the correct level of success. Shouldn't we be looking at whether each student is successful?
School grade reports are misleading and can only give a very general picture of success/failure.
Sadly, the role of the parent has fallen on the schools in this issue...a child's success is directly related to his/her parent(s)/guardian(s).
And a parent's success is directly related to his/her income...
It's a tiger chasing his tail...
This school board majority was elected in an off-year election where only the suburban districts were up (we have staggered terms based on 9 districts in the system). Who lives in the suburbs? Primarily, transplants from the northeast. There's a great story about how native Raleighites combined the city and county systems in the 1970s to avoid concentrations of poverty in the inner city schools. About a decade ago, a bipartisan school board, made up of Democrats and Republicans, developed the socioeconomic diversity policy, which succeeded in making ALL schools in Wake, good schools. Along with our great schools came great growth, which was then underfunded by Republicans in control of the County Commission. (Note: our school boards do not have taxing authority, that's controlled by the County Board of Commissioners). The result was many unpopular decisions forced on the former school boards to meet growth--such as mandatory year round schools, over-crowding, and multiple reassignments to fill new schools and balance populations. The current majority seized the opportunity to capitalize on the dissatisfaction among parents, and funded by leaders in the tea party, rolled to victory. It has been a nightmare ever since.
Rebecca, having grown up with parents who were not racist but lived in an all white neighborhood and going to an all white school, I can attest that it was hard to accept everyone regardless of race when I got out into the world, when I had never met anyone of color. Even though my parents wanted to me to accept everyone and I had the ideal of accepting everyone, in reality bias and prejudice come from the "unknown other." It could be a blessing to your child to "fill a quota."
I graduated from an Inner City school in Central NY. Here is an idea, allow the Schools to kick out the kids who are trouble makers and who do not want to be in school to begin with. Allow our Schools to be a place where kids can come who want to learn instead of being beaten up if you are Black and want to learn. The young Black kids who want to learn are beaten up because they "are trying to be white" I have to ask, where are all the Black Professionals? Why don't they ever go into the schools and talk to these kids and show them that Blacks CAN GET AHEAD.
A second idea to go back to Vocational School. Allow kids who do not want to go to college to train to be Beauticians, Auto Mechanics etc. I bet you could even get some of the Unions to come in and train the kids for jobs. The fact is a good plumber will make more than a college graduate if they know their stuff, without the school loans.
Why should government subsidize private business? Wanted to ask T-Paw this question last night when he was on TDS. If you believe in the free market then you believe gov't shouldn't play a role in business. If you believe in liberalism you believe gov't should play a limited role in economics (or seriously, has our education of basic civics gotten so outta hand that Minnesota, one of the most educated states of the union, can't elect an educated Governor to represent itself?). I am hoping I don't offend Minnesotans here..I used to live in your state and I love it very much...just can't believe T-Paw...that's all...
Damn you Mouser! I was going to riff on that re Rand Paul!
Mickey, I was born and raised in Minneapolis, and can attest to the fact that their schools were, at least in those days, excellent.
And you certainly don't offend this Minnesotan, because it's been a complete mystery to me how such a good educational system could have spawned Pawlenty and Bachman and their followers.
My point is- shouldn't we be spending our tax money to improve our public schools and make them excellent? The hell are we spending our money on private schools for? It makes no damn sense. Minnesotans spend their tax money to improve Minnesota public schools- they don't spend that money to make some guy rich or a panel of people rich. T-Paw seems to be a guy who wants to conflate the two, and I reject that. Minnesotans are not that easily bought (at least my experience has been ya'll are pretty damn sharp tacks ;-) ).
Just want to make sure that readers know that Tedesco speaks only for HIS (suburban) supporters. The county is in quite a turmoil over this. It is almost funny, but 80% of the new majority on the board are from NJ, PA, and further. We old timers here are fighting tooth and nail over this past year with such tools as civil disobedience, prayer vigils, rallies, board attendance, law suits, chamber of commerce meetings, civic leader engagement, parent-teacher-student engagement, naacp alliances with the nc council of churches.... The mayor has been clobbered for taking a stand when he said these impending changes were not the way we do things around here. The Superintendent resigned rather than be forced to accommodate this new mandate. We refer to it as "the takeover of the school board." The large majority of parents are HAPPY with the way things are done, but that survey was ignored by the "new majority" after they asked for it.
Raleigh voluntarily integrated our schools in the 60s. Raleigh City and Wake County merged systems in the 70s, before mergers became the norm. We have enjoyed a very successful magnet program for 30 years. Our business sector has enjoyed growth based on the fact that there are No Bad Schools anywhere in this county. I personally drove my child to a school next to the projects for her middle school years. It was great.
The problem that brought this to the forefront was the rapid growth of our area which required are lot of reshuffling of the kids. Angrier and angrier meetings led to a frustrated group of parents who got involved with 2 or 3 of our far right political machines. So you might call this a bit of a suburban uprising, funded and supported by a very coordinated savvy group of conservative operatives.
Our board members are chosen 1/2 in one cycle, and 1/2 in the other, and only can be voted on in their districts. The suburban districts were "up" that year, and they won their seats.
And the rest is about tearing down a proud history.
There have been some sharp legal maneuvers to make certain that their authority is not easily tested. They let go of "normal" relationships with other resources: NC Institute of Government (they are good!) has been replaced with one created by our local king of conservatives causes; key centrist educational affiliations have been dropped; and now there a battle with an accreditation agency.
So, to sum up, these changes are being brought to our area by the last in. And we are most upset about it.
Two warnings for others --
Never assume any election is too small to vote in. That is where the takeovers are coming from.
Never assume that democracy as we know it is enough to mediate controversy like this. These new board members, and their compatriots on the county board of commissioners, were trained in the art of political combat before they were even sworn in. They unseated already elected board chairs at the first meeting. Tied votes were settled when someone went to the restroom after 6 hours. Another person was out with a stroke and could not call his vote in. Board attorneys were replaced. Meeting rules were changed.
Its the new Patriarchy. Enjoy!
I'm a lifelong Raleigh resident and Frances is right on. After all, we went for Obama in '08! This move is primarily driven by transplants in the suburbs, who want "neighborhood schools" like they had back in NJ. We have a proud progressive history in regards to our schools. This takeover has been heartbreaking to many who put every child in our community first decades ago.
look, I'm sorry, but as a guy who grew up in wake county public schools, i have to say that i think its an excellent idea. when i was in high school, i used to spend an hour and 15 minutes on the bus just so i could get shuttled almost 30 miles away when there were 2 schools closer. if instead of following peoples finances they followed how close you lived to a school, then you could save money in fuel and equipment costs. funnel the money saved into improving the schools with the lower income kids, and you could make a darn good school. also, stop wasting the 'education lottery' money on filling the gaps in the budget and actually put it to the schools. if you still don't like where you are going to school, transport your own kids or move. there are still plenty of cheap places to live other than south east Raleigh. every one assumes this is about minority's, but i was part of the low income majority, and these laws affect us also.
When can we have a honest discussion about education? When a people are shackled at the starting line then expect some problems on the marathon route.
It wasn't until 60 years ago did some have an opportunity to a proper education. However, for 400 years others were afforded the opportunity to FREE LAND and education. Those two things make or break a people.
No land and no education BREEDS problems and HATE. It's time to embrace our past, present and future folks.
Sam another great comment. An honest discussion about education is not wanted by this country.
In Akron Ohio we have a mother of two who lives in the ghetto with very bad schools. In order to provide her two children a good education she had registered them in the an adjoiniing school system where her father lives. She drove her children to bus stop that took them to the very good suburban school . She was caught and filmed by surveillance cameras. Now facing up to five years of jail time and $40,000 in fines. Ohio schools are funded by real estate taxes and the state has fought changing this funding method for years. It is unnfair and separates education on economics. I am so tired of this crap. Check out the infor at local paper. www.ohio.com
IMNSHO, the people who fight changing this funding method *know* that it is unfair...that's why they want it to continue.