WP:Republican school board in N.C. backed by tea party abolishes integration policy

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

Click on the link to read the rest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011107063.html?sid=ST2011011202619

RALEIGH, N.C. - The sprawling Wake County School District has long been a rarity. Some of its best, most diverse schools are in the poorest sections of this capital city. And its suburban schools, rather than being exclusive enclaves, include children whose parents cannot afford a house in the neighborhood.

But over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course. Pledging to "say no to the social engineers!" it 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.

The situation unfolding here in some ways represents a first foray of tea party conservatives into the business of shaping a public school system, and it has made Wake County the center of a fierce debate over the principle first enshrined in the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education: that diversity and quality education go hand in hand.

The new school board has won applause from parents who blame the old policy - which sought to avoid high-poverty, racially isolated schools - for an array of problems in the district and who say that promoting diversity is no longer a proper or necessary goal for public schools.

"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."

But critics accuse the new board of pursuing an ideological agenda aimed at nothing less than sounding the official death knell of government-sponsored integration in one of the last places to promote it. Without a diversity policy in place, they say, the county will inevitably slip into the pattern that defines most districts across the country, where schools in well-off neighborhoods are decent and those in poor, usually minority neighborhoods struggle.

The NAACP has filed a civil rights complaint arguing that 700 initial student transfers the new board approved have already increased racial segregation, violating laws that prohibit the use of federal funding for discriminatory purposes. In recent weeks, federal education officials visited the county, the first step toward a possible investigation.

"So far, all the chatter we heard from tea partyers has not manifested in actually putting in place retrograde policies. But this is one place where they have literally attempted to turn back the clock," said Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the NAACP.

School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta referred questions on the matter to the district's attorney, who declined to comment. Tedesco, who has emerged as the most vocal among the new majority on the nine-member board, 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.

"If we had a school that was, like, 80 percent high-poverty, the public would see the challenges, the need to make it successful," he said. "Right now, we have diluted the problem, so we can ignore it."

[No Excuses]

This is a horrible idea. The high school I attended was highly diverse racially and economically and I came away with a great understanding of how to interact with all sorts of different people. This type of ideology will do nothing but create culturally isolated and ignorant people.

All this will do is make the schools in the nice neighborhoods a whole lot nicer and the ones in the poor neighborhoods a lot worse than they are.

[SkinInsite]

School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta referred questions on the matter to the district's attorney, who declined to comment. Tedesco, who has emerged as the most vocal among the new majority on the nine-member board, 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.

It worked wonderfully for the public school in most inner cities.

[mcsluggo]

Click on the link to read the rest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011107063.html?sid=ST2011011202619

.... School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta referred questions on the matter to the district's attorney, who declined to comment. Tedesco, who has emerged as the most vocal among the new majority on the nine-member board, 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.

"If we had a school that was, like, 80 percent high-poverty, the public would see the challenges, the need to make it successful," he said. "Right now, we have diluted the problem, so we can ignore it." ...

Yeah, i read this in the paper yesterday, and almost swallowed my tongue when i read the above quote.

seriously??? really???

[TD_washingtonredskins]

It sounds like a bad idea...but isn't anything nearly as malicious as the title suggests.

[Madison Redskin]

It sounds like a bad idea...but isn't anything nearly as malicious as the title suggests.

Agreed, although I would not be the least bit surprised if race played a role in the process.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Agreed, although I would not be the least bit surprised if race played a role in the process.

I wouldn't either. The headline would have you believe that these people were trying to segregate the schools again though.

[Burgold]

It sounds like a bad idea...but isn't anything nearly as malicious as the title suggests.

Although none of these guys would be stupid enough to say it was about race if it is. They're going to say that the rationale behind it is something that they would hope everyone would see as benign or reasonable. Now, they may be doing this for pure economic reasons (busing costs the county more money), but I doubt they are doing this because

"Right now, we have diluted the problem, so we can ignore it." ...

Is race a part of it? I hope not.

[thebluefood]

It sounds like a bad idea...but isn't anything nearly as malicious as the title suggests.

This. I'm not a Tea Partier, but the headline was put there to sell copies of the paper, without a doubt.

[mcsluggo]

uhm... doesn't the headline state EXACTLY what the plan is....?

what am i missing? whether you like the existing integration plan or not.... the new new school board is attempting to eliminate it? no?

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Although none of these guys would be stupid enough to say it was about race if it is. They're going to say that the rationale behind it is something that they would hope everyone would see as benign or reasonable. Now, they may be doing this for pure economic reasons (busing costs the county more money), but I doubt they are doing this because

"Right now, we have diluted the problem, so we can ignore it." ...

Is race a part of it? I hope not.

True...but you could speculate about someone's intentions 1,000 times per day. The headline is inflammatory. Again, from what I read, it still sounds like a bad idea, but there's no reason at this point to believe this a racist action or being led by a bunch of racists. It's possible, but that's about it.

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

I guess I'm in the minority because it sure seems like it has a racial element to me.

But perhaps I'm just paranoid......

[TD_washingtonredskins]

uhm... doesn't the headline state EXACTLY what the plan is....?

what am i missing? whether you like the existing integration plan or not.... the new new school board is attempting to eliminate it? no?

A much different type of "integration" than what comes to mind when you read this article. Most people will read this segregating by color...at least that's my belief.

[DjTj]

True...but you could speculate about someone's intentions 1,000 times per day. The headline is inflammatory. Again, from what I read, it still sounds like a bad idea, but there's no reason at this point to believe this a racist action or being led by a bunch of racists. It's possible, but that's about it.

What do you want the headline to say?

It's not like it says: "North Carolina to return to school segregation."

It says exactly what is happening, they have abolished a policy that was established for the purpose of integration.

What would you prefer? "North Carolina School Board abolishes school diversity policy in favor of neighborhood schools"? Is that more neutral, or is it slanted in the other direction?

[Burgold]

True...but you could speculate about someone's intentions 1,000 times per day. The headline is inflammatory. Again, from what I read, it still sounds like a bad idea, but there's no reason at this point to believe this a racist action or being led by a bunch of racists. It's possible, but that's about it.

I think you're right on that one. I also agree that it feels like it's a bad idea... especially, if part of their rationale is to get rid of it because it is working too well.

[DjTj]

A much different type of "integration" than what comes to mind when you read this article. Most people will read this segregating by color...at least that's my belief.

But it is racial integration. What other type of integration are you talking about? The policy was originally established in response to Brown v. Board. They are abolishing it.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

What do you want the headline to say?

It's not like it says: "North Carolina to return to school segregation."

It says exactly what is happening, they have abolished a policy that was established for the purpose of integration.

What would you prefer? "North Carolina School Board abolishes school diversity policy in favor of neighborhood schools"? Is that more neutral, or is it slanted in the other direction?

I'm not a headline wiz, but couldn't they have mentioned that it is poverty-related and not race-related?

[Burgold]

I'm not a headline wiz, but couldn't they have mentioned that it is poverty-related and not race-related?

You really wanted the headline to read

"Tea Party says 'Not in my Neighborhood' to Inner City Students."

Somehow that doesn't feel like a more neutral choice :evilg:

[Destino]

This should come as a surprise to anyone. The GOP dislikes public anything so any move that makes a government program a well regarded success is something ideologically they must destroy. The government MUST be inefficient and terrible at everything otherwise they can't sell constituents on their privatize everything bull****. Concentrating poor minorities? BRILLIANT! In less than 5 years they'll be campaigning on the failure of the school system.

They'll also continue to scratch their heads wondering why oh why they are so unpopular amongst minority voters. Poor poor GOP the victims of reverse racism.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

But it is racial integration. What other type of integration are you talking about? The policy was originally established in response to Brown v. Board. They are abolishing it.

But they aren't abolishing it to separate whites from blacks...they are abolishing it to avoid their kids changing schools every year and having to re-draw the lines just to fit the 50-year old law. I read the article and understand it to be more about neighborhoods and less about black and white. I think they would be making mistake, but I don't believe that race is the driving force here at all.

[DjTj]

But they aren't abolishing it to separate whites from blacks...they are abolishing it to avoid their kids changing schools every year and having to re-draw the lines just to fit the 50-year old law. I read the article and understand it to be more about neighborhoods and less about black and white. I think they would be making mistake, but I don't believe that race is the driving force here at all.

But the original policy was about race - it was an explicit attempt to integrate whites with blacks.

Officials in Raleigh tried to head off that scenario. As white flight hit in the 1970s, civic leaders merged the city and county into a single district. And in 2000, they shifted from racial to economic integration, adopting a goal that no school should have more than 40 percent of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, the proxy for poverty.

They adjusted it in 2000, likely in reaction to affirmative action laws, to instead track poverty statistics, but poverty and neighborhoods is really just a proxy for race in communities like this. There is no question that if they create an 80% low-income school, it will also be close to 80% minority.

If it wasn't about race, why is the NAACP involved?

[Madison Redskin]

But they aren't abolishing it to separate whites from blacks

Regardless of their motives, ^ will be the practical effect of their decision.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

You really wanted the headline to read

"Tea Party says 'Not in my Neighborhood' to Inner City Students."

Somehow that doesn't feel like a more neutral choice :evilg:

I just don't think race plays a big role in this...however, the headline seems to promote that by using the Tea Party, an ambiguous use of "integration", and the term "abolishes". I'm not brilliant, but I'm smart enough to see when someone is trying to pull the strings. And using terms that immediately conjure up thoughts of slavery and the Civil Rights movement is the easiest way to paint this as a racist decision. Maybe I'm the only one...

---------- Post added January-13th-2011 at 01:19 PM ----------

But the original policy was about race - it was an explicit attempt to integrate whites with blacks.

Yes, it was originally about race, but that doesn't mean that every decision impacting the policy is motivated by race. If there has been some effects of this policy that aren't acceptable to people, should the policy be untouchable just because it was put into place due to race half a century ago?

Officials in Raleigh tried to head off that scenario. As white flight hit in the 1970s, civic leaders merged the city and county into a single district. And in 2000, they shifted from racial to economic integration, adopting a goal that no school should have more than 40 percent of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, the proxy for poverty.

They adjusted it in 2000, likely in reaction to affirmative action laws, to instead track poverty statistics, but poverty and neighborhoods is really just a proxy for race in communities like this. There is no question that if they create an 80% low-income school, it will also be close to 80% minority.

Maybe so...but that doesn't mean this has to be considered a racial issue. One can rail on this decision without making it racial (I've stated that I think it's a bad decision, in fact).

If it wasn't about race, why is the NAACP involved?

I can't answer that...I can assume that maybe they sometimes look for opportunities to make race an issue (just as many people and organizations do) and they look to defend a decision that might impact the people they try to protect. Are we to assume that the NAACP is the most objective organization out there and the ones that determine if another organization's actions are racist or not?

---------- Post added January-13th-2011 at 01:21 PM ----------

Regardless of their motives, ^ will be the practical effect of their decision.

It certainly appears that way...and I think it's a mistake (as I've now stated 4 times). However, I just think the headline is trying to imply what the motive is without really knowing. This appears to be a new article (not an editorial) so I believe it should report what is happening, not slant the presentation of the news.

[~Ty~]

My cousin teaches (I should say taught) in Wake County in some of those "best and most diverse" schools in the poorest neighborhoods. He is 6'6" and 255 lbs. He feared for his life and got death threats everyday. He doesn't work in Wake County anymore. Like that couple getting accosted down in FL, someone has to make these ethnic groups accountable for their behavior. This is a poorly done article by someone who is out of touch with what is going on in Wake County, NC.

[SkinInsite]

My cousin teaches (I should say taught) in Wake County in some of those "best and most diverse" schools in the poorest neighborhoods. He is 6'6" and 255 lbs. He feared for his life and got death threats everyday. He doesn't work in Wake County anymore. Like that couple getting accosted down in FL, someone has to make these ethnic groups accountable for their behavior. This is a poorly done article by someone who is out of touch with what is going on in Wake County, NC.

Yeah those ethnic people should be separated from the nice folk of Wake County.