WaPo Paints N.C. Conservatives As Opposed to 'School Integration' for Ending Busing
Today's Washington Post all but painted Tea Party conservatives in the Tar Heel State as racists opposed to racial integration and diversity in Raleigh-area schools.
In truth the Wake County, North Carolina, school board is simply moving to reverse decades of busing that shuttled some students to schools farther away from their homes in an effort to artificially engineer the socioeconomic and racial diversity of the county's individual schools.
"In N.C., a new battle on school integration," the Post headlined staffer Stephanie McCrummen's story on today's A-section front page.
"With tea party's backing, GOP school board moves to dismantle widely praised diversity policy," added the subheader.
"[O]ver the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course," McCrummen complained. "Pledging to 'say no to the social engineers!' it has abolished the policy behind one of the nation's most celebrated integration efforts."
"[C]ritics 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," the Post staffer added later. "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."
McCrummen waited until the 19th paragraph in the article to note that the "diversity" plan has had little success in sewing up the"stubborn achievement gap that separates minority students from their white peers."
In the 22nd out of 37 paragraphs, McCrummen got around to quoting a proponent of ending busing, Kathleen Brennan, who lamented that "diversity" policy proponents "are patting themselves on the back and only 54 percent of [poor] kids are graduating. And I'm being painted a racist."
A few paragraphs later, McCrummen quoted a biracial parent of two children in Wake County schools who complained about the "diversity" plan that its central conceit seemed to be that "the best we can do is dilute these kids so they don't cause problems."
By contrast, McCrummen front-loaded the article with harsh allegations of racial animus, quoting NAACP president Ben Jealous's incendiary charge that the conservatives on the Wake County school board were "literally attempt[ing] to turn back the clock," in the story's ninth paragraph.
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Comments
Just a thought
Submitted by One on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 7:00pm.
This is why we have different states with different laws. As difficult as it may be to just pick up and move, you as a parent need to take responsibility for your child's education even if it means moving to a better school district.
Until the federal government requires an absolute dollar amount to be spent on each student in the public education system, we will always have districts with distinct differences in enrollment and success.
By the way, that won't happen, and I'm not advocating it anyway.
school busing?
Submitted by MidAmerica on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 7:21pm.
I thought that failed idea was long gone.
Guess what? Making kids take long bus rides doesn't make them smarter.
Apparently,
Submitted by almostacowboy on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 7:54pm.
...from what I've seen, it must be part of a career development program.
Funny how the libs who run WaPo and happen to actually live
Submitted by no tingly legs on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 7:09pm.
within the city limits always, if they have kids, send those kids to private schools like Sidwell Friends, Gonzaga, etc. Black ghetto schools aren't good enough for their offspring, but the common folks in places like NC must send their kids to inferior ghetto schools via forced busing. Phony, hypocritical SOBs.
The truth of the matter is
Submitted by Barack_must_go..... on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 7:46pm.
The truth of the matter is this is only an issue today because sometime in the past some misguided politicians under pressure from overtly racist groups, most prominently the NAACP, were forced into adopting an un - American ideological agenda of racial integration, that has been an abysmal failure wherever it's taken place.
Those children of minority neighborhoods that were supposed to be the beneficiaries of this futile example of government gone wild, lives have remained exactly the same or gotten worse.
It is well documented that this has nothing to do with the white folks that were forced to participate in the exercise, yet the racist bastards at the Washington Post and the NAACP predictably place the blame for disfunctional minorities not being able to assimilate into normal American society squarely on the white mans backs.
Barack_Must_Go.....
Why these dums keep playing the race card?
Submitted by hbnolikeee on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 8:36pm.
If you think about it. Who created the KKK? Who had until quite recently a high KKK official in their party? Which party fought against the civil rights movement?
Wow, I thought busing was dead and buried
Submitted by Dave. on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 9:06pm.
Busing, like sending a child to a government school to begin with, is nothing less than flagrant child abuse.
Vote for the American in November
I had the misfortune to
Submitted by UpNorth on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 9:17pm.
be an unwilling participant in a busing program, in Saginaw, Michigan. I was bused, along with my neighborhood pals, to a closed, condemned school building, so that minority kids, in a recently annexed area, could go to the school that was 3 blocks from my home. They, in turn, were bused about 4 miles to go to my school.
So, I agree with Dave, among others. It IS a form of child abuse.
And "widely praised diversity plan"? Only by the liberals who don't send their kids to those schools.
add this Dave*
Submitted by cajun2 on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 9:21pm.
There are 3 little boys, 5, 7, and 8 that live about half a mile from my house. Because of "busing" these boys catch the bus at 6:15 am and return home at 4:15pm. The school they must attend is 14 miles from their home. The school in this zone is 3.2 miles down the road which they are not allowed to attend because of racial balance. They get home, do their homework, eat supper and sometimes fall asleep at the table. The school board member from our district is named Anthony Stansbury. I have met him several times and he is functionally illiterate. The things we must tolerate for "fairness",
Minnesota is ending busing,
Submitted by mattm on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 9:44pm.
Minnesota is ending busing, too. Why? Because even the Libtards in the Land-O-Loons can see that there's no need for it and that it's a big waste of money.
The editors of the WaPo need to wake up from their drug-induced stupor and realize that the 60's have been over for quite some time.
North Carolina's property tax that supports education ...
Submitted by CO2Maker on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 10:39pm.
... is ultimately collected by the state and then distributed back to the counties, who control school budgets, in a way that is meant to minimize the disparities between the tax base of rich counties and poor counties. There are some locally generated tax revenues that support local schools, which tend to favor wealthy counties, but the biggest chunk of school appropriations come from the revenues collected by the state.
BTW, buses don't come cheap, and busing for the purpose of racial balance (let's not call it by a bogus sociological feel-good term like "diversity") sucks up a large portion of the school budgets that could be used for teachers, materials, books, equipment, and facilities. And then there's the hour or two some kids spend in the yellow asylum each day riding to and from diversity facilities.
that was a big deal in north carolina
Submitted by Candance Moore on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 10:48pm.
When NB covered it 6 months ago.
What about neghborhoof intergration?
Submitted by CobraMan on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 11:39pm.
Has anyone else noticed that the same people who clamor for busing as a means of "school integration" also complain about the lack of neighborhood integration, the interactions and involvement in local affairs (like teaching your kids the value of being neighborly) by the very people who are told that they must, for the sake of integration, load their own children on a bus so they can attend school in some far away neighborhood?
Hay, liberals, what is it that you want? Do you want neighborhoods to integrate and for the people living in those neighborhoods to take part in teaching their children or do you want people to send their own children somewhere else because YOU believe that their own neighborhood isn't a good enough place to teach their kids? The two are contradictory! You can't integrate people by forcing them to disintegrate their own neighborhoods though the daily displacement of their children. I though you people were supposed to be smart?
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
You notice that just about
Submitted by mostlymoderate on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 3:10am.
You notice that just about ALL politicians send their kids to private schools that are overwhelmingly white?
The idea of busing for all
Submitted by jdhawk on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:56am.
The idea of busing for all the reasons that were raised by the posters before me are valid points. What may not be known to some and this may be true in other counties of other states is that there are really two schools within each school starting as early as the 5th and 6th grades in schools in North Carolina.
My last duty station was Ft. Bragg, before I retired. My children have both been in accelerated education programs since 5th grade. When in middle school they were prepped for AP high school courses. When in high school, they took AP courses exclusively and other enrichment events.
Their education was completely different than that of the other kids that for whatever reason were not identified as college bound, but in the same school. When they mingled with the rest of the kids it was after school during wrestling, football, and track. The rest of the time is was in class trying to master algebra, calculus, physics, etc. Were there minorities in the same classes that they attended? Sure. The price of admission wasn't your skin color or gender, it was your brains and your willingness to do the work.
The point I am trying to make is that for those that are making the effort to actually learn something in grade school, it can be accomplished anywhere. The bonus for us is that the schools were close to our home. So, we could easily attend open house, PTA meetings, sports events, awards ceremonies, etc. With my work schedule, had they been half way across the county, the many interactions that I had with them would have been difficult if not impossible.
I applaud the actions of the parents in Wake County. I hope that they win their fight so that they too can enjoy what we did as a parents raising our children while they attended NC schools.
I know from experience that
Submitted by mostlymoderate on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 3:03am.
I know from experience that busing is bad news. I am between 35 and 40 years old so I am young enough to have lived through such a horrible experience. My senior year of high school, the school district decided to "bus" a whole bunch of students from another side of town. I will admit that most of them were African American students. What happened? Well, it ruined our senior year because nobody was familiar with these new faces that emerged in our hallways and cafeteria. There was a lot of tension and anxiety. Sorry, but nobody got along.
Why? All so some liberal do-gooders could feel good about themselves.
If you are going to force integration, do it at VERY young ages so the kids have time to adjust and get to know each other. NOT at the high school level.
I hate liberals.
In NC
Submitted by Cyborg 0427 on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 7:18am.
Well I live in NC and I know something about it. Children are forced to stand in below freezing temps well before sunrise to wait for buses to come and pick them up for a ride that takes more than an hour. I have saw kids playing in the road waiting for the bus. I never thought this was right. Closing our local schools was never a good idea. Sadly,the damage is done our local Jr high and high schools have been torn down or burnt down and all kids go to a central high school. As far as helped it has just not helped it has only made things worse. In fact all the things liberals told us would make things better for my county have made it worse. They call themselves progressive and I think that if this is progress then we need a new defination. I grew up in the 60's and have witnessed all this and have watched as a great nation has went down the craper. I get blasted for being obsessed with politics while I blast myself for not being obsessed with politics and sitting by and allowing this to happen. Never again.
The WaPo liberals are still
Submitted by Cowboy on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 9:12am.
The WaPo liberals are still praising this failed experiment in social engineering, which is widely disliked across races..
Claiming that minority children can only learn if they are seated in a school near white children is part of the racist discrimination of low expectations.
Tadesco had an agenda coming in
Submitted by vaboxrboy on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 9:53am.
First of all, I grew up in Department of Defense schools which seemed never to have a budget and we were tossed in with everyone. That being said, different kids needed different things and all weren't college-bound. I went to public school for the first time in 4th grade and it was quite different.
I taught in Charlotte my first year and the school I taught at didn't even have enough books to send copies of MacBeth home with my students while other schools in the districts had personal sets of novels for each student in English Literature. IBM built a brand new school and gave it to Chrarlotte and they re-drew the lines to get around a black neighborhood that was adjacent to that school. They also sent first year teachers (myself), low performing, or nearly retired teachers to failing schools.
The folks sued and won. Separate is not equal. Wake County is very urban where I live where houses are at a average of $350k and we have 3 new schools to rual areas where people live in trailer parks15 miles down the road. It's foolish to think those school in that district are going to be funded the same way.
The schcol board had no intention of seeking out a plan other than puttting kids back where they came from. Sorry there are no easy soulutions to this problem, but making the kids lose their accredidation would be a shame for sure. Hopefully the new superintendent can come up with something. In the end the kids win and the county wins because people will want to raise families here.