News-Record.com

I heartily concur. We have not yet reached the utopian society wherein racism or other xenophobic ideas are a distant memory.

Seperate but equal didn't work. Period.

A really sad, sad way to go here; do those who rally for resegregation not know the word "Balkanized"?

One fellow in the article stands on principle, saying, "Segregation is morally wrong, regardless of who advocates it."

An admirable energetic statement, but I doubt moral suasion of that sort will convince those who have felt disrespected and forgotten: show them the money. Without busing, how does one reintegrate? The first method of choice seems to be labyrinthan redistricting (will it eventually mimic District 13 for the Dems?).
But Omaha has found every time the lines move, people move, too. It was ever thus.

Again, what if every parent was allowed a voucher to permit his/her child to attend ANY public school in an entire city/county?

The one thing that seems to be getting lost in this story is that Sen. Ernie Chambers is black, and his motivation for this change is: "The black students he represents would receive a better education if their community had more control over the district".

As I understand it, his motivation is to give the black community power over their own schools, which they don't currently have in an integrated school district. Their voice is diluted. I am aware that the popular school of thought on education is that integration results in improved learning, while segregation dulls it, but is that really right? Have we shown here at home in Guilford that school desegregation really improves the learning process? Where's the evidence?

Is it possible that Senator Chambers may be right, that giving the black community more say in their schools is a bad thing? Will the students' education be worse than it is today? I just don't believe that there is enough empirical evidence to prove that integrated schools is the magical answer. Perhaps, better teachers, more school resources, stronger curriculum, higher expectations for student learning, and establishing a good learning environment free of discipline problems will lead to improved learning, which is what I think that Senator Chambers is seeking to achieve. (We would benefit from more of that here in Guilford as well.) I don't believe that he is advocating segregation at all, rather advocating for one that levels the playing field to make it possible for black students to succeed.

It's likely now, though, that we won't be allowed to find out if his ideas will really work. Too many closed mines that are determined to stay with failed solutions. As I read this again, it sounds just like Guilford County.

"Again, what if every parent was allowed a voucher to permit his/her child to attend ANY public school in an entire city/county?"

Freddy, I totally agree with your thought. You will note that the Omaha Schools solution does provide for open enrollment where any student can apply to any other school on an available opening basis, so students, black, white or Hispanic, are not locked into, or out of, any one district. We would be for the better here at home with such an open enrolment program, as opposed to GCS' current districting and redistricting, to achieve various racial and socioeconomic goals to balance the schools. I don't believe that will ever be successful, and it is not best for the individual students. Give all students the opportunity to attend their neighborhood school with a choice to attend any other school in the district. This is the best of both worlds, and it will achieve far more than any school board can hope to ever achieve in artifically and arbitrarily balancing schools to meet their own agenda goals, which may not actually have anything to do with the education of students.

The voucher system for public schools might have a shot, IF FUNDING for ALL county schools was based on the needs of EACH student: for exmaple, vouchers for students in need of special care, free- or reduced lunch, or of enriched intellectual challenges, etc. would be larger than for the vast middle-level achievers.

The hope would be that eventually, if whatever school your child attended they were "followed" by resources (aside from teachers), they'd get just as good an eduaction as anywhere else.

Now, the fly in the ointment might well be the teachers: are all county teachers highly qualified? Are they all competent, even?
They darn well better be.

Is it possible if we de-couple zip code from school quality, we might encourage more economically diverse neighborhoods? Or is the "nature" of the human beast to want to congregate with only those of similar monetary means, physical tastes in house size and style, not to mention price?