The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School system is in a world of whoopsi. Due recent school closures, or, rather, attempts at school closures, seven people have filed civil-rights complaints. The state is now investigating, but we know what they’ll find: Whatever its reasoning, CMS chose to close schools with majority minority populations.
Since the school closure announcement, two stories have emerged. CMS has both claimed it chose to close academically weak schools with low enrollment and that its short-staffed public relations department could have done a better job. Either way, the reality is the budget is busted, and there are still a lot of difficult choices ahead.
Something to keep in mind as local leaders determine which schools, libraries and parks will close: Are some neighborhoods losing an inordinate number of services? And, what, if anything, can city leaders, and their communications teams, do to ease the news — anything?
Regarding the civil-rights violation investigation:
The department’s Office of Civil Rights does not reveal who filed complaints, but families held a rally at Waddell High, one of the schools that will close, urging people to file such reports.“Opening a complaint for investigation in no way implies that OCR has made a determination on the merits of the case,” education department spokesman Jim Bradshaw said in an e-mail. “Rather, the office is merely a neutral fact-finder. It will collect and analyze all relevant evidence from the parties involved in the case to develop its findings.”
Read the rest of this article, by Ann Doss Helms, here.
Today’s history lesson: In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, that it is unconstitutional for states to establish separate schools for different races.
Rhiannon “Rhi” Bowman is an independent journalist who contributes snarky commentary on Creative Loafing’s CLog blog four days a week in addition to writing for several other local media organizations. To learn more, click the links or follow Rhi on Twitter.
This article appears in Dec 14-20, 2010.
According to CMS – inner-city kids in elementary school receive about $10,000 a kid per year whereas kids in the burbs receive about $4,000 a kid per year. Since the inner-city receives 2 and 1/2 times the money per kid, most of the cuts will fall there. It is a mathmatical certainty. As Gavin Newsome the SF mayor said ‘like it or not’.
It isn’t racism – just fiscal reality.