North Carolina students could be able to choose to attend any public school in the state under a proposed bill – a potentially problematic solution to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ skyrocketing economic segregation.
A draft sent to the Joint Legislative Program Evaluation Oversight Committee would require school districts across the state to set up plans allowing families to request a seat in any school, anywhere, regardless of their home district. Requests could only be denied for lack of space.
It’s a measure that might allow CMS students to jump ship from poor schools that keep getting poorer – a 2013 Duke University study found that N.C. schools are becoming more imbalanced by economics than race, with CMS schools becoming drawn down economic lines at a rate nearly four times greater than that of Wake County schools since 1994. Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Wake County are the state’s two largest school districts.
The 2002 end of busing policies aimed at achieving greater socioeconomic diversity might have added to the divide, but the proposed legislation wouldn’t necessarily remedy that issue – the bill would not require districts to provide transportation for students who chose to leave their home district.
Sen. Fletcher Hartsell (R-Cabarrus), chairman of the subcommittee that drafted the bill, says it’s meant to “create a parity between various institutions to meet the needs of the children and not the institutions.” But some school board members fear a logistical nightmare.
“I have no idea how we would manage that,” Bill Fletcher, a Wake County school board member, said at a board meeting Monday. “I just can’t imagine what would happen if a neighboring district all of a sudden had 1,000 kids wanting to go [to a different district].”
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2014.
Please read this piece by Darrell Allison, an African-American man who is President of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/05/01/4879404/listen-to-voices-that-want-choice.html
Looks like Ms. Patterson is another limousine liberal whitey who thinks she’s smarter than all them dumb black folk. Disgusting.
You would have to have been serving over seas for the last three years to not be able to see that the Republicans are trying to privatize the school system in NC. They are driving the teachers out of public schools, underfunding public schools, encouraging more privately owned charter Schools, and pushing ever harder for vouchers. Connect the dots.
DLP please explain your racist attitudes against black parents and students such as Darrell Allison.
JTWS:
Please explain what is racist about my post.
YOUR post on the other hand: “another limousine liberal whitey”…
DLP,
I have been instructed for the past five years that any comment questioning the orations of an African-American is prima facie evidence of racism. You are questioning Mr. Allison. Ergo…. racist!
JTWS:
You need to sharpen your reading comprehension skills. I did not even follow the link you posted, nor did I comment on your original post until you attacked me. I commented on the article, and I criticized the state government. Unlike YOUR comments, my comments contain no mention of, nor inferences to race.