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

[proud2BlibKansan]

Now let's remember we are supposed to be civil with these assholes er I mean idiots er I mean racists.

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.

more . . . http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011107063.html?nav=mbot

[thaddeus_flowe]

1. holy shit

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Yep

Unreal, isn't it?

[dsc]

3. trust me it gets better

http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/01/14/919704/school-boardsterms-refused.html

RALEIGH -- The head of a national accrediting agency told Wake County school leaders today they’re coming to review the school system next month with or without the district’s cooperation.

In today’s letter, Mark Elgart, president of Georgia-based AdvancED, officially declined the school system’s conditions for participating in the special review of the school district. Elgart said a review team will come Feb. 17-18 to Raleigh to review allegations of poor governance lodged by the state NAACP against the school board.

The only way to stop the review, which will examine decisions such as the elimination of the use of diversity in student assignment, is for the school board to withdraw membership from AdvancED. But pulling out would cost Wake’s 24 high schools their accreditation, potentially making it harder for high school students to gain scholarship and get into some colleges and universities.
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“Providing that the Wake County Board of Education decides to maintain its accreditation we will conduct the visit on February 17-18, 2011 with or without the cooperation of individual board members and professional staff,” Elgart said in today’s letter. “However it is our hope that the Review Team will have the full cooperation of the leadership of the school system so that a fair and objective visit can be conducted.”

AdvancED, is investigating Wake's schools in response to an NAACP complaint that alleged the school board was not following its own policies when it took steps to discard the county's practice of balancing schools based on students' socioeconomic backgrounds.

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/01/14/919704/school-boardsterms-refused.html#ixzz1B8S45pDz

[Ikonoklast]

4. The taxpayers in that district must have money to burn.

Defending against Federal lawsuits is usually an expensive proposition.

[d_r]

5. It makes me angry

It drives me nuts.

But we really shouldn't be surprised. Should we? Come on.

Look, their parents and their grandparents fought against the future 50 years ago, 40 years, 30, 20, 10. They are continuing their legacy.

And 50 years ago most decent people were too caught up in their own lives to figure it out or to pay attention and get involved. And today they are trying to catch us burnt out, worn down, caught up in watching something else. This is what they do.

They've been assaulting education every way that they can - private schools, moving further and further out to exurbs, pushing for vouchers, etc. It is nothing new, they will keep doing this crap whenever they can.

They've never been embarrassed about it before, why would they start now?

[dsc]

7. actually 40 years ago

Wake County began the consolidation process which produced these integrated schools in the first place. I literally can't think of a northern big city system that did this. In Wake both city and suburban students go to the same types of schools with comparable racial and economic mixes. I know no Ohio city can say this.

[d_r]

8. I'm not singling out Wake County

I'm not talking about north carolina or the south in general. I am talking about USA. I'm talking about right wing pigeons.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. That's what makes this so bad

A district that for years was an example is now a shame.

[thaddeus_flowe]

6. i'm glad the priorities of our schools have become

to turn our children into misinformed, racist, unlettered proles

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html

http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-Strict-Creationism.aspx

guess what! you can love both god and evolution! they are not mutually exclusive if you do not make them so.

[unc70]

9. Wake school board --- RW carpetbaggers from NJ and PA

Incompetent carpetbaggers, at that!

The reassignment plan lost the support of one board member, and thus a majority, a couple of months back.

Wake County schools are a challenge for anyone to run without the current circus. The pressures from enrollment growth are constant -- 5-7,000 additional students each and every year, often not where expected five years earlier when latest schools were in the planning stage.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

12. Oh, they're "competent" -- they're getting exactly what they want, including Tata.

It's a myth that all the northerners moving down are turning this state "blue." It's appalling what Margiotta and little Napoleon Tedesco are doing, and this accreditation issue sounds like it could blow up in a BIG way.

Team Obama better be paying attention. He narrowly won in 2008, and considering how well funded and organized the Republicans/Teabaggers are, 2012 will be a MAJOR battle.

[hobbit709]

11. "First God made idiots,, that was for practice. Then He made school boards"-Mark Twain