Quote :

"I did watch it on WRAL. I had to to find out what the context of the comment was"

I thought that Margiotta's response to his two comments were pretty interesting, particularly the one about his 'oh lord' comment. I don't really find much wrong with that comment other than his lack of situational awareness that his mic was on. However, his response was to the effect that he had to use the restroom and didn't think that he could make it through that crowd which prompted his comment. Now, most viewers could feasibly by that story since most don't know that there is a restroom for the board members that doesn't require them to go through the crowd.

Quote :

"As long as schools are funded properly, fairly, and evenly based on the needs of the students why bus?"

Wow, can you actually say that with a straight face and buy into that presumption?

Quote :

"Apparently worrying about things like, oh I dunno...reading, writing, and arithmetic is old fashioned and so 20th century."

I'm glad that you raise this point. Although it is a bit odd coming from a person in support of a board that has all but forgotten the idea that student learning is the most important line item for a school board.

Quote :

"We know better by sending little Juanita all the way across the county with Nigel Stuffington. Get her little ass up at 4:30am, who needs sleep, we need to force these people together!"

You find me a kid who is up at 4:30 on a school day and I'll show you a kid that is up for reasons other than a long bus ride to school.

Quote :

"Now we finally have people who, GASP, would rather try something other than the failures of the status quo."

I would hardly call the status quo that is nationally recognized for its success and achievements a failure. But lets put that aside for a moment and look at what this new board is trying to do. They want to implement a New Jersey style neighborhood schools model centered around 20 districts (coinciding with the 20 high schools that will be in operation next year) and eliminate busing so that students can go to school close to home. Tell me again how this model is revolutionary? Perhaps your knowledge of the history of education in this county is as lacking as our members'

Quote :

"The fact of the matter is that people like you have tried to keep blacks poor by keeping them in impossible situations in order to keep them dependent on the Democratic Party for support"

And redistricting poor kids to schools in their neighborhoods is not putting them in impossible situations? Oh right, the solution pitched by our new board members to solve this problem is to give these schools more resources. Which party would these communities be dependent on then?

Quote :

"This is completely discounting the fact that your "better motivated" students in a high school (regardless of if they are from a good or bad neighborhood) will filter into the advanced and AP classes. Meanwhile your "less motivated" or "less capable" students will filter into the normal and remidial classes. A dumb or unmotivated kid from a good neighborhood is not going to pull up the higher ratio of kids from the "poor neighborhood" who co-habitate the normal classes."

Your point certainly has some merit but the diversity policy begins long before high school. In formulating the diversity policy, the school board was never under any illusions that all poor kids would succeed. It simply provides the opportunity for all to be successful. Exposing poorer children to better educational environments from elementary schools affords them the opportunity to join the wealthier kids in the honors and AP classes in High School.

3/5/2010 8:01:27 PM

wolfpackgrrr, my sister was telling me about Margiotta’s ties to private school, and I’m so glad you posted it here! It is crazy to me! Great post, SkiSalomon!!!

Quote :

"moron: ^ vouchers aren't necessarily a bad idea, but I don't see how opposing bussing will lead to this."

For a step-by-step explanation of how this works, consult EarthDogg. He’s one of the few who is quick to pull back the curtain and reveal the hidden agenda.

Basically, ultraconservatives want to privatize education. In order to do that, they have to destroy public education first. By removing the busing policy, they will ensure that there are disparities between schools and student performance. For the schools that are doing very poorly, we will try tons of costly interventions that likely will not work. At that point, we will acknowledge that it is wrong to force kids to attend these crappy schools, and we will give them the option of attending another better school in their zone, but few people will take this option.

Eventually, voucher advocates will descend on the county (much like the neighborhood school advocates have done over the past decade) and they will reveal to us the solution to all our problems: private schools. Vouchers for the poor (this will be sold as a moral and practical imperative). Then later on, vouchers for everybody.

And the vouchered private schools will end up looking exactly like the public schools in other counties (stratified by race/class & quality). The only difference will be that some people make profits under the voucher system.

Quote :

"moron: And is there detailed data on where students are bussed too and from now, and where students will be going if the new policy takes effect?"

There is detailed data on where students are moved to and from now. It is very complicated and changes a lot as new schools go up to accommodate growth...it makes my brain hurt...

http://wwwgis2.wcpss.net/cgi-bin/prod/mainscript/MainScript.pl?MainOption=School

In terms of where students will be going if the new policy takes effect, we can’t be sure since their idea (everybody goes to the closest school) is virtually impossible to accomplish, and they’re obviously going to have to modify it in some way. In the second post to this thread, Supplanter posted a summary of how the Wake Ed Partnership anticipates our school system would work under their idea. Here’s a link to the original report:

http://www.wakeedpartnership.org/news/TopicReview02082010.html

Quote :

"1337 b4k4: so then the important question is: of the schools with similar demographics, how many of them perform comparably to WCPSS and of those how many have bussing? IOW is wake counties performance due to bussing or in spite of it? Honest question."

I’m afraid you don’t understand. If you find a school in another similar-sized county with similar demographics to most schools in Wake County, it will most likely be the result of some kind of busing or creative student assignments. There are very few balanced neighborhoods with affluent and less affluent students so if you want to achieve that balance in a school, you will have to bus in some way. Do you understand?

I mean, here’s the greatschools.org report for demographics in Charlotte-Meck elementary schools (they bus a little bit):

http://tinyurl.com/ygcvu9w

Here’s the report for the demographics in Wake elementary schools:

http://tinyurl.com/yaecbxj

I’m sure you can find a few demographically similar schools to get your compare on. But I think you’d be wasting your time. You can click “Overview” and sort the schools by “GreatSchools Ratings,” which combines the school's state test scores. C-M has 37 elementary schools rating below a 4; Wake only has 6. And you’d think with so many low-performing schools, then C-M must have a bunch of high-performing schools where all the affluent students go. They have 15 schools that rate at 10; Wake has 15, too. C-M has 9 schools that got a 9 rating; Wake has 11. They have 6 at 8; we have 16 at 8. Etc…

So you may be able to find a C-M school that doesn’t bus and performs comparably to a demographically similar school in Wake County, but so what?

If somebody can prove that we’re hurting kids, that they’re performing worse in Wake County, that their outcomes later in life are worse, then I’ll reconsider my position. But as long as our students are performing better, I cannot fathom why we’d want to reconsider our diversity policy. I cannot fathom why we would want to move to a system in which over a third of the elementary schools face extraordinary (and unnecessary!) challenges, and the other two-thirds are exactly the same as they used to be (except the students there have less experience with other cultures, races, classes..you know, less experience with real world shit that matters a whole lot more than a slightly shorter bus ride).

I appreciate that you're a logical and rational dude, but do you realize how unfair it is for you to ask us to prove our students succeed because of busing (and not in spite of it)? The proof is in the pudding, and what has taken place here is total bullshit. Opponents of busing should have had to prove their side, not the other way around. Instead, all we got was, "My kid was supposed to go to Apex High and now he's been assigned to Cary High! THIS IS A TRAVESTY!!!!!!!!" As if a fucking reassignment is somehow anywhere close to the injustice we will be imposing on our less affluent students in a couple years' time.

[Edited on March 7, 2010 at 4:43 PM. Reason : ]

3/7/2010 4:42:49 PM

Quote :

"I appreciate that you're a logical and rational dude, but do you realize how unfair it is for you to ask us to prove our students succeed because of busing (and not in spite of it)? The proof is in the pudding, and what has taken place here is total bullshit."

But the proof isn't in the pudding. By the numbers that you used to compare Wake and CM, we can see another possibility here, which is not that busing is helping students, but that it is merely spreading the poorly performing students enough to disguise their lousy performance. It's like dirt on a floor (and no, I'm not calling poor student dirt); if you sweep a floor and put all the dirt into a pile, it's much more noticeable and obvious, and it makes one part of your floor much much dirtier. That doesn't mean you didn't have as much dirt before, it's just easier to see now.

It's not at all unfair to ask that you prove that wake county's performance is due to busing and not in spite of it, because ultimately if it isn't, then we're better off spending the money spent on busing on something constructive.

I also still don't understand why you think vouchers and tying the money to the student and not the school is a bad thing. I mean if busing really is a wonderful thing, then shouldn't we do everything possible to make it so that poor students have easier access to whatever school they could want?

3/7/2010 5:02:53 PM

Quote :

"My Nephew was outted, and then kicked out of school Wed Mar 03, 2010 I am just beside myself tonight. This afternoon I got a frantic call from my sister in North Carolina. Her 18 year old son was outted at his school today. She had expected he was gay, but due to her religious beliefs, never wanted to believe it. Well today, he was outed at his private Christian school. The principal called him in to his office to ask if the allegations against him were true, and he admitted that they were. He was immediately kicked out of school. He's a senior and was scheduled to graduate with honors in just 4 months. Can they do this? The whole thing started with some bigoted holier than thou kid playing a prank. My nephew is on two sports teams at school and is very athletic. Nobody would consider him the stereotypical gay guy. Apparently a classmate thought it would be funny to play a prank on him and signed up with a fake Facebook account. On that Facebook account, he pretended to be gay. He contacted my nephew and one thing led to another and my nephew admitted to this "fake" person that he was gay. Well, that kid took a screen shot, printed it out and showed it to several people at school. My nephew apparently then said he knew it was a prank, but the damage was done. He was outted. The school has a strict policy about "alternative lifestyles" and he was called in to the principal's office"

You can read this rest here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/3/842722/-My-Nephew-was-outted,-and-then-kicked-out-of-school-

Granted the kid made some bad decisions outside of the school (not that the parents made great decisions - like giving all his stuff to goodwill to punish him), but this is one reason I'm not fond of any voucher system that involves options for public funds helping to put kids in private schools.

3/7/2010 5:27:52 PM

^^ I agree with your point that spreading lower performing students throughout the school district tends to disguise their poor performance. However, according to Bridget's information, assigning these students to high performing schools does not seem to bring down the overall performance of the school in a significant way. This goes to my previous point that busing for diversity purposes, while accounting for a small portion of the overall busing program in Wake County, allows disadvantaged students the best opportunity to succeed that they wouldnt otherwise get in a neighborhood school.

If you want to compare C-M schools with wake using dropout statistics released last week (albeit not the best metric for comparison, i know), you'll find C-M topping the list for number of dropouts whereas Wake is on the opposite end of the spectrum.

3/7/2010 7:28:29 PM

^^ anecdotes are anecdotes. There are plenty of shitty things that happen at public highschools, worse than this story. Lots of good things too. Good and bad things happen everywhere, surprisingly.

However, if one school is far better than another, and a [low income] family wants to send their child to that good school, I don't think the government should penalize them for it. Let's give the power to choose back to our families.

[Edited on March 7, 2010 at 7:37 PM. Reason : politically correct]

3/7/2010 7:32:36 PM

Quote :

"They want to implement a New Jersey style neighborhood schools model centered around 20 districts"

The interesting thing about this is how many people in Wake County moved from the northeast to get away from that style of schools. I know that is a huge reason my family moved to Wake County and I know we were not the only ones in the early-90s. Now it seems like these people who moved from New Jersey to get away from that shit have forgotten how terrible the schools up there can be and want to implement that style here.

3/8/2010 2:33:34 AM

Quote :

"However, if one school is far better than another, and a [low income] family wants to send their child to that good school, I don't think the government should penalize them for it. Let's give the power to choose back to our families."

I think the point is that we shouldn't have our money going to kids to go to schools run by religious assholes.

3/8/2010 1:38:38 PM

^ As long as everyone is free to choose where they send their share of the money, I don't see a problem with it. The restriction is on the "establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Further, taking your objection to it's logical conclusion, you would be asking the government to deny Stafford loans to students who, for example, choose to go to Duke Divinity School. Ultimately it should be for the parents to decide what education their child receives with their tax money.

3/8/2010 2:32:06 PM

I gotta be honest, I'd be perfectly fine with the government denying a Stafford loan or any type of state sponsored financial aid to go to Duke Divinity School.

3/8/2010 3:04:25 PM

so you're a religious bigot... who cares? this is about families having the ability to give their kids a good education and breaking out of the cycle of poverty.

its not about your personal issues with religion.

3/8/2010 4:11:50 PM

Supplanter made the argument that this schools religious view suck, and it would suck if any publicly supported system helped more kids to go to these shitty schools. You said, "hey, if it's better than other schools"....

Quote :

"this is about families having the ability to give their kids a good education and breaking out of the cycle of poverty."

Works for the kid that failed to graduate because he was gay right? I mean, if the kids are forced to pray and ignore the scientific method, that's fine as long they're getting a good education? The point is, and I'll bold it for you, Private religious schools fucking suck, and any change in legislation that ends up with more kids going to them because they're convinced by people like you that they're better than the alternative is bad. I agree with Supplanter on this.

[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 4:23 PM. Reason : ...]

3/8/2010 4:18:00 PM

hmmm... ok, private religious schools may have some bad aspects. but I wonder if you were given the choice between going to a completely run down inner city school in chicago or a religious school, which one you would choose.

well, we all know you'll say you'd choose the inner city school... but I'm just saying... I wonder which one you'd really choose. Or which one you'd choose for your kid.

The point is, these families don't even have the luxury of that choice.

Don't think for even a minute that there aren't inner-city school horror stories out there that are 10x worse than this one you've latched onto.

It's easy to feel comfortable in your middle-class home office, posting on TWW about how shitty religious schools, when you don't have to deal with a real inner city school.

It's real easy to make that choice for those families from your nice white neighborhood, isn't it. You know what's best for "those people" don't you. Gotta protect them from religion, huh?

[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 5:31 PM. Reason : s]

3/8/2010 5:26:59 PM

You're the one creating the false dichotomy here. When the curriculum at a school is based on religion, it is automatically inferior to even the worst public school.

Luckily we don't exist yet in a country where the church can prey on poor kids via vouchers. If there came a time where my daughter were to go to a shitty school or a private religious school, I'll homeschool her. But since I actually planned to have a child and am able to support her, my opinion is apparently invalid.
And to clarify, there definitely are some shift public schools out there, but none of them teaches their children to ignore scientific method or hate homosexuals.

[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 7:03 PM. Reason : Clarity ]

3/8/2010 6:52:56 PM

Quote :

". If there came a time where my daughter were to go to a shitty school or a private religious school, I'll homeschool her."

Vouchers would go a long way towards supporting that end goal too. Of course, you'd be lucky if by that point we hadn't already banned homeschooling "for the children!" Likely with the same reasoning that you're using here, that because some religious bigots make bad schools, all such schools are inferior.

Quote :

"And to clarify, there definitely are some shift public schools out there, but none of them teaches their children to ignore scientific method or hate homosexuals. "

Quote :

"On August 11, 1999, by a 6–4 vote the Kansas State Board of Education changed their science education standards to remove any mention of "biological macroevolution, the age of the Earth, or the origin and early development of the Universe", so that evolutionary theory no longer appeared in state-wide standardized tests and "it was left to the 305 local school districts in Kansas whether or not to teach it.""

This was later reversed, but for a few years, I think even you would have preferred your child attend a religious school that taught evolution.

[Edited on March 8, 2010 at 7:16 PM. Reason : jhk]

3/8/2010 7:06:30 PM

didn't you know? any one who believes in any god is an idiot and is not worthy of any respect.

3/8/2010 7:07:53 PM

I think that BridgetSPK made a bunch of great points, and then the thread devolved into a disagreement over the issue of religious schools.

3/8/2010 7:15:24 PM

Ok, so I only read a few (long) posts so far, but I got the idea that 'busing' kids is a good idea by the numbers.

I don't know if this has been brought up yet, but given that public schools are paid for mostly by local property tax, shouldn't all the people within the same 'busing' area have to pay the same property tax?

3/8/2010 11:40:28 PM

^ What do you mean? Like someone with a $100,000 house and someone with a $500,000 both paying the same dollar amount in property tax because they're in the same school zone?

3/8/2010 11:48:26 PM

Well, I'd rather leave the answer to your question ambiguous - the fundamental tax code should already "justly" levy taxes on one person versus another. For this discussion we should start from the assumption that property tax is levied fairly from one person to their next door neighbor. Whether or not it actually does is a question for progressive/regressive taxes, yada yada.

But, either way, all districts within a single "busing" area should share the same property tax code. Of course it goes without saying that all school children should get the same quality education.

3/9/2010 1:08:58 AM

Quote :

"Basically, ultraconservatives want to privatize education. In order to do that, they have to destroy public education first. By removing the busing policy, they will ensure that there are disparities between schools and student performance. For the schools that are doing very poorly, we will try tons of costly interventions that likely will not work. At that point, we will acknowledge that it is wrong to force kids to attend these crappy schools, and we will give them the option of attending another better school in their zone, but few people will take this option. "

agreed bridget! they want to remove this busing policy yet do nothing to make up for the disparities that remain!

on an earlier page i made a comment about how neighborhood schools would help to encourage family involvement in the learning process and someone knocked me down for that. i still think it essential to assuring educational success, regardless of income, and perhaps policies need to be set in place regarding this.

[Edited on March 9, 2010 at 5:37 PM. Reason : ]

3/9/2010 5:36:41 PM

Haven't we established that the distance to the school means absolutely dick when it comes to family involvement?

3/9/2010 7:00:40 PM

i only read the first 5 posts. The early wednesday release is not feasible. Just make the planning happen after school. I have no doubt that group planning is a huge benefit.

No problem with busing since that's what is happening now.

3/9/2010 7:14:51 PM

I did not attend school in Wake county. Thus I have no innate ability to speak about the busing policy, and I was almost entirely unfamiliar with the policy before reading this thread. But some of my impressions are that it sounds kind of bizarre and scary for those involved. But nonetheless, the alternative of going to the school in your district could be just as scary.

Quote :

"hmm you don't understand the point of busing"

This comment isn't direct to me but what is the point of busing? Since that seems to be so pivotal I'll ask.

-----
I'll add that my experiences of talking to people who went to Wake County schools didn't really match what's been said in this thread.

Firstly, Wake County has some fantastic schools. I know that, many of the best in the state. Let's agree on that.

But I've talked to at least one person who made it sound like grades and connections were the biggest factor in being able to go to the high school they did, which was a long commute away. I think that this might have been one of the 'magnet' schools (at this point I'm sure I sound like I'm talking out of my a**), so that HS could set criteria unlike the majority. But the 'smart' school was still located in a low-income area so that the mixing could occur. But as a consequence the school had a bunch of kids who didn't give a flying f***.

One way or the other, that doesn't sound like the purpose of busing was achieved in any way. But I dunno. Maybe it's just one or two HSes and the rest really do uniformly redistribute the kids. But even if I accept that, it's clear that the 'regular' school are still deprived of some of the brightest minds in the school system. And hey, maybe that's just the high school system anyway and the lower grades are different. I have no idea.

I read some of this. Knowledge like woah.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing_in_the_United_States

3/9/2010 9:33:41 PM

Quote :

"Haven't we established that the distance to the school means absolutely dick when it comes to family involvement?"

perhaps you established this in your own mind but you clearly know absolutely dick when it comes to family involvement in the public school system

3/9/2010 10:42:10 PM

Quote :

"Haven't we established that the distance to the school means absolutely dick when it comes to family involvement?"

Yes, many a school system has established it doesn't make much difference. You only need to look as far as the style of school systems in New Jersey/Massachusetts/etc.

3/9/2010 10:57:41 PM

twoozles, I totally feel you on the importance of parental involvement in schools.

The big problem is that there are parents who won't get involved no matter how close they are to the schools. And I'd like to be clear that I'm not necessarily blaming the parents. For the most part, they're busy working or watching their kids/other people's kids. Free, extra, spare time is a luxury that a lot of people don't have. Plus, a lot of parents don't have that community feeling (they get evicted and move all the time!) we assign to them, and they don't consider school a wonderful place (they didn't have good experiences there), and they don't see themselves as being able to improve or impact a school.

My parents didn't have spare time, and they rarely involved themselves in my schools, but since I went to a school where other kids' parents did have that time, I got the benefit of parental involvement (fundraising/events) even though it wasn't my parents who actually did it. And that's kinda the idea behind busing.

I'm afraid that for now it would be foolish for us to believe that low-income parents are going to involve themselves at their children's school just because that school is now situated near or in their neighborhood. It has not played out that way in other school systems. I suspect there are things we can do to increase that involvement, but until we can guarantee that those things (and a host of other things) will get done, we can't jump head first for neighborhood schools.


I mean, I'm going to paint a somewhat stereotypical picture... I'm a grandmother who cares for two kids: my son's kid (my son's in prison, and his girlfriend has taken off for a while) and my daughter's kid. My daughter lives with us, works full-time and goes to school at night. My daughter uses the car most of the time. I care for the kids pretty much full-time and sometimes other people's kids, too. I help them with their homework and make sure they're safe and well-fed. With my daughter's income and food stamps, we make ends meet pretty well.

But, no, I'm not walking two miles (the distance between me and my neighborhood school) at 6 o'clock at night to show up for a PTA meeting and then another extra mile on the way home to stop at the store and pick up baking supplies (that I can't afford) to make three hundred brownies for a bake sale that is going to raise a lousy hundred bucks because nobody has any extra money. I mean, I guess I could take the kids with me to the meeting (since I'm the only one who can watch them), but that'll put me and the kids walking back after dark in a "neighborhood" that isn't exactly the safest. Plus, there's all those other problems I mentioned...

[Edited on March 10, 2010 at 1:47 AM. Reason : ]

3/10/2010 1:40:54 AM

I'll just throw it out there that some people despise fund raisers in general.

Of course, fund-raising is pretty irrelevant to the concept of community itself.

3/10/2010 1:55:23 AM

^^ there are probably far more parents who don't give a shit than parents who can't make time because they are too busy working

3/10/2010 6:36:23 AM

What implications does that have for the diversity policy and neighborhood schools?

In other words, what's your fucking point?

3/10/2010 6:49:29 AM

Have you all been keeping up with the role the NAACP has been playing in this? Barber is a fucking joke!! Now they have got the President and CEO of the NAACP to call for Margiotta's resignation for calling the group of unruly parents at the School Board meeting a bunch of "animals". THis is getting out of hand! If you look at the comments on the story on WRAL it seems like there is an overwhelming majority that believe the NAACP is a racist institution that does nothing but perpetuate racism in this country and I agree. They are grasping at straws to bring issues to a racial basis. What do you think?

http://www.wral.com/news/education/story/7201442/

3/10/2010 9:12:11 AM

I think if Del Burns is being held responsible for his comments about the school board and being placed on administrative leave, then Margiotta should be held responsible for his comments about people who disagree with him and step down. Then we can get the majority back the other way and end all this silly nonsense.

[Edited on March 10, 2010 at 9:46 AM. Reason : typos]

3/10/2010 9:46:19 AM

John Tedesco is a douche

3/10/2010 11:41:56 AM

Margiotta helped organize a boycott of the News & Observer for having a photo of 2 gay men as a part of his anti-gay, anti-comprehensive sex ed, pro-family group. And he is running things now.

3/10/2010 2:28:00 PM

Quote :

"If you look at the comments on the story on WRAL"

Considering most of the idiots who comment on WRAL, I can't believe anyone would read them in seriousness.

3/10/2010 6:51:45 PM

Quote :

"sparky: What do you think?"

They're absolutely grasping at straws, and I'm all for it.

Ultraconservatives have been shipped in and funded out the ass to take over our school system. I know you thought the busing policy was a mess before, but you really don't want to align yourself with the likes of Margiotta, sparky. The enemy of your enemy is not your friend in this case.

Anything, even a false cry of racism from the NAACP, that can undermine them and their agenda is fine by me.

3/10/2010 6:56:39 PM

When I have children I hope to be financially secure enough to where I can avoid public school, thus I won't have to worry about one side or the other trying to indoctrinate my child. Its funny though I knew at some point the racism card would be played.

3/10/2010 7:35:08 PM

^Wow, you knew the racism card would be played?!?!

That's amazing!

It's not like the diversity policy has anything to do with our history of racism.

I mean, you're fucking clairvoyant, dude. You should have your own TV show.

3/10/2010 7:50:58 PM

Quote :

"Ultraconservatives have been shipped in and funded out the ass to take over our school system. I know you thought the busing policy was a mess before, but you really don't want to align yourself with the likes of Margiotta, sparky. The enemy of your enemy is not your friend in this case."

What fascinates me about things like this is the complete denial (from whoever is on the losing side) that a majority of the people could actually dislike something their politicians have or are doing and actually and honestly have voted them out. No, it's always a conspiracy and a secret cabal of power brokers who have manipulated everything just so to get their evil minions into power to further their agenda. The left does it over the busing policies and the right over sex ed. Your side would do a lot better if they actually listened to the people instead of dismissing them as loons and racists.

Quote :

"Anything, even a false cry of racism from the NAACP, that can undermine them and their agenda is fine by me."

Didn't we already discuss on page 2 why false accusations of racism undermines and hurts your position more than it hurts your opponents?

3/10/2010 7:55:06 PM

I wonder why the blacks started so low in the first place? Would could have caused that… hmm…

Quote :

" Your side would do a lot better if they actually listened to the people instead of dismissing them as loons and racists."

it seems like this margiotta is both a loon and a racist. And it’s questionable whether the board’s view is that of the majority, when only 4% of eligible people voted. It could easily just be the will of the other motivated loons.

This doesn’t excuse the apathy, but it’s dubious to assert this is the right course of action because it must be the peoples’ will.



[Edited on March 10, 2010 at 7:57 PM. Reason : ]

3/10/2010 7:55:34 PM

Quote :

"BridgetSPK All American 20158 Posts user info edit post ^^Again, we bus based on socioeconomic status. "

Quote :

"BridgetSPK All American 20158 Posts user info edit post ^Wow, you knew the racism card would be played?!?! That's amazing! It's not like the diversity policy has anything to do with our history of racism. "

So is this about race then?

3/10/2010 8:00:28 PM

^ the bussing policy originally started out being race-based back in the days, and then was switched over to income.

surely you knew this…?

[Edited on March 10, 2010 at 8:01 PM. Reason : ]

3/10/2010 8:01:20 PM

Which then goes back to my question from page 2 as to why then any claims are racism are relevant to the discussion.

3/10/2010 8:03:09 PM

^ huh?

it’s not relevant to the issue, but it’s been mostly the people against the bussing trying to play the race-card-card by bringing up racism to distract from the real issues.

3/10/2010 8:10:21 PM

didn't you know, the historical context of an issue is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the issue!!

3/10/2010 8:19:55 PM

Ha, i’m sure that’s always been your perspective, right?

And in terms of determining the best way to move forward (ie, this issue) it’s entirely irrelevant that the policy was started as being race based, then later changed to a better metric.

But some people just can’t help to try and steer people towards talking about race, because they know that’s how to turn off a good many white people to staying focused on how the modern version of the policy actually affects them.

3/10/2010 8:25:26 PM

1337 b4k4, I think I've been pretty clear about the fact that their are plenty of us out here who still care about black students. We still care about how policy changes will affect them and whether or not they're getting equal access.

The NAACP and other groups have been monitoring Wake County for years now. They've been waiting for this to happen. Just a few years ago, it was revealed that one of the activist parent groups actually received funding from the KKK. In the 1970's, when this policy was first implemented, school board members didn't just receive death threats from racist hate groups...one them actually woke up one morning to discover that his dog had been murdered. I don't think Margiotta's comment about animals was racially motivated, but I do believe he doesn't care about how new policy will affect black students, and I support the NAACP in their efforts to out him for it and draw attention to the fact that fight for equality is still ongoing.

Also, I'm not in denial about people's feelings about the diversity policy. In the recent survey sent out to parents by the new school board, over 90 percent of parents reported that they're at least satisfied with their child's school. Over 80 percent of parents said they were very satisfied. Considering those numbers in light of the fact that the recent change in the school board was decided by less than five percent of Wake County, I think it's fairly evident that this diversity policy hoopla is a fabrication by the far right. They seized on the legitimate concerns of some parents to take over the school board and institute radical changes that are not wanted.

Also, to your earlier point about dirty floors....I'm familiar with the fact that some claim we are trying to mask our problems. For starters, we aren't masking shit. Wake County is the most transparent school system in the state. Anything you want to know is available on their website...who is black and who is white, who speaks English as a first language and who doesn't, who pays and who eats for free, and how all those different groups perform on all the different tests at all the different schools. You cannot find that kind of transparency at any other school system's website (that's why I have to use greatschools.org to make comparisons).

Furthermore, we actually address the problems by giving all students equal access to a good school. Using your analogy, it baffles me that you would believe sweeping up all the dirt (the less advantaged kids) into one pile and sticking them all in the same schools would ever be fair or just or right. If anybody's masking anything, it's the school systems that isolate and separate the less advantaged students from the rest of society.

3/10/2010 8:52:31 PM

Quote :

"it’s not relevant to the issue, but it’s been mostly the people against the bussing trying to play the race-card-card by bringing up racism to distract from the real issues."

I'm pretty sure that it's the proponents of busing that keep going on about how the only people opposed are angry racists.

Quote :

"In the 1970's, when this policy was first implemented, school board members didn't just receive death threats from racist hate groups...one them actually woke up one morning to discover that his dog had been murdered."

That's great, but that was the 70's this is now. Without proof that your opponents are racists and motivated by race in this, accusations of racism do nothing but distract from the issue at hand and damage your credibility.

Quote :

"I support the NAACP in their efforts to out him for it and draw attention to the fact that fight for equality is still ongoing. "

That's all well and good. Equality can be fought for even if you're opposed to busing. Trying to tie the two so close together only gives ammunition to those that feel that busing is entirely about race.

Quote :

"Considering those numbers in light of the fact that the recent change in the school board was decided by less than five percent of Wake County, I think it's fairly evident that this diversity policy hoopla is a fabrication by the far right. They seized on the legitimate concerns of some parents to take over the school board and institute radical changes that are not wanted. "

And yet apparently none of those 80% were satisfied enough to vote to keep the policies in place. Look, I get the whole "only 5% of voters turned out" bit, but local elections always have historically crappy turn outs. In fact I would wager that if you looked, wake county school board elections traditionally have even less than a 5% turnout, which means that if these changes are no less valid than the changes that put busing into action in the first place.

Quote :

"Using your analogy, it baffles me that you would believe sweeping up all the dirt (the less advantaged kids) into one pile and sticking them all in the same schools would ever be fair or just or right. If anybody's masking anything, it's the school systems that isolate and separate the less advantaged students from the rest of society."

I have suggested nothing of the sort. Again, not listening to what your opponents are saying is exactly the reason why you find you and yours out of power, and a (admittedly childish) whole new group of people running the show.

3/10/2010 9:53:42 PM

All neighborhood schools is going to do is accelerate the proliferation of gangs in certain schools.

3/10/2010 10:25:08 PM

Quote :

"That's great, but that was the 70's this is now. Without proof that your opponents are racists and motivated by race in this, accusations of racism do nothing but distract from the issue at hand and damage your credibility."

From my understanding, a lot of people see getting Margiotta to resign as our last chance to stop the pending changes. We are literally grasping at straws. I trust you can appreciate that.

Quote :

"That's all well and good. Equality can be fought for even if you're opposed to busing. Trying to tie the two so close together only gives ammunition to those that feel that busing is entirely about race."

The problem is that opponents of busing across the country haven't continued the fight for equality after the cessation of busing.

Opponents of busing keep telling us that there are other ways to get kids access to good schools and improve the educational outcomes for less affluent students, but they won't tell us what those are. And when we look around the country and observe how this has played out over and over again, we see how things have turned out poorly for neighborhoods, teachers, schools, students, etc... It hasn't turned out better for anybody.

And it doesn't help that opponents of busing also happen to be more conservative with a whole bunch of other views like this idea that teachers already get paid enough. HA!

Quote :

"And yet apparently none of those 80% were satisfied enough to vote to keep the policies in place. Look, I get the whole "only 5% of voters turned out" bit, but local elections always have historically crappy turn outs. In fact I would wager that if you looked, wake county school board elections traditionally have even less than a 5% turnout, which means that if these changes are no less valid than the changes that put busing into action in the first place."

We never had a chance. Neighborhood school candidates had professional campaign managers and unprecedented funding from conservative groups like the Pope foundation.

Quote :

"I have suggested nothing of the sort. Again, not listening to what your opponents are saying is exactly the reason why you find you and yours out of power, and a (admittedly childish) whole new group of people running the show."

I've conceded that the previous school board wasn't as responsive to the community as they should have been. With constant new growth and limited resources, they had a difficult job.

But what are you suggesting? I mean, what do you think will happen after we move to neighborhood schools? We will absolutely be sweeping the least advantaged students into a handful of schools.

I mean, this kind of goes back into your comment about tying diversity busing to equality. When you look at the rest of the country, you see that they do go hand in hand. Currently, there are only two options here: busing for diversity or shit schools for poor kids. IS EVERYBODY CLEAR ON THIS? Is everybody clear that shit schools for poor kids will be the outcome of removing the diversity policy?

I hate to be crude about it, but this school board hasn't prepared anything to address the unique challenges faced by a shit school. We're all supposed to play dumb and act al shocked when some schools end up with crime problems. Just like, "Man, I had no idea isolating poor kids in one school would lead to teacher turnover and an increase in crime! Oh, and they need more money for test prep courses? Ahhh, geez, here's the thing...I kinda don't like paying taxes soooo I guess what I'm trying to say is, uh, you're poor and you can go fuck yourself..."

3/10/2010 11:55:30 PM