Wake County resegregation update
Submitted by James on Wed, 05/12/2010 - 8:43am
It's happening, right on schedule.
Hundreds of middle-class Wake County families are leaving crowded, high-poverty schools for magnets and year-rounds thanks to the school board's decision to quit using their relative wealth as a reason to deny their applications. Now that those barriers have been eased, poverty levels are expected to increase at a number of other Wake County schools.
For the academic year that starts this fall, a majority of magnet applicants and more than 80 percent of year-round applicants have been approved now that administrators no longer have to maintain socioeconomic diversity in county schools.
Next up, look for the aftershocks: a rise in the Wake County property crime rate, rise in the drop-out rate, and the onset of violent class warfare. You heard it here first.
Leading indicators
In the fall, and probably this summer, expect to see widespread vandalism against white-only schools, followed by increased costs for police and security, followed by a crushing burden on the court system, and a binge in prison building.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
Where's the outrage
Unlike many of the folks who agonize over the future of the Wake County Schools, I actually have children in the system (three, with a fourth on the way) and feel like I have some "skin" in the game.
I understand that people are upset about the new Board's stated goal of doing away with the "award-winning" diversity policy. What I don't understand is why this same sense of outrage wasn't directed at the prior board for refusing to adhere to their own "award-winning" policy in the first place! According to stats on the Wake County Public School System Web site, fully one-third of the elementary and middle schools in the county violate the "award-winning" diversity policy, whose stated goal is that no school have more than 40 percent of its students eligible for free and reduced lunches. Some of the elementary schools have as many as 78% of their student body eligible for F&R! Where is the moral outrage?
I don't know what the answer is, but I do know hypocrisy when I see it, and I'm seeing a lot of it in this debate, from all sides.
At least they were trying
From what I can see, the school with the highest F&R is Brentwood Elementary with 69.8%, and the other non-compliers go downwards to just over 40%. Considering the high percent of new enrollees that qualify for F&R, it looks like the old board was making an admirable attempt at a (near) impossible goal.
Under this new board, you will see that 78% you're talking about, and probably a few more schools reaching much higher. But those are the throw away kids, and you'll not see Tedesco or Margiotta taking responsibility for what happens to them.
WCS
The Wake County school board is the handy work of Art Pope, Tom Fetzer et al....Do not go vote ....you see what happens? The re-segregation of the WCS will be costly to the tax payers never mind the stupidity of the process....they will mess about but will be one term wonders. Tedesco is simply dangerous and a charlatan and Margiotta really should move back to Jersey where de facto segregation is the norm. The County does not have the money to payroll the silly crap and the GOP does not have the majority on the Wake County Board for now so it will be just an education for the families and voters here to see what sitting on your ass on election day gets you. In the interim businesses will evaluate wake County when its time to move companies like Fidelity, Cisco, and others of that ilk and RTP and NC will get a negative check mark so all those folks in Cary who engineered this little coup with Pope and GOP cash will have to explain that to the voters in this County when our unemployment rate remains high as the country emerges from the recession.