LAST WEEK, the fourth U.S. District Court of Appeals voted to end busing in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina. The policy marks a significant step in the integration of school districts nationwide. Unfortunately, it is a step backward.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg district began busing inner-city kids to the predominantly white suburbs and white students to inner-city areas in 1969 in compliance with a court decision held up by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was the first major urban school district to do so.
This policy was reversed last week after a white parent brought suit over his daughter's kindergarten placement. The school district can no longer base school placement on race.
Busing did not serve the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district well. The presence of more white students did not enhance the poor conditions and resources in inner-city schools. There is evidence that white students were denied spots in magnet schools that were unfilled because they were being held for black students (http://www.horizonmag.com/9/busing.asp).
This does not mean, however, that the old system of neighborhood schools, where students are not exposed to many people outside there own racial group, will serve students either. Efforts should be made to remedy the program rather than scrapping it all together.
The court decision in Charlotte was being watched carefully because it affects more than 100,000 students.
There's no telling what the effects of the decision will have on other districts that bus students. It's only one indication of a growing trend of "resegregation" in the nation's public schools, according to a study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University titled, "Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation"(http://www.law.harvard.edu/civilrights/publications/pressseg.html).
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According to that survey, most Americans think that diversity is important to education - 41 percent said that it was very important and 38 percent said it was fairly important. However, the study also found that, "In the decade between 1988 and 1998, most of the progress made toward increasing integration in the [South] during the previous two decades was lost."
Nationally, more than 70 percent of black students attend dominantly minority schools. Segregation is worse among whites. The average white student attends schools where the combined minority population is less than 20 percent.
It's confusing that most Americans say they support diversity in education, yet schools still are segregated. The issue is further confused by the fact that the Harvard study indicated that less than 1 percent of parents of public school children oppose busing.
Whatever the reasons for increasing school segregation, it is a trend that needs to be reversed. Public schools are the main forum for educating the nation's children. If we cannot instill a knowledge and value of different races and cultures in children, we cannot expect them to grow into tolerant adults.
One look around Grounds, from housing to student activities to Newcomb Dining Hall at lunch, shows that University students are practicing what can best be described as self-segregation or mutual avoidance. This situation may not be harmful, but neither is it promoting understanding. At the age of 20, it's difficult to change habits and perceptions. The most effective way to promote racial and cultural integration in all areas of society is to promote it among the young.
The Harvard study recommends devoting more study to effective education in integrated classrooms, local documentation of the importance and effects of integration and better funding and counseling for busing programs so that situations like that in Charlotte can be avoided.
All of these are important and practical solutions, but the motivation for these measures must come from communities. We have to pay attention to what is happening in public schools, or resegregation will continue along with diversity problems at the University and in all levels of society.
(Megan Moyer's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at mmoyer@cavalierdaily.com.)
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