ALMOST 30 years ago, school children across Boston began boarding buses to travel to schools outside their neighborhoods following U.S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity's order to ensure integration in the public schools systems. Now, nearly 30 years later, both the demographics of the city and the racial tensions have changed dramatically. In response, several legislatures are thinking about ending the busing system. It's about time.
In 1974, 48 percent of Boston's school age children were Black, Latino or Asian ("Boston considers ending forced busing," Nov. 26, CNN.com). It was then that the busing system began -- and kids were shipped out of their neighborhoods and across the city to ensure integration. Thirty years ago this plan made sense.
Now however, 82 percent of school age children are non-whites and the schools are fully integrated. So why continue the busing system?
Many parents fear that by ending the busing system two things will be lost. First, according to Boston's Children FIRST, there is a lack of schools in the poorer neighborhood of Roxbury and a "need to protect poor neighborhoods from bad schools" (www.bostonschildren.com).
This is a reasonable concern -- inner-city children should not have to face less-than-adequate school standards due to the financial status of their neighborhoods. Busing though, is certainly not the solution.
By removing children from the poorer schools, all the school system is doing is running away from the problem. Both the effort and the money should be devoted to the poorest of schools to make sure they are up to par with all the others. Granted, money in educational systems across the country is tight. Ending busing in Boston, though, would help save up to $25 million ("Boston considers ending forced busing," Nov. 26, CNN.com). Twenty-five million dollars goes a long way towards improving old buildings, hiring new teachers, acquiring new textbooks and overall greatly improving the quality of public schools.
Furthermore, what are Boston city administrators telling their inner-city youth by shipping them out of their home neighborhoods? That their schools aren't good enough -- there's nothing to be proud of on their own streets. Ending the busing system and instituting neighborhood schools gives parents and children alike something to get involved with.
Having your own elementary school down the street from you as a symbol of your neighborhood is important in the mind of citizens simply by giving the neighborhood something to be proud of. Even Boston city officials agree and hope the end of the Boston busing will help increase parental involvement. Superintendent Thomas Payzant hopes the neighborhood schools will "make it easy for them (parents) to really participate. That's one of the things that we haven't done as well in Boston as I would have liked" ("Boston considers ending forced busing," Nov. 26, CNN.com).
It can't get much simpler than that -- parental involvement means better schools, which means better educations for students.
A second concern is the racial implications the end of the busing will have for the city. State Rep. Byron Rushing (D), told CNN that "You cannot talk about this [busing] unless you have a serious discussion about race and the school system. We will have no serious reassignment proposals until they originate in communities of color."
It's understandable that parents would fear a return to de facto segregated schools. But not allowing there to be any change unless communities of color originate the discussion? That is simply ludicrous and very racist.
White parents have every right to a say in their children's education as does every other parent. Asian parents, Hispanic parents, Black parents, white parents -
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