Wake County school board member John Tedesco is being vilified by diversity policy supporters for invoking the Brown v. Board of Education decision on Tuesday to justify going to community schools.
Tedesco drew a comparison with how poor children in Wake couldn't go to their neighborhood school with 9-year-old Linda Brown not being allowed to go to her neighborhood school because she was black. His mention of the Brown case drew boos and shouts of “how dare you” and “shame, shame” from the audience.
"So what we’ve done in this county at some time now, is told many of our children and many of our families even if they live near a school, because their mom and dad doesn’t have enough money in their pocket, they’re not welcome to go to school with their friends and their neighbors," Tedesco said. "And I just don’t find that fair."
After the vote, the public had some pretty harsh words to say to the board majority and Tedesco.
"You literally have what amounts to blasphemy Mr. Tedesco by invoking Brown vs. Board to justify the resegregation of the schools," said Sarah Moncelle of Apex. "It's beyond Orwellian, It's contemptible."
In a blog post Tuesday night, Rob Schofield of the liberal N.C. Policy Watch accused Tedesco of engaging in "revisionist history" by bringing up Brown.
Schofield said Tedesco was making a "tortured analogy" to compare busing a poor child to an integrated, lower poverty school with denying a black child a seat at an all-white school near her home because of her race.
"This is the person drafting THE PLAN to totally remake one of the largest and most successful school systems in the United States: a man who has such a twisted and confused view of American history that he’s willing to cite the most important anti-segregation case ever handed down by the Supreme Court as grounds for intentionally re-segregating the schools!" Schofield writes. "This is Orwellian reasoning of the worst kind. What’s next for Tedesco? An MLK quote? Cesar Chavez?"
Brown v. Board is in the news this week because Monday was the 56th anniversary of the famous U.S. Supreme Court intergration ruling.
Comments
danofnc: Thanks for taking
Thu, 05/20/2010 - 09:19 — zandedanofnc: Thanks for taking the time to help in your childs school. It is a great way to find out what happens in the schools everyday. I give much more weight to your opinions than to the opinions of many of the professional bloggers that seem to populate this site. Keep up your great work and input.
Comments on the article
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 13:43 — ahopkins45I want to let you know that there is a lot of fallout between the Brown Vs Board of Education Issue. How would something like this apply to Raleigh? I want to know because the issue during the year 1954 had a lot to do with African Americans entering into schools that were predominately European American. This means White or Caucasian. I am not trying to throw race into this, I am only trying to understand how this would fit here in this article or incident itself. Please expand on this issue a little more for me. Thank you for allowing me to read and make comments on your article.
Sincerely,
Anthony Hopkins
Moving Scores
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 13:35 — willynillyThis movement policy has nothing more attahced to it than to help get scores up while never solving the problem. Some 9 years ago (or so) a large group of students (from Daniels MS if memory serves) were moved to another school and a group at the other school was "traded" to Daniels. (Any parents still around from Daniels please help?). Obviously the scores at the other school went up that year.......thus, problem solved. I do not remember if the scores at Daniels went down too terribly much.
Now, think of the teacher trying to deal with a problem student from "across town." How easy is that to get a parent to come to school for a meeting. That puts a stress on the parent as well.
Brown vs. Board of Education
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 13:33 — MiraMilInteresting reading of Brown v. Bd. of Ed. When I went to law school and read Brown vs. Board of Education I recall it being a case about the right to an equal education not the right to walk to school. Just a little background--in Topeka Kansas (that's the Board of Education referred to) the school board set up 4 separate schools for black children and 18 schools for white children. The Topeka school board said that their system was just fine--though the black and white children were in separate schools, the schools were equal (that's where the "separate but equal" phrase comes from). The Supreme Court said that there is no such thing as "separate but equal" and that the Topeka system violated the 14th amendment (the equal protection clause) by segregating students on the basis of race. So now Mr. Tedescro is taking us back to the 1950's where all the poor students (predominately minority groups) and all the wealthy students will attend separate schools...back to "separate but equal."
I thought it was the right
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 15:08 — red_balloonI thought it was the right to go to a neighborhood school. If this was about equal education, it isn't apparent from the below.
Here's an excerpt from Barber's 10/30/09 press release. The last paragraph is where he quotes Thurgood Marshall.
I want you to listen to the final words of the General Counsel of the NAACP, Thurgood Marshal. Close your eyes as he closed his argument before the Supreme Court, 56 years ago. He was arguing for our children, who walked by their neighborhood schools to go to the segregated colored schools across town. He was arguing against the failed philosophy that had been the law of the land since 1896. The Separate but Equal policy. Marshall spoke of the strangeness of the thinking that under-girded the policy of segregation . . . of anti-diversity.
“Those same kids in Virginia and South Carolina—and I have seen them do it—they play in the streets together, they play on their farms together, they go down the road together, they separate to go to school, they come out of school and play ball together. They have to be separated in school.
Are children being separated ?
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 17:11 — FrabjousAre children being separated from their neighbors to go to school in Wake County ?
If they go to Magnet School or private school they are separated from their neighbors, but that is a choice.
Are children not being bused
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 20:55 — red_balloonAre children not being bused away from their neighborhood schools? Isn't this similar to Brown being bused to Monroe School? The reasons and justifications have changed over the decades but the actions remain the same. So, busing past neighborhood schools was an affront then but welcome now. Odd. Time for the NAACP and others to stop trying to smear WCPSS by twisting the Brown vs. BOE case.
And the difference is?
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 14:51 — HenryMillerThe Topeka School Board was forcing kids to go to one school or another based on race. That was found to be unconstitutional. The former Wake County "diversity" policy was forcing kids to go to one school or another based on race. That, it seems to me, has to be equally unconstitutional, and was corrected by the new policy.
Let's not forget
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 18:48 — SupportNeighbor...that busing based on race was also found - IN THIS CENTURY, by the way - to be unconstitutional (and discriminatory). Wake County tried to be clever by changing the diversity policy to one based on SES - and then actually dared to call those who opposed it racists. Well, if I'm a racist, then so is the entire US supreme court.
Really?
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 14:03 — Bob_SconceI recall it being a case about equal protection -- whether or not the local schools could consider the color of a student's skin in deciding where to assign him. And, isn't that really what the diversity policy did? Heck, even its proponents kept mixing up race and socioeconomic status.
Back to "separate but equal"
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 13:45 — jeffrey1Brown vs BOE resulted in court ordered busing in the late 60's and 70's for many districts. Then, in the 90's many of those same districts were released from court supervision. Which of those returned to "separate but equal," and of those, which ones sought relief from the courts?
Societal Changes?
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 14:17 — willynillyI agree that keeping a child from an education based on their skin color is wrong. In 1954 things were quite different. In 2010 I see MANY colors in many neighborhoods. If we have to bus kids of color to other schools to acheive diversity then maybe it's society, not the school system, that has failed.
One obervation here is this. We seem to have an agreement that a failing school should be held accountable and the problem AT THAT school be solved. Yet now we want to provide a choice for parents. If we allow parents to choose to leave a school that has failed are we not, as parents, doing the same thing we do not want the system to do? (That is to move the children vice solving the problem)
Brown V Board of Education dealt with issues of race and denial of rights. SES and F&R seem to be the buzz words, but the ruling DID NOT address these issues, the ruling addressed color. To take a classification (F&R) and use that to bus students is not in keeping with Brown......IMHO it is stereotyping color with F&R. If we simply said, these kids of color cannot get a good education in the schools to which they are assigned then I would agree, that is Brown. To say F&R would have to include many colors.....that's not Brown.
...
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 13:21 — SideburnsBut Tedesco is correct. Poor children have been forcibly bused out and denied access to their neighborhood schools so rich children can have access to special programs. Poor children get bus rides while some rich children get dance, music, drama and a plethora of foreign languages.
um
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 13:29 — Athey01So sending them to schools that serve high poverty low income students is the answer, because additional funding and resources will be provided to ensure the achievement gap is closed in those schools. We don't have to worry about funding these programs because closing the achievement gap is the top priority of the BOE.... "All means all" ... sounds great.... sign me up.
Closing the gap...
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 14:43 — HenryMillerThe former "diversity" policy didn't close the gap, it just smeared it around in different schools all over the county so it couldn't be readily detected.
Ta da! Henry Miller is
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 16:36 — woodstockTa da! Henry Miller is today's Grand Prize Winner!
all one needed to do was
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 15:32 — user12345all one needed to do was sign on to the WCPPS to "detect" the achievement gap in the hundreds of public reports on the site or go to the ND DOE site for similar information ... in fact, Del listed it as one of the main things he wanted WCPSS to address in 2010 ... I have not seen if the new board wants to address the issue (e.g. not vote on the issue yet) ...
Oh, right... They made disparities in performance so transparent
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 18:41 — SupportNeighbor...Gosh, if that's the case, how come I don't ever remember reading about Wake's "nationally recognized diversity policy", where a whopping 52% of our ED children graduate from high school! ?
Only if you did your homework, and looked under the pretty little picture the media was trying to paint, would you truly understand what a load of BS they were feeding us. Most people didn't do that (myself included... before moving to Wake County, I never could have imagined in my wildest dreams what a fiasco this school district is in... it never occurred to me to analyze the school system six ways from Sunday before deciding to move here).
Apparently I'm not the only one relying on all the crap the media told us about WCPSS - which is why there are still a number of very misguided (albeit well-intentioned) people out there who actually believe the diversity policy has helped Wake's ED children.
Read more ..
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 19:47 — user12345don't ever remember reading about Wake's "nationally recognized diversity policy", where a whopping 52% of our ED children graduate from high school! ?
You need to expand what you read ... from 2008 ..
...http://www.wcpss.net/news/2008_july21_graduation_rate/
Thanks, but
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 20:05 — SupportNeighbor...my point was that the media has not typically been presenting a balanced point of view. "Nationally recognized diversity policy" does not even begin to describe what's happening here.
While I appreciate the article, it was published on the WCPSS website back in 2008... not by Wake PR/the media... who insist on tooting its own horn about what amounts to be a policy that has failed the students it was designed to protect.
Hopefully, that is a clue to
Thu, 05/20/2010 - 07:58 — user12345Hopefully, that is a clue to you that the poor do not matter to the public ... so, we have you grabbed hold of 54% for minorities? How about he 38% for LE? There are a lot fo kids in need and the new group has not done anything including setting up funding for next year to change anything we have seen in the past. At least they could reaffirm Del's commitment to improve graduation rate ... notice, that proposal has not come up yet.
Revisionist?
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 13:18 — Bob_SconceBrown, and a long litany of cases after it, determined that school boards cannot consider a student's race in deciding where they go to school. Like it or not, the only reason Wake was looking at socioeconomic status was because they considered it a proxy for race. The only revisionism happening here is Schofield's thinking that this policy was somehow consistent with Brown when, in reality, it was just trying to work around it.
Brown v. Board has now become part of the liberal holy scriptures and, just like other religions, the liberals now think that they have the exclusive right to interpret what it means. The 'blasphemy' comment was very telling.
Tedesco is right
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 13:08 — JeffDeWittThe people supporting the old
discriminationdiversity program apparantly feel it's perfectly OK to discriminate against people just because of where they live or how much money their parents make.I thought the left was all about equality and fairness? What is fair about bussing some poor kid all the way across Wake County because of how much money his parents make? That's just as wrong as assigning kids to schools based on their color.
John Tedesco is a brilliant,
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 12:26 — woodstockJohn Tedesco is a brilliant, compassionate and intelligent man who is exactly right in pointing out that the status quo DENIED economically disadvantaged families access to the educational resources in their own communities. This appalling truth has the fringe element frothing at the mouth, but the truth cannot be disputed. Their anger only shines a light on fact that they know in their hearts and minds that he is right. Brown vs. Board of Education was all about denied access, a basic tenent of the Wake's antiquated and failed status quo school system and forced busing.