Dealing with rising fuel costs

If diversity busing is so important, prove it Mr. Hill. Robbing precious educational resources to get liberal awards is not a reason to harm our kids. If you don't want to scrap it all together, do it for elementary schools at least. Most of the arguments for "healthy schools/ diversity busing" do not apply to Elementary Schools. Real leadership requires taking a fresh look and assessing past decisions, not living on old laurels. Mr. Hill, quit drinking the kool-aid.

At our school the busses arrive 15-20 minutes before teachers are required to arrive to their home rooms WITH THEIR MOTORS ALWAYS RUNNING. The bus drivers have the kids who have eaten breakfast earlier at home remain on the bus while the others head down to breakfast and eat. The start-of-school bell rings at 8:45 am and the few remaining kids on the buses head to home room for 30 minutes of "morning work". Remember that? Then at 9:15 the day begins and children who come to school after that are TARDY. This is usually repeated at the close of school in the fact that buses arrive early and wait WITH THEIR MOTORS ALWAYS RUNNING. Oh, the principal wants the frees and reduced to have the full 30 minutes of morning work so they can improve. Are they? Unfortunately not. A quick thought: with 16 buses (just in the morning time alone) idling for 15 minutes = 4 hours of wasted diesel X 180 days of school=720 hours which =THIRTY DAYS of wasted diesel fuel just at our 1 little elementary school alone over the last four years that I can verify!  Keung Hui ROCKS!!!!!!

While you are trimming the school budget (BOE) get rid of that Trailblazer thing. Kids don't like it, Parents don't like it, Teachers don't like it. Besides its not what is used in the REAL world. Get back to basics.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25378336/

Quit confusing our kids. Teach them what 2X2 is instead of how many "Skinnys and bits does it take to equal 4".

School officials tell Eyewitness News that no matter how much they have to cut, the safety of students will indeed be their primary concern.

Yup . . . safety will come right after diversity.

Well, maybe right after diversity and socialism and then safety. Yup . . . safety first. For the children.

Some claim that integrating kids by income is the best way to close achievement gaps. But consider the experience of Wake County, North Carolina, which encompasses Raleigh, a booming city with a strong economy and growing population. Beginning in 2000, the district has integrated its schools socioeconomically: no school is supposed to have more than 40 percent low-income students.

Wake County has garnered much attention and media praise for this program because its test scores have risen. But compared to the rest of North Carolina, is Wake County doing a notably better job of educating kids? Not really. Between 2000-01 and 2005-06, the percentage of black, eighth-graders across North Carolina who scored at grade level on state reading tests jumped by nine points. In Wake County, the percentage increased by only 6 points.

Over the same stretch of time, the percentage of low-income, North Carolina eighth-graders reading at grade level rose by ten points, slightly more than in Wake County.

Breathless newspaper coverage notwithstanding, Wake County’s educational progress does not knock the top off anything; it has roughly mirrored that of the state overall. Which doesn’t justify the district’s implementation of an intrusive, income-integration plan that was implemented in large part to increase test scores of low-income and minority students.

While test scores may not soaring in Wake County, logistical problems are. Demographic shifts, for starters. The number of poor residents is increasing, and that’s affecting the district’s school assignment plan. Thus, at the end of the 2005-06 school year, 31 of Wake’s 116 elementary and middle schools were over the 40 percent low-income ceiling, and enrollments in 18 had exceeded 50 percent low-income.

Such numbers indicate that Wake County is either unwilling or unable to stick to its income-integration goals. But bigger problems are arising from parents, many of whom — upset by lengthy bus rides across the sprawling county and by annual school reshufflings that will move 11,000 students this fall — are opposing the pupil-assignment scheme. Most recently, a group of middle-income parents won their legal battle against the district’s plan to force some students into year-round schools.

Other prosperous parents aren’t bothering with the courts. They’re simply pulling their kids out of the public system and enrolling them in private alternatives — exactly as some white (and middle income black) families did in response to race-based busing.

Parents love having their kids transported to school but their attitude changes sharply when bus rides last for hours due to social engineering. It makes little difference if students are bused to achieve racial or economic diversity — parents don’t want their daughters and sons used this way. Polling in Wake County, for instance, shows greater support for neighborhood schools than for socioeconomic balance in schools.

Whether or not income-based school assignments are Constitutionally permissible, they suffer from all the other logistical, political, and parental challenges as the race-based kind. Effective school-assignment policies do not offend vast numbers of their clients. Nor do they allow only wealthy parents to exercise educational choice, while less well-off families are stuck in public-school systems that they may not like and that may not be meeting their needs.

Forget elaborately gerrymandered school districts and pupil assignment schemes. School leaders ought to be offering parents a robust menu of high-quality educational options, such as magnet programs and charter schools, and improving neighborhood schools, too. That way, families can make the best education decisions for their children, choices unaffected by their income or lack thereof.

Schools need to return to the task at hand: educating all kids, regardless of what they look like or how much money their parents make.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWUxYzY1OGEzYWVmOGYwY2Y2NTIzZTA1MmFkOGQ4YWE=

choice4all - Note I requested that N&O do the poll.

All sides, even those here, frame different facts in ways that support their view.

Newspapers are supposed to be objective and dispassionate. This is a chance for the N&O to determine how the population of Wake County feels about our public school's diversity policy.

Suppose the poll said 95% of people polled support the policy. Would you then spin the results or discount or twist the poll to your advantage? How the BOE or WCPSS reacts is immaterial. The facts should be known.

I want objective facts. If the majority of the population disagrees with the policy, that needs to be known and dealt with. If a majority supports it, that also needs to be known and dealt with.

Kevin Hill has now proven he's JUST as single minded and dumb as the rest of this school board! Way to go Kevin, we knew you had it in you!

As far as this county losing almost 5 million form the state, GOOD! If THEIR busing agenda is MORE important than the reality on the ground let them yank it out of their stash and/or somewhere else, but I don't see the public willing to back ANY measures to make up that or ANY OTHER shortfalls when THEY choose to do what they do, cut what they cut and continue with failed EXPENSIVE policies!!

We don't ride a bus NOR WILL WE EVER as long as we continue to endure this public educational nightmare that THESE so called leaders have created.
So I could CARE LESS if they get fuel money or not!

And the bond won't help you because we're NOT SUPPORTING THAT EITHER!!!

IDIOTS, JUST PLAIN IDIOTS!!!

It would not surprise me if we go back to school this fall and on the school supply list it says Fuel Money-$100.00.Get rid of busing that is so out dated.Bring back the neighborhood schools.

didn't know how high fuel costs would have to get before it became impractical. _IT HAS BEEN IMPRATICAL SINCE IT STARTED!

Kevin Hill, vice chairman of the Wake school board, said he would not support moving away from the district's nationally recognized policy of busing students to promote diversity. "I don't sense any sentiment for pulling away from our commitment to healthy schools," he said.
I am looking for some of those brownies that Mr Hill has been eating.
Sentiment Mr Hill? Take the potatos out of your ears please, our throats and fingers are sore from complaining thank you very much!

OK. Our diversity policy is anything BUT a diversity policy; it really is a Procrustean policy.

We are not achieving diversity, but, alas, social engineers in Scotland, Beijing and New South Wales think its the cats meow. So the BoE ('cept Ron, bless him) will press on, wait for it...

at all costs

Nice going, guys. When will you re-introduce paddling -- not for the kids, but for the parents who continue to voice our displeasure at your nonsense? I mean, what's left?