NAACP lists what it takes to have a "high quality, constitutional school"

Here's what I can tell from assignment maps and some personal knowledge. The ED students at Olive Chapel at least in part (likely primarily) consist of a spot node next to Briarcliff and I believe some students from downtown Raleigh who live near Washington. Briarcliff is a neighborhood school, except for the students that attend Olive Chapel. That spot node is the only "hole." It does consist of an apartment complex. However, there's other rental housing right next to that spot node, which is assigned to Briarcliff. Having lived in that area, students living in that spot node should not be signficantly different from the surrounding rental housing assigned to Briarcliff. ED scores at Washington, which would be students living next to those assigned to Olive Chapel, are similar to Olive Chapel. The sample size in the example is small, however, people have looked at ED performance versus ED% in school for the system and found very little correlation.

I understand what the fear is. The feared scenerio is what I call Door #1, have ED in one place and do nothing comprehensive to address underlying issues and do not allocate resources accordingly. Policy 6200 was Door #2, disburse ED and do nothing comprehensive to address underlying issues and do not allocate resources accordingly. If you stop and think about which demographic had access to academic success, it was still the same demographic as with Door #1. As others have said, diversity without a diploma doesn't mean much. Also, we already have schools that are almost 80% ED and 90% minority (Brentwood, which only recently was made a magnet). Meanwhile, we have magnets not in high poverty areas that were already <40% ED and they reassigned out more ED kids to an almost 40% non-magnet. Policy 6200 was not consistently applied and it simply was not a viable solution, but you know that as your Mom ran on something other than just keep doing the exact same thing.

IMO one of the hinderences here for ED students has been the ED "can't" labeling and what that has led to subjectively, which is why I couldn't support continuing SES-labeled assignments and where I differed with your Mom's concept. People now automatically use ED as a substitute for low-achieving and NED for high achieving. The focus needs to be shifted off the labels and onto actual needs and objective performance results, regardless of SES.

What can work is Door #3, which is allocating resources according to actual (not presumed) need and addressing underlying issues. The key is focusing on doing whatever it takes to close the achievement gap because education is the great equalizer. If ED students succeed academically that generally leads to higher income, thereby breaking the cycle. Then they can move to WW to be close to their work at IBM, if they so chose. Without that equality of academic success, they attend Olive Chapel in WW with the NED kids for a while but if they are not passing EOGs, by MS they are on the remedial track until drop out with few options in life.

One thing I would suggest is that people try to broaden their views. Yes, SE Raleigh is largely A-A and Hispanic and ED, however, not entirely so. Also, within 5 miles from there are areas that are demographically more like Western Wake or mixed. While WW is predominately NED and White, there are pockets of ED. Also, there are non-Whites. In between and outside those areas are lots of other areas with their own, varying demographics. Our base school is already a community based school and closely reflects the county averages for demographics, both SES and race.

Putting all that together means that community zones in a choice model is viable here. Forced bussing has historically not worked, not just here. Generally, the NED don't have the stomach for it unless they are provided with incentives (magnets) and it morphs into a choice with extra resources for NED/force for ED without extra resources scenerio, which is inherently unequal. You were on to something when you said the vision seemed like a combination of concepts mentioned by multiple people. You were only off when you included Tart. I don't think he ran on anything other than just keep the status quo.

Funding is a problem and it is complex. However, no one is talking about breaking up the system (there's no way the GA would approve in any case), so the "city" center district with low tax, surrounded by higher tax base "suburb" districts is not in play here. Allocations are based on a per student basis. Title 1 funds go to Title 1 schools. So, then the concern seems to become PTA funding sources. One reason that is a problem here is that there's too much having to use the PTA to make up for where the community has fallen short on properly funding education otherwise. As I posted elsewhere, fundraising is not supposed to be the PTA's main function and it is not supposed to replace what "government" should be providing. One issue lately in NC is that a lot of funding is based on income and sales taxes, which are volatile, rather than more stable property taxes. Another issue has been operational funding priorities - $5M PR budgets, millions on ineffective remedial education programs, cutting teachers before central office, etc.

Funding seems to be an area where a number of people of differing viewpoints otherwise find some agreement. I wish the energy used on disagreeing were used to start advocating together for doing better as a community with funding education, including from an equity and priority perspective.

People complained, but I don't think they were organized.

There are two important data points:

(1) The PPP poll taken before the election showed that the busing-for-diversity policy wasn't popular among poor African-Americans.

(2) As Joe pointed out, when given the chance to opt out of MYR schools in favor of perceived traditional calendar schools, many poor families did so.  IIRC, one of CCAAC's early goals was to convince those parents NOT to opt out.  (Rather elitist.)

Agree .. if people want these kids out of their schools and forced to return to their failed neighborhood schools there are better ways than using zones to keep them contained ... improve their local school so they lobby, vote, and complain at the BOE meeting why they have to travel past their neighborhood school of excellence / distinction to some OTB school of progress ....

I think most parents want their kids to go to a school which excels at education first and being close futher down the list ... it would be nice to have both but you need to live in an affluent neighborhood to get that.