Political will for diversity

[edited to add:  I had thought this was going to post just after Louise's link to the Wake Ed Partnership article, not the one from Venita Peyton.  I have the utmost respect for Ms. Peyton.  I don't want anyone to think the subject line refers to her.]

I also got that latest round of drivel from Wake Ed Partnership.
It just makes clear that WEP will stoop to intellectual dishonesty and focus on irrelevant issues to try to discredit those who are making legitimate criticism of WCPSS policies.

The distance "as the crow flies" matters only to the crows, unless WCPSS is planning to offer helicopter rides to schools next year. If, instead, you look at the real routes that will have to be travelled (which you can determine by plugging node and school addresses into a mapping utility such as google maps or yahoo maps) you will indeed find children who will be riding as much as 20 miles one way. And I promise you they won't be doing that in 45 minutes.

Instead, WCPSS pretends they're keeping kids at schools within 5 (or 10, or 15) miles from home by determining the radii on a map, rather than looking at the real distance that will be travelled.

Unfortunately, this is a bad habit they refuse to break, even when parents point out the fallacies in this method. Years ago, when my kids were in one of 3 adjacent nodes that were going to be reassigned to the 17th closest school to our home (6.8 miles away from my home, if I drove directly from my home to the school; more like 11.5 miles following the bus route that was taken. It may possibly have fit just within a 5 mile "as the crow flies" radius; I don't know.) Two of the nodes affected were fairly sizeable (something like 20 or more kids apiece); the third node had only 3 kids in it. The third node was also located across a lake from the first two nodes. Once it became clear that it was inevitable that WCPSS was going to reassign us, those of us in the larger two nodes came out on behalf of the small node, and asked Growth Management "Even if you're going to reassign us, please just leave the 3rd node where it is. While our neighborhoods appear adjacent on a map, there are no roads across the lake or through the woods that separate us. It will just make a long bus ride even longer for our kids." Growth Management ignored our request. I just checked it on google maps --- the extra detour required to pick up the 3 kids at that one bus stop added an extra 3.0 miles to the bus trip. (And, per google maps, and extra 7 minutes. Given the slower speed and required stop for the bus, I'd estimate it more like 8 - 9 minutes.)

But let's all congratulate WEP on their dismissive, derisive little editorial that will fool those who don't take time to look behind the curtain and will instead believe whatever the wizard tells them. Yes, indeedy, the majority of kids are within 5 miles from their assigned school, at least if you travel by hot air balloon like the wizard does. And if you're in the unlucky ones selected for the longer bus rides --- well, I guess it just stinks to be you, huh?

http://venitapeyton.com/2009/04/2009-local-elections.html
After this year’s October and November nonpartisan elections some relationships may be severed. “We Shall Overcome” and “Cum-by-yah” may not be sung. In fact, good riddance
------
This year’s electoral outcomes will be less a function of huge sums of poorly spent money, and more of a savvy well-prepared voter who will read between the lines. And realize the true function of elected officials is to serve as public servants.

Wake County residents will find new officials in every municipality and definitely with the Board of Education. Incumbents who have been dutiful may find themselves re-elected.

Yes. With all the job losses, misspent stimulus money and ignored pleas for assistance, the voter indeed will rule.

Because the greatest revenge is success.

It was just emailed to me.

http://www.wakeedpartnership.org/In%20Context%2004.02.09.html 

Ron said something at a board meeting in the fall. He said the board is going to have to acknowledge the middle class white flight out of the County's schools. Something they have not acknowledged....

But let there be no doubt that people are voting with their feet. Whether it's charter schools, private school, or homeschool, these people are voting against the yearly disruptions that diversity bussing requires.

Flame away!

There is an understatement! Slight erosion of political will--for almost a decade WCPSS has been reassigning thousands of students every year, many of them have been the same students multiply reassigned year after year. All the while, parents have been asking for stability. I would love to know the actual cumulative number of students targeted for reassignment from 1996-2009 broken out by year. Just the proposed number of students, not the actual final number after grandfathering, etc. That would give us a metric of an entire matriculation period of students to study. I would estimate that over that span of time 90,000 students or more have been slated for reassignments. Our system now has what approximately 132,000? students. And to what degree of success has it led? I would guess it is a sizeable portion, perhaps significant enough to erode the political will of the voters.

I think there is a major erosion of political will in the county to keep electing board members who don't listen to citizens. Ineffective assignment policies are part of the discussion. But many parents have tired of forced assignment to YR schools. And many parents are outraged by some of the bizarre decisions the board continues to make... Forging ahead with MYR conversions which waste precious educational funds, ramming through a quick decisions to change daily school hours -- just in the last week.

Interesting that others hold the wcpss assignment model in such high regard, yet no other school systems seem to be in any hurry to follow suit. Ironically, the conference was held in Chapel Hill, one of the few school districts in the state which as refused to become part of it's county system.