Wake school system's market share of students drops

In this case, the development was a couple thousand new homes - I think it's obvious that the district is going to need a new school in the area.

No, the builder did not offer to build the school at cost. THE BUILDER OFFERED TO BUILD A NEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL - No Cost to the district. That's $20 million the school passed up.

But it was very similar, probably more similar to Wake than any other district.  The white (or middle-class) flight began AFTER the return to neighborhood schools, as middle-class families who would have been assigned to high poverty schools left.  The tipping point is about 50-60% .  Here is what conservative analyst Tara Servatius from Mecklenberg County had to say:

 A massive rejection of CMS has occurred over the last decade by middle-class and white parents. Now just 33 percent of CMS students are white and half are now poor, as black and white middle-class parents flee to surrounding counties. That's a staggering 25-percentage point drop in just 11 years. When you consider that 61 percent of the county is white and less than a third of the county is poor, this is an indictment of the school system that goes far beyond racial and class lines. It is a flat-out rejection of an inferior public education product.

If our school system merely reflected the racial and poverty demographics of the county, our schools would be both strong and diverse. Instead, our school board so alienated parents and teachers that it sparked white flight that population demographics alone can't explain.

These parents didn't leave the school system, but rather never showed up in the first place. While people of all races and income levels continue to move to Mecklenburg County, those with children, an interest in public schools and the means to do so are choosing to live outside the county -- or they are leaving once their children approach school age, attracted by schools in surrounding counties with higher test scores and better teachers. That's why the number of white/non-poor students in the county school system each year has remained largely the same over the last seven years while CMS' overall population has boomed.

Meanwhile, thousands of new middle class students now show up at schools in surrounding counties each year, pushing these systems to the limit. This flight has also sucked CMS' best teachers over the county line and led to massive traffic congestion problems as parents seeking quality teachers and high-scoring schools get in their cars each morning and drive back in to the county to work.