Wake's minority enrollment continues to rise

I believe User was merely pointing out that we are becoming a minority-majority nation according to the numbers.  Granted, he did use the same sort of hyperbole that Woodstock uses to make his point to Woodstock.  User didn't say it, but we're also becoming more like a third-world nation in terms of income equality with our shrinking middle class. 

No, I'm not living in the past, and not looking for a crutch or someone to blame.  And I'm not sure what you mean by "look in the mirror".  I see a white, middle-aged homemaker who tries to understand what it's like for people who haven't had the advantages I have had or have a different ethnic background.  The daughter of my best friend is married to a black man who is college-educated and has never been in jail.  She gets so angry when he's watched more closely in a store, for example, because the clerk assumes he'll steal something.  People look at them "funny" or even say things when they walk down the street together.  Little incidents like that happen all the time, though he's done everything "right".  Yes, racism is alive and well. 

I recommend reading The Working Poor by David Shipler.  He documents how hard it is for people growing up and living in poverty to achieve the three simple things you mentioned, even when they work hard.  He describes the situations of many members of the working poor -- white, black, hispanic, Asians, and the difficulties they face in trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.  Sadly, it's only become more difficult for more people since he wrote the book in 2005 because of the economic collapse.  From a review:

"Shipler spent five years investigating the subject, and the depth of his reporting conveys a reality too complex to fit neatly into any liberal or conservative scheme. Poverty emerges in these pages not as the inevitable result of an unjust society or as a reflection of individual failings, but as a mixture of both. 'Liberals don't want to see the dysfunctional family,' Shipler argues, 'and conservatives want to see nothing else.' "  

I believe that a productive life depends on being educated, and that the best way for poor students to get that education is to attend a school that has the resources needed.  Balancing the schools is the best way to ensure that happens.  Across the nation, almost all the schools that are failing are the ones that are very high poverty. 

I am not interchanging "low-income" and "low-achievement"; that is why I use both.  Not all low-income students are low-achieving, and not all low-achievers are low-income.  Often even high-achieving low-income students need more resources than those from the middle class, however, and they are more likely to get those resources in schools that are not very high-poverty schools.  And it is simply denial to imply that it is "bias" when people acknowledge that low-income students are much more likely to be low-achieving because of the added difficulties they face.  That is a fact, as it is a fact that racial minorities are more likely to be low-income.  It really is an up-side down world when you accuse those who want to ensure that every student attends an adequately-resourced school of bias.  And, it is very different to want to keep schools balanced so that NO child has to attend a very high poverty school and from wanting to have "those" kids out of "your" school.

I suggest you read the book I mentioned to Jeffrey above. 

It's a double standard, nmoskal.

For example, when William Barber talks about a neighborhood, he's referring to a group of families living in close proximity, but when you and I talk about a neighborhood, it's a code word for segregation.