Stop the policy of integration of pupils in a school district in North Carolina. In favor of a line is to concentrate with all poor children not to 'contaminate' the rich ones. This was decided by the board of directors of an institution of Wake County, became a Republican majority, with support from the Tea Party.The school district of Wake County, North Carolina, in the last decade was distinguished for its excellence and its policy of racial integration and social support. Thanks to a free bus service, in fact, students could attend schools far from their neighborhood, so away, in many cases, situations of extreme poverty and getting in touch with peers belonging to different social classes and, often, different ethnic groups .
That was until a few months ago, when the new board, led by Republicans with support from the Tea Party, voted for the abolition of bus service. And he began to pursue a different policy from that adopted so far. The result is the relocation of students in different schools, based on a principle of proximity: Pupils from now on will have to attend the school closest to their residence and therefore within walking distance.
The inevitable consequence will be the concentration of poor students in individual school buildings, in what the opponents to the measure, define a sort of "segregation." From the first moment, in fact, the vote triggered a series of protests that have become increasingly strong, so as to intervene with the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.
In a letter to the Washington Post, Duncan points out that "the strength of America has always been the result of its diversity, so it is worrying to see the school board in Wake County, North Carolina, take steps to change the policy of safeguarding the diversity in its schools. " At the same time, the Office for Civil Rights Federal Agency for Education has launched an investigation to determine whether, based on that decision, there are discriminatory elements, as alleged by the association NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and other groups.
Even Advanced, a national agency that deals with monitoring and investigating the changes in the school system, is at odds with the Wake County Board that, in turn, complains about excessive intrusion into the agency's assessment of the reasons that led the decision. "I respectfully invite - writes Duncan - school boards across the country to think carefully about the consequences before taking such decisions.
This is not the time to take a step back. " The integration policy of the district of Wake County, in recent years had been supported by both Democrats and by Republicans and had been very successful, receiving national recognition for the excellent level of schools and the degree of social integration achieved between schoolchildren.
About 140 thousand of them, in fact, were transported by bus each morning in public institutions of reference, where they met and compared with peers who might otherwise have been difficult to know. The school policy was encouraged, therefore, the integration in a county where 72% of the population is white, 20% African American, only 9% Latin America and about 10% live below the poverty line.
No comments:
Post a Comment