My Voice

I’m about as liberal as they come. Not Chapel Hill liberal, mind you, but liberal none the less. When we moved to Raleigh in 1998 I was surprised and delighted to learn that Wake County Public Schools had a diversity policy in place. I was proud to live in a community that wanted to prevent inner city schools full of low income, mostly minority students that nobody wanted to teach at or send their children to. Coming from Illinois, I had witnessed this very thing in the Chicago area and it wasn’t pretty. I was concerned about the distance that some of the low income children were bused but I felt that the payoff was worth it.

I always rode a bus to school, so I don’t wax nostalgic for neighborhood schools within walking distance. I know it is not feasible in the quickly growing, sprawling areas of Wake County, but I do think it makes sense for students to attend a school within a reasonable distance of their homes. They should not be traveling 10 miles from home and passing by 4 or 5 other schools to get to their own. Not only is it wasteful in terms of busing, but local schools foster community in a way that distant schools cannot. I also think that special academic opportunities should be available to everybody in Wake County, not just a select few.

I had always believed, as do most people I know, that schools in central and southeast Raleigh would be in dire straits if it weren’t for diversity busing and magnet programs. That poverty in the county was concentrated in central and southeast Raleigh and offering magnet programs was the only way to ensure those schools’ health. I also believed that the rest of the county was fairly well off in comparison and attending magnets in order to get special programs was a necessary and fair sacrifice for us to make. After a few years of driving my children 11 miles each way to and from a magnet school in a neighborhood that I cannot afford to buy a house in, I really started to question the school system’s policies. Who is benefitting from them and who is being hurt? I began looking up facts for myself instead of relying on what WCPSS and the media were reporting. I’ve decided to share what I’ve found with others so we can all be more informed about what is really happening in our school system and to ensure that we all receive equal access to a quality education.