(ThyBlackMan.com) In North Carolina this past Tuesday, Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata seemingly took a stand for poor children when he announced that he would form a task force to reconsider the Tea Party-dominated Wake County school board’s controversial decision in March 2010 to base school assignments for children in Raleigh on neighborhood residency rather than longstanding diversity considerations. In so doing, he brought to the fore of the national consciousness a debate that has implications for educational equity across the country: the appropriateness of socio-economic diversity as a consideration in determining student enrollment in Wake County schools and beyond.
Touted as a model of successful socio-economic and racial school integration since the 1970s, the Wake County school district has traditionally distributed students from diverse backgrounds among its 
schools in such a way so that no more than 40% of any school population would qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, the classic indicator of school poverty. Wake County garnered nationwide media attention (and a lawsuit from the NAACP) after African American parents and community activists in Raleigh insisted that the school board’s decision in March to eliminate socio-economic diversity considerations in school assignments would adversely affect the education of poor and minority students, insofar as students of color would be forced to attend schools in poverty-stricken communities more likely to struggle with teacher recruitment and supply deficits. They also argued that the school board’s action was contrary to the purposes of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which codified school integration as a fundamental aspect of public education equity. The NAACP likened the school board’s decision to opposition to the “busing” of African American students to predominantly White, suburban school districts throughout the South after the Brown decision.
Surprisingly, the ultra-conservative Wake County School Board welcomed Tata’s announcement, signaling they were content to allow the superintendent to decide the issue. The Raleigh News & Observer reported on Wednesday that Tea Party board member John Tedesco stated that he would “disband” his student assignment committee in favor of the superintendent’s task force. Superintendent Tata has indicated that he favors an alternative plan proposed by the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Raleigh which would provide a “school choice” option to parents based on student achievement level rather than socioeconomic status. Students would be eligible to attend a particular school in a particular area based on prior academic achievement. In theory, this plan is meant to retain the benefits of a well-funded, achievement-oriented middle-class school environment for minority students who have enjoyed the academic advantage of attending school with their more affluent, goal-oriented White peers across town. In practice, this plan does not account for the systemic inequalities that created an achievement gap among poor African American students in Raleigh in the first place – resulting in part from the geographic income gap that the original school assignment system was designed to address. In short, under the new plan, minority underachievers from poor communities still end up attending school together – apart from everyone else.
Not surprisingly, and a little sadly, Tata’s compromise plan reflects the same White suburban, middle-class anxiety about their children sharing classrooms and hallways with African American students from the city as the Tea Party initiative to do away with socio-economic diversity considerations altogether. It is no secret that African American students, and particularly African American adolescent males, display lower standardized test scores in reading and math and lower high school graduation rates than their White counterparts in North Carolina and everywhere else throughout the country. But nor is it a secret that predominantly African American urban schools around the country have historically been the most underfunded and understaffed. The Wake County school district should have taken the lead in showcasing how school assignment reforms can produce greater educational equity in American public education – but it didn’t. The citizens of Raleigh, North Carolina should register their disgust at the thinly veiled racism of the Tea Party at the polls.
The current political mood in Wake County reminded me of George Wallace’s misguided and ill-fated slogans and rhetoric about segregation in the 1960s. As a passionate educator, the Teabagger position on education in Raleigh offends me—but I know it hasn’t shifted. Let’s hope for the sake of our children and our country that the political discourse that created the current Wake County School Board does.
Staff Writer; David Christopher Steele, M.A.
Official website; http://www.facebook.com/steele.dave88
