Basically in the 60s (ish?) NC schools started bussing kids in from different neighborhoods to create diversity in the schools. Now, the school board has taken the stance of "It's Two-Thousand TEN. What the FUCK are we doing?! We're driving thousands of extra miles. Fuck that. We should just have neighborhood schools, like the rest of the U.S."

To me, it's as simple as "If you want your kid to go to a better school, 1) Drive them there, or 2) MOVE".

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I think everyone agrees that desegregation is a great thing but you're right, how far must you go to make it happen? I mean if I want my son to go to a better school I have to file a request and then drive him there myself each day. Seems perfectly reasonable to me to let the burden of getting their children to that school fall on the parent's shoulders. Unless I'm missing something.

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I'll agree also, because that is unnecessary spending of money by the state of NC.

Save money and pay the teachers more, my mom is a teacher.

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I moved to NC in 1973 when I was in 3rd grade. All the public schools I attended were integrated via bussing. Two of the schools I attended were walking distance from home. The other ones were in the inner city. I lived outside the city limits so in the years I was bussed I was usually the first stop for the bus. I had to be out there at 7 and the rides took an hour for me. So that part sucked, but otherwise I think bussing was great for me. Seeing and interacting with people different from me on a daily basis was a gift.
Just to give you some perspective, when I was in 1st or 2nd grade growing up in East Aurora, there were no black kids or teachers. The topic of race never came up in my household. To me, quite literally, black people were either baseball players or in the Jackson 5, because those were the only ones I had ever had any exposure to. So, one day the doorbell rings and I go to answer it. There were two young black kids just a little older than me selling chocolate bars to raise money for something or other. I don't think they ever got a word out of their mouths, because I took one look at them, saw they were black and realized they weren't old enough to be baseball players, and went screaming into the kitchen, "MOM! MOM! THE JACKSON 5 IS AT THE DOOR!!!! I was so excited, until my mom explained to me that they weren't in the Jackson 5.
But in this day and age I can certainly see why school districts would try to localize. Public schools are underfunded as they are, so money does need to be saved and gas isn't cheap like it used to be. Bussing is not "green" either. Also, back in my time the schools were diverse, but the neighborhoods weren't. Nowadays many neighborhoods have people of all different ethnic backgrounds, so people are regularly being exposed to different races without having to be shipped across town. In general terms there is a lot more mingling of the races now than there was when that law was passed.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

I find it fundamentally fucked up that idiots like Lebron get paid millions for playing a game while teachers get paid shit for educating our children. Since that's the reality of it though, stop forking out money for unnecessary crap and put it into the pockets of the teachers. i know it won't happen but that's my two cents.

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The argument now though is that the neighborhoods aren't diverse, which would lead to less diversity in the schools.

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I know my old High School was plenty diverse, but even with it being diverse, you tend to stick with one group of people. The band kids stay together, the black kids stay together, the football team stays together.

It doesn't matter if you desegregate a school, the kids find their clicks, and segregate themselves. I saw it all the time in high school, mostly all blacks stuck together, and maybe there was a possible one white person in their group, unless it was a fat white girl who was a whore in it.

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LMFAO@ the token fat whore

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It's just how I always viewed it in high school, hardly ever were there very attractive white girls hanging out with that crowd. And if they were, it was because they were all on a sports team together.

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the appropriate counter to that argument, i think, falls on the shoulders of developers, zoning boards, and yuppies. let's face it, white flight ruined this country's urban dynamic, and the decline of what is now termed the "rust belt" is what pushed that over the edge. even before that, ghettos were and are breeding grounds for racial and cultural disparities that, at this point, seem impossible to atone for. one thing that certainly isn't helping is gentrification. this can go on for days, as it seems that every point feeds into another dilemma that feeds into another, until it forms a circle that never stops.

perhaps that's the reason i hate politics and economics.

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young people everywhere have been allowed to choose between love and a garbage disposal unit. everywhere they have chosen the garbage disposal unit. (guy debord)