Alabama Plan Brings Out Cry of Resegregation

[Judi Lynn]

Source: New York Times

Alabama Plan Brings Out Cry of Resegregation
By SAM DILLON
Published: September 17, 2007

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — After white parents in this racially mixed city complained about school overcrowding, school authorities set out to draw up a sweeping rezoning plan. The results: all but a handful of the hundreds of students required to move this fall were black — and many were sent to virtually all-black, low-performing schools.

Black parents have been battling the rezoning for weeks, calling it resegregation. And in a new twist for an integration fight, they are wielding an unusual weapon: the federal No Child Left Behind law, which gives students in schools deemed failing the right to move to better ones.

“We’re talking about moving children from good schools into low-performing ones, and that’s illegal,” said Kendra Williams, a hospital receptionist, whose two children were rezoned. “And it’s all about race. It’s as clear as daylight.”

Tuscaloosa, where George Wallace once stood defiantly in the schoolhouse door to keep blacks out of the University of Alabama, also has had a volatile history in its public schools. Three decades of federal desegregation marked by busing and white flight ended in 2000. Though the city is 54 percent white, its school system is 75 percent black.




Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/education/17schools.h...

[BlueIris]

1. Ew.

That is terrible.

[ClintonTyree]

2. The Republicans are making it....

easier for the racists to come out of the closet and be more open about their prejudices. Racism is becoming "acceptable" again under the guise of "family values" and other Republican initiatives.

Yes, the Republicans want a return to good old 19th century values, where everyone knew their place and "uppity" people were dealt with accordingly. It's a place Republicans dream of, where everything was in perfect order and not a discouraging word was heard. Those were that days......

[frogcycle]

5. But of course that is what the whole "family values" scam is really about

It was never a bunch of people in love with "hearth and home." The Republican Party actively recruited the bigots when the civil rights act was passed, because it needed voters. Its core values - "money is power; power is everything" did not have broad enough appeal to win elections. So it brought the disillusioned bigots into the fold - Jerry Falwell was a rabid segregationist who brought many - and appealed to the KKK mentality of "hate everyone not exactly like me." Thus the broad appeal to homophobia along with racism and anti-immigration.

This is why we are seeing so much hypocrisy uncovered - the true core values of the ones running for and in office are no more pious or righteous than those of anyone else; in fact, then tend more toward the sociopathic.

They brought the bigots into the fold, and now they have to figure out how to live with them. They aren't put off by the bigotry, since they really don't care a whit about anyone but themselves anyway, but they are learning that even with that large voting bloc they are still struggling. They have had to be more and more aggressive in rigging elections. This whole "democracy" thing is threatening the small group of oligarchists who have been executing this slow-motion coup since the 50's (or, arguably, since the Revolution). That, of course, is why they are tearing down the three-coequal-branches form of government, loading the courts, fighting oversight, and spying on citizens. Their Orwellian world with Big Brother in charge cannot coexist with democracy. It requires the public to be simple-minded automatons spoon-fed what to think and do while Big Brother - a small group of exceedingly wealthy elite - call the shots.

[jpgray]

3. Ah but we shouldn't "see" race, according to the recent SCOTUS ruling

Shame on you! If we can't see race, it obviously can't be racism!

[pampango]

4. Dayton, Ohio has had similar problems over the past 10-15 years.

The city is 50-50, but white flight has produced a public school system that is 80% black.

One big difference in Dayton is that the superintendent and 4 of the 7 school board members are African American. The system has gone back to the neighborhood school concept, with some magnet schools, which seems to be popular with most, even though residential segregation means that the schools are highly segregated. The classrooms were becoming largely African American anyway due to white flight, so the district seems to be trying to retain the white students that it still has.

While white flight has deplorable effect of the quality of the education available to students that remain in the urban school districts, it functions as an ultimate check on the ability of districts to move students around from school to school to achieve social goals. As long as each suburb has a separate school district and private schools are an option, fickle whites will make it difficult for urban districts to do what is fair/just versus what will maintain a multiracial school system.

I don't know anything about Tuscaloosa's schools, but it sounds like the real problem is, not what is being done, but that the administration does not reflect the population of the district's schools.

(BTW, does George know that NCLB is being used by African Americans to resist segregation in public schools? That the first I have heard of that. He might be more willing to rework, or get rid of, NCLB if we can get this word to him.)

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. We shall see if the federal law favors minorities. We shall see.

[nealmhughes]

7. This whole thing has been going on for years in Tuscaloosa City and County.

County= lily white. City=mixed racial profile.

There is a lot of white flight out of the city to Northport and their new superduper high school, as well as the new Bear Bryant H.S. but they spent millions on the old Central HS and then ended up building a new one. . .

This whole thing is about having dual school systems in most of Alabama, the individual cities have theirs and the counties as well. It got so bad in Florence that they turned the mixed racial Coffee High into Florence Middle School and Bradshaw's HS (then mostly white) was shutdown and expanded and became a single H.S.

But the problem still remains in the county schools here: the county schools are smaller, have a more limited offering and consequently, there is a huge gulf between them. Why? Not race, but funding! We support two school systems in Lauderdale and Tuscaloosa Counties, the city and the county.

Tuscaloosa, by the way, is largely a liberal Democratic city, the precincts closest to the campus of the University are decidedly "blue." The fact that the school house door incident happened in Tuscaloosa is only because the University was there in 1963, the same as it is today!

This has been a big deal of wasted monies and flight from the city's schools for some time now, at least since 2000 and more studies and proposals on Central High than I can even recall . . .