Wake County voters will soon cast ballots in four Board of Education contests; and the future of one of the nation’s last efforts to create genuine classroom diversity hangs in the balance. More than fifty years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racially segregated schools were “inherently unequal,” no matter how much money any district spent. If a new anti-diversity majority takes control of the school board, they could dismantle a recognized model of educational access and equity for all children—regardless of race, class, religion, or ethnicity. Wake County would then probably follow Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) backward in history toward racial and economic re-segregation.
Many Wake County voters ask if the current diversity policy is worth the constant movement of children, especially if there is not always data showing how the program improves the achievement of disadvantaged students. The question is based on several inaccurate assumptions. First, most Wake County students are bused to various schools because of population growth and overcrowding, not for diversity. Second, many county residents follow the national obsession with end-of-grade test scores as the sole indicator of students’ educational attainments. Therefore, since the school system cannot show a straight line leading from diverse schools to increased test scores for nearly every child, critics conclude the current policy is a failure.
Critics not only misunderstand busing and misappropriate test scores; they also have forgotten fundamental historical reasons for preserving economically and racially balanced schools. To put the case bluntly: educating children in diverse classrooms is morally right, educationally beneficial, and politically necessary.
Those who support the current policy must reassert one of the central tenets of the modern civil rights movement—it is morally good for children to interact with other children from different economic, racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds. While young people can learn tolerance in many settings, our schools should certainly be a key place where the diversity of America—with all its opportunities and challenges—are right in front of every child’s eyes.
The inextricable link between diversity and learning for a lifetime also needs to be stressed. Chris Malone, a school board candidate in District 1, captured much of the opposition’s misapprehensions when he said: “diversity is a fine thing. We should strive to know more about other cultures and encourage understanding. But that has to be secondary to the primary goal of education." Frankly, one of the primary goals for educating children to succeed as productive citizens in a multi-cultural nation and competitive global economy is precisely to expose them to diverse student bodies. We fail our children when we push them out into a complex and interconnected world after they have spent more than a decade in increasingly homogenous and re-segregated schools.
Finally, the current diversity policy is an honest acknowledgement of how politics works—if you do not keep schools diverse, you will not have a broad population of parents to advocate for those schools. Critics often claim that they will spend whatever is necessary to help whatever low-wealth schools reemerge in the brave new world without diversity. Funny how many of these same politicos always criticize government for ‘throwing money at problems,’ and attack the current Board of Education for its supposedly profligate habits. I guess fiscal conservatives can become tax-and-spend liberals when they think money will buy off any opposition or residual guilt for dismantling a nationally recognized desegregated school system. Moreover, the lesson of Charlotte is that promises of extra money for struggling schools tend to dry up quickly when parents in wealthy neighborhoods demand more resources for their local schools.
The current school diversity policy entails some sacrifices. Many families have children at multiple schools on varying schedules, and the school system has often been slow addressing these parents’ burdens. More significantly, many low-income students take long bus rides every school day, often longer than wealthier students. And many low-income parents face real logistical obstacles when they try to participate in their children’s schools. Despite these hurdles, the majority of poorer families and even many wealthier families remain staunch supporters of diversity, because they understand that the educational benefits for all children outweigh personal inconveniences.
Few recent school board elections have carried such historical and educational weight. Voters should remember the modern civil rights movement’s struggles, and realize that the fight for educational access and equity did not end with Brown v. Board of Education—that campaign for quality education continues today. In an increasingly diverse nation, and an ever more complex world, all children need and deserve the best education possible—in classrooms that reflect the rich and variegated human mosaic of America.
David Zonderman is a Professor of History at North Carolina State University
