It is becoming fairly clear that some opponents of the CMS Task Force outline for reform will accept nothing less than a return to cross-county busing for Mecklenburg’s public schools. But that option is clearly off the table, as task force co-chair Harvey Gantt notes.
More importantly, the task force would essentially flip the rationale behind CMS magnet schools 180-degrees. Up until now, CMS magnets have functioned to draw upper-income students into inner-city CMS schools. The new magnet framework, in theory, would work to pull low-income kids out of their neighborhood schools and into a more flexible, almost independent, magnet/choice system.
That’s a big change and it threatens the status quo on many levels while slamming the door on a return to the failed policies of the past.
