JLF’s John Hood rips to shreds the conspiracy theory being put forth by some supporters of Wake County’s forced busing program — the folks who like to demonize people who dare to (1) reject policies that leave a substantial number of kids without the skills necessary to pursue their dreams and who (2) dare to seek change that empowers parents. Hood uses his own family’s experience in Charlotte/Mecklenburg schools to make his point. His parents worked in the school system and, for a time, he attended private school.
According to the defenders of forced busing, however, the thousands of North Carolinians who fled “progressive” education during the 1970s and 1980s were all really fleeing black people. The assumption was flawed, but at least it had the virtue of superficial plausibility.
Now, many of the same leftists are asserting precisely the opposite causality – that the end of forced busing will cause many middle- and upper-income families to flee the public schools. Improbably, the prospect of receiving more control over their children’s school assignment – people of means obviously have a greater ability to choose homes based on community assignment zones – is somehow supposed to repel them into the waiting arms of private educators.
This is an idiotic theory. If anything, respecting the wishes of the majority of Wake parents and dismantling forced busing will make it less likely they will exit the system for education in charter schools, private schools, or home schools. Thus, any school board members with a personal or ideological motivation for “dismantling” public schools as a first step to privatization are working against their interest by eliminating forced busing.
D’oh!
