WRAL reports that Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker used today’s MLK Interfaith Prayer Breakfast to again go after Wake County school board members who support neighborhood schools and oppose busing kids around the county to achieve economic “balance” in schools. Supporters say the busing is key to helping low-income kids learn and achieve. Meeker, a Democrat, is married to school board member Anne McLaurin, who opposes the move to neighborhood schools supported by the Republican-led board majority that was elected in 2009.
There you have the politics. Now for the facts about the policy that Mayor Meeker so heartily endorses. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction website — found here — shows the abysmal four-year graduation rates for some groups of Wake County public school students who are supposedly helped by the economic diversity program.
Economically Disadvantaged — 59.7 percent
Black males — 56.3 percent
Hispanic males — 50.3 percent
Abysmal, to put it mildly. I call these results immoral and clearly illustrative of the need for a policy change.
