Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Is Segregation Back in U.S. Public Schools? Busing Taught Me Valuable Lessons (Sounds like his answer is "yes" also.)


Busing Taught Me Valuable Lessons

Eric Montgomery
Eric Montgomery is a lawyer in Charlotte, N.C.
UPDATED MAY 21, 2012, 11:25 AM
My father taught in Charlotte's public schools, first during segregation, then through the migration of integration until his retirement. We were a middle-class African-American family, both parents were college-educated and had professional jobs. That said, my father always said he preferred teaching in the segregated system because he felt there was a better support system in place for minority kids.
I attended school in Charlotte during the 1970s and 80s -- what I consider the golden era. Growing up amid the backdrop of the seminal school busing decision in 1971, I, along with many students across the city, were bused to schools to achieve integration. To me, busing was a success -- all my classrooms were fully integrated.
Our communities will not achieve greatness if we do not work together again to make our schools a true reflection of society.
From the first grade through my senior year of high school, my classmates reflected a rich diversity of people across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. I could not have imagined going to a school in a homogenous environment. It was this richness of differences that taught me many valuable life lessons beyond the classroom instruction.
I left the area to attend college and law school and returned in 2001 to find my community now dominated by private schools, and a rapidly resegregating public education system, in need of new solutions to achieve harmony and success. I would have never have made friends “across the tracks” of life if it hadn't been for integrated schools in Charlotte. Our communities will not achieve greatness if we do not work together again to make our schools a true reflection of society.
Will busing work today in Charlotte? Perhaps. But the sprawling school system has grown too big to manage all of its areas. Perhaps it should break apart into different systems, so that each one is organized better, allowing for integration techniques like busing to work. That said, public schools also must invest in quality programming and teachers to appeal to all of the upper middle-class families who have sent their children to private schools.
Topics: EconomyEducationrace

10 Comments

Share your thoughts.
    • Eugene
    • Brooklyn, NY
    When I think of busing I think of Ocean Hill - Brownsville. I think of increased number of black children in schools, and parents demanding that white teachers be fired to hire more black children. I see just as much racism as before. I see underfunding for the newly 'black school'. I see white parents moving out of the area. I see them putting their kids in other schools. I see a vicious cycle perpetuated by 'minority' advocates - ironically, in cities where the minorities are the majority. And the news media won't tell you what I'll tell you from experience. White children in majority black schools are treated just like black children were in the 1950s in the South. I graduated high school in one of those schools in NYC in 2006.

    Why are white parents continuing to choose to segregate? Why are we focusing on segregated schools in an educational system in NYC where 87% of the children are black and hispanic? Because black and hispanic parents are not looking to improve the quality of education for their children as much as they care about 'perceived' white privilege. In fact, those children do not do better because they are white and the politicians care more about them. They do better because they are not bullied for wanting to learn, for speaking properly, because they come from families that support them, from two-parent homes, from more affluent backgrounds, and have good role models. Hoping on a bus and seeing the neighborhood isn't a substitute for those things.

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