Reply to Is busing really an option?

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Reply to "Is busing really an option?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Historically, busing as an integration strategy means sending poor and/or minority kids outside of their assigned in-boundary school. So, I would argue what you describe is not busing. What you describe is a form of gerrymandering boundary lines to change the demographics of a school. [/quote]

Semantics. First define busing as something MCPS doesn't do, and then say that MCPS doesn't have busing.

Similarly, I could define gerrymandering as something that only applies to voting districts and then say that MCPS doesn't have gerrymandering.[/quote]

It's not semantics-- busing is clearly defined in political and educational discourse.  Vocabulary does matter if you are trying to argue for OR against a policy. And I said a form of gerrymandering.  The discussion would be more productive if people describe what it actually happening and what could happen. As a PP argued, busing is sending a kid from Kennedy to   a W school and vice versa.  [/quote]

But the PP is saying that if you change the boundaries to create an island within what is now Kennedy's district that goes to Churchill, and an island within what is now Churchill that gets bussed to Kennedy, then that would not be "bussing" because it's just changing boundaries.  But if you leave the boundaries where they are and create a program where certain students go to a different school without changing the boundary then it is "bussing"?  That seems odd.[/quote]

Busing is desegregation - plain and simple.

You can accomplish this in many ways:  through rezoning (boundary changes), through test-in or opt-in magnet programs (or special programs), through school "choice," and through charters.   Blair MAGNET was created to desegregate. However, it simply created a school w/in a school, which is essentially what happens with most special programs. So the schools were desegregated on paper only b/c the statistics look "good."

These are just PC methods for trying to balance out demographics and SES.

Why is this so hard to understand?  [/quote]

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