Reply to Is busing really an option?

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

NP. It doesn't matter if you call that busing or not. Whatever that Churchill-Kennedy scenario you mention is isn't on the table. They are looking at adjusting boundaries within clusters and with adjacent clusters. That's all.[/quote]

[b]This cannot possibly be the answer, PP.[/b]  If you look at the DCC and NEC, these schools are majority minority - and these grouped clusters are based on choice. Nothing changes in other words.

same said for the "W" clusters - What's the point?

Now, one of the maps had Magruder and Sherwood marked by the same color.  Demographics are different despite fairly close proximity to each other.  If they adjust boundaries - or allow for "choice" - it will not go over well in the Sherwood community.  Sherwood, if any of you remember, refused to participate in the NEC; parents were in an uproar. As a result, it "acquired" an ESOL program to change the demographics on paper.

It's all a game.  The middle of the road schools will be participants, as the extreme ends (high minority, high white) will remain untouched.  [/quote]

Well, if you read the RFP and read several of the documents linked within, including Policy FAA, that is what it says. I agree that schools in the central part of the county, BCC, Einstein, Wheaton, WJ/Woodward, RM, Rockville, QO, Wootton, Gaithersburg are the areas most likely to change. But the other areas could see boundary changes too, just with fewer shifts in demographics.[/quote]

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