CBC Editorial: Tuesday, April 17, 2018; Editorial # 8290
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company
It took considerable time to study the “feasibility and advisability” of allowing local school districts to be broken into smaller ones -- five meetings of the Legislative Study Committee on the Division of Local School Administrative Units, 13 committee members 24 experts and other witnesses.
What did this committee produce? A
27 page report that concluded: “Any future legislation considered by the General Assembly to create a procedure by which citizens may initiate the breakup of large LEAs will require additional study.”
Really?
It was a tremendously bad idea to begin with – born out of Mecklenburg County Republican state Rep. William Brawley’s efforts to separate suburban, rural and mostly white communities from larger more diverse school districts. It was Brawley who’d
proposed a bill to allow smaller towns, like
Matthews and
Mint Hill in Mecklenburg County, to operate their own charter schools. The result would have been to essentially create separate school districts (mostly white) within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system.
Since the late 1960s there has been a concerted effort in North Carolina to consolidate school districts – both to more efficiently operate schools systems and more effectively integrate them to come into compliance with federal laws that bar racial discrimination. Consolidation remains an issue. Just Monday the state Supreme Court heard arguments about whether Halifax County officials – a small county still with three school districts—are to blame because the schools are unequally and so underfunded that children don't get the chance for the sound, basic education the State Constitution requires.
Following the committee’s discussion on constitutional issues concerning the composition of school districts and racial discrimination,
Brawley acknowledged some concerns that had been raised. “We knew this was out there and the history of North Carolina would lead some people to doubt our motives.”
Just two weeks ago
Linda Brown, the center of the nation’s landmark school integration ruling, died. In the 50 years since the U.S. Supreme Court found public school segregation to be illegal, many still do remain suspicious of motives of those who would seemingly move to make schools more segregated.
They recall the explicit words of former Gov. Luther Hodges to a special session of the 1956 General Assembly. He promised to “use every legal means we can devise” to fight school integration. One of those means was the
“Pearsall Plan.” You can hear Hodges’ remarks and watch a discussion of North Carolina’s school integration efforts in
this edition of “On the Record” featuring David Crabtree and Raleigh lawyer Ann McColl.
So, a half-century later it is not difficult to understand why a wary eye might be cast on a report that, so desperate for a positive recommendation, twists common sense. How else to explain finding and recommendation Number 1: “The review of the literature and existing studies does not document a relationship between LEA size and student educational performance. However, a strong inference can be drawn that smaller size contributed to improved student performance.” Since when is government policy based upon “inference?”
A close examination of the information gathered by the study committee could easily add up to the conclusion that, in fact, breaking up larger school districts will certainly lead to segregation and there is little evidence that it will lead to more efficient education administration or better learning in schools.
Let’s call it a day on this matter!
