RALEIGH – I’m sure they’d contest this characterization, but it seems clear to me that the leaders of the Wake County school system think they know better than parents what is best for their children. In their minds, they are the Guardians in a sort of Platonic republic of educational virtue.
At its core, that’s the reason the Wake system clings to a forced-busing scheme that most other communities have long since abandoned in the face of legal challenges and public hostility. That’s the reason Wake refuses to allow voluntary expansion of year-round schools, preferring instead to force families into them so as not to disturb the socioeconomic balance of neighboring schools.
And that’s the reason why North Carolina’s biggest government school system continues to be in flagrant violation of the No Child Left Behind law, which guarantees parents the right to transfer their children out of perpetually low-performing schools. Of all the state districts, reports the Raleigh News & Observer, only Wake tries to force families back into the dismal schools they just left, rather than complying with the law that allows the students to stay in their chosen school until they graduate from it.
The school system offers an excuse:
Wake has unwittingly provided transportation in the past when it didn’t have to, said Chuck Dulaney, assistant superintendent for growth and planning. To avoid such mistakes, Wake decided to reassign students to their old schools before providing them their transportation and No Child transfer options for the coming year, Dulaney said.
“We assign students back because we don’t know whether they’ll get transportation or not,” he said. “When we know whether or not we can provide transportation, we move forward with No Child Left Behind options.”
The excuse doesn’t wash. No other school district treats families this way. Wake officials have convinced themselves – despite clear and convincing evidence to the contrary – that their student-assignment policies are responsible for relatively high academic performance. While other superintendents and school boards across the state have largely abandoned the notion that student assignment is tool for social engineering, Wake embraces it wholeheartedly. They resent that No Child Left Behind gives parents the right to escape the school system’s dictates. So they’ve concocted a rationalization to maintain their power, in the no-doubt sincere but profoundly misguided belief that maintaining socioeconomic balance is so important that it trumps other values such as parental choice and efficiency.
Now that the N&O has laid bare the facts of the case, I suspect that Wake will have to change its policy. It’s an election year for the county school board, after all, and critics of the system’s assignment policies are already running hard to gain control. This is yet another example of the arrogance the critics are running against.
And if political action doesn’t resolve the dispute, it will probably come to legal action. I think Wake will have a hard time sustaining its argument given that other districts seems entirely capable to reconciling the federal right to transfer with their transportation policies.
The Wake County school system has squandered millions of dollars and the public’s patience with its tenacious defense of forced busing. Parents will regain control over the setting and manner of their children’s education. It’s only a matter of when, not if.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation