Stability, Proximity, Hypocrisy

Recently three citizen members of the Student Assignment Committee proposed to change the current three-year student assignment plan by adding a long list of "node moves" to reassign thousands of children for the 2011-12 school year.

I located 163 different proposed moves among the hodgepodge of sheets provided to school staff, moves proposing to move about 4,100 children. Of the children proposed to be moved by three white members of the committee, approximately 76% are black or hispanic and 61% receive a free or reduced price lunch. None of the proposing members identified anyone from the nodes they proposed to move out of their districts who had requested the moves. While a few proposals address constituent desires by moving children within the representatives' school board districts, the bulk of the proposals serve to move minority children and children receiving lunch assistance out of these districts and into schools in Southeast Raleigh.

Ostensibly, these moves are to further the system's stated goal of sending kids to their neighborhood schools, but Garner's representative has proposed to move more than 400 of them away from their closest middle school. This is said to be appropriate, because that school is crowded, yet the bulk of the moves (including these) were made with no regard whatsoever to crowding at the receiving school, particularly if it contained magnet students who could be displaced. Further, they left plenty of crowding unaddressed. Apparently, it is proximity when it suits, crowding when it doesn't, and feeder patterns when that won't work either. Apparently, it is proximity and stability when you are looking out for affluent whites and freeing up space when you are moving poor minority students.

Because many of the proposals recommend displacing students without identifying a clear destination for them, the impact on particular destination schools is difficult to identify with precision. Generally, however, it looks like mostly poor and minority students would be "returned" from low poverty schools to the following schools in the following numbers:

• about 1200 students to Carnage, Ligon, Moore Square, and Daniels Middle Schools
• about 600 students to Southeast Raleigh, Enloe, and Broughton High Schools
• about 450 students to Walnut Creek Elementary School
• about 275 students to Reedy Creek, Combs, or Adams Elementary Schools
• about 100 mostly poor students would be sent to East Cary Middle School while 175 mostly affluent students would move away
• about 175 students to Fuller Elementary School
• about 150 students to Swift Creek Elementary School
• about 125 students to Centennial Middle School
• about 125 students to Conn, Root, or Walnut Creek Elementary Schools

Other schools would see impacts in lesser numbers.

It is completely unclear whether these proposals will be approved for 2011, though it is a fair bet that there are four votes in their favor, and only five are needed.