I was young but politically active when busing was a big issue in the Northeast (and elsewhere). My memory is that busing advocates saw it as a short-term expedient that could be done quickly while we undertook the longer-range task of desegregating neighborhoods to actually begin solving the problem. I don't recall anyone seeing it as an end in itself.
Living near Sen. Harris's native Berkeley, two things those living elsewhere should know about it: It's an especially compact city (and school district), making busing distances less, and it's a place where busing would have been unusually popular compared to almost anyplace else. I mgiht also add that kids have to get to school somehow, and that adults tell kids to do things all the time, so arguments against "forced busing." were dishonest on both counts. Lots of kids ride school buses for reasons having nothing to do with race, and that was true in the 70s as well.
So depressing to read the dog whistle racist comments below. Always remember the telling comment from an African American woman at a school board meeting in Charlotte, which was successful at desegregation of schools for a number of years: It's not the bus; it's us. The author is probably right that busing alone would not have "unwound the knot" of racism, but it sure didn't hurt where it was tried with the support of community leaders.
2
As you say, the real issue is housing and integrating neighborhoods. The cost of buying a house in Seattle has created opportunities.
We already have incentives for developers to build low income or mixed use housing in affluent areas. What if the development also brought whites with more money to spend in the community and schools into poorer minority neighborhoods? You might immediately assume that is gentrification and say that it would drive current residents out of the area but it doesn't have to be that way.
Is there a way to offer financial and cultural/social incentives to families (Seattle is losing families, too) to move into more marginal neighborhoods while, at the same time, using rent and real estate tax control to help low income families stay in the neighborhood?
It's also important to note that this isn't just about race, but also about class inequities due to gentrification. The wealth divide is getting wider, and candidates really aren't addressing how to fix it.
2
As parents of 2 kids in Chicago, we decided to send our kids to the Catholic School 2 blocks from our house. The tuition is manageable and I know what I am getting. Public school policies are changing based on the whims of the mayor, unions, and school board - parent inputs are last.
Some of the recent policy, especially regarding discipline, would make my children part of an ongoing social experiment. "What is the effect on a student's education when disruptive kids aren't removed from the class, do they drag down the performance of the entire classroom? We will know the answers in 20 years"
I will not make my children the expendable nodes of progressive guilt (by the way, neither will the middle class minorities enrolled in the same Catholic School).
Until our society is willing to address the fundamental erosion of the family in some minority populations (again, not in my middle class neighborhood, nearly all kids live with their married mothers and fathers regardless of race), the education policy proposals will make the middle class parents of all races look for more reliable schools.
Busing in the 70's & 80's was a social experiment thrust upon children who had nothing to do with historical de jure segregation. The fact that some parents objected to the experiment and opted out shouldn't have surprised policy makers.
Lots of cities (Philly, New York, Chicago) have a Catholic education system that will be a relief valve until better policy is developed.
5
Why is the focus always targeted on racial integration of schools, when real estate decisions/markets are very clearly examples of socio-economic segregation?
Why shouldn't all lower income children have the same chance for a "lottery ticket" to attend better schools in areas where they can't afford to live?
2
‘Do You Support Busing?’ No. I don't.
7
I think it it is a question that needs to be asked, because Kamala Harris made it a question to be asked. I think she should be asked frequently about it.
5
Senator Harris segregated herself into Howard University.
Howard students are 90 percent black. Only 60 percent graduate in 6 years.
If Harris believes desegregation is fundamental for better education, why did SHE choose a poorly-integrated university?
This topic and the attack during the debate was simply pandering for votes.
Did she suffer on the 2.7 mile bus ride her mother voluntarily signed her up for in Berkeley?
Her own voluntary choice for higher education is the real story.
Senator Harris’ record as AG is now open for examination - because she went-back 30 plus years into Biden’s.
Posted Tuesday at 7:20 Eastern
4
I was eleven years old, when this issue was introduced into the public sphere. It wasn't settled then, and you're not going to trick me into wasting my time debating it any more.
Why? Because a school bus is a clever dodge, to avoid talking about why we still let cops get away with shooting unarmed black people, again and again.
1
I find it so strange that it's accepted that different amounts of money are spent on different children's public education. How can that sound normal to anyone? Each child should at. least. be equal with that simple number (with strictly managed, accurate variations for the variations among local expenses). Trying to fix problems without first starting with that form of equality... it's incomprehensible. And it just shows how deeply baked in the inequality is. In a truly enlightened society, lower class kids would get -more- resources. So resource equality would get us halfway there, to a workable starting point. Everything else is peripheral--will help some kids but will not begin to reach the core of the issue.
2
@S This issue has been addressed in many places, with state top-up funding that puts the per-pupil budgets of many poor schools even higher than the suburbs. Many inner-city school districts like New York, DC, and Baltimore also have plenty of money.
Guess what? It doesn't make a difference, the results are still terrible. People think that money makes good schools, but in reality it's good parents that make good kids, which then make good schools. Throwing money at the problem will do nothing.
4
The phrase "racial segregation" appears more than once in this article. Most Americans that I have known use that phrase to refer to de jure separation of races, not to de facto splitting of schools into richer and poorer communities. I don't know a lot of affluent people these days who are trying to keep their kids separate from other affluent people of different races, but I do know lots of affluent people who don't want their kids educated next to substantial numbers of poor kids. Maybe a more honest term at this point would be "class segregation." Zoning, taxation, etc. certainly separate groups by class, but the days of actual "racial segregation" are, happily, in the past.
5
There are things that only a national gov't structure can do, like defend the nation.
There are things nat'l gov'ts might try to do, like run national parks in the absense of organized state governments, or fight crime.
These things may be extra-constitutional as they arise and are done away with.
But one thing you can't fight with cops or laws is the groupings of people with others that they feel comfortable with. Even if this grouping of similar people is through illegal means, gov't simply can't fix it.
The federal gov't lost the support of millions of younger Americans with the Vietnam involvement, largely because fixing it - by stepping away from that war - was a political hot potato.
Similarly, the federal gov't lost the support of non-liberals with forced busing. All of that money and energy SHOULD have gone into making inner-city schools as good as the competition away from the uban heart.
So far, inner-city governments are still so politically corrupted that saving the urban school is a one-at-a-time endeavor, sadly.
Teachers' organizations are just too rich and voter-filled that saving education for the poor children remains out of reach in one-party progressive political areas.
4
Bussing can work in smaller communities where distances to be traveled are short. It is much less effective in large cities where large areas, as in Chicago, are inhabited only by Blacks. The distances to be covered places a huge burden on children whether it is white children or black children. Bussing could be maintained if the traveling time is half-hour or less..Otherwise, the attention should be centered on better academic preparation. This means providing resources to build or rebuild schools inn minority areas which would be up-to-date in every aspect, from gym to lab, from classrooms to dining hall. Second, require more competent teachers with appropriate compensation. Introduce more magnet schools in these areas and have a significant cultural component in the curriculum. Given the extension of the problem, it will not be easy to provide the funds, but there is no doubt that the long term
benefits will repay the effort.
2
solutions:
1. transfer all money from wealthier school districts to poorer school districts, and vice versa.
2. have a child's school be drawn by random lottery
3. transfer any school asset purchased by the wealthier school district's PTA to the poorer school district (laptops, av equipment, lab equipment, etc)
4. license test prep and only allow it to occur in poorer school district locations
5. subsidize test prep through state-wide taxes and credits
6. essentially create equal schools
@newyorkerva Your list does not have the most essential part - incentivize students to study. All the fancy learning toys are not going to attract those who do not want to learn.
4
“The question is not, ‘Do we say yes or no to a 1970s-through-1990s intervention?’” said Ansley Erickson, a historian at Columbia University. “It’s ‘What is the intervention we need right now?’”
Exactly the question I was going to post. My neighborhood is lightly integrated, and all the children in this rural subdivision between two towns are bused, regardless of skin color.
But the question remains: how do we give disadvantaged children a equal start in life?
1
The first question to ask is how can we stop being hypocrites? Whether you are Black, White, Asian (whatever that includes!) or anything else, if you are a parent, you want the best for your child in the ways that most of us share a common understanding of what "the best" means. Of course there are obvious disparities between families in terms of "the best" and "the best you can afford". Unless we move to Sweden or Cuba, I'm afraid most of us are always going to be constrained in our ability to provide the "best" health, educational, social and cultural opportunities for our children because of unequal access and inadequate resources to turn "hopes and dreams" into reality. So we do what we can, whether it means leaning on the "right" contacts, taking advantage of every free or low-cost educational or health program offered in the community by the government, the schools, museums, libraries, churches, mosques, synagogues or a generous "sponsor". Obviously, bus-ing was far from a perfect answer, but it DID help some people!
1
I grew up in a wealthy suburb of Chicago. The famous high school, New Trier (public), had two students of color out of 3000+ Our daughter grew up in a small town in North Carolina and attended public school experiencing the first early years of desegregation. In those years she learned beside students who were every color and of every economic status. As an adult she lives in this same community where those friendships and the respect engendered by a familiarity with people who are different from one another produced a truly integrated, color blind generation. Those were halcyon days with much promise. But we were a small county and it was filled with people putting their hearts into integration, not just desegregation.
1
This article needs to straighten out it's subjects. Busing didn't work, and cherry picking some stats about what happened after busing stopped doesn't change that. There's evidence behind busing's failure that could be linked to.
Housing is the issue, so make that clear. Also, efforts to ground it in 1970s federal policy are weak. Housing is where the rubber meets the road for Americans. School districts hire consultants who tell them what ethnic groups will make their scores go up, and realtors tell them test scores are linked to property values that's the base of their tax revenue.
Parents move to suburbs because the schools can lead to college. They also know that friends are what raise kids and the same social mix will be the source of marriage partners. Most wealth in the U.S. is family based, and built from family unions.
Continued housing inflation can be used to refinance for college. Americans of European and Asian heritage believe that other ethnicities lower property values, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even some minorities in well-off suburbs believe that.
The red line today isn't due to a bank, but a mortgage, and it's insidious. Two candidates, same income, one white one black. The black family is offered a regular loan. Given housing prices, you may need $260K or more to qualify. The white family is offered an interest-only loan, which they can afford for 10 years. Then refinance.
I'm a school district board member in California's Bay Area.
9
All the housing in the world will not turn that housing into homes if people create babies they are not emotionally, ethically, or financially able to care for.
Children whose parents do not instill in them intellectual curiosity, a love of learning, and good manners will be unprepared for school and will engage in behavior that ruins the classroom experience for the children whose parents not only "want" the best for them but actively and tirelessly work to provide it.
20
@Brian What school districts hire consultants who tell them what ethnic groups will make their scores go up? What budget would that come out of? I've been in public education in California for 45 years and I never heard of this practice. Could you elaborate please?
3
Should these grants go to private schools? Should private schools be more encouraged to be middle class options that compete with public school segregated monopolies
2
If schools are good, then involved parents will fight to send their kids there. If schools are bad, then involved parents will do everything in their power to get their kids out.
What makes a school good? It's not the money. Many inner city school districts have higher per-pupil funding than suburban districts, and yet their results are still garbage.
Rather than try and shame and punish the parents who actually care about their childrens' wellfare, maybe we should start shaming and punishing the parents who don't.
6
The real elephant in the room isn’t race, it’s behavior. I teach at 99.9% black school. None of my coworkers would send their children, not because it’s a black school - the staff is nearly all black too - but because the kids behave so badly. Even in the primary grades, too many children spend their time insulting classmates in order to start a fight. Second graders talk about “giving head” and some use the school’s laptops to search for pornagraphic images. Fights are extremely frequent. Theft is a problem.
From what I’ve read about busing, these problems aren’t new.
In the 21st century, most people don’t care what race their children associate with as long as those children live up to ordinary social norms.
35
@Z97
It is not normal for second graders of any race to be looking for pornography. Those students need intervention. They are most likely being sexually abused.
7
As I repeatedly ask, how many of the employees and readers of The NY Times have direct experience with economically (not racially) diverse schools? In poor communities it is not uncommon for students to be homeless, for parents to be in jail at some time, and for women to have several children with different men. That’s not even mentioning other problems endemic in poverty areas. Somehow poor Asians overcome these problems. Middle class people aren’t perfect but middle class values are pretty good and not dependent upon color or ethnicity. When was the last time that the child of any Times writer had a play date with a child of poverty? Just pointing out that it’s much easier to tell others what they should do than to live one’s beliefs.
31
Parents wanting the best schools for their children is human nature and has nothing to do with race. The problem with these programs is they fight basic goals like this that have nothing to do with race. And, yet, they try to make them about race.
8
This is just one more example where housing and zoning policy over the last 50 years have lead to many inequities in our society. Segregation is just one blaring example.
Many years ago I lived in Washington, D.C. I was a frequent reader of the Washington Post and have always remembered a very touching, actually heartbreaking letter to the editor, written by a journalist who had moved to Washington from Minnesota. He was very liberal, and wanted to live the values in which he believed. He sent his small son to a D.C. public school, because, of course, he wanted to support the integrated public school system. Unfortunately, his son was attacked by other students and had his lunch money taken from him. After repeated incidents, he decided that it was not fair to make his son live such a life, in order to support his own idealism. Finally he transferred his son to a private school. The point of this sad story is that history is always present in the choices we make, and because of that the choices are often complex and difficult. The children of the Clintons, of Al Gore, of the Obamas, and (I think, Walter Mondale) all attended private school in D.C. There was a reason for that choice of the parents. But their choice was also in opposition to their politics, which attempted to deny other American parents this right. And many Americans saw in the discrepancy between their politics and their actions a great hypocrisy, and did not forgive them for it.
31
@Wan
BTW...back in the 70s Amy Carter went to pubic school in DC.
Incidentally, here in New England my son was physically bullied at the fancy private elementary school he was at 15 years ago. His sister was cyber-bullied at the same school 2 years later. 3 years later (for other reasons) she transferred to one of the city public high schools and had a reasonably good experience. I have another friend who ended up having 6 kids and by the 4th kid decided he just couldn't afford private school. His last 3 went public but his youngest was getting badly picked on. After getting no help from the administration they bit the bullet and sent her to the local private day school. When the fall semester ended in mid-December, the daughter came home and asked her parents where THEY were going in the Caribbean over Xmas break...LOL.
1
It's easier to limit the scope of the discussion to 'busing,' rather than to confront the real issue: The success of decades, perhaps centuries, of determined, destructive housing, jobs, and education policies in producing our segregated, polarized society.
The current Republican Party is hopeless. Controlled by Trump, McConnell, and other aging troglodytes bent on reversing the reforms of the 1960s and 1970s, the party can't make any sense. It becomes the Democrats' lot by default, then, to try to get the nation to live up to the ideals Trump mangles each day in office, most recently during his Independence Day burlesque at the Lincoln Memorial.
1
I will not get into the nitty-gritty of school desegregation, but instead simply say this: Making busing an issue in this election would be like blowing off a toe, a completely unnecessary self-inflicted wound that will only boast Trump's reelection prospects. Those of us who remember the 1970s will tell you that it was probably the era's most explosive and divisive issue. Why anyone would want to revive it is beyond me.
22
And it wasn't good for the kids. Lots of bad habits and worse language learned in those hourlong bus rides to and from school.
And wasted time.
All neighborhood schools should be equal in the quality of their teachers, supplies, and facilities.
After that, if there is no learning, it is the fault of the parents.
11
Government can outlaw segregation but it can’t force integration. Nobody likes to be pawn for some capricious social engineering experiment. People are individuals not chickens where you can predict when eggs will hatch.
The best way to go around this is by improving resources and conditions in ALL public schools, regarding the demographic composition of it. It is not by busing or imposing neighborhoods to change property rules. Both of those have been tested and both ended up in white flight. White tenants will move away and take their taxes and resources. The neighborhood will change from prosper to decayed, this will reflect in the schools, and it all becomes a vicious circle.
All this assuming that resources, school quality and and zip codes, are THE real and only reason for the educational gap. I’m not too sure of that. Asian immigrants started far lower, many without the language, alphabet and even legal status, and look where they are today: disputing and suing schools which deny them entry “because they are too good”. Go figure.
13
I was a law clerk for the “bussing judge “who desegregated the Charlotte Mecklenburg school system, James B McMillan. His was not an abstract decision, but one that included his visiting every single school in the entire area, and listening to all the local politicians both pro and con. The statistic that tells it all is that his order reduced the number of miles that school children in the Charlotte Mecklenburg system had to spend on buses. The reason is that black children had been bussed for long distances to avoid their attendance at white schools. There was a withering simplicity along with a remarkable down to earth complexity to his orders. In my view, Biden is at least attempting to speak into that complexity, and yet he also needs the voices of those like Harris who although consulted, were not the decision-makers.
3
Stop wasting time sending brown kids to what is considered "better white schools." What's so great about those schools? Smaller classes? After school activities? Does the data show they test higher on exams? Parent involvement?
Why not work to make your own school more successful?
16
People of all colors self segregate. I was in a school that had bussing and the black kids had their own table in the cafeteria. Now I'm in a suburban community that has become mostly black in the last 15 years. Still they self segregate. Schools that used to be rated well are now determined to be failing state standards. The teachers are the same but the students have changed. Education is not cool for black males. They picked on my son for getting good grades. I'm so glad he is done with public school and has graduated from college. I'm am sure those that picked on him are working for minimum wage somewhere.
18
Not the best question?
In many ways it is the perfect question.
It slices through the weasel-words that so many of the Dem candidates mouth when pressed: "So - what exactly - are you proposing to do?"
It forces Kamala Harris to abandon her "many tools are on the table" to actually articulate what the she is 'actually' trying to get across.
Unequal educational outcomes are a national source of shame but the trite Dem answer so far that 'we will try harder' should always be deflated with - so what exactly are you prepared to do?
And if Federally-mandated busing is one of your 'tools' [Ms. Harris] - please explain that further for the 90% of us who think it is a horrible idea that has failed and is destined to fail in the future.
13
Here's an interesting busing-related topic that I don't seem discussed much: In 1977, the Los Angeles Unified School District announced an upcoming busing plan to ship many of the San Fernando Valley's white (and largely Jewish white) public school students from the San Fernando Valley to South-Central in the name of integration.
Shortly afterwards, the family of Douglas Emhoff, Senator Kamala Harris's current husband, white-flighted to the un-bused Las Virgenes school district just west of the bused Los Angeles school district.
I'd like to see a debate between Senator Harris and her mother-in-law Mrs. Emhoff on the merits of busing.
26
Moving children around and mixing children from radically different family backgrounds does not solve anything.
Busing failed and will always fail as parents of means (regardless of race) will simply move to other districts or put their children in private schools.
Focusing on housing issues may help, but much more will be needed to address the fundamental issues that children from families that cannot or will not provide the structure and support they need to succeed will never be at parity to children from families that can and will.
22
The people who originally came up the idea that integration was the answer to all that ails us later recanted their original thinking and revised their thinking to, it wasn’t integration that made the critical difference, it was daily association with different/upper economic kids that actually made the difference.
5
Yes, this article is right:
Ms. Harris's messaging was terrible, both from the policy perspective and in terms of how it plays in partisan politics.
12
I teach at a low income middle school in California. At Christmas last year we had 87 homeless students on roster. We also have students who have parents in jail, on drugs or dead. If what we are seeking is equality of outcome, we need to change how we staff and fund schools. Right now every school gets the same staffing, regardless of student needs. This is nonsensical because the needs aren't equal. My students live with great uncertainly and trauma. This effects their ability to function in school. We need at least double the number of guidance counselors as schools with students with more stable lives. We also have many students with no one at home who can help them with homework. We need better funding for after school homework support programs. Finally, school for children of high income parents can fund raise for special opportunities like field trips and assemblies. We can't has our parents have no money to contribute. To provide and equal experience we need money to provide these opportunities. The children are not at fault, they deserve an equal shot at an education.
10
@Kim I hope you really mean “equality of opportunity” rather than “equality of outcome.”
Given inevitable differences in economic status, parental involvement, motivation, abilities, etc. among students, there is no way in the world to guarantee equality of outcome.
I believe equality of opportunity is the goal we should be aiming for.
13
@Mon Ray I agree in part. But equal opportunity will always come at a cost, effectively nullifying the idea of equal opportunity. We as a country should just agree that not only are equal outcomes not possible, but equal opportunity isn't either.
The *best* question I think is this: "Why do we expect schools to fix failures in urban planning?"
This is what we are constantly asking our community school district here in Iowa City to do while the City of Iowa City and our other regional municipalities served by the same school district persist in supporting policies that reinforce single-family zoning, economic and racial segregation, and urban sprawl.
2
How are communities that intentionally block economic and racial integration identified? What policies or procedures, subtle or unsubtle, are they using? The article mentioned "neighborhood schools" and school zoning within a school district as one. What are the others? Would the new gerrymandering software and data help ferret this out?
Regarding measures to equalize school funding across state school districts... I've witnessed wealthier communities utilize private donations to support their district programming. Should we be scrutinizing these public-private partnerships more closely?
1
Decouple for a moment - just a moment, because of course it counts - race from economic strata. Would we still see affluent people moving to ever more affluent communities that fund and support schools more, and which focus highly on maintaining top tier students and focusing resources on college prep?
Of course we would.
The subject is tangled. Race, poverty, opportunity, affluence, funding and resources, and the nature of where each school focuses its resources are all part of the picture.
Affluent people are looking for communities that value academics and schools which focus resources on the top tiers; they fear schools which must put the resource on fostering and improving the least academically prepared students.
When you combine that impulse with the toxicity of racial discrimination, you end up with a problem which just plainly has no easy solution. Being pro- or anti- busing isn't just about race, it is about resources. We could get past race. We cannot get past classism.
If you were to ask me if I were "for busing" I'd be inclined to answer no. But the reason is that I'd foresee any community forced into busing simply stratifying their schools - with enrichment programs, AP programs, gifted programs - that would create a wealthy sub-school within the larger school.
I'd see an expensive solution with no real change in outcome. And that is the complexity of trying a simple answer to desegregation.
3
Check out this math: In fall 2018 there were 1,135,334 students in the NYC school system, only 15% (170,300) of whom were white. There were 1,840 public schools (including charters), with an average of 617 students per school. (Source: NYC Dept of Ed)
The tiny percentage of white students means that the closest NYC can come to integrating its schools is to place an equal number of white students into each of the City's schools, which would mean an average of 93 white students per school and an average of 524 non-white students per school.
The Mayor and the School Superintendent seem to believe that mixing white students with minority students is the only way to improve educational outcomes for all students, but I don't think 93 white students per school is enough to accomplish that goal. (And isn't it insulting to minority students to suggest that they need exposure to white students to improve or succeed in school?)
This shortage of white students exists in virtually every urban area, and attempts to force integration by busing or by re-zoning school districts will make further white flight to the suburbs or private schools inevitable.
There are simply not enough white students to spread around NYC or other cities’ public schools; the solution to the problem of variable student outcomes and opportunities is to acknowledge that residential and economic segregation exist and focus efforts and funds on improving education at ALL public schools.
19
@Mon Ray Maybe we should look at cutting the state tax deductions for which parents of private school students are eligible. In Wisconsin, the subtraction from income is: $4,000 for tuition paid for an elementary pupil and $10,000 for a secondary pupil. (www.revenue.wi.gov/...)
3
@Mon Ray: The integration plan you mention was exactly what was foisted on Detroit. About 28% of the public school students in the district were white. Each school was forced to reflect that demographic.
Cross district busing was struck down by the SCOTUS.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting your children to attend their local neighborhood public schools - nothing!
The Democratic Party and it's supporters need to become honest in their dealings with the issue of busing for public school integration.
Now back to hammering on the folks in flyover country.
5
Matthew Delmost thinks the real question should be: If we actually care about education for students of color and low-income students, what kinds of school and housing policies will make things better a decade from now?
The question announces its own biases, presuming the problems of education are caused by housing and school policies that could be changed so as to yield competent students. Why doesn't someone suggest that the abysmal quality of educational results are linked primarily to the so-called educators? These are the people who announced that they had a technique called "teaching" which could be taught as a discipline in teaching programs and certified by departments of education so as to form competent teachers who would be able to form, in turn, competent students. But decades of programs from university and government departments of education show that these people have clearly failed at their fundamental tasks, and I think we should be looking to reform the whole sorry Education Establishment, if not simply tear it down and start from scratch.
6
I will grant you that too many teachers today could do with some more schooling themselves. And not at so-called schools of education, where lots of progressive hogwash is promulgated.
But these teachers are not wholly responsible for our mess.
Years ago, when "the community" became involved in neighborhood public schools, experienced teachers were transferred to other districts because they were thought unsympathetic to students. Understanding is a requirement in a fine teacher; sympathizing (and excusing) can be deadly.
And there you have the beginnings of our sad state of education in New York City: parents who blamed their children's lack of progress on perfectly competent teachers instead of on their own failings as parents -- and who thought they knew better than seasoned teachers. Why weren't their children reading? studying? staying off the streets? Oh, the kids ended up getting through high school and even, some of them, going on to college. But as far as being well educated goes --.
Shortly afterwards, our once-magnificent CUNY system began open enrollment because getting in the old-fashioned way -- by getting good grades -- was considered discriminatory.
For heaven's sake, parents are children's first teachers. The ability to focus, patience, perseverance, and manners get taught before a child goes to elementary school. If not, it's too late.
10
@B.
Seems verboten to hold parents responsible. Easier to blame everything and everyone else. Problem is when everyone is responsible, no one is.
We should have schools for parents.
7
Busing little children wasn't ambitious enough for progressives -- they want to social engineer away any remaining functional neighborhoods!
28
' Busing' is an intentionally inflammatory rhetorical device like ' integration ' and 'segregation' meant to invoke the best and worst demons of America's black African American enslaved and separate and unequal color aka race history.
The Founding Fathers created a divided limited different power constitutional republic of united states that never used the words democracy nor slavery nor man nor woman nor color nor race.
Americans bus their kids to school every day.
And the color of those kids reflects the continuing scourge of white European American Judeo-Christian majority supremacist history on black and brown African and Native American lives.
Neither condescending paternalistic liberal white pity nor condescending paternalistic conservative white contempt accepts the diverse individual accountable humanity of black African men. women and children in America.
See Frederick Douglass on the meaning of the 4th of July to enslaved black Africans. See Abraham Lincoln's 1st and 2nd Inaugural Address and his Gettysburg Address and his last speech from the White House. See Martin Luther King. Jr. Dream speech
The name of the great American traitor stains too many American schools. Those names should be replaced with the greatest humble humane empathetic white European Christian American ever aka John Brown.
A vast database assembled by Sean Reardon of Stanford’s Center for Education Policy Analysis demonstrates that the biggest racial divides in school achievement are found in highly liberal districts. https://www.takimag.com/article/san-francisco-vs-frisco/
8
@H. L. Mencken Blame the libs! And the commies!
Much of real geniuses here.
1
The best question is not to bring it up.
It will be lethal for any hopes of a democrat winning the WH in 2020.
Lethal.
27
I'm not interested in the government social engineering us. Leave us alone.
30
@Ed Racism has been socially engineered in our government since its founding. What you are saying here is: As long as it works for me, I'm fine with it. However, when righting a past injustice, I want no part of it.
3
Despite the author trying to soft pedal it, the question “Do You support busing today?” is important. It’s amusing to watch the far left squirm trying to balance the PC answer with the reality that the issue is toxic to the rest of the political spectrum. Witness Sen. Harris walking back her attack on Joe Biden the following day to minimize the damage.
21
Dad was transferred from NYC to Richmond, Va in the 60’s. My parents first choice for a home there was in a fancy enclave not a mile from the famous Monument Avenue but they moved to the county of Chesterfield instead. The County had a better education record. We were only there a couple years before our neighborhood was annexed into the city.
My parents were liberal Dems and I am glad that I grew up in that environment but don’t get it twisted; white kids suffered under busing too. I only spent my senior year in my public high school and wasn’t bussed. Ironically, though I had wanted to go to private school but was told, “we couldn’t afford it”.
My sister, five years younger was bussed her first year of high school. She got up at 5 am and left at 6. She was bussed to a very rough part of Richmond. Within the first three months, my sister was beaten up badly on her school bus; twice. Soon after she was enrolled in the private school we couldn’t afford.
This narrative is oft lost in the whole bussing debate. It was lousy for white kids too; especially in cities with a history of racism. How ironic for two white kids from NYC with liberal parents.
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@Another Time The story you told is not new, but talking about it ruins the simplistic narrative doesn’t it? There are thousands and thousands of us. But our story is absent because we also became a talking point for racists. Shame on racists, but also shame on the progressives who refuse to acknowledge the facts.
I went to an integrated elementary school. Mid 70s MD school district that just started implementing bussing. Then took a two year hiatus at a private school for junior high because kids of my color were getting physically assaulted at the junior high school.
BOTH white and black kids were being shuttled around for a cause. While my parents believed in the cause, it would not be at my physical expense. No parent wants his/her kid to be beat up for an ideal.
After two years at a lousy (but safe) parochial school (the only one my parents could afford) I returned to an integrated and safe public school. My younger brother attended a new and improved integrated junior high in the neighborhood that didn’t tolerate kids being treated like punching bags.
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One aspect in this otherwise fine column by Ms Badger that was omitted was the impact of stable family life and, yes, middle class values on a child's education.
Let's dispense with the name calling about racism in this discussion. The issue is the welfare and life opportunities for children born into poor minority communities.
Let's dispense with the comforting lie that money is the answer to this problem. It is a factor, but it is not the critical factor.
To seriously change the educational and life opportunities for poor minority kids the following must occur:
1. More qualified teachers are needed; "qualified" means both subject matter expertise and teaching skills. They need smaller classrooms that are matched to the demonstrated intellectual development of the children.
2. Teachers are not baby sitters, family counselors or police. Let them teach. Deal with other social issues with other policies.
3. Structure curricula to develop critical thinking, articulate communications, rational problem solving. Leave the social agenda items in the street.
4. Get rid of the disastrous emphasis linking testing to professional teaching career. It has perverted too many school administrations into fraudulent practices..
5. Family structure, values and attitudes toward learning are the critical issue, dwarfing all others. Until poor minority kids and their parent actually change their dysfunctional culture, nothing will change.
Nothing. You can bet on it.
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@TDurk Bravo!! Well done!
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@TDurk
I appreciate another of your thoughtful comments from Rochester.
But why end with 5 (fifth point) that "dwarfs all others"?
Traditional liberals are living within some fantasy economic framework. Did our society buy its way to the differential successes of African Americans in athletics or of Asians in technical fields?
Any significantly integrated school system (like in Rochester) has two unstated prime (PC) directives. 1. Avoid appearances that suggests that African American kids are more likely to be weakly inclined academically (readers might imagine running a competitive basketball program will a similar directive applied to Asian kids). 2. Avoid appearances that African American kids are more likely to misbehave. These directives have greatly hurt integrated schools.
The contrary phenomena are obvious and shows up in comments in a number of NYT articles but never show up in academic/liberal/NYT coverage. Readers can check out the Readers Picks comments for the recent “San Francisco had an ambitious plan to Tackle School Segregation. It Made it Worse” article for samples.
CULTURE is a gargantuan factor in life.
The biggest deleterious form of RACISM in our society today is the tendency amongst African American kids to bailout on learning to the tune of “Don’t Be/Act White”. Nothing hurts their future more than this educational U-turn.
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@TDurk been in the classroom for more than 30 years. could not have said it better myself. family culture is critical.
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Busing is complex. There are other threads to consider including community formation, and hence local school formation. Community formation includes affinity for like behaviors including how education is dealt with inclusive of family participation. Segregation once was a concept of enforcement preventing mobility. Today the term segregation has morphed to describe groups that aren’t fully intermixed. Odd as freedom of association is in evidence. One could argue it’s that folks live with other like folks, especially when it comes to community. An obvious tautology.
- Why is it when efforts to equalize educational results between identity groups that include money, “looks like me”staffing, and free meals don’t typically show those performance gaps being closed.
- Given Asians outperform whites, why not recast the standard of equality using Asians?
- Why not bus students of color into Asian communities?
- Why bus students of color to other communities, rather bus those high performing students into the underperforming schools.
In addressing the above rhetorical questions, a more honest conversation of the problems can occur.
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@Byron I'm always suspicious when people say integration of schools is a 'complex' issue. Was slavery a 'complex' issue? Maybe, but we don't see it that way today.
If you go any modern college campus today, students self-segregate by various traits, including race.
Is it not possible that people, in general, are most comfortable around people like them?
Forced busing was always bad, suggesting that added coercion and government controls over liberty were a good thing. Clearly, making the poor schools better would be a wiser solution.
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@David "Birds of a feather should flock together". That your philosophy?
@David
Self-segregation is actually encouraged and even celebrated today. This is consistent with the new identity orthodoxy. If you disagree, you'll be labeled a "racist". In fact, if you insist on color blindness, you are considered a "racist".
5
it is a little bit shocking that this article does absolutely nothing to explore the wealth of data we have on the impact of busing and why it failed.
The bizarre uniform quotes about how "busing is the wrong question" comes off almost thought-police-like.
WHY is "supporting busing" the "wrong question"? what went wrong with busing?
Was there some kind of grand Summit of the Liberals held and it was decreed we aren't allowed to ask WHY exactly busing was problematic?
We should simply robotically pivot to revamping housing policy?
18
In Asheville, NC, school desegregation was devastating to the black community. It migrated black students from schools filled with highly motivated black teachers who on average had masters degrees to schools with white teachers of lesser qualification where blacks were minority students and subjected to the implicit biases of faculty and students. Black students went from being regarded as rising stars in the black community with all the attendant responsibilities to do well, to being regarded with suspicion and as unwanted. It was in these newly integrated schools that the "school to prison pipeline" was first established in Asheville as black students were disciplined, suspended and expelled at a much higher rate and more severely than their white peers. The black teachers at the now defunct segregated schools were, for the most part, not hired to teach in the newly integrated school system and subsequently left Asheville for cities that would employ them. Their exodus corresponded with a long diminution of black professionals in Asheville. In sum, school integration, including bussing was a white majority plan to address legally imposed requirements to integrate the schools with minimum impact on the white community and little regard for the black community. In retrospect, it's hard to say this wasn't intentional.
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@JackL: Were white students bused? If so how were they affected?
Perhaps they can share their experiences....
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@Jack
It was pure liberalism in all its misguidedness.
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@Jack
"this wasn't intentional"? Please - the forces behind these integration measures have been profoundly motivated to try to improve black student achievement. The fact that this has not helped African American students is certainly not by design.
Across the aisle in athletics have African Americans been hurt by integration efforts?
Where there is a will there is a way. More African Americans need to get on board with educational commitment and more liberals need to stop inventing excuses.
Finally, if you want to see academic success in the pre-integration era you should look to schools like Dunbar in D.C. Thomas Sowell has regularly pointed this out. And I doubt their faculty was largely black and their mentality was old school (athletics-like).
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I support integrated schools, neighborhoods and municipalities. I do not support using local real estate taxes to fund local schools. There should be a state "kitty" (an untouchable trust,) divided equally among ALL schools. Higher wages, job training, health care for all, and affordable housing will have to be part of equal education. Tolerance training should be an integral part of all public education. Rich people should NOT be the only ones who can get a complete education, and have decent food, shelter, and sense of security. This country is for all of us. For 50 years, rich people have steadily built this class conflict, with their ruthlessness, lawlessness, arrogance, and greed. The rest of us have paid dearly for it.
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During the Depression, my parents, both children of very poor immigrants, received excellent educations in their overcrowded New York City public schools. Indeed, they earned "complete educations," as you put it, if by that you mean being graduated with decently high grades and a respect for learning that kept them reading all their lives.
Black students with good parents even in those foul Jim Crow years did well in their schools too, and even in their segregated schools, and that despite lousy outdated textbooks and haphazard facilities.
Good parents of all creeds and colors produce responsible, hardworking kids. It's not the money.
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Rural American children get bused -- to consolidated schools in communities up to 60 miles away. Some students in remote areas take ferries to school at some point in their time as a student. Parents don't worry about the child being 10 miles away -- that's where the school is and the school should be a safe space. The anti-busing movement is and was a racist and urban movement. People who managed to buy homes in good parts of a city didn't want their children to have to attend schools is less good parts of town. Fear was paramount. Those same parents don't mind having children bused 20 miles to a good private school. Until we are committed to an equitable distribution of services and money at all schools, we need to bus students to kick-start the equal involvement of everyone in public education at all schools.
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Charlotte, NC currently has one of the largest School Transportation budgets in the country, I think, right behind LA’s. Mecklenburg County has many square miles, and many magnet schools and programs that our open to any student in the name of “opportunity”. While “opportunity” might be a worthy goal, There are many goals that would be beneficial for ALL students and residents of Mecklenburg County, such as: 1) no student should spend more than an hour on the bus a day (especially after full day Kindergarten), and a large percentage of students do.
2) The bus system is so cryptic that most parents with cars drive their kids to school. I live right by the largest HS in the state, and 20 mostly empty busses drive by me twice a day. Limit usage of busses to a particular area, and make students sign up for it, and traffic and air quality will improve for ALL.
3) change the start time of HS to after 8:00. It is currently 7:15 for Mecklenburg County HSs because of the excessive bussing (and sports, but don’t mention SPORTS because that’s not the reason (snort)). Later start times are better for ALL students, and probably teachers and residents too.
4) Housing. Get homeless students housed. And fed.
5) perhaps some redistricting can be in order, making sure no kid is transported more than a half hour from their house.
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Many minority kids bused to 'better / white " schools were segregated anyway by predominating in various special ed. classes because they were behind academically; as well, they were socially acting out, not happy or supported in these schools, etc. Parents of bused kids were not happy either, in many instances. Teachers were unprepared and under- aware of the challenges. Busing was and is not a sharp tool. There are better but harder ways to help ameliorate education segregation than forcing children to ride uncomfortable buses to uncomfortable situations in schools where they are surrounded by strangers.. We need a high rate of tax dollars appropriated to schools in poorer areas. Make these schools shining examples of compassion and dedication and success by paying teachers well who know what that looks like and by providing the school plants with the facilities and materials that will help children succeed - as in the best schools in Wellesley or Berkeley.... Change state funding formulas. Establish private-public investments, making sure that inner city and poor rural schools get the funding they need. Require the school community's involvement. These schools need wrap-around services. They can be hubs for the neighborhoods and city itself. Not new ideas, these, but ones that need state funding and popular and political support...i.e. the WILL and commitment to do this .......our children deserve no less.
8
This whole revived debate about busing ignores vastly changed demographics during the past 50 years. Busing was largley designed for a largely black-white America in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, more than 75% of the Los Angeles Unified School District is Latinos; less than 10% are white. Many urban and suburban areas are a mosaic of many ethnicities, languages, cultures. So who gets bused and why? Also: what does attempted social engineering using fleets of school buses do for global warming, climate change, etc? Time to move on.
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Seattle voters approved busing for the purpose of desegregation in the late 1970s.
In the late 1990s the school district ended the practice with the idea that all schools, in all communities, should be effective and worthy of attendance, while honoring the existing communities.
While conceptually busing is a means to express your commitment to equal opportunity, creating good schools everywhere is a means to provide educational equity in communities.
Equity is the important word here.
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@Chauncey Gardner
What makes equity more important than equal opportunity?
Isn't (or rather, shouldn't) equal opportunity be the bedrock of achieving equity?
1
@Chauncey Gardner That concept of "equity" sounds a lot like "separate but equal." Which is inherently unequal because white people are no more likely today than in 1954 to support spending the immense cost to provide Black and brown children in separate dual systems with the necessary resources.
@Viv
Equity means you provide what's needed, not necessarily the same piece of pizza.
1
In a more mobile and sharing society busing is anachronistic. It was a simple and effective solution to a terrible problem of integration 60 years ago. But it has lost its effectiveness and has become unnecessary. Today education... improved local schools is the new integration. Parents/students waste at least 2 hours a day traveling to their bussed schools. What a waste. And the children are in unfamiliar neighborhoods far from home in case of emergencies. People of color are in every aspect of modern life. But society will be better off when local schools are improved by the money saved from busing.
7
The problem is so much busing as the enduring and endemic racism that makes it necessary in the first place, because it's no hidden secret that "separate but equal" is only separate and unequal when it comes to schools, housing , job opportunities and just about everything else on the American landscape.
That's why the real question is, and ought to be: What can be done to change that?
4
@N. Smith One of the major obstacles to equal opportunity for education is the way we fund our public schools. As long as education depends on local taxes, their will be inequality of opportunity.
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@Robert Gonzales
The problem here is far greater than just the unequal funding of schools.
It starts with the institutionalized racism embedded in this country's history.
1
In the mid 90’s my family moved from the northeast to Charlotte, NC. I volunteered at our son’s public school to be one of the Junior Great Books parent coordinators. Two of the other parents, both moms, were very unhappy that the children who were bussed into the school could participate free of charge, while their kids were required to pay for the book.
It shocked me, as it made me realize that something I had thought had been “solved” in the 60’s was not being solved at all by the children being forced to do that which few of the adults around them ever wanted to do.
I don’t think things have gotten better.
2
@Amie Schantz, what’s wrong with objecting to one race of children being required to pay while the other gets everything for free? That’s not racism, it’s a common reaction to injustice.
2
Lots of excellent points here. Harris still seems confused by the question, with many changes in her position since the debate. One point missed about the white flight that underlies school segregation: Perhaps the biggest motivation for this is the perception, true or false (in many neighborhoods, true) that crime is more prevalent in African American areas. I think this also explains the increased drop-out rates in these neighborhoods. I think some of the suggestions by the writer will help. Let's not ignore obvious facts for fear for retribution. Let's also not forget that busing is very unpopular among African Americans.
15
@Michael Cameron You mean people prefer not to have the government force them to drive for a long time to go elsewhere rather than just providing good schools to all?
Government is the typically the problem; they don't do equal protection under the law, and then fix their ills with more force and more expenses unrelated to good education.
9
@Michael Cameron Poor school discipline is also an issue that is often raised. Parents of all races will be reluctant to send their kids to school with classmates who are disruptive in the classroom or who are behind academically and will take up a great deal of the teacher’s time. The teachers in this state have been complaining recently about students who physically and verbally attack them and classmates and school principals that don’t deal with the problem, often because the kids have an IEP or have trauma in their backgrounds. That doesn’t necessarily have as much to do with race as it does with socioeconomics and the home culture, but it’s a factor to consider if you want more upper middle class white or Asian parents to send kids to public schools with a large percentage of classmates who are poor and from single parent households. As they get older, parents also worry about negative peer influence. A lot of the people I know are either home schooling their kids or have sacrificed to put them in private school.
12
This is the most important problem that is breaking the fabric of the United States from bottom to top. The solutions are painful and costly, but it should be compared to treating a patient severely suffering an acute disease and near death, who is not DNR. This is why investment and "treatment" needs to go to the poorest neighborhoods and the poorest performing neighborhood schools. The past 30 years this problem has been treated by punishing the sickest schools and nurturing the healthiest. This would never be tolerated by the public in human health services but it has been the practice practically everywhere since the Clinton education initiatives of the 1990's. Clinton's big budget initiative included money for desegregation. One element was for regional magnet schools that targeted a region that included high density poverty with affluent neighborhoods. It created broader districts that provided busing for families who chose to attend. Sadly, this model was scrapped even though some of these schools outperformed their high performing middle class schools.
Clinton's tenure saw an infusion of funding that allowed for teachers to get many benefits that were scrapped with Bush, including free tuition for graduate level courses, with some of these courses taught on site at the schools. The free courses added up to pay increases as teachers were able to build towards Master and Doctorate levels without the expense and with additional conveniences and incentives.
4
@Steve C. You said:
"This would never be tolerated by the public in human health services ..." ???
Poor and minorities suffer profound discrimination in health care / health services in US as well as in education.......the rest of your statements re: magnet schools, teacher benefits, reflect reality. And, of course, you're correct: more funds need to go to the neediest schools, not the "best performing."
2
As of policies against social and racial segregation at schools, may I suggest to look at approaches in other countries?
A good start with is Viennas, the capital of Austria. Vienna's social housing projects are (almost) everywhere. Furthermore, in giving funds to schools for elite projects (like bilingual English-German tuition), the city hall chooses schools in low-income , neighborhood and/or , neighborhood with rates of migrants what leads to kids of well-off families going to schools in those neighborhoods - a sort of reversed busing, if you like. This is possible thanks among other to an impressive public transportation network: safe (even for unaccompanied minors), reaching every place, and very cheap: the cheapest fare is about 1$ a day for the whole city network for adults and cheaper for kids enrolled in schools. Finally, educational standards in Viennas's public schools are among the best worldwide even compared with private schools.
9
For me, however, it was the best question Harris could have asked Biden because it gave me the clarity to see that Biden is the right candidate today -- he has lived through these issues with his heart in the right place.
No one is perfect, but the back and forth crystalized in my mind that his wealth of experience combined with temperament makes him my ideal candidate, not just "less of the evils".
The question also illuminated what a unprincipled opportunist and flip-flopper Harris is and, regrettably, how Buttigieg's lack of experience, much as I adore him, may not be up to the job given the enormous stakes.
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@Concerned American
Harris' question cuts both ways. It shows how slow and unprepared Biden is in thinking on his feet. And, it shows how unprincipled Harris is.
14
@Amy
I thought that at first, but now I think he didn't want to get mired in the mud. I do think he'll be more prepare at the next debate for "friendly" fire.
2
It seems that a big issue, when you cut through the rhetoric, is having minority children attend schools that are majority white. Fine, but we are hearing more and more that the public school systems are becoming majority minority, especially in the lower grades, which will in time advance to all grades. This is already the case in California.
So what happens when there are fewer and fewer white students compared to more and more minority students, particularly if many of remaining white students' parents opt for private over public schools?
We know the answer: CA, whose K-12 public schools used to be among the best in the US, is now ranked 44th, just slightly ahead of AL & MS. CA is growing because of immigration but the growth is offset by middle class people leaving in droves. It has the greatest income inequality in the US.
It is a robust middle-class that makes for great public schools. The rich can always afford private education.
Fairfax County VA, whose schools were among the best in the nation, is seeing some of this. About 2 years ago there was an article noting that FFC was having trouble replacing old science equipment even at its premier STEM school while mandated special ed, ESL and free lunches were soaring.
Parents who had bought over-priced houses there because of the great public schools were now thinking private school. I suspect they may be rethinking living in high-tax FFC as well and they'll find fewer buyers and lower prices if they sell.
14
I think most black and white parents would agree that urban schools generally provide relatively poor education while suburban schools generally provide relatively good education.
The simple test of this concept would be to see how many black urban parents would sign up to send their kids to suburban schools vs how many white suburban parents would sign up to send their kids to urban schools.
I think Kamala Harris, herself a child of privilege, will soon have to confront reality and recalibrate her campaign strategy when potential voters realize that she is in favor of federal support of and involvement in busing white and black schoolchildren to create integrated schools. (See her comments on this in the recent HuffPost.)
Busing was politically toxic in the 1970s and 1980s and is no less so today. If the 2020 Democratic platform includes federally mandated busing of black children to suburban schools and busing white children to urban schools, we are doomed to a second Trump term.
56
@Mon Ray If that were the democratic ideal, then Trump is in fact better. Force isn't the answer. Funding for better schools, school choice for public schools that refuse to be any better, and an acceptance that not all kids should be in school if they disrupt others.
4
Busing failed. Lived through that and it was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.
We need to cut class size way down, which means hiring more teachers. We need to make schools safe so kids can focus on learning. We need to fully fund all schools equally.
If we can afford a trillion dollar tax cut for the wealthy we can afford to spend on the future; which is what school kids are.
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@A
lets make American education great again and for all children - get Elizabeth Warren on the problem!
1
In the 1960s I did some of the earliest research on busing black children from urban public schools to elite white suburban schools. Stresses on the black kids (travel time, hostility, overt racism, increased academic competition) were substantial, but much worse was the fact that the urban schools had not remotely prepared their students to compete at the same grade levels as their suburban peers.
Integration is a worthy goal, but:
1. The assumption that mixing black kids with white kids will somehow improve the black kids is insulting to blacks.
2. Mixing students of very different academic abilities will force teachers in the elite schools to teach down to the lowest common denominators, thus short-changing the high performers.
3. With large gaps between high- and low-performing schools, the former will need to provide substantial counseling and tutoring services to help the incoming students try to catch up with the higher-performing students and cope with the stresses of a more demanding academic environment.
4. The parents of many students who are forced to attend low-performing schools will likely consider switching to private schools or relocating to the suburbs, thus reducing even further the number of white students in urban public school systems.
The answer is not to try to spread the relatively small numbers and percentages of urban white students proportionally across all urban schools, but to improve ALL urban schools.
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@Mon Ray- Your last sentence is the key," but to improve ALL urban schools."
The three best ways to do it is :
1-Involvement of the parents.
2-Involvement of the parents.
3-Involvement of the parents.
Harris bringing up busing pretty much killed any chance of her getting the nomination and even if so a drubbing by Trump.
24
@Mon Ray
Superb comment.
4
@Paul
While involvement of the parents is obviously important, it is often not within the power of the schools to achieve this. The parents may both be working long hours or maybe simply not have the parenting skills necessary. But at the very least, society should fund all schools equally so that all children have the best chance to achieve to their highest potential.
Twenty years ago, I also opposed school busing, not because I am racist (I'm not), but because I did not want my kids bussed to an inferior school. I want all schools, whether they serve whites or minorities, to provide high quality education, and that requires equal funding, at the very least.
When Kamala Harris attacks Biden for his busing record, she is also attacking me, a Democrat. I really hope she doesn't get the nomination.
4
I appreciate the thoughtful analysis. Media outlets like the Times might ask themselves and their reporters to consider how they could cover the political discourse showing that there are many factors behind issues like de facto segregation of schools. To make these points in reporting the debate on busing. To include such commentary nearer to the headline and not leave it to a few lines at the bottom or an opinion piece. Educating the citizenry is important. It may not sell papers or generate advertising, nonetheless...
17