Returning Home to an Odd Mixture of Progress and Retreat - Center For American Progress
Once a national model for school integration, Charlotte schools have regressed perhaps more than any other major city in the U. S. Today, one in three of Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools is isolated by class—meaning at least 80 percent of their... One half of our schools are isolated by race—meaning at least 80 percent of their students are of one race. In one in five schools, 95 percent of students are all of one race, termed “hypersegregation. So last month, I jumped at Cleghorn’s invitation to speak with a couple hundred people—a collection of civic, religious, and community activists—who gathered for a panel discussion to rally public support for ending the schools’ unequal outcomes... “We’re talking about equality of opportunity, giving every child an equal chance to succeed,” said James Ford of the Public School Forum of North Carolina. Ford was named North Carolina’s 2014-15 teacher of the year as a history teacher at Garinger High School, my old alma mater. “We’re going to make sure that isolation is no longer a factor for students of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,” he told a cheering group. The community forum came about in response to a recent school board decision to revise its student assignment plan with the goal of leveling off the concentrations of poverty that plague some schools, mostly those in the black neighborhoods at the... Source: www.americanprogress.org
