The Chance To Choose

The issue of School Choice is back in the news. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled against diversity plans in two cities in two different states because of racially based guidelines. The Court ruled those guidelines to be unconstitutional.

As the kids used to say, well, Duh. I’ve had a problem with School Choice for years, because it isn’t. It isn’t a choice for everyone.

In the case in Louisville, Kentucky, a little boy wanted to go to the school near his home. He wasn’t allowed to. By law, he had to attend another school that was farther from his home.

Why did the law make him attend the other school? Because he was white. Think about that for a minute. I’m not trying to be inflammatory. But flip this around and think about what would happen if that boy had not been white. If he had not been allowed to attend a school, and the reason given was because he was black.

It would have been screamed from every news agency in the country. People would have been outraged, including me. And so they should have been. You should not be denied access to a school based on your skin color, regardless of what that skin color is, black or white.

This is what the boy’s mother, Crystal Meredith, had to say.
"We are not here because we didn’t get our first choice, but because we got no choice. I was told by the school board that my son’s education was not as important as their plan. I was told I should sacrifice his learning in order to maintain the status quo."

Meredith’s son now must ride the bus for three hours a day to get to the school not that his parent who knows him best chose, but that was chosen for him by a system based on skin color.
Discrimination is discrimination. If it is wrong not to allow a black child to attend school because simply they are black, it is wrong not to allow a white child to attend school simply because they are white.

But that is exactly what School(not)Choice does. Black children in that live in Blytheville can attend Blytheville, Gosnell or Armorel, as long as that district has room for the additional students. White children that live in Blytheville can not.

The reasoning behind the law is to avoid segregating the schools. But we are segregated already. By choice, by circumstance, by reality. We segregate ourselves anyway. We choose what neighborhood we are going to live in. We choose what church we are going to attend. We choose what job we are going to work at. We choose what sport we are going to participate in. We choose what friends we are going to associate with.

We don’t necessarily base those choices on skin color, but with each choice, we put ourselves into a certain group of people. We choose to be in this group, and therefore choose not to join in with that group over there.

Attempting to desegregate schools has proven to be a failure, time and time again.
Growing up, my sister and I attended the monstrosity known as the Pulaski County Special School District. It was named that because it included parts of Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood, Sylvan Hills, and Jacksonville.

It was the largest school district in the state, and its goal was desegregation. It tried for close to fifty years, and it failed. I lived near schools that were just minutes away, but was bussed across town. My sister was bussed miles away on the interstate to another city, all in the name of trying to mix us all up into some perfectly balanced formula.

It didn’t work. People moved away in order to let their children attend the school the parents chose, as opposed to letting their children be a pawn in some mathematical form of political correctness.

I’m not against our local schools. I am an outspoken supporter of them. I have friends I treasure that started out as simply my son’s teacher. Our local schools have nothing to do with the School Choice laws. They didn’t make the laws, they just bear the burden of enforcing them.

This is a flawed law. Discrimination is always wrong, no matter who it is directed against. The School Choice law doesn’t give everyone a choice. It needs to be re-written, so that School Choice is truly a choice for every parent and every student, regardless of their skin color.