posted January 17, 2014 10:48 AM            

http://abcnews.go.com/US/white-separatist-claims-make-america/story?id=21466004

posted January 17, 2014 06:24 PM            

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But over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course. Pledging to "say no to the social engineers!" it has abolished the policy behind one of the nation's most celebrated integration efforts.

And as the board moves toward a system in which students attend neighborhood schools, some members are embracing the provocative idea that concentrating poor children, who are usually minorities, in a few schools could have merits - logic that critics are blasting as a 21st-century case for segregation.

The situation unfolding here in some ways represents a first foray of tea party conservatives into the business of shaping a public school system, and it has made Wake County the center of a fierce debate over the principle first enshrined in the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education: that diversity and quality education go hand in hand.

The new school board has won applause from parents who blame the old policy - which sought to avoid high-poverty, racially isolated schools - for an array of problems in the district and who say that promoting diversity is no longer a proper or necessary goal for public schools.

"This is Raleigh in 2010, not Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s - my life is integrated," said John Tedesco, a new board member. "We need new paradigms."

But critics accuse the new board of pursuing an ideological agenda aimed at nothing less than sounding the official death knell of government-sponsored integration in one of the last places to promote it. Without a diversity policy in place, they say, the county will inevitably slip into the pattern that defines most districts across the country, where schools in well-off neighborhoods are decent and those in poor, usually minority neighborhoods struggle.

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In their quest to end the diversity policy, the frustrated parents have found some influential partners, among them retail magnate and Republican operative Art Pope.

Following his guidance, the GOP fielded the victorious bloc of school board candidates who railed against "forced busing." The nation's largest tea party organizers, Americans for Prosperity - on whose national board Pope sits - cast the old school board members as arrogant "leftists." Two libertarian think tanks, which Pope funds almost exclusively, have deployed experts on TV and radio.

"We are losing sight of the educational mission of schools to make them into some socially acceptable melting pot," said Terry Stoops, a researcher at the libertarian John Locke Foundation. "Those who support these policies are imposing their vision on everyone else."

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posted January 18, 2014 09:34 AM            

We have seen what "diversity" means to the average person. Minorities over there, Wasps here, poor in this school, rich over there, Christians against non, gays back row, hetros up front and on & on ad nauseum.

Divide and conquer folks . We see it daily until most become numb and don`t notice.

It all scares the hells out of me and the future of our children and grandchildren.

posted January 19, 2014 08:38 PM            

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I'm generally not worried about fringe groups like that, especially when they're in their early 20s and younger. This, OTOH, was more disturbing to me:

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Agree. Should the infrastructure fail fringe groups will see their numbers multiply, but for now they remain contained.

The institutionalized separatism highlighted in your link is the greater immediate concern. That's genuinely frightening.

posted January 19, 2014 08:41 PM            

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Originally posted by juniperb:
As a lump sum, it is all twisted, ugly and the future of America as she sits now.

We have seen what "diversity" means to the average person. Minorities over there, Wasps here, poor in this school, rich over there, Christians against non, gays back row, hetros up front and on & on ad nauseum.

Divide and conquer folks . We see it daily until most become numb and don`t notice.

It all scares the hells out of me and the future of our children and grandchildren.

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culture war brewing

posted January 21, 2014 05:31 PM            

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Originally posted by shura:
culture war brewing

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I`m a survivor of the 6O`s culture war and it shaped my life. Hope the upcomming generation has the knowledge they have the power to find solutions instead of war.