RALEIGH -- A call for equality in education took on an urgent and personal tone Saturday as protesters decried the potential end to the Wake County school system's policy of busing students for socioeconomic diversity.
The fourth annual march and rally, called HK on J, for Historic Thousands on Jones Street, drew a racially diverse crowd representing a wide range of local and national interests, from immigration reform to job creation. But it was the broad changes pending for the state's largest school district, which opponents condemn as a move to re-segregate schools, that drew some of the most pointed criticism.
"Hey-hey, ho-ho, John Tedesco's got to go," some shouted, as Duke University historian Tim Tyson led marchers in a chant aimed at the Wake school board member, one in the new majority moving the system toward neighborhood schools. The crowd, which stretched about two city blocks, walked through downtown Raleigh to the Legislative Building, where Tyson stood onstage at the microphone.
The Wake board is expected this week to approve a resolution calling for students to be assigned to schools in their own communities. The pending changes have attracted national attention. The New York Times published a story about Wake schools ending busing for economic diversity on its Web site Saturday.
"You can call it neighborhood schools or whatever you want to call it," said the Rev. William Barber, state NAACP president. The "resurgent policies of desegregation," he said, will "create private schools with public dollars."
Tedesco, reached by telephone, said he values diversity and that his detractors misunderstand his intentions.
"Some of the current practices unjustly hurt the low-income community rather than help them," Tedesco said. He pointed to low-income parents who lack the transportation to get to schools their children attend, and to a finding that only 40 percent of eligible black and Hispanic students in Wake were taking Algebra I in eighth grade, compared to nearly 60 percent of white students.
Community schools will put the focus on improving results for low-income students rather than moving them to disguise problems, he said.
"We're trying to help a community that's been ignored for too long," he said.
Jocelyn Wilson, an Enloe High School junior, told the crowd that re-segregating schools will hurt all students.
"Students raised in an environment that doesn't go beyond their own reflection cannot be fully equipped to succeed in society," she said.
Tom O'Connor of Raleigh does not have children in Wake schools but came to show opposition to the school board majority's plan because he considers it "a big step backward."
"I'm just concerned about the future of Wake County and making sure all children get a good education," he said. "It will affect all of us in the future."
