No Matter What Tedesco Says, Busing is Not a Problem for Wake County Schools
Patty Williams is the coordinator for Great Schools in Wake, a coalition of WakeUp Wake County.
John Adams famously wrote, "Facts are stubborn things," and indeed they are for Wake County School Board member John Tedesco, who is now spreading his false conclusions about Wake County schools on a national scale.
In an OpEd column by conservative Minnesota Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten, Tedesco claims that “busing for diversity” failed in our county, and Kersten gave him free reign to misinform her readers.
Kersten was writing in opposition to a plan by the Eden Prairie Board of Education to use socio-economic status as a factor in student assignment—the not-so-radical idea that education leaders should work to avoid the creation of high poverty schools.
A mountain of data shows that where there is concentrated poverty in a school, (1) recruiting and retaining high quality teachers and administrators is difficult, (2) student achievement suffers, and; (3) it costs more to educate each student. And contrary to Tedesco’s statement that “racial segregation has increased” in Wake County schools, a recent report published by Harvard University (“Segregation and Exposure to High‐Poverty Schools in Large Metropolitan Areas”) ranks Wake County among the least segregated metro areas for Black and Hispanic students.
Tedesco speaks against Wake’s past policies, but, in fact, fewer than five percent of students in Wake County are bused to avoid creating high-poverty schools. Years ago, school board members had the foresight to use socio-economic diversity as one of several criteria for student assignment.
As a result of this focus on maintaining healthy and balanced schools, only 15 of Wake’s 163 schools have a population of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch in excess of 60 percent.
Counter to the claim that the “affluent are fleeing to private schools,” North Carolina Department of Public Instruction data demonstrates that the percentage of students attending public school has remained remarkably stable over the past decade. In fact, from 2005-2010, Wake County netted an additional 3,110 students coming from charter, private, and home schools.
According to historical data, Tedesco’s assertion that test scores have dropped every year is also without merit. Achievement gaps among subgroups, including economically disadvantaged, Black, and Hispanic students have narrowed, as measured by the results of end of year testing. And our dropout rate is among the lowest in North Carolina (3.47% for the 2008-09). Graduation rates have dropped—but by a mere 1.1 percent overall over the past four years, during a period of rapid growth and overcrowding in the district. During the same period, graduation rates for economically disadvantaged students have increased.
Clearly, there is a great deal of room for improvement in student achievement in Wake County—show me a school district anywhere in the nation for which this isn’t true. We know we can and must do more for our Black and limited English proficiency students. Yet, rather than focus on student achievement, Tedesco and his like-minded board members have used an imaginary busing issue to demonize and politicize our school district at the expense of the children they were elected to serve.
Wake County schools have not been torn apart by “income-based busing,” as Tedesco claims. In fact 94.5% of the nearly 40,000 parents surveyed at his request earlier this year indicated that they were satisfied with their students’ assignment. Tedesco even called our schools an “academic mess.” This from a man elected to govern our schools! We have excellent schools, and a strong community whose passion for education is at an all time high. Many parents who voted for Tedesco and his majority cohort were looking for stability in assignments—not a complete and systematic destruction of the core values that drove the assignment policy. The only academic mess created is entirely due to the Board majority’s lack of focus on the classroom.
Finally, to counter the claim of Tedesco’s alleged “efficiency mess,” one need look no further than to the conservative Civitas Institute, whose recent study found Wake County to rank in the top quartile of cost-effective schools: “Wake County’s per-graduate cost was found to be nearly $20,000 below the average per-graduate cost” among North Carolina schools.
Sadly, student bullying has been a topic that we’ve heard all too frequently about of late. In Wake County, we are witnessing a new form of bullying in the relentlessly negative, highly charged rhetoric that Tedesco uses to taunt the public into thinking that our public schools are failing. I know many school districts that would envy a 78.4% graduation rate, a nationally acclaimed magnet program, and an average bus ride of 17 minutes in a county that spans 831 square miles.
Research shows conclusively that, in fact, using socio-economic diversity as a means of improving academic achievement boosts the achievement of all students. Just remember—diversity is the complexion of a 21st-century world.
But rest easy, those who care for children in Minnesota. Tedesco’s views did not prevail with a majority in the Eden Prairie schools system. In the end, their leaders were braver than Wake County’s current education regime: Eden Prairie’s Board of Education voted 5-4 to use socioeconomic status as one deciding factor in assigning students. They are headed in the moral direction—against creating high poverty schools or segregated schools. Why can’t we say the same in Raleigh and Wake County?
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WakeUP , Other posts by Andrew.
Tagged
Wake County School Board WakeUp John Tedesco Great Schools in Wake, Diversity Policy, Wake County Schools
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negativenelly
01/10 12:33 PM
News Flash - Wake County’s public schools needed a change. That is why the old board got voted out. All of these negative articles are getting boring. Enough already.
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WILLNCSU
01/10 12:51 PM
Im not sure about the Harvard study but the US census dissagrees…
http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/01/06/903746/raleigh-durham-neighborhoods-among.html#
Silly liberals! Anyone who thinks wake county is not “Diverse enough” probably spends all of their time riding bikes to Raleigh Times where only white hipsters hang out.
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positivepete
01/10 12:54 PM
News Flash - the current school board majority is filled with right-wing hacks who put their political ambitions above success for the schools. That’s why they hired a Breitbart columnist with 18 months experience to a four-year, quarter-million dollar contract. All of these negative articles are necessary to remind people what you get when you elect people who put political purity above the job that they’re supposed to be doing. More already!
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joe
01/10 02:27 PM
Does Tedesco even have an education himself? something beyond community college?
The good thing is every time he opens his mouth, his astounding lack of intelligence is reinforced.
Then again, he did ‘date a black girl’ once, which I suppose is like ‘staying an a Holiday Inn’ in terms of making one capable of Superman powers…..
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Arthurb3
01/10 03:09 PM
I say we just get rid of the school board! This way parents will have to pay to send their kids to school and I will not have to pay anything since I have no kids and I am tired of my tax money supporting something that I receive no benefit from. I want all my tax money to go to infrastructure and not schools!
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Josh
01/10 03:49 PM
Black people in the south want to see white people in their schools because they are afraid that if there is a school that doesn’t not have enough white people in it, they may not be getting the same resources as other schools.
This is what they have seen from experience and until that is addressed, this neighborhood school think will never go away.
Unfortunately, you have to implement the policy to provide the raw data to assuage their fears and as it stands, the political neophytes on the board are trying to build their political capital and their careers and the NAACP gets to convince their members that the organization is still relevant.
Neither side has any reason to compromise. -
Jeff S
01/10 04:46 PM
After all this time, I am still not sure what Tedesco’s goals are for the school system. I have heard very little from him that he hasn’t contradicted through his words or actions later.
It’s easy to be against something, but he has apparently found it much harder to bring replacement ideas to the table. Even the proposed school zone proposal they brought forward was the EXISTING plan, and absolutely not based on the neighborhood school platform which got him his support in the first place. It also cost the group their solidarity with Goldman.
There is an underlying agenda here, and it is 99% political and 1% education.
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clarksa
01/10 06:01 PM
Busing is a problem when my child can’t go to the elementary school less than a mile away.
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Rachel
01/10 06:13 PM
The “OpEd column” hyperlink is incorrect.
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Acree
01/10 08:06 PM
Fixed.
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frank
01/10 09:59 PM
Tedesco seems to think he’s in charge of Buchanan High.
What’s a guy with no kids doing in charge of the school system? I don’t trust unmarried and unemployed single guys that seem so concerned about helping kids. Wonder if he has a clown costume in his bedroom closet.
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Marymaryquitecontrary
01/10 11:11 PM
Great point Frank.
Tedesco is one creepy dude. His stupidity is astounding. -
sorelosers
01/10 11:30 PM
Nice, get personal with the come backs? Look at the opposition to the school board and their spokesperson. You wouldn’t dare do an article or a cartoon about him and his ideas. Wake County voted for the new school board to change the old, broken system. Get over it and let the school board do their jobs.
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RaleighRob
01/11 01:04 PM
This is a great article and I thank you very much for posting it. It’s sad how a few radical rightwingers can take over a board and set it backwards by decades simply because not enough informed voters bothered to show up on an off-year election. All the reactionaries needed was a few disgruntled…and entitled…conservative tea party dittoheads to show up and now the whole county will have to pay the consequences.
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Eiken
01/11 05:25 PM
Really? Busing is not a problem for Wake County Students? We live in SE Raleigh. Our base school is 40 miles away in Apex. Tell me busing isn’t a problem for our family! SE is so completely screwed that my little one isn’t assigned to the same school as the kids on our street. Where was all this chest-beating prior to the election, which, for the sake of a teeny reminder - a new school board was DEMOCRATICALLY elected?!?! All this whining postmortem is so thoroughly old at this point. Don’t like it? Then you should have done more to influence an alternative vote. All the jabbering from people who don’t even have children (or if they do live nowhere even remotely close to SE) is completely ridiculous.
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CX
01/11 05:41 PM
Perhaps a new school board is what was needed in Wake County. However, Tedesco’s negativity towards the school system has undoubtedly hindered smooth progress. Wake County is a good system. Neighborhood schools and neighborhood everything else is a good thing. So is diversity. Neighborhood Diversity do not always coincide. I think busing is less an issue than what goes on before the bus (neighborhood) and after the bus (school).
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oldtimer
01/11 08:33 PM
“We live in SE Raleigh. Our base school is 40 miles away in Apex. “
From extreme SE Raleigh to extreme west Apex, about 28 miles.Central SE Raleigh to central Apex, about 18 miles.
Gross exaggeration does not help you make your case.
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frank
01/11 09:16 PM
Wake County didn’t vote for Art Pope’s Puppet Theater - Sections of Wake County voted them. Do you have ZERO concept on how the school board gets elected?
Tedesco’s the creep who went after the cancer survivor. And I stand by my reservations about the childless savior of the children. He doesn’t even have a real job anymore. He swears he’s living off his savings, but he’s probably getting slid a monthly check from Art Pope.
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Eiken
01/11 10:54 PM
Oldtimer - do you think I send my child to school one way and don’t see him again?!?! It’s exactly 24.8 miles EACH way to my child’s base school - call me silly, but I like him to come back home to us at the end of each school day. I was actually being generous with the 40 miles thing - more accurately, I believe that’s 49.6 miles ROUNDTRIP. Thanks so much for correcting me!!
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oldtimer
01/12 12:16 AM
“Oldtimer - do you think I send my child to school one way and don’t see him again?!?!”
You clearly said the school was 40 miles away. The school is only 24.8 miles away. Way way way too far, I agree.
But your shrill, defensive, even insulting tone when caught in blatant exaggeration does not help you make your case.
Everyone expects shrill, exaggerated, offensive, poorly thought out “arguments” from New Raleigh. If you want to convince anyone, you have to do better than this blog.
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Eiken
01/12 01:38 AM
“Caught in a blatant exaggeration”?? Mmmmm…’kay. Only someone who doesn’t have a child affected by this absurd policy would say the school is “only 24.8 miles away” – you utterly lost me there. Again, that’s just one way – nudging 50 miles roundtrip - but clearly little tidbits like that are inconsequential. I along with many parents in SE Raleigh advocated a change in leadership, so I’m afraid I’m not too concerned about presenting a “convincing” argument. I absolutely agree that it’s a shame the entire issue was hijacked by such divisive partisanship instead of genuine concern for our children, but since the current board was democratically voted in – including by residents of SE - all the fussing and editorials in the world aren’t going to change that. For the majority of (involved) parents in this neighborhood, the busing policy was a bust. Any “defensiveness” you intimate on my part is me being sick of kids in our neighborhood being trotted around the county as part of a dog and pony show to maintain the perception of “diversity”. Back in the day, it was completely and wholeheartedly appropriate, but that ended a good while back now. In all the back and forth arguments of one policy over another, it’s a little fascinating how all of the people advocating busing have no personal stake in the neighborhood affected most of all – if I come across as “shrill,” this is likely where that stems from. While I know there are modest numbers out there, not a single parent of a child that I know in our immediate area approved of scattering our kids all over the place – this stance was affirmed by the SE CAC’s prior to the 2009 vote. The problems aren’t as simple as busing versus neighborhood schools – it all starts at home – and that’s a fix Wake County and the NAACP can’t mandate and won’t touch. But that’s a whole other topic for a whole other day.
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1pshannon1
01/12 06:15 PM
Eiken,
I thought Keith Sutton represented SE Raleigh for the most part on the School Board. I’m in SE Raleigh regularly and have yet to me one person who supports having high poverty schools in SE Raleigh. I’m not trying to be antagonistic, but am honestly curious what demographic supports John Tedesco in SE Raleigh.
Thanks,
Pablo
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Eiken
01/12 09:55 PM
Hi Pablo,
Keith Sutton does indeed represent SE, replacing Rosa Gill. For years, folks tried to get an audience or response from Gill about assignments and the fact that nearly all of our children had to travel unforgivable distances to go to school when there were plenty within far closer range. Kids on our specific block go to the same school, but a few blocks away, kids within a two-block span are assigned to 4 different elementary schools. And then there are kids who are assigned to a different school than the ones directly across the street or even next door. While most of Wake County’s assignment nodes include large swathes of an area, SE’s looks like shards of broken glass. That might not sound like a big deal, but how much time do you think those children have to get to know and play with their neighbors, be a part of the community, enjoy some time away from school and sitting on a bus for forever? This isn’t anything I’ve ever heard anyone from Wake Schools or the NAACP address. Never did Gill respond to calls or emails, or act like she cared one little bit…and that’s just the general attitude that got the old board voted out. Let me be clear, I do not support Tedesco. I think he’s a displayed a lot of conduct that I frankly find shameful for a public figure – and sadly, I don’t think he’s nearly as embarrassed with himself as he should be. Nor is this all about tea party “dittoheads” as an earlier poster suggested – personally, I’m about as liberal as they come. My point is that he and everyone else were fairly elected, just like Sutton – and I am confused as to why there is so much righteous indignation when it didn’t seem to concern many prior to the election when all the fist-shaking might have affected a different outcome. Again, the position of a return to neighborhood schools was advanced by the area’s CAC’s who wanted the neighborhood’s children closer to home – it was regularly addressed at monthly meetings as an issue…not that the NAACP would have you believe it. And yes, like Josh mentioned earlier, people in this neighborhood are endlessly concerned about getting the same resources as anywhere else in the city/county, and rightly so. It has absolutely nothing to do with someone in SE supporting someone like Tedesco, but everything to do with the fact that it is unfair to have children attending schools so far away – it’s not like we live out on the prairie. And I don’t think it’s fair to characterize someone who supports changes to a broken policy as a person who supports high poverty schools in SE. I’m not trying to be antagonistic either, but I think that’s a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. A number of newcomers and families who have moved to SE over the last decade moved here precisely because they were looking for a cultural diversity not found in a cookie-cutter subdivision on the outskirts of Apex. As a person who has a major financial and numerous personal investments in the success of SE Raleigh, we have a tremendous stake in what happens with the neighborhood’s children. I think having kids from SE attend a school that is 50, 40, 30, 20 miles away roundtrip isn’t making them more successful as students – it’s just diluting bigger issues which no one seems to feel comfortable addressing. As someone on the ground, I assure you, they are far bigger than where a child from this neighborhood is sent to school. And there are other realities that have been overlooked in all of this. A number of residents in SE do not have a car or other mode of quick and reliable transportation. How involved do you think those parents are able to be in their child’s educational career? How many school functions, meetings, etc., do you think they’re able to attend? How many extracurricular activities are kids able to participate in because they have no way to get home? Or get to know their classmates, go to birthday parties, etc., because all but a few live in tonier neighborhoods far away – much less actually interact with them at school? SE still has a long way to go, a lonnnng way to go, but it’s not the same SE as 20, 10, or even 5 years ago, and that needs to be recognized. Back in the 70’s when it was a different Wake County, and a far, far smaller one at that, I think the policy was completely commendable, appropriate, and necessary. But times have changed and policies need to reflect that. But that’s just my own two cents.
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Tony Woodard
01/12 10:39 PM
I would like to revisit Arthurb3’s comment about dissolving the school board. While I don’t believe this is any more logical than say, dissolving the US Department of Education, it brings up an interesting question. Why are childless people paying for the education of others’ children? Having children is a choice, granted one that you can unwittingly make by getting drunk and screwing some stranger without a condom, but a choice none the less. On top of having to pay to educate them, we also SUBSIDIZE THEIR VERY EXISTENCE every year on April the 15th by giving folks tax breaks just for being fertile. Maybe if all of these free loading breeders would keep their dicks in their pants, responsible people like Arthur3b and myself wouldn’t have to pay for their mistakes. To add insult to injury we have to listen to the seemingly endless machinations of the anti/pros who can’t even summon the common decency to get their shit together regarding how exactly they plan assigning the little cretins to a school before robbing us blind.
All this hand wringing and ‘Think of the children!’ bullshit has gone WAY to far. Some kid that doesn’t have anything better to do than sit at home and play video games or cyberbully somebody on Facebook sitting on a school bus for a couple of hours should be the LEAST of our worries. “Oh my God, Junior doesn’t have time to socialize with his peers and go to birthday parties.” I have, indeed, heard it all now.
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Happy in SE Raleigh
01/13 12:03 AM
Wow. I live in SE Raleigh and my kid goes to Poe, less than a mile from my house. Maybe Eiken should have signed up for one of her neighborhood magnet schools.
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freemarketrenegade
01/13 12:51 AM
Tony…excellent point…we have NO business being robbed on April 15th when we have no children in these schools. I assume you are not a hypocrite, and believe the same is true about:
- building bridges in places where I don’t ever drive
- supporting homeless people who are not related to me
- paying someone’s health care costs whom I don’t even knowetc etc etc, ad infinitum. Assuming you are not a hypocrite, you are the only person on this forum to assert the true solution: free market. Schools are just like plumbers, toothbrushes and shoes: let the free market offer superior, low-cost, effective selection of education choice, and all this back and forth about busing goes away. Oh - and kids get ED U CATED in the process, something that is noticeably lacking in our “schools”.
Or you can support the notion that we need MORE FUNDING! That’s been proven to solve everything in the past, right?
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JT#2
01/13 01:47 PM
@ Happy: Please leave Eiken alone. I don’t have the bandwidth to handle another rant.
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Tony Woodard
01/13 03:32 PM
@freemarketrenegade Of course, I’m not a hypocrite! I am not a free marketeer either, I just despise children.
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1pshannon1
01/13 04:09 PM
Eiken,
Thank you for the collegial response. I honestly don’t know the particulars of the node arrangement in SE Raleigh, but I’m going to assume it is to help prevent having high poverty schools in SE Raleigh. You make a good point about some of the advantages for kids and parents to attend a school that is closer to where they live. If you have a choice for your child to go to a high poverty school or be bused to a better school, which would it be?
Pablo -
JD
01/13 05:05 PM
I’ve never known anyone, when asked how far away something is to state the round trip distance instead of the one way distance.
If asked how far it is from Raleigh to NYC, I would say about 500 miles. Not 1000. I would also say the Earth’s circumference is about 25,000 miles and not 50,000.
Anyway, it is just semantics.
I’m sorry for the less than 5% of kids who are bused and would like to see it fixed in a levelheaded, sensible way. However, Tedesco is approaching this like a rabid dog with seemingly his own political agenda instead of the needs of the children. I will hold back judgment of Tada, but hiring an arch-conservative commentator with a little more than a year in procurements for a school system was not exactly a bridge building hire. -
PS
01/13 07:54 PM
Yes, Tedesco and the board have taken an extreme path - and almost certainly not the best path. But it sounds to me that they were elected to take that extreme path because for years, the prior board members did nothing to alleviate the problems for that 5% of kids with busing problems. 5% can be a pretty strong group when you piss them off enough - and that’s exactly what happened when the anger built for so many years.
The problem didn’t start yesterday, or when these guys were elected, or right before their election. It started years ago when the complaints first started and were ignored.
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Little Timmy
01/14 01:32 PM
I believe the point of the article is that Tedesco has clearly misrepresented facts—in the national press—in order to defend the controversial policies of the Wake school board. If the case for neighborhood schools is so compelling, why is it necessary to mangle the truth?
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frank
01/14 07:12 PM
Tedesco’s loudmouth comments are allowing people in DC and NYC that Raleigh is going back to the days of German Shepherds and firehoses. Thank goodness nobody watches the NHL All Star game cause otherwise this story would get blown bigger.
What stinks is that this putz is from Pittsburgh. Are any of these Art Pope puppets really from Raleigh? Are they all Yankees who have allows us born and raised in the South look like a pack of Crackers in the National spotlight?
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Francesco Zappa
01/18 10:46 AM
The goal for Tedesco and his fellow morons must be the elimination of public schools altogether.
Privatizing everything the majority of Americans depend upon the gov’t for is the ultimate goal of the right. This is no big secret or a conspiracy, it is their twisted viewpoint.
Naturally, when he decides to not pay for the ‘for-profit fire department of his dreams’, he will wish it was a gov’t service paid for with taxes when he watches his home burn while the “fire dept company” does nothing.
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Allen
01/19 03:17 PM
AS A STUDENT IN WAKE COUNTY, I am cheated every day by the school board. I worry about my accreditation, graduating, and what the schools will be like when I leave. I an’t vote, and therefore whenever I go to school meetings I am ignored and deemed unworthy of noting. I"m tired of these idiots doing things I cannot influence. Can someone listen to the students for once, not politics or parents, the actual students?
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Jimmy
01/21 08:47 PM
I Got to flirt with WHITE and BLACK chicks on the bus and at school. I got to choose whether i took easy or hard classes. I could smoke my weed with Black or White students.
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a
04/12 06:40 PM
To Tony Woodard,
“none the less” is one word
Thougt you’d want to know -
Goober
04/12 06:44 PM
You spelled “thought” wrong you moorone
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a
04/12 06:45 PM
Are you a silly liberal, Goober?
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Goober
04/12 06:48 PM
If by liberal you mean tree hugging white patronizer to minorities who just wish I’d shut up, then yes.
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