Word: districting
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...system, which has been in place for a decade, has made Jefferson County one of the most integrated school districts in the country. But if Crystal Meredith, a single mom who was told her son could not transfer to another elementary school because he is white, has her way, the whole thing will be dismantled. And plenty of critics agree that it should be. Meredith and others contend that the guidelines amount to an unconstitutional quota system. So Jefferson County finds itself in an ironic position. After years of court-ordered desegregation, the school district will appear before...
Jefferson County is one of two cases that will help the Supreme Court decide how--or if--race can be used to deploy kids across a school district. The court next week will also consider whether Seattle can continue to use a student's race as one of several tiebreakers when too many kids seek admission to the same high school. Taken together, these cases could represent, as Georgetown law professor James Forman puts it, "the last gasp of the integration movement...
...schools but also community peace. Despite all the long bus trips--the average ride for Jefferson County students is about 45 min.--77% of Jefferson County parents agreed that guidelines should be used to ensure diversity, according to a survey conducted in 2000 by the University of Kentucky. The district also assiduously tracks the percentage of the county's school-age children who attend public school, and in recent years, when private schools were gaining students nationwide, Jefferson County's public schools were inching up in "market share," from 76% in 2001 to 80% last year...
...keep things moving in that direction, the school district emphasizes customer service. In many neighborhoods, the buses stop every fifth of a mile. "Legally, we only have to put a stop every two miles, but we wouldn't be very popular if we did," says Mike Mulheirn, who oversees the school district's transportation system. "The seats," he notes, "are well padded...
...critics offer a lot of complaints about the system, not the least being that some just find it galling. Why should schools that are more black than white be inherently suspect, even if they don't reflect the racial breakdown of the district as a whole? "It doesn't make sense," local PTA-board member Dreema Jackson says of the guidelines. "It's O.K. for the minority to be between 15% and 50%, but if you flip those percentages, a school is no longer diverse...