Weekly newspaper column, 1/16/06

With all the disagreements, controversies and just-out-and-out sniping that occurs in our community—not to mention our great nation—it’s good to be able to talk about something we can all come together on and agree.
Last week, the Wichita USD 259 Board of Education released the results of a survey on busing.
Much to my surprise, the majority of those surveyed didn’t say, “just end busing”.
And how. A whopping 78.4 percent said they would be willing to pay more in taxes for a bond issue for new schools inside the area in which African-American children are bussed to other schools.
Good call.
Everything comes at a price, and those surveyed understood that in order to end busing, a commitment has to be made to provide a quality education to those students currently being bussed to other schools.
Such a move will be costly. Keep in mind:
--We’ll still be paying for the current bond issue for another 13 years;
--Jackson Elementary cost $7.3 million back in 2000…and it was built on vacant land;
--There are no schools within the so-called “Assigned Attendance Area” large enough to be used for a school today;
--Some existing schools could be used initially, but at the price of limiting some popular magnet programs at L'Ouverture and Buckner schools.
Any neighborhood schools created would come with increased needs for years to come…more teachers, more federal programs like Title I… than other schools. And let us not forget the additional burdens placed upon schools by President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act.
If you’re ignorant enough to believe that all we have to do is build 1-3 new schools and leave them to their own devices, you are sorely mistaken. As Wichita NAACP President Kevin Myles told the Wichita Eagle, “…I just don’t accept the fact because there are flaws, return to 1954 and see if that works better.”
Neither should any of the rest of us.
To assume that everyone is pretty much the same is to deny your own existence.
To believe that just because one way of educating worked for you—or works today for your child—it ought to work for everyone denies differences in race, culture, personality...even brain chemistry…much of which we didn’t know when we were growing up.
Thankfully, this survey shows that I am preaching to the choir, in most cases. However, there are still some of you who still won’t—or don’t want to—understand…and you’re more likely to speak out.
And to you I say, “don’t disturb this groove”. Nobody likes to pay higher taxes, but most reasonable people can agree to it when we agree with where the money is going.
It’s amaaing, the things we can do when we seek consensus.