An Argument for Resegregating Nashville’s Schools—Though not Really
Seemingly lost in the debate over the rezoning of Nashville’s schools is one simple fact: Busing, in terms of urban health, was the worst idea of the 20th century.
It’s a lot like Marxism—a noble theory birthed from the best intentions. It only begins to go bad when you add that pesky ingredient known as human nature.
Ask any parent with school-age kids, and they’ll attest to an essential truth: There is nothing more powerful in building a sense of community than the neighborhood school.
Think of it as a 13-year curriculum in civic bonding. You get to know your neighbors through school plays, concerts, sports. Suddenly, this place you live in is no longer an amalgamation of strangers, but a harbor for friends. And while it’s easy to turn a blind eye to the disintegration of Stranger Land, human nature dictates that most will fight to preserve the Land of Their Intimates.
Busing blew that up. Conventional wisdom decreed that if kids were forced to integrate, all would rise under the miracle of equal opportunity. It was a beautiful plan on paper. But rare is the parent black or white who wants to send Little Johnny across town, away from friends and family. Especially if one can afford to do otherwise.
So they voted with their feet. It was largely viewed as white flight, but that’s just a surface take. Anyone with a fortified bank account could bolt. And they did. What they left behind was a school district segregated not by race, but cleaved by economics. And it’s happened time and again across the country.
If your goal is to kill neighborhoods, extract from a city its moneyed, its best and brightest, busing is the quickest route.
Those against the rezoning plan say it’s thinly racist, that resegregated black schools will inevitably get the short end of the funding stick. History says they’re right.
Those favoring the plan reject accusations of Hitlerian tendencies. They’ve chosen their neighborhoods for very human reasons. And they can do without the government using their kids in a grand plan of social engineering. How do you argue with the basic freedom of personal choice?
Many districts, including Nashville’s, have already acknowledged human nature. Instead of forcing integration, they’ve lured people from their tendency to self-segregate by loading up on magnet schools—for everything from math to science, arts to mechanics. Suddenly, integration comes not by government will, but by the native powers of self-interest.
Yet to stick with busing is to wed painful, deliberate death. It’s one of those rare plays where the odds are certain.
Comments
Byline, anyone? Abramson? Garrigan, is that you?
Posted 07/16/2008 at 03:42:41 PMThis post was written by Pete Kotz. For some reason his byline isn't showing up at the moment. We're working on it.
Posted 07/16/2008 at 03:50:13 PMPerhaps the best comment I can make is...
Duh
But good that it, the post, was articulated. Would have been so much better to use incentives, to work with human nature and not against it.
Posted 07/16/2008 at 05:24:10 PMThat's a pretty neat trick. The new editor uses an uncredited first post to splash right into the deep end with some "Hey, a little resegregation never hurt anyone. At least not where I come from" action. Are color/class lines and public education issues thoroughly homogeneous in America now?
Posted 07/16/2008 at 05:25:31 PMI was wondering when I first saw this. It was like "Who are you, what have you done with the Nashville Scene staff, and how much ransom money do you want?"
Mr. Kotz, my only advice is...duck.
Posted 07/16/2008 at 06:09:17 PMWow, does this mean you'll be coming out for separate water fountains and bathrooms, too? Nothing like a post like this to confirm Faulkner's comment that the past wasn't dead, it wasn't even past. Well, Pete, if nothing else, this will get rid of that pesky idea that the SCENE is filled with liberals, eh?
Posted 07/16/2008 at 06:35:58 PMOMFG. One person in years strays from the oppressive orthodoxy and it dispels 20 years of history.
A post that makes sense. Can incisive columns and awards for reporting be far behind? Kotz needs to understand that Pith In The Wind is a personal playground where namecalling public officials, standing up for murderers-rapists, arguing in favor of aggressive panhandling, or constantly promoting a doghumping anti-death penalty activist to malign a judicial candidate is lingua franca for liberal street cred.
No wonder the peasants were showing up at your door with pitchforks and torches, Pete.
They´re just worried that you´ll engage in the same kind of Stalinist ideological purge they´ve engaged in since, well, inception.
Welcome aboard! If they don´t like it, they´ll just join all of their predecessors and do their work as PR folks on payroll for the local Democrats instead of campaigning behind the thin mask they´ve been calling journalism.
Posted 07/16/2008 at 06:53:27 PMAnd they say Southerners are racist. Nice to have a neanderthal from Cleveland in town.
Posted 07/17/2008 at 06:56:18 AMThis is actually a good, thoughtful piece.
People who accused Mr. Kotz of being racist in any way must never have had small children.
I hope it means that Jeff Woods and Matt Pulle will now have an editor.
Posted 07/18/2008 at 06:53:16 AMLeftWingCracker said:
"Wow, does this mean you'll be coming out for separate water fountains and bathrooms, too?"
That's a great idea, crackhead.
We'll designate YOUR separate water fountain and bathroom on the opposite side of town from where you live and see how you like it.
Posted 07/18/2008 at 10:37:51 AM