Folks in one area of Albuquerque are currently embroiled in a heated debate over whether kids one one side or another of an arbitrary line should be able to go to a particular school. The Albuquerque Journal has editorialized in favor of onerous annual proof of residency checks for Albuquerque Public Schools to make sure that “the right kids” are going to “the right schools.”
What a joke! Why should where you live have anything to do with where you go to school and how good of an education you can get?
The principled left (as opposed to the self-interested labor unions which support the status quo) has been complaining about “apartheid” in our nation’s public schools. What do you expect when the home or apartment you are able to afford also determines the quality of your child’s education?
Unfortunately, the left appears not to have any good ideas on how to improve our schools. Universal vouchers available to all kids would do the trick, but are despised by the unions. Other forms of school choice like tax credits and charter schools can help overcome the segregation (geographical, racial, and class) that is rampant in our education systems, but again, the unions often stand in the way.
When you go to the grocery store you can go to any store you want. Can you imagine a world where you could only shop at your neighborhood grocery story? Absurd! The solution is to privatize the public schools.
If it wasn’t 2013, I would surmise A.P.S. and district administration efforts to draw a red line around one protected neighrbood was some antiquated Jim Crow school district in the deep south prior to Plessy vs. Ferguson. Instead of a sign stating which fountain is reserved exclusively for “whites or coloreds” A.P.S. has allowed the mask of inequality to slip reflecting that the opportunity to receive a quality education in this district depends on ones zip code. Based on the resources being expended to ensure that the “have” children do not end up in the same elementary school as the “have not” children should make every tax payer realize what an ominous picture this is. The “flagship” district in the state has 89 elementary schools (serving grades k through 5) and 69 of these schools are Title I (schools receiving federal aid serving economically disadvantaged students). Only 20 elementary schools exist that serve the “haves” and the “have” parents have determined that only one school out of the 20 is really educating students. If “have” parents are trying to find any means possible including buying a 2 million dollar home, working as a lunch lady at the coveted school (even though the parent has a doctorate), creating fictitious lease/proof of residence documents– then all tax payers need to recognize this A.P.S. ship is barely floating. Then take into account that the district solution to only having only one “good” elementary school in the entire district to serve the “haves” is to conduct an audit where numerous employees who very little to do at city center were tasked with the job to flush out those students or “the have nots” not following the Jim Crow boundaries by cross referencing student enrollment information which included conducting strategic phone and mail audits. Finally, just to make sure these brazen “have not” students were identified, teachers were instructed to create an assignment and have students in grades K through three recite their name, their parent’s name, their address and phone number so it could be cross referenced with the enrollment information submitted by their parents at registration. The City Center sleuthers reported divorced and blended family names were making it difficult to create an accurate list for the audit. In light of the difficulities, to remove 100 of these interlopers (who actually think their kids deserve a good education); the district may have to cancel one Superintendent Brook’s pricey junkets and round up those lying kindergarteners with questionable zip codes whom were savvy enough to throw off the city center sleuthers, and take a field trip to Guatanamo and waterboard the little buggers if they do not fess up and reveal they are attending North Star out of district.
Mr. Gessing or Editor please edit or excuse the spelling errors in my post (neighborhood; South, difficulties and Guantanamo).