NC families demand choice in school assignments

Across North Carolina, parents have been making their voices heard when it comes to the issue of choice in public school assignments.

In Wilmington last month, more than 200 people attended a forum on controversial school reassignments. Meanwhile, the Wake County School Board election, which centered around the county's assignment policies, made headlines statewide and garnered a voter turnout more than double that of the 2005 school board race. And in Charlotte, parents and students have been coming out by the hundreds out to rally against proposed reassignments.

Each of these school districts may have its own unique concerns, but the common thread in their assignment policies is the need to incorporate greater parental school choice.

As debate over public school assignments continues to make headlines statewide, now seems like an appropriate time to revisit Shades of Gray in Reassignments, a column written earlier this year by PEFNC President Darrell Allison:

"Under districting rules, a family’s address dictates their public school assignment. To ensure a quality education for our daughter when she is old enough to attend school, my family must play by those rules and reside in a community with successful public schools.

But imagine if we signed a 30 year mortgage only to have the school board reassign our daughter to another school. Moreover, imagine that a reason for the reassignment is that my daughter’s presence would improve the diversity of the other school, which, adding insult to injury, performs below the standard of the community school we selected. As a final straw, imagine that our daughter would have a forty minute commute instead of an eight minute ride to school."

The column concludes by drawing attention to parents' primary concern. It's not only the diversity within classrooms but also the quality of education their children receive that drives scores of parents to attend forums, turn out at the polls, and rally in their communities. It all comes back to parental school choice--something school boards must keep in mind as they determine public school assignments.