One City, Three School Districts
A white district, a brown district, and a black district. It’s an entire rainbow of fun up in Omaha. I just can’t get over it: a race-based, Ernie Chambers-endorsed school district resegregation plan just flew through the Unicameral. Bizarro.
As long as we’re dividing school districts, let’s do Lincoln. How would you divide up Lincoln into three screwed up districts (not necessarily by race)? I think my (extremely rough) plan would look like:
- Everything north of ‘O’ Street and west of 70th Street
- Everything south of Old Cheney Road plus everything east of 84th Street
- All the rest
The Comments
Mr. T April 13, 2006 at 5:35pm
Please don’t give our senators anymore segregation ideas. Remember, Chambers and Raikes haven’t been term-limited out yet.
Christopher April 13, 2006 at 9:05pm
If OPS would keep their grubby hands off District 66, Millard, Elkhorn, and Ralston school districts we wouldn’t have this problem. OPS laid down the race card first. For OPS it is a case of be careful what you ask for.
Mr. T April 14, 2006 at 6:24am
But I don’t think anyone is “playing the race card” here. When I think of the term “so and so is playing the race card” that means they are trying to make race an issue where it isn’t an issue in order to create a distraction. From the very beginning of this whole debacle, it seemed to me that race was a major issue, albeit maybe not the number one issue but still a major one. I realize that the surrounding districts have some legitimate concerns that don’t have to do with race, but I can’t believe that they DON’T have concerns about race as well. Its like the 900 pound gorilla thing. At the same time I agree that OPS has made some bad blunders from the get go – the most obvious being their stealth attack/announcement of their plan from the beginning. That was just asking for resistance.
Personally I am against the new proposal. At the very least I hope they put enactment on a very slow track so alternatives can be thought of prior to the bill going into effect (as is), like rethinking magnet school strategy for one. Although it may only be one small consideration, it’s the first thing that comes to my mind since I attended a magnet high school in a predominantly minority area when I was a kid, and it was an excellent education that I have no regrets about at all. What other ideas are out there?
Christopher April 14, 2006 at 10:28am
When OPS first made the decision to take over the schools, they did so stating simply that since these school districts are in our city’s boundaries, we should control them.
Once District 66 (Westside), Millard, Ralston, and Elkhorn found out what OPS was trying to do, they cried foul, and rightfully so.
OPS then had to come up with “better reasons” for public support for the takeover, included in that package was the forced busing/integration, because integration is good and segregation is bad. Whether it’s the media’s fault for blowing this up or OPS’s fault makes no difference.
Now the bill is signed into law, it goes into effect 2008. Do I honestly think it will go into effect as is? No. Gov. Heineman doesn’t think it will either. He’s happy to sign it, because it will force OPS to do something, anything to solve this issue. If OPS doesn’t, then that’s their problem (plus this sucker will get held up in the courts, biding more time for OPS).
I’m happy to see that this pretty much prevents OPS from taking over all the schools within Omaha City Limits. I’m OK with the status quo, but say that because I have no connection to OPS or any other district, and don’t have any kids attending school anytime soon. I do like how LPS had open enrollment during my time, so that you could pretty much attend any school you wanted, but realize that would not work here in Omaha and we’d still have to solve the same issues. As for solution, I don’t have any ideas. I just don’t want OPS’s problems to rollover into the other districts within the city.
Christopher April 14, 2006 at 12:15pm
I forgot to mention the main reason why I am against the “One City, One School District.”
OPS has problems. Granted the other school districts have issues too, but I would hate for the non-OPS school districts to have OPS’s issues spill over into their districts.
Cedric April 16, 2006 at 4:46pm
Im sorry, but I fail to see how this is segregation in any sense other than people are going to live and go to school where they live. Forced bussing was a joke in OPS and expensive-imagine how much of that money could have been spent on the schools that don’t get the benefits that those evil rich people schools do in the outlying districts. If I live somewhere Im going to pay for whats local to me. Its ludicrous to cry wahhh just because the Elkhorn district has more money to spend or nicer stuff just because you are looking from the outside in. They have every right to live and absord the cost of commuting if they want to, and if some of that cost is the money leaving OPS, so be it. The local parents should have bucked up a long time ago and handled this.