Forced busing? You’re kidding

A neighbor recently told my wife and me that the Seattle School Board was bringing back forced busing based on race for high schools.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, thinking back to how forced busing brought strife, flight, initiatives and lawsuits decades ago and how John Stanford refocused the schools on educating students instead of busing them all over.

Our neighbor assured us she was not kidding at all. “The children in this neighborhood who have gone for decades to nearby Ballard High School won’t be going there anymore.”

Now that got my attention. This was no longer an academic matter. I thought of all my friends and neighbors active in supporting Ballard High School over the years and I thought of our own son who in several years may want to go there. “Maybe,” I said hopefully, “this will enable minority students who really want to go to Ballard High School, to get in.”

“Not likely,” replied our neighbor. “You see, there are around 80 minority children who want to go to their neighborhood high school, Franklin. They’re being told `no, you will be bused to Ballard or Roosevelt.’ Then there are about 80 white children from places like our neighborhood who want to go to Ballard and are being told `no, you will be bused to Franklin or Ingraham.’ ”

After a pause, I said, “Maybe they’re doing this to encourage diversity?”

My neighbor smiled. “John, you’ve visited Ballard High School, right? Doesn’t it look diverse to you?”

“Well, yes,” I had to admit, “it looks like a veritable United Nations.”

“Of course,” said our neighbor, “around 39 percent of the students at Ballard are minority.”

I was stumped. “OK,” I asked, “Why is the School Board doing this?”

“I just think there’s this gnome that hides in a room at the back of School District headquarters,” said my neighbor. “He wants every Seattle high school to have 60 percent minority population and 40 percent white population. This gnome has convinced the School Board that those numbers 60 and 40 are magical.”

“Oh, I see,” I said. “So, why are you telling me all this?”

“Well,” said my neighbor, “I thought that you, as a former public official, might have some ideas that could help us.”

Not wishing to rush into anything, I asked, “What have you thought of doing?”

“We feel we’ve been betrayed. They’re going back on what John Stanford promised us. We’re angry and we’re frustrated,” she replied. “We’ve thought of everything. The lawyers tell us that recent federal court decisions and our own state may make the School Board policy illegal. So we’ve thought of lawsuits. We’ve also thought of recalls, initiatives, voting against levies, and moving our kids to the suburbs or into private schools.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Let’s not be hasty. How about trying to convince the School Board to change?”

“We’ve tried that for months,” said my neighbor, “and the board members, with the exceptions of Don Nielsen and Michael Preston, keep voting over and over to bus our kids away from the closest high school.”

“Did you tell them how important parental involvement is, and that parents being involved depends on their living close to schools?” I asked. “Did you tell them about Stanford’s pledge to end this forced busing system? He called it a `farce,’ didn’t he?”

“Yes,” said my neighbor. “They know all that, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference.”

“That’s hard to believe,” I said. “Let me try to talk with a board member and the superintendent. They can’t be that unreasonable. Let’s talk in a week.”

“Good luck,” she replied, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

One week later, I was sadder and wiser. I had coffee with a very nice, intelligent School Board member whom I have known for 30 years. My neighbor wasn’t kidding; race-based forced busing was making a comeback. I asked the board member if she was willing to change the assignment policy for this fall. She said she “would be willing to listen to all the facts and arguments.” (Several days later she again voted against changing.) A few days later, I found myself sitting next to Superintendent Joseph Olchefske at a lunch downtown. He wasn’t kidding either. I asked him if it was true that many minority children would be forced out of their neighborhood first choice for high school to meet the quotas. “Not as many as you might think,” he responded.

“Well, how do you reconcile this policy with recent federal court decisions and our state initiative against using racial preferences in public education?”

“That’s easy,” he responded. “We let everybody into our school system regardless of race. We just assign them to different schools based on race.”

I thought back to Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that ended segregated public schools, and I envisaged a lawyer with a deep southern drawl telling Chief Justice Earl Warren, “Your honor, what we’re doing is perfectly constitutional. We let all children, regardless of the color of their skin, into our school district. It’s just that we decide which schools they go to based on their skin color.”

I reported back to my neighbor. “Well, I told you,” she said. “But you’re always talking about being moderate and using persuasion. Maybe we could persuade the establishment to persuade the School Board.”

“What do you mean by ‘establishment’?” I asked.

“You know,” she said, “the Chamber of Commerce, the Municipal League, the papers, most of the elected officials.”

I was on the verge of encouraging her and then I remembered how every one of those organizations supported forced busing right up to and past public votes against forced busing until Stanford had the courage to end it.

“Well,” I said, with some understatement, “you might not get too much help from the establishment. Besides, with just months until high schools open this fall, that would take too much time.”

“OK,” said my neighbor. “You said to be moderate and thoughtful. I want to get my daughter into Ballard High School this fall. My neighbor wants to get her son in next fall. What can we do?”

There was a long pause. I thought about all John Stanford had done to get all of us working to improve the educational quality in all our schools and how he hated the previous forced-busing plan because it distracted us and him from working to get the best education for all Seattle children. Then, in what I hope was a moderate and thoughtful tone of voice, I replied, “Unless they wake up, it looks like you’re going to have to sue the School Board . . . and I’m not kidding.”

John R. Miller is a former Seattle City Council member and congressman. He is chairman of the Discovery Institute and has a son attending Whitman Public Middle School. He is a member of the community group opposed to busing.