Money, prejudice drove school board vote

Five members of the Metro Nashville School Board put money and prejudice ahead of children when they voted Tuesday night to divide the district's schools. If children had been the issue, the rezoning of our facilities would have looked much different.

The spin, led by the Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Karl Dean and the five school board members, was to more fully utilize school buildings. The effort sounds noble, but in the end, the changes mean that schools in predominantly black neighborhoods become more black while schools in predominantly white neighborhoods become more white.

The result is two school districts -- one with students from stable families that are well off,  whose children do well on standardized tests and who usually make it to their high school graduations. The second district includes mostly children from poor homes who live in challenging social conditions and have higher drop out rates.The children could do better in if they attended more integrated schools.

The stage is now set to divide the district into two parts. The higher-performing district will appear to be a model school system that makes the community attractive to companies and their workers wanting to relocate to Nashville.

The other district will be forgotten. Families wanting to avoid those schools will know where to live to make sure their children are not exposed to "those people." The model exists in many cities around the U.S.

With last night's vote, thousands of children are on their way to oblivion. Their neighborhoods will decay along with their parents' hopes of seeing their children do better and achieve more than they were able to do.

Integrated schools make such hopes possible. Despite busing and all the challenges of administering choice and magnet programs, integrated schools have been proven to raise test scores and graduation rates for children who live in challenging conditions without lowering the scores of students who are already performing well.

But money and prejudice prevailed on Nashville's school board last night. Wrapped in the sheep's clothing of underutilized schools, the board of education stole the futures of those with black and brown faces so that those with paler complexions would not have to bear witness to society's problems.

If a better education for all the district's children were the goal, bricks and mortar would have mattered far less than making sure that the opportunity existed for everyone to perform at their highest level. A much different plan would have been considered; one that brought people together rather than forcing them apart.

Five members of the school board Tuesday night set the district's priorities with money and prejudice ranking higher than a quality education for all children. It's a sad day for Nashville and a sadder day for thousands of parents who dared to hope that a free public education would give their children opportunities they never had.

    -- Jim Grinstead