Desegregation still splits public

Re “Black, white and Brown,” editorial, Dec. 6

Regardless of the righteousness of school admissions policies that are intended to bring the races together, they will ultimately backfire. Voters in California and Michigan made that abundantly clear when they approved Proposition 209 and Proposition 2, respectively.

If the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Seattle and Louisville schools in the present cases, parents in both cities will likely demonstrate their disaffection by enrolling their children in private and religious schools. The result will be a Pyrrhic victory because public schools will become significantly more polarized along racial lines.

WALT GARDNER

Los Angeles

The writer taught for 28 years in the L.A. Unified School District and was a lecturer in the UCLA Graduate School of Education.

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Re “Justices question school policies,” Dec. 5

This new Bush-appointed court may now change the fabric of the country by holding that locally adopted, voluntary desegregation programs implemented to carry out the unanimous, 52-year-old Supreme Court Brown vs. Board of Education decision are somehow unconstitutional. Once these programs are gone, housing patterns and unequal educational opportunities for minorities will dictate resegregation of those individuals.

Let’s see how heavily the court relies on individual rights and the equal protection clause when it comes to a woman’s right to choose, an individual’s right to marry and an individual’s right to be free from government wiretapping.

It is obvious that the Republicans’ drumbeat denouncement of judicial activism depends on whether or not they have the majority on the court.

KEN GOLDMAN

Beverly Hills

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What’s evident is that more than 50 years after desegregation and racial balancing began, the performance of black students has not improved. Juan Williams pointed this out in The Times, stating that 50% of black students drop out of high school, and those who do finish are reading and doing math at an eighth-grade level. The logical conclusion is that the education establishment seeks racial balancing as a panacea because it avoids addressing the fundamental failure of public education to provide an acceptable education for all children.

DAN EMORY

Newport Beach

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After listening to the recent news about the segregating of schools, it becomes more apparent that one solution is to revamp our current education tax format. State education funds should go to the school districts that are most at risk. People who choose to move to segregated districts should do so with the knowledge that they will have to support those districts as well as help cover the population that is most at risk.

A democratic society has an obligation to help those most in need.

TED THEILMANN

Carpinteria