Originally Posted by
professorscott
To anyone opposed to mandatory schools of choice, I would like you to consider the following scenario. I am going to propose that we manage the idea of "grocery stores" the way you would like us to continue to manage schools. Here's how it would work.
You are only allowed to shop at the grocery store closest to your home, no matter what. It doesn't matter whether it is a good grocery store or a God-awful mess of a pit, whichever one is geographically closest to your home, you must shop there.
Now, do any of you think that is a good idea? Do any of you think that would be a benefit to our region? Well then why in God's earth do you think it is a good idea to force children, based on artificial boundaries, to attend a particular school whether it is good or God-awful? Why is it a good idea that we should throw children into the trash-heap of hopelessness and poverty by making sure that the kids who live near crappy schools can't get a good education?
There is a weird confluence of bigotry and power-hungriness that is making strange political bedfellows on this issue. Grosse Pointers, many of them, and Coleman Young, Jr. are in agreement. It is a terrible shame that to many of these adults, it is more important that we continue to segregate [[by class or race) than that we try to give every child the best education possible.
So try out my grocery store analogy and try to convince me that this bizarre idea - bizarre with regard to stores, but how we in fact manage public education - benefits anyone whomsoever. Give it a try; convince me.