Cincinnati Curfew

This is Keith. Cute kid, eh? Keith's mother wanted to enroll him at a school in the Northwest School District (see this article) and was refused because he "does not meet eligibility criteria for the following reason: transfer will adversely affect racial balance of school". The really not-so-funny part? Keith is bi-racial. He could technically fit in either category. Northwest School District countered by saying "We have two categories. We have minority and we have white". The Assistant Super-Intendant countered by saying "The Welch population for minority students exceeds the district average by more than 15%". Keith is apparently too black for school.

Back in the early 80's, the Cincinnati Public School System was still segregated as (in an effort to "save money" on bussing), children were enrolled in the closest school to their home. Black kids went to school in black neighborhoods, and white kids went to school in white neighborhoods. In an effort to fix the problem, "Magnet Schools" were created to allow for bussing. These schools specialized in foreign languages, College Prep, Physical Education, and the Arts to name a few. Magnet Schools had to literally be divided equally among the races and the sexes. At the time of their creation, my father camped out in a snow storm for three days to enroll me at a French School which happened to be in a White Neighborhood. (P.S., I'm white.) A cracker-white queue trailed for blocks with black students walking past angry stares to the front of the line. Am I bitter? Not at all. 90% of my friends were black and I had no idea what race was until someone in my church asked me where all of my colored friends were. Is my dad bitter? Not at all. Chapped lips and cold hands melted away at the thought of my receiving the best education possible. Fluent in French with 3.94 or higher at both colleges that I attended. Not bad for "Public School". ("Neighborhood" schools that continue to be segregated still exist which perform significantly lower on test scores. He could have skipped the camp-out and sent me there instead)

It would seem that my gut reaction would be to defend the school district then....that crucial racial balance that provided me a far greater education than reading, writing and arithmetic could ever bless me with. The problem? Welch Elementary is not a magnet school. It's a neighborhood school. Current race statistics can be found here. The summary? 37% black, 57% white (the rest are "unknown", whatever that is). It's not as if they're defending some delicate racial line in denying a biracial student. There is a clear majority that Keith doesn't fit in to and as for now, Keith is simply too black for school.

# posted by curfew @ 4:11 PM