University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, December 9, 1975
7
Desegregation discussed
From page six
upon the political autonomy of the local school districts and taking away their rights
THE LOSS OF LOCAL autonomy is called the "neighborhood concept" by people who want their children to attend schools close to them. In many cities, they oppose metropolitan desegregation.
Earl J. Steffes, a white parent representative from integrated subdistrict 3, subscribes to the neighborhood concept, adamantly opposes a metropolitan plan.
"I hate to say to someone who has been in the same school for two years, hey, he's going to have to leave your friends and go to a strange school." Steffes said.
Steffes said a black woman in his subdistrict had told him, "Mixing with whites doesn't mean that much to me. I want my kid close."
Garr said the neighborhood concept wasn't important in Kansas City suburbs. "I told THE CHILDREN are bused anyway," she said. "They are very few of our students who walk."
Grayer, Lincoln High senior, said attending a school outside one's home district
Carrie Mahogany, a parent from sub-district 4, said she favored a plan in which students would attend their home school for most courses and other schools for a few specialized courses. She said some required offered 2nd-grade students specialized schools so the all students would have to attend school away from their home district to graduate.
"It would work like a cultural exchange program with a foreign country," she said. She and the other students to maintain contact with their neighborhood and friends and to meet people from other countries.
Smith, a social worker, said a plan called "Wisconsin plan" would enable the school to better meet needs.
ACCORDING TO THE PLAN, he said, the government would distribute some of its education funds to individual students, and would give more money to minority students who would be forced to try to attract the students who had the biggest government payments.
--the buses and into the schools with a bad attitude."
Without monetary persuasion, he said,
"We're not going to be able to say: Let's get our brothers and sisters together and solve this problem."
If Kansas City chooses a metropolitan plan, transportation will unquestionably be a part of it. The only question will be whether the busing should be compulsory or voluntary. If the busing causes in the issue most likely to cause problems in a desegregation plan.
A racial division of task force members wasn't apparent in the busing question. Both blacks and whites favored busing and both also opposed it.
KOST SAID, "THE people I'm around are for a metropolitan plan but the people I'm around tend to be more liberal. They would be willing to have their kids bled."
Gardner said, "There's a division among blacks about busing. To me, there is no issue about busing. The issue is race. Busing only becomes an issue when blacks get on a bus with whites. There's bigotry on both sides."
But many task force members interviewed, who opposed compulsory busing, said they had a problem with the law.
Kost said, "There are a lot of reasons that are not racial like getting up early. Apparently, that kind of thing is very disruptive to a family life style."
GRAYER SAID he opposed forced busing.
"If you don't want to be bused," he said "there will be problems. You will go on."
Greer
Steffes said most of his subdistrict opposed compulsory busing.
"When I say I oppose busing, I'd say I represent 85 per cent of black and white people."
Several said they thought a plan that included compulsory busing would bring
"It could become another Boston," said Gatson, a black parent from subdistrict 2. "You can't solve a 20-year-old problem in six months."
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Mahogany said, "It would be as bad as Boston if the parents insist on snooping, meddling and defying the school board. There would be problems between the white students and teachers. If we can get to it work even a few cases, though, others will learn."
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LEFFINGWELL SAID, "There would be demonstrations, boycoting and kids withheld from school. But I would not forecast another Boston."
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*Ours (a small subdistrict 3) is a tight community and a community oriented sector.*
If a metropolitan desegregation plan is in the making for Kansas City, the question remains whether the city will centralize the central city district the facilities and expertise that the district needs so badly.
"I think there are certain blacks—and I think they're naive—who think by sitting next to whites they are going to get a better education," he said.
"THE RACIAL ACTIVISTS have a bad conscience, and this is how they solve it," he said.
Steffes also was dubious.
"Have you ever seen a pig go through a fence? He'll get that nose under there and pretty soon, pheeook . . he's through, no matter whether he leaves hide and hair on the fence or not. And he'll do that even if there's a gate."
Curtis Grayer thought differently. He said he'd visited Van Horn, a white high school, and had discovered that facilities were better than the state there than at his own, Lincoln High.
"If I went there it would be beautiful" he said. "I could learn all I wanted to learn."
KOST SAID HE HE thought of metropolitan
dossier as one way the burbucks could
be made.
"People in the suburbs are privileged in the first place and are allowed to continue to be privileged," he said. "The suburbs would not exist without the city."
Kost said the group he represented, the City-Wide Coalition of Neighborhood
"We people would like to renovate the city, which is going downhill fast," he said. "First the schools must be made attractive, and then the neighborhoods."
LEFFINGWELL SAID, "I know there are some moving into the city with the commitment to make the district viable. Middle income white families are moving in and they don't feel racial isolation and don't feel they are making a contribution to the city."
Organizations, primarily was interested in the prosperity of the city.
If the hopes of some Kansas Citizens are realized, and the fears of some others aren't
Smith
realized, education in the Kansas City School Districts will be enriched through the involvement of the suburbs. Some of the money that leaves the district every day in the pockets of suburban breadwinners will finally find its way back to the central city.
And Kansas City will be one step closer to regain the life safted from it by its former rivals.
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