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School Integration: What Our Readers Said
By Aysha Hussain

© DiversityInc 2007 ® All rights reserved. No article on this site can be reproduced by any means, print, electronic or any other, without prior written permission of the publisher.

 

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Integration of schools allows our children of today (future leaders) to be exposed to differences as well as similarities with the impact of not having to play "catch-up" when they become exposed to the world outside their neighborhood, be that going to college or employment. I now know I was lucky to attend public schools while growing up that had a diverse student body. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this exposure prepared me for the diversity I would encounter upon leaving my neighborhood. At the age of 18, I enlisted in the Navy and what an experience the first few days was with others who had never seen someone or interacted with someone that was different in color, speaking ability, or thought. I am a parent and when I start thinking about actions that affect my children, I have to remember that what they are exposed to or done for them today will affect how they are prepared for life when they leave school. I have to remind myself that times have changed and it is not my life but theirs that will benefit from an ongoing experience that exposes them to diverse individuals.

--Steven Horne

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Provided that funding is equal, which in the past it was not, education could get better for minorities. The issue is access to resources, not necessarily integrating. Integration, in my opinion, was necessary to guarantee access to the same resources as the majority. 

--C. Updoc

 

I hate to see the Brown v. Board of Education overturned. The majority does not understand the perils of the minority. The conservative majority especially prides themselves in their hard line stances against the minorities. The majority has always been far, far, far way from the minority and can't even imagine their perils.

--Jane Tunning

 

It will mean that those in support of school vouchers and other programs to shut down public schools no matter where they are have won. Ever since Brown v. Board of Education was passed, politicians and their constituents who feared integration have been advocating against public schools.  In my town, Savannah, Ga., 75 percent of white children attend private schools, so this system has almost re-segregated anyway. There is a new superintendent of schools fighting to create and maintain an equitable public school system, but if funding for public schools continues to go down, or goes down dramatically as a result of this ruling, it will be time to start marching in the streets again.  Not so much for integration, but for fairness for all children, no matter what their race or economic level.

--Gigi Jones

 

 

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