To improve the performance of low-income students, Wake County, North Carolina’s largest district, uses busing to integrate its schools by socioeconomic status. One in six students is bused at a cost of $541.56 per student.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the second largest district, runs neighborhood schools that serve affluent kids in the suburbs, poor kids in the downtown. Millions of extra dollars go to improve high-poverty schools.
Which system works better? According to the Raleigh News & Observer, both systems are equally unsuccessful.
Only 28 percent of Wake students come from low-income families; more than half are poor in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Wake County’s achievement gap between whites and blacks and between low-income and middle-class students is wide. So is Charlotte’s achievement gap. The numbers are very similar.
Some Wake County parents want to end busing and switch to the Charlotte system.