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| LAST STOP? | |
 June 30, 1998 
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Editor's note: This segment was originally posted June 30, 1998. |
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When Cristina didn't get into "Old Providence" through a lottery system based on racial quotas, he sued the Charlotte-Mechlenburg school system, claiming Cristina was the victim of racial discrimination. The system uses a combination of busing and magnet schools to achieve racial integration. |
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| A legal challenge | ||||||||||||||||||||
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BETTY ANN BOWSER: Lee Myers is Capacchione's attorney. LEE MYERS: It's unconstitutional to discriminate against a person based upon a suspect criteria such as color of the skin, their sex, their religion, those suspect criteria. They discriminate against anybody who is non-black. Your Asians, your Indian, American Indian, wherever--they discriminate against all those classes of people, children, we're talking about, you know, children here. That's who they are discriminating against. BETTY ANN BOWSER: School board president Arthur Griffin says that simply is not true, that the lawsuit is motivated by racism and could have national implications. |
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| An issue of race? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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BETTY ANN BOWSER: In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled separate and unequal school systems were unconstitutional. All over the country -- including Charlotte--vestiges of segregation in public schools began to fall -- slowly -- painfully. In 1971, the Charlotte Mecklenburg school district became the first to undergo court-ordered busing to desegregate classrooms. Southern history expert David Goldfield has written extensively on the subject. DAVID GOLDFIELD: It was a very tense time in Charlotte/Mecklenburg. Now they had to integrate, and they had to integrate by using busing. And this system of busing to achieve racial desegregation was to involve the entire community--not just a handful of blacks integrating predominately white schools, but blacks integrating white schools and whites integrating black schools, teachers, students, and administrators. And this created a great deal of uproar in the community. BETTY ANN BOWSER: There were bombings, protests, and fear. Instead of letting the situation fester--as happened in many cities--leaders in Charlotte made a firm, emotional, commitment to making busing work. Life-long native and banking executive Dennis Rash was one of them. BETTY ANN BOWSER: The district's integration plan called for busing an equal number of black and white students to make sure the burdens and benefits and busing were shared. To prevent white flight, they included suburbs in the busing plan and they formed community groups to press the cause for busing. DAVID GOLDFIELD: The community came together. We built a consensus, and we solved the problem, and we moved on to bigger and better things. Our economic growth took off after 1975 when the last schools were integrated. |
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| The most integrated school system in America | ||||||||||||||||||||
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But because of Capacchione's lawsuit, the whole busing structure now may be overturned. That's because when the case went to court Federal Judge Robert Potter used it to reopen the entire Swann vs. Board of Education lawsuit that led to busing in 1971. Before taking the bench, Potter led an anti-busing crusade. As a sitting judge he has now ordered the district to explain why it has not achieved unitary status, after nearly thirty years of busing. A unitary district is one that offers equal opportunities to all races. That would leave the school board free from any court interference in how it runs its schools. Potter said he wants to resolve the issue of unitary status as soon as possible. One third of the nine-member school board would like to have busing end. John Lassiter is board vice president. JOHN LASSITER: I don't think transportation has anything to do with a quality education. Quality education begins in the particular school. And we have to ensure that every school is the highest caliber. That issue has existed for us long before and long after we had transportational requirements laid upon us by the court system
DAVID GOLDFIELD: There's no question, no question about it that there is a divergence between white and black test scores. And that has not been coming together in recent years. But there is a concern that with so much diversity in the school system and so many different backgrounds and levels of preparation with which students come to the classroom that a quality education may not be as possible as from the environment which they moved. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Busing supporters say the schools just need more time to make up for 89 years of segregation. Part of the problem is that neighborhoods remain segregated. Most African-Americans in Charlotte still live in black neighborhoods, whites in predominantly white neighborhoods. And for some students school is one place where the races really come together. Most of these kids at Granger--a magnet high school--have grown up with busing. SOPHORN LAY: When you go out into the real world it's not always going to be just one race and big corporates or wherever you work or even in college. And if you're prepared now, then it would be easier to make that Transition, and so I think it's been worth it. JANET AREMU-COLE: I've never had any Asian friends, so I think busing to integrate is like a very, very good thing because it just gives like a better outlook for the children. It makes them see a different perspective of life.
CLEA GARNER: My bus was like an hour across school on the bus, and I think I was like the first person picked up and the last person dropped off the way the bus driver did the route. And it was so I could go to a magnet school. Well, of course, I hated the getting up early, but it was worth it because it was at a school that I wanted to go to. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Clea attended the school of her choice because she made the quota; Cristina Capacchione did not. And that's her father's point. There should be more choice--regardless of race or desegregation guidelines. BILL CAPACCHIONE: My focus is really that I just believe that if you limit a child's--it's wrong to limit a child's educational opportunities based on the color of their skin. I just think that's wrong. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Griffin is concerned that lawsuits like Capacchione's will result in years of desegregation efforts being thrown away. ARTHUR GRIFFIN: I think its simply an effort to turn back the clock in America. People have made challenges before. This is sort of a come-in-the-back-door change to dealing with race and race not only in this community but race in America. |
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| Turning back the clock? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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BILL CAPACCHIONE: I don't think it has the effect of turning back the clock. I think it's taking a step forward. The next step, the evolution is let's educate the children. Mecklenburg County is the richest county in North Carolina. North Carolina is number 48 in the country in education. Mecklenburg county is in a five-county region around here, is number five out of seven counties. We're the bottom of the bottom here. Something needs to be done to raise that guard, to educate the children. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Both sides agree the debate over how to educate children is what's at stake in this lawsuit and whether classrooms should have a balance of the four "R"s--reading, writing, 'rithmetic, and race. Attorneys will spend the next year preparing their cases. Capacchione's lawsuit is expected to be heard in federal court before next April. |
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BETTY
ANN BOWSER: Six-year-old Cristina Capacchione is finishing first-grade
at Mcalpine Elementary School, where student test scores are among the
highest in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina public school system.
But Cristina's father, Bill Capacchione, wanted his daughter to attend
Old Providence Elementary, a so-called "magnet" school, a few miles
away. 
BILL
CAPACCHIONE: I really believe that my daughter's constitutional rights
were violated. And as a concerned parent, and a responsible parent I
hope, I believed it was my job to look after her well-being. 
ARTHUR
GRIFFIN: It goes beyond the fact that this is more than just academics.
It really gets down to a black/white issue. It gets down to race and
that's the issue that scares me most. I mean, I grew up at a time when
it was very evident that we were all vulnerable because we couldn't
stand as a nation if there are two societies, one black, one white,
separate and unequal. And I think what people are doing today are forgetting
our history and sort of coming out of the game to say that we can be
separate and equal. 
DENNIS
RASH: This city is a city that has always had a history of economic
opportunity, a very pragmatic city. It was wasteful to have a dual school
system, wasteful in both human terms and in financial terms. The school
system is always one of the things that people test a city by. If it's
not successful they don't go there. If it is successful, they do go
there.
BETTY
ANN BOWSER: Today, one federal study cites Charlotte as the most integrated
school system in America. And Goldfield is right. Charlotte is no longer
a sleepy little southern city. Its population has jumped 25 percent
in the last five years. A strong economy is creating steady job growth
and low unemployment. It's the second largest banking center in the
United States. And another medal of prosperity: new NBA and NFL expansion
teams play in Charlotte. 
BETTY
ANN BOWSER: Critics of busing like Lassiter point to the district's
test scores. Like most public school systems in America, black students
still score substantially lower than white students on standardized
achievement tests. Last year, blacks averaged 850 points, compared to
1,043 for white students on the SAT. The 193-point disparity is somewhat
worse than the rest of North Carolina, where there's a 189-point gap.
Nationwide, the gap is 195 points.
BETTY
ANN BOWSER: For most of these students, busing has meant extra hours
added to each school day in order to attend the highly prized magnet
schools.