Busing reared its ugly head during the Democrat debate between former V.P. Joe Biden and California Senator Kamala Harris. Their discussion raised one of the most divisive policies faced by American education and in fact, one which really didn’t solve a thing.
Harris spoke of being bussed while in elementary school from a neighborhood school in Berkeley, California – claiming she was part of the desegregation of the school system.
Harris plays on the minority issue, implying that she is black, while in reality she is the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father. Her battle with “blackness” continues, but it appears that it isn’t gaining her much political capital – at least so far.
Biden didn’t have such a personal story to tell, but he claimed he had been opposed to busing all through that era.
Regardless of the positions of these two candidates, it appears a number of the Democrat candidates might support forced busing of children to desegregate schools – and in fact, the idea has been floated that busing worked when it was carried out.
Whether they have any personal experience with it, matters not. It just sounds good and warms the liberal heart that they can DO SOMETHING. Whether it works, doesn’t matter. Whether that segregation is intentional or not, matters not to people following that line of thought. The fact that it “IS” is sufficient.
I was working in TV news for the CBS station in Los Angeles during the 70s when the battle about busing hit the fan. I saw close-up both sides of the issue, and it wasn’t pretty.
One side argued FOR busing as the answer to segregation problems. They aimed to have the courts settle the problem and that people would just have to accept it.
The opposition to busing encompassed people (both conservative and liberal) who believed in the idea of neighborhood schools and that dragging children across the city to settle racial imbalance was not only wrong, it was illegal. They formed an activist group called “Bustop” which argued against the busing plan at the Board of Education as well as in the courts and politically.
The courts, from local to the Supreme Court, seemed to follow the idea that since segregated schools came about because of school and local court decisions, it would take court rulings to end it.
Across the country there was opposition, often violent, to forced busing – Boston, Denver, Seattle, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Austin, Detroit and yes, Los Angeles, among many others.
In 1970, court decisions paved the way for busing to end school segregation in Los Angeles. Children would be assigned to schools based on race and they would be bused across the city to their new school locations. White kids to minority schools and minority children to white schools Given that the Los Angeles Unified School district encompassed more than 710 square miles, that was a BIG problem.
The other BIG problem was that many parents didn’t approve of the plan and they pushed back as they could. Parents in the good schools in white neighborhoods resorted to homeschooling or transferring their children to private and parochial schools. Ultimately, many simply moved to other parts of the state, or even out of state.
A big problem for the bused children was that they were in school far from home. They had to leave home very early to get to the new school across town. In addition, it made social contacts with their classmates outside of school time impossible.
After-school activities and sports became difficult and usually impossible since they often didn’t have transportation home following such activities. In other words, the traditional school friendships didn’t exist. For working parents, the challenge of dealing with their children’s school schedule and location just didn’t work.
One example is the Coliseum Street School in the inner city which had mostly black and Latino students. It was paired with the school in the white, upper-class neighborhood of Pacific Palisades on the Westside of L.A. Children from each school would be bused to the other location because of their color. It was a long trip across town.
There were no physical problems that made headlines; but beneath the surface, there were changes. Many white parents decided to transfer their children to private schools. I lived there at the time and that was a decision I made.
Part of it was the schools they attended were excellent and I knew that the inner-city school was not on the same academic par. I was not about to allow my children to be subject to a lesser academic program to solve a social problem.
Also, and equally important, as a single working mother, there was no way I could accommodate my children being transported across the city and returned home at times when I was at work. I solved it by having my children tested and accepted to a private parochial school. As it turned out, I got another job in Northern California and so we didn’t have to face the issue of busing.
Interestingly enough, about year later, I learned that the family of one of my children’s friends moved to the same Northern California community where we lived. When we reacquainted, I found out their children had been bused in L.A. to the Coliseum School, and it was a social and academic disaster – which was why they literally sold their house and moved.
They weren’t alone, as many families did the same. White flight became a reality and caused a whole variety of social problems for the schools. All this transpired while the social and court battles continued, until busing was officially ended in 1979, the result of the passage of a state constitutional amendment.
Beneath it all, is that it’s not color that makes a difference. It’s the quality of the schools, the teachers and their programs. It also reflects the power of the unions; and in Democrat cities, that power is immense.
National polls over the years have shown people want choice, not forced busing to achieve racial balance.
Whether or not this becomes “an issue” in the upcoming political campaigns remains to be seen; but if it does, it will prove to be more divisive than most people would imagine.
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