School merger sore subject

Friday, March 27, 2009, 9:48 AM


By Scott Mooneyham | Capitol Press Association

http://www.wilsondaily.com/Opinion/Colu ... -subject--

RALEIGH -- Early on in my journalism career, I learned that there were few public policy issues more emotional than school merger.

Working for the Goldsboro News-Argus two decades ago, I had the prickly task of reporting on the merger of Goldsboro and Wayne County schools after the General Assembly had passed legislation allowing city school systems to force mergers.

Once the legislation passed, the merger became inevitable. A few years earlier, the Goldsboro city school board had unsuccessfully sued in the federal courts to try to force merger. Now, no lawsuit was needed.

Driving home one evening from a county school board, I thought to myself, "These people are going to hate me in six months."

I was right. A series of stories and editorials in the newspaper had unbuttoned plans by an interim merged board to pay several hundred thousand dollars to buy out the two schools superintendents. At least one of the board members blamed me for her defeat in a subsequent election.

On one particular evening, county school board chair George Moye, normally a nice, level-headed fellow, was ready to sock me in the mouth. If not for the intervention of Atlas Price, the chairman of the county commissioners, the evening may have become a lot more interesting.

From close up, I saw how a school merger coaxes raw, heightened emotions. It threatens political power. It plays on racial divisions. It divides neighbors.

If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd probably write a play about a school merger.

Still, was it the right thing to do?

Fifty-five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court found racially segregated schools to be an evil that should be eradicate. That the courts have backtracked from the ruling over the last 20 years doesn't change the original basis for or the findings in the Brown case.

To the extent that separate city and county schools perpetuate segregation, the arrangement is wrong.

Today, 15 city school systems remain in 11 North Carolina counties. For most, race isn't a driving factor in their continuing existence.

But the duplicate, and in some cases triplicate, school administrations in those counties cost state taxpayers $11 million a year.

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand believes that if communities want two or three school systems, they should pick up the entire tax burden of paying for the additional school administrations.

As he has in other years, the Fayetteville Democrat has filed a bill to eliminate state dollars going to fund duplicate school administrations.

In the past, the proposal hasn't had much success. But these aren't normal times. The state faces a budget shortfall of $2 billion or more. Legislators are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find money wherever they can.

This year, Rand's bill has already gotten a hearing before a Senate committee.

The issue is as volatile as ever, though. Some things change slowly, if at all.
Randolph County is one of these 15 counties in North Carolina. Call North Carolina representatives and ask to have school systems combined. Otherwise we pay double for admin in these counties.