The goings-on at the Wake County school board probably hit close to home in Forsyth County, what with our county's move to the zoned school choice (or whatever it's called) a while back.  That happened before we moved to Lewisville so I'm only personally familiar with the current system, and I have to say that as a family we're pretty happy with having our kids go to school just a few minutes down the road. That said, I don't necessarily think that neighborhood schools are better by default.

To help give you my perspective let me tell you that I grew up in Northern Virginia in the 70s and early 80s.  The first school system I was in, Fairfax County, at the time was evolving from rural to suburban, and even with busing there wasn't a lot of integration to be had. When I was in 7th grade my family moved to Arlington County, which was a much more urban area, and you really didn't need to do much to integrate because it just kind of happened naturally; racially mixed, middle class, wealthy and poor neighborhoods existed in every geographic school zone.  The one thing they did do is bus all the English as a Second Language (ESL) kids to one school so that they had all the ESL faculty in one place, and my middle school happened to be that school.  Oh, and the move happened in the middle of the school year so one Friday I got off the school bus from my 90+% white, middle class school and on Monday I got on a bus to go to a school that was probably less than 50% white, 50+% every other race you could name, and Lord knows what economic breakdown.  I learned more about people in the subsequent years in the Arlington County schools than I had before or have since.

So while I don't think you should discount the importance of community, and some of the inherent advantages of having kids go to school close to home, I also don't think you should discount some of the advantages of providing kids the opportunity to spend their days with a cross section of our society.  I'm not smart enough to have all the answers, but I do know that we need to make sure for our kids' sake that we make decisions with all of their best interests at heart.  I think that one of the reasons the Wake County board's move is creating so much controversy is that many folks think that might not be the case.  I'll leave it to the comedian to explain: