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Schools should not be segregated by law. But neighborhoods simply are, often by choice. Sending kids around on busses simply to diversify them by skin color is a rediculous waste of time and money. It's also a tacit admission that schools in poorer or non-white neighborhoods are not as good as those in white neighborhoods, indicating a problem with the administration of the school and the district.

I was bussed in the 4th and 5th grades, mandated by the courts. Many of the other kids in my neighborhood had parents active in the school PTA, and their kids did not get bussed. They opened a special "adjunct" for "advanced" students and got their kids into that program. Coincidence? Not at all. It was cronyism at it's finest. But my mom was too busy working to raise 2 kids to get involved in the PTA. It didn't hurt me to get bussed, but it was a waste of the school districts money and time (2 hours a day on a bus). In high school, we had 1000 kids bussed into my school from less afluent neighborhoods. All I know is that it wasn't the "locals" who put gang graffitti on the walls, shot at someone on campus, or won our district football championship and state sprinting and relay championships.

On Long Island, bussing was blocked for most districts due to backroom political dealing. As a result, I went to an elementary school from 1981-1988 that was 98% white (2% being Asian), despite the fact that there was a sizeable black population a few miles down the road. So much for liberal New York.

But neighborhoods simply are, often by choice.

You're right on the mark. Segregation was bound to fail from the start. DEsegrating neighborhoods, which is done by those with like backgrounds, i.e., education, interests, careers, income levels, living next door to each other is what works. It always amazed me that people couldn't understand that. People with like interests living side by side, working for the same goals, is color blindness. Not forced segregation. That's devisive and does nothing more than put neon signs over differences.