Riding the School Bus

3003 Words7 Pages

Riding the School Bus

In the United States, millions upon millions of children attend public schooling. These millions of children come from every background; African American, Caucasian, Asian, Latin, etc. All of these ethnicities go to our public schools. Not only are children categorized into different ethnic groups, but also economic groups. Children from low, middle, and high-income families all attend public schooling. Because of all these societal groups going to school together, public schooling can truly be characterized as an engine for multicultural education. However, due to barriers within society (e.g. racial discrimination and economic barriers and stereotypes), some students are not being taught in a multicultural environment. Due to this problem and the importance that most of society places upon multicultural education, school busing takes place. Busing is a very important and controversial method that is practiced to improve multicultural education to those who have had very little, if any, experience with it. Busing is also an engine used to end segregation within our schools. Equality was the reason for the start of busing in the first place. We will discuss the definition of busing and whom it affects. We will discuss the important events that occurred before and after the landmark court case of Brown Vs. The Board of Education, which touched upon the issue of equality. Lastly, we will discuss the pros and cons of school busing.

DEFINITION OF SCHOOL BUSING

When most people think of the word school busing, they get the mental picture of a big yellow school bus. This big, yellow school bus goes out to the towns’ neighborhoods and picks up all the towns’ kids and brings them to school to receive their educations’. On most occasions, they are brought to the nearest school that is usually within their own neighborhood. Technically, this picture is correct, but it is not the same type of busing we will be discussing. The school busing we will be discussing is when a child from one neighborhood is picked up by a bus to attend a school in a totally different (sometimes far away) neighborhood. This is done even when a student lives close to the school within their neighborhood. So the question is, why is there a need for this type of busing and whom does it affect? In order to answer these questions, we must discuss the revolutio...

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... are around them. School busing in this country can ease the cultural tensions, but can also flare the tensions. In my opinion, busing is very important. Like we have discussed, busing helps promote multiculturalism. And I believe multiculturalism, at least to me, is very important. I want to be a well-rounded and cultured student. I would like to see more students like that.

WORKS CITED

1. Banks, J. (1999). Goals and Misconceptions. Allyn and Bacon Inc.

Brown V. Board of Education. November 17, 2001. Http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/brown.html

3.Bruce Allen Murphy. Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka. World Book Online Americas Edition. Http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wbpage/na/ar/co/079300. November 17, 2001.

4. Study: School Segregation Increased During 1990’s. November 30, 2001. Http://fyi.cnn.com/2001/fyi/teachers.ednews/07/18/segregationstudy.ap/

5. Kozol, J. (1991). Savage Inequalities. New York: Crown Publishing Corp.

6. Edward W. Knappman, ed., Great American Trials (Detroit: Visible Ink, 1994) 467.

7. Benjamin Munn Ziegler, ed., Desegregation and the Supreme Court (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1958)

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