Magnet schools unconstitutional???????????? (Pittsburgh: live in, racist, cities)

[Dorian]

I posted this thread in both the Pittsburgh and Seattle forums because I was watching the news yesterday(I live in Pittsburgh) and heard a story about magnet schools having to change due to a case of one of the programs in Seattle which was taken to the supreme court which ruled that it was discriminatory against some white students and declared it unconstitutional to enroll students on basis of race. For those of you that don't know what a magnet school(which we call them here in pittsburgh) is, they are schools that parents can send their children to that mix different races of kids together in equal numbers. They do this because it is belived that diversity in schools are very important to the development of children socailly and academically. They use a numerical system to mantain equallity in the schools so that no one race is a majority or minority. After listening to the story I continue to think about it and I couldn't decide if I agreed with the ruling or not. I think that the whole idea of racailly even schools is great and important for this country to help us get over races isolating themselves from another race and help identify and understand other cultures and the similarities between races and differences between them that make them unique and special to the country. But at the same time I do see how there is a problem with enrolling kids based on race, which is in a way discrimination. The Pittsburgh school district is saying that this is going to lead back to segregation in a way do to how many neigborhoods in pittsburgh and most other cities in america are prodominently one race which in turn causes schools to reflect the same satistics. There are alot of intellegent people on these forums so I was curious how other people feel on this ruling, any ideas on how to acheive racail equality in schools with out discriminating, and any other comments, thoughts, views, or ideas on this subject.

[Katarina Witt]

I haven't heard of that particular case that you reference, but I know in the district where I live, it has been decided that race cannot be a preference criteria for any of the charter or focus (similar to magnet) schools.

[Seaharbour]

They do do that, I know, my child attended one, we left as soon as she was done that year, very racist system.