76-17-B5
- Main Page \ Reagan Radio Commentaries \ 1977
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Busing[edit]
Transcript[edit]Courts continue to mandate busing, even though all but a few zealots have long conceded it is a social experiment that has failed. Just as compulsory segregation is wrong, so is compulsory integration. Somewhere along the line, social experimenters crossed over from desegregation to integration and, for a time, successfully blurred the difference. Also somewhere along the line, these same zealous experimenters became so wrapped up in their cause they forgot all about the children. Never was this more evident than in a dramatic exchange which took place before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. last fall. Former Secretary of H.E.W. and now Chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Arthur S. Fleming, addressed the club on "What has Happened to School Busing". On the platform with him were several school officials and District of Columbia School Superintendent, Vincent E. Reed. Fleming didn't need to warm to his subject; he was steaming hot to begin with. He demanded the breakup of segregated schools by any means possible saying, "We must create equal access and make sure minorities are not shunted aside." Now, this creates an interesting situation in Washington, D.C. where 95% of the 126,000 students are black and only 5% are white. Apparently, he was willing to bus thousands of black children out to the suburbs in Maryland and Virginia and bring white children into the District. Of course, he put it -- "bring them back in", because he assumes they are all children of families who moved to Maryland and Virginia to avoid the majority in the Washington schools. Fleming dismissed the U.S. Supreme Court decision wherein it was ruled that Detroit could not carry out such a program of city to suburb busing. According to him, the case just hadn't been properly presented. He said, "I start with the premise that you can't have equal educational opportunities in a segregated school system". His speech was followed by a kind of panel discussion. And what took place there had to rank as a news scoop for the media sophisticates of the National Press Club. The D. C. school Superintendent, 48-year-old Vincent E. Reed, a no-nonsense educator and former Missourian, bluntly responded to Chairman Fleming's proposal. He said busing is a waste of money that could be better used to improve the quality of education and he denied that forced integration is necessary for better education. Superintendent Reed summed it up this way; "I don't think it's necessary for black children to be with white children in order to achieve quality education. I don't think many black parents believe that good education necessarily lies at the end of a bus ride." He then went on to challenge the idea that people moved to the suburbs because they were racist. He said, "So many people want to make this a racist thing, but it isn't. There are many blacks who can afford to move out of the city and are moving out." It's hard not to agree with him. You see, Superintendent Reed is black. He worked his way up from the ranks in the D.C. school district, starting 20 years ago. He said "Busing does not mean quality education. We're more likely to get better education if we have better teachers. That's what will give us quality education, not busing." I hope Dr. Fleming listened to Dr. Reed. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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