Sausage-making and CMS

In one sense, this is exactly how government is supposed to work. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system put forth plans, citizens spoke out, the plans changed, people reacted to the changes. Yes, protesters disrupted the school board meeting Tuesday night. But they left quietly, and then they were let back in, and the meeting finished up.

CMS could have handled this better. They could have given the public more time to digest the ideas. But the problem is not the process. The problem is the product. There are no good solutions that come out of closing schools and moving kids around. There are just various versions of awful.

Everything has collided. Charlotte's growth has slowed, so some schools haven't filled up as expected. The economy is still limping, so government has to cut. All that is overlaid on the long-term problem of underachieving schools. And all THAT is overlaid on race, class, the role of parents, the role of government, merit, fairness, justice: basically, the history of America.

The old line says you don't want to see the making of laws or sausages. But this is more like scrapple. We're watching lips and snouts and hooves fly into the grinder, and nobody wants to taste what comes out the other side.

Few people grasp the big picture, or want to. Parents, naturally, fight for their kids' schools -- even if those schools are failing. You always think that with a few more good teachers, a little extra attention, a school can turn around. Some charter schools (but not all) have shown that poor and minority kids can do just as well as other kids in the right environment. CMS has even had some success at places such as Harding University High.

But Harding is now scheduled to close because of the brutal math that faces CMS: Every open school must be filled to the brim to make sure the money's not wasted. Harding is only about half full. So other students have to come fill it up, or Harding's kids have to go somewhere else.

This is the bill the poorest kids in our schools have always paid. They've always had the longest bus rides, the fewest good teachers, the least support from their parents. (As many have pointed out, those crowds at the CMS meetings would be something nice to see at PTA meetings.)

But the moves also affect middle-class families who can't afford private schools, and magnet-school kids who might show some special talent, and gifted kids in International Baccalaureate programs.

Why not spread the pain into all public schools? Two reasons, one academic and one political. Most of the schools in Charlotte's wealthiest neighborhoods are doing fine. And if they take any major cuts, parents have the means to pull their kids out and put them in private schools. They're a mousetrap CMS can't touch.

So here's the bottom line: Too much space, not enough money, lots of parents motivated by change, not enough parents motivated before the change was necessary, the kids who need stability most will get the least.

Put yourself in the chair of a school board member. Try to make that work. See how long before your head explodes.

Blanche Penn, one of the protesters Tuesday night, said this afterward: "It's like they're playing some kind of game with us, like we're all just pieces of a puzzle."

She was half right. It's a puzzle. But it's no game.