White flight, black ineptitude, finally catches up.
Like so many other public school parents, Reshonda Sanders feltconfused on Thursday as she tried to comprehend why nearly half of theschools here, including her own alma mater, are to close for good atthe end of the year. As the mother of two high school students, she waswell aware of the district’s struggles.
“But even so, I thought, Could they be serious? Close almost 30schools, all at once?” said Ms. Sanders, 34. “That’s devastating forus. How did it get to be this bad? What were they doing for years andyears so that something like this happens just like overnight?”
In her bafflement, Ms. Sanders is not alone. In the wake of the KansasCity school board’s decision to shutter 28 of its 61 schools, manypeople were left scratching their heads. While school closings as aresult of demographic change and tight budgets are commonplace acrossthe country, rarely does a system lose half of itself in one sweep.