Once again, the lefties say one thing, do another. They love to quote nigger Mike King (MLK, for you antis) and his plagiarized platitudes while they do anything to destroy and undermine Whites. I foresee Wisconsin setting itself up to be the next Detroit. The fact that the story is written and presented shows some change in attitudes.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/arch_local/224990

SUN., SEP 9, 2007 - 12:32 PM

ANDY HALL

If he lived anywhere else in Wisconsin, Zachary Walton, 12, wouldn't have this problem.

If he were black, Asian, Hispanic, or American Indian, Zachary wouldn't have this problem, either.

But he's in Madison, where growing numbers of white students are discovering that because of their race, the state's open enrollment program actually is closed.

"I feel like I'm left out," said Zachary, who wants to attend a public online school — one like his big brother Daniel, 15, enjoys.

Last week, when most students across Wisconsin began a new school year, Zachary began his second year of home schooling in his family's East Side apartment.

Madison officials, supported by the state Department of Public Instruction, have ruled that Zachary and 125 other students living in the district must stay put this year in the name of racial integration.

The policy is enforced even for dozens of students, such as Zachary, who don't attend public school but instead go to private schools or receive home schooling.

Laura and Mike Starks, Zachary's mother and stepfather, believe that Madison and DPI are going overboard. And that it's depriving Zachary of one-on-one attention needed for him to catch up academically.

"If we had the money, we would have aggressively fought this," Mike Starks said.

Madison is the only of Wisconsin's 426 school systems that still uses racial criteria to reject the applications of some students, such as Zachary, to transfer to other districts in the open enrollment program, according to a Wisconsin State Journal review of state Department of Public Instruction records.

Open enrollment, which is used by about 2 percent of Wisconsin students, is designed to let families choose where students attend school.

Like Zachary, Daniel is white. However, his transfer to iQ Academies in the Waukesha School District was approved two years ago, when the family lived in the Montello School District, 60 miles north of Madison.

In its decisions for the current school year, Madison school officials cited concerns over increasing the district's "racial imbalance" in rejecting 140 transfer requests involving 126 students. The number of applications is larger than the number of students because some filed more than one request.

All of the students involved in those rejected transfer requests were white.

The number of race-based rejections represented a 71-percent increase in the number issued the previous year, according to data supplied by the district in response to requests from the State Journal.

"The state law requires the Madison School District to deny open enrollment to children who change the racial balance of the school district. Period," Madison Schools Superintendent Art Rainwater said.

However, Madison's approach now may be in jeopardy after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June sharply restricted school districts' power to use race in determining where children may attend school.

Madison officials say that because the district receives money through the state's voluntary school-integration program known as Chapter 220, they're required by state law to block student transfers that would increase the "racial imbalance" within the district. The Madison district receives about $500,000 a year for participating.

The other districts participating in Chapter 220 are in Milwaukee, its suburbs, Beloit, Racine and Wausau. Each district sets its own criteria for what "racial imbalance" is and how to control it. None of the other Chapter 220 districts deny students' open enrollment transfer requests on the basis of race.

Under an internal policy developed by Rainwater and his staff to meet Chapter 220's integration goal, the district refuses to let white children transfer to other districts if their Madison school attendance areas already have a minority student population of more than 43 percent.

That figure is lower than the district's actual concentration of minority students, which last year stood at 46 percent.

There's little flexibility: The policy allows approval of transfers from the district's other areas if the departures of the white students increase the district's overall minority concentration no more than .04 percent and any single school's minority concentration by less than .5 percent.

Rainwater said the policy applies to children who aren't enrolled in a Madison school, such as children being home-schooled or attending private school, if they live within the district.

Asked what he would tell students and parents who consider the situation unjust, Rainwater replied, "Well, then they need to lobby the Legislature, it seems to me, because that's who makes the laws."

District figures show that for the current school year, 63 of the 140 transfer applications rejected for race-based reasons involved students such as Zachary who were not enrolled in a Madison public school.

The number of such rejections has nearly tripled since the 2004-05 school year, largely because of a rise in the number of requests to transfer to a virtual school in another district such as Appleton, Northern Ozaukee or Waukesha. (The Madison district offers more than 100 online courses for middle and high school students but hasn't determined whether to offer a full online school curriculum.)

For example, in the past four years, Madison officials have cited racial imbalance in rejecting more than half of the 59 requests to transfer to the Appleton School District, data show. Appleton operates a virtual school known as Wisconsin Connections Academy.

"Personally, to not allow students who are home schooled and who probably are going to be home schooled for the better part of their educational careers, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me," said Mark Huenink, assistant superintendent of the Appleton School District, who said it's likely that a change in the law will be considered by legislators as enrollment in virtual schools continues to climb.

"I don't know Madison's politics and the importance of that 43 percent and so on, but if you have a family that is not going to send its kids to Madison public schools, then that kid is not going to have an impact on the (classroom) balance....It does seem to perhaps negatively impact families who have no desire to send their kids to public schools right now."

Many families whose transfer requests have been denied by the Madison School District are drawing hope from a recent case in Dane County Circuit Court.

Jeff and Jennifer Cizek prevailed last month after taking the highly unusual step of filing a court action seeking to allow their daughter, Allison, to enroll in kindergarten in the Monona Grove School District, where Jennifer Cizek is an elementary teacher.

"It's just exactly what we wanted," said their lawyer, Daniel Krause, whose court papers argued that the case deserved a fresh review in light of the new U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Spokesmen for DPI and the state Department of Justice, the agency representing DPI in court, decline to say why they agreed to settle the case in the Cizeks' favor, and Rainwater said he has no idea what happened.

Rainwater said the district won't change its policy or decisions unless the Legislature changes the law or a court declares the current Wisconsin law to be unconstitutional.

But two other Wisconsin districts, on Milwaukee's north side, dumped their race-based enrollment policies even before the nation's highest court issued its ruling.

"When I came on board, I said we're not doing any of this sort of thing," said Mary Dean, superintendent and principal of the Maple Dale-Indian Hill School District since the summer of 2006.

"If Caucasians want to leave, they've got as much right as anybody else."

For the 2006-07 school year, that district cited racial imbalance when it initially denied four requests to transfer to another district. But it then reversed those decisions, DPI records show.

The previous year, the district cited racial imbalance in denying 39 transfer requests.

Susan Landers, administrative assistant to Dean, said that the district's attorney "advised us not to apply the racial criteria as we awaited the Supreme Court decision," which struck down racial aspects of student assignment plans in Seattle and Louisville, Ky.

In the Glendale-River Hills School District, officials rejected 21 applications to transfer elsewhere for the 2005-06 school year.

Now, however, the district's enrollment policies are colorblind. There's a lottery for students wishing to come in, subject to space being available, and all requests to leave are granted.

"I'm not a lawyer, but my belief is the true meaning of the open enrollment system wasn't the color basis," Superintendent Larry Smalley said. "I don't think color should have been a factor."

Back in the Starks' home on Madison's East Side, Mike and Laura Starks worry that the race-based rulings from the Madison School District and DPI are harming Zachary's education.

They have a stack of papers from a six-month evaluation of Zachary, undertaken by the Madison School District to determine whether he qualifies for extra services as a special education student. He didn't meet the threshold, although there were signs of trouble.

A series of tests indicated that Zachary likely has attention deficit disorder.

A district psychologist noted that "at times Zach feels a sense of hopelessness as a student because he thinks he's going to fail no matter what he does."

As he begins seventh grade, though, Zachary is proud that in the past year of studies with his mother, he gained two years of academic progress.

That was crucial because at the beginning of last school year, as a sixth grader, he was operating at a third-grade level in several subject areas — vestiges of academic problems rooted in his early years of school in Montello.

Zachary and his parents believe he'd thrive in a virtual school, just as Daniel is through iQ Academies, a virtual school based 85 miles to the east in the Waukesha School District. Daniel gets lectures and support from licensed teachers, plus a free computer and books.

With just one income, the family feels too pinched financially to afford the tuition to a virtual school or to mount a court challenge.

Mike Starks is employed part-time to run the computer system for the state Treasurer's Office, and Laura Starks is taking classes to become a nurse. She hopes to return to work after home-schooling Zachary this year.

But for this school year, at least, Zachary is consigned to sit at the kitchen table with his mother, while Daniel taps into a network of teachers and classmates at iQ Academies.

"HELLO PEEPS!" Daniel typed as he signed in for a get-acquainted session with principal Kristine Diener, other staff and 22 classmates on Tuesday, the beginning of the school year.

"Hi, DWalton," a student identified as Mallo P quickly replied.

Daniel will meet many of these classmates from all over Wisconsin throughout the year, as they gather for weekend events such as a picnic, bowling and even a prom.

In the kitchen, Zachary worked on fractions and adjectives. His mother guided him, using an online service (purchased by the family) to grade his papers. The family pays $1,200 a year for his books.

"I feel I'm not giving him as much as what Daniel gets," Laura Starks said. "I'm certainly no professional teacher."

Zachary hopes that by telling his story publicly, he'll play a role in persuading policymakers to ban race as a reason why students can't get access to better learning opportunities.

"This," he said, "could change a lot of kids' lives."