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7344491
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Integration and Quality Education: The Moral Code [Notice to Press]
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7344491
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document
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Integration and Quality Education: The Moral Code [Notice to Press]
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White House Press Releases (Ford Administration)
Press Releases
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7344491
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1976-06-12
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1976
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Digitized from Box 27 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
INTEGRATI AND QUALITY EDUCA ON: THE MORAL CASE
The vast majority of Americans believes in integration. The vast majority
believes in quality education for all. There is no disagreeemnt on the goals.
On the pragmatic level on the means and methods -- there is, as there
should be, serious disagreement.
Unfortunately, for some citizens, ideology in these matters has replaced practical
reason. They are for busing. Period. Or they are against busing. Period.
We believe that court-ordered busing is workable only under very special cir-
cumstances. In many circumstances, court-ordered busing has not achieved the
purposes its partisans intend. In many circumstances, it has had exactly
opposite effects. We have come to believe that the premises on which the case
for court-ordered busing have been built are faulty. These premises are
especially blind to the way in which creative forces in many cities and districts
actually work to achieve economic progress and class mobility. Attempting
laudably to win liberty for some, they choose a remedy that deprives others
of liberty. A policy based on faulty premises is doomed to failure.
The goals of integration and quality education are too important to be left to
questionable methods.
We recognize that localities differ, and that different methods -- or a different
mix of methods work better in some regions, and others in others.
We urge public officials, social scientists, educators, and concerned citizens
to join in developing ever more adequate mothods to achieve the high goals we
all cherish.
In particular, we believe that all aspiring students, of all races and cultural
backgrounds, should have as many open and real choices within an entire school
system or even between neighboring school systems -- as possible.
We deplore the assumption that neighborhood schools cannot, if they are black,
attain high levels of excellence. But we believe strongly that opportunity to
choose freely to send one's children to schools outside the neighborhood should be
open to every family, of whatever race or culture, in this nation.
We believe strongly that the principle of individual choice, supported both by
public encouragement and the proper award of the economic means to make
such choice effective is far more in keeping with sound American traditions
than coercive measures, that it will show greater practical fruit in shorter
time, that it is less costly financially and socially, and that it will win the
wholehearted acceptance of the vast majority of the American people, of all
races and cultures.
-2-
For ours is, in Whitman's WO rds, "a Nation of nations, " and also 11 one
nation indivisible. 11 As Americans, we cannot be satisfied until all of our
citizens have equal opportunity, learn from each other, and build up one
unified nation, fair and equal to all. We believe that to concentrate all hope
on court-ordered busing alone will delay or even doom the fulfillment of such
a dream.
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