John Edwards School Integration Plan

The Politico is reporting on teh latest John Edwards proposal:

Sen. John Edwards plans to warn later this week that the nation’s schools have become segregated by race and income, and he will propose measures to diversify both inner-city and middle-class schools.

The plan calls for beefing up inner-city magnet schools to attract suburban kids, and providing extra money for schools in middle-class areas as a reward for enrolling more low-income students.

Edward lingered in the Big Easy this morning – admiring a 5-year-old Head Start pupil’s sneakers and hobnobbing in a wood-floored café -- before racing into Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee as part of a three-day poverty tour designed to shine a national spotlight on the plight of often-invisible groups like struggling home-health-care workers.

Edwards is proposing a kind of economic integration, which has been discussed before in other forums, but essentially would bus poor kids to richer schools and vice versa.

While economic integration sounds good, it will no doubt face the same failures as racial integration bussing, i.e. that it fails to address the underlying problems.

As explained by people who have been consulted about the program, Edwards wants to set aside $100 million to help school districts implement economic integration programs. The money will help finance buses and other resources for schools that enroll additional low-income children.

Edwards also envisions magnet schools dedicated to economic integration. The idea is that these schools would attract middle-class and suburban students to low-income areas.

Another prong of the program would create one million housing vouchers over five years to help low-income families move to better neighborhoods. As part of his vow to end poverty, Edwards also wants to phrase out housing projects that trap families in buildings that are shoddier and more expensive than private alternatives.

so lets spend more money on housing rather than schools. It would seem to me that John Edwards is more interested in income redistribution that in better education.