School board elections usually garner little public attention, but in 2009, media outlets across the country were covering the contentious school board election in Wake County. The election occurred against a backdrop of increasing concerns over student assignment policies, tremendous population growth, and the rise of the state’s Republican party.
Republicans took over the school board and formally ended the policy that used bussing for diversity. The new book “The End of Consensus” (UNC Press/2015) argues that this election represented the end of a decade-long consensus about how to achieve diversity in Wake County public schools.
Host Frank Stasio talks with co-authors Toby Parcel, professor of sociology at North Carolina State University, and Andy Taylor, professor of political science at North Carolina State University, about their in-depth study of student assignment and diversity in Wake County.
