So his proposal to revive neighborhood schools in two years will play well there. In fact, it will find support in many other districts, including Wilmington where blacks and Latinos are the majority. Neighborhood schools are to a large extent a delusion in Delaware. Before the 1978 desegregation order that broke up most of New Castle County's school districts, very few children walked to school outside of Wilmington. But schools were much closer to most students' homes than when desegregation required feeder patterns that depended on transporting children in order to work.
Some students travel as much as an hour to and from school.
Nobody likes this. In fact, city residents pay the highest price because Wilmington youngsters are bused to suburban schools for nine years and suburban students spend three years in the city. We don't believe it can in the short run, if ever. First, with the exception of parts of Wilmington, Newark and Brandywine Hundred, the school buildings are not where the children are. Hockessin and Bear-Glasgow were the growth areas during the time the federal courts supervised desegregation.