Unlike Some People, Bernie Hasn't "Evolved"

[MineralMan]

119. Thanks. I hadn't looked into that claim, actually.

I figured it was somehow misstated, though. Forced bussing is a different thing than desegregation. They're related, but not identical at all.

In my city of St. Paul, MN, the schools allow parents to choose any of the schools in the district for their children, who ride the bus every day to that school. If no choice is made, the child goes to the school closest to his or her home. After setting up a number of specialized magnet schools throughout the city, pretty much the majority of students rides the bus now. On my street, at least a dozen busses go by every morning and come back every afternoon. It's lots of traffic, and kids have to get on the bus early and get home late. Due to that, a lot of parents just send their kids to the closer school, where they can walk or ride their bikes. Since most neighborhoods in St. Paul have become very diverse, there's almost a de facto desegregation here, at least in most of the schools.

That does not mean there are no problems, because there are. We still have some schools that have a less diverse population, but there isn't any forced bussing, since parents can opt to have their kids bussed to whatever school they choose.