When Public Schools Aren't Color-Blind

Stephanie Brown admits that moving from a small Kentucky town into sprawl ing Louisville made her a "very paranoid " mother-- so much so that she won't let her kids play in the front yard unless she's with them. But she willingly puts Joe, 8, and Julianna, 6, on a bus every day for the 75-min. ride to a school in a rundown, mostly black neighborhood. The bus picks her kids up in their mostly white suburb at 7:30 a.m. and doesn't bring them back until 5 p.m. "It was a very hard thing to put my baby girl on a bus and let her go out into the world with people I don't know," says Brown, who is white.

Sprawling ：无计划地占用…
Paranoid ：adj. 类似妄想狂的

Some 58,000 children crisscross Jefferson County on school buses in much the same manner, with 1 out of 7 of these kids traveling an hour or more each way. What's more, most of their parents--Brown included --are happy with the system.(1)So much to-ing and fro-ing is a result of the school district's generally popular racial guidelines, which aim to keep the percentage of African Americans in any one school from falling below 15% or rising above 50%.The district as a whole is about one-third black.

Crisscross : To move back and forth. 来回移动
Fro adv. 往, 去, 回, 向后

Parents aren't simply bystanders in this numbers game. They can apply for the schools they want their child to attend--many have magnet programs that make it worth going that extra mile--and 92% of families wind up with their first or second choice. Even if some don't get what they ask for, race is never the sole factor in how assignments are made. (2) "We look at choices first, we look at siblings, we look at capacity," says Pat Todd, the district's student-assignment director. "Race is way down the list."

bystander : n.看热闹的人, 旁观者
magnet n.磁体, 磁铁
wind up : To put in order; settle: 把…料理停当；处理：
Sibling : One of two or more individuals having one or both parents in common; a brother or sister.兄弟姐妹：有一个或两个共同双亲的两个或更多的个体中的一个；一个兄弟或姐妹
capacity : The ability to receive, hold, or absorb. 接受力，吸收力

The system, which has been in place for a decade, has made Jefferson County one of the most integrated school districts in the country. But if Crystal Meredith, a single mom who was told her son could not transfer to another elementary school because he is white, has her way, the whole thing will be dismantled. And plenty of critics agree that it should be. Meredith and others contend that the guidelines amount to an unconstitutional quota system. So Jefferson County finds itself in an ironic position. After years of court-ordered desegregation , the school district will appear before the U.S. Supreme Court next Monday, arguing that it should be allowed to use the same system voluntarily .

integrated adj.综合的, 完整的
dismantle : To put an end to in a gradual systematic way: 终止，废除：以逐渐有系统的方式结束：
unconstitutional adj.违反宪法的
desegregation n.废止种族歧视
voluntarily adv.自动地, 以自由意志