PITTSBURGH
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on Tuesday
called for measures to strengthen education for poor children and make schools
more economically diverse in order to fight poverty in America.
“We don’t just have racial segregation in our schools,
we have huge economic segregation,” said Edwards, on an eight-state swing
to highlight poverty issues. “We have two public school systems in America
… one for those who live in wealthy suburban areas and then one for everybody
else.”
Edwards, speaking to about 250 people in Pittsburgh’s
impoverished Hill district, criticized last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision
rejecting school diversity plans in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle, saying it had
“turned (the landmark 1954 decision) Brown v. Board of Education on its
head.”
The former North Carolina Senator and 2004 vice-presidential
candidate called for giving bonuses to schools in affluent areas that enroll
low-income students, creating magnet schools in inner cities and providing
bonus pay for teachers willing to teach in inner cities.
He also called for “second-chance schools” for
people who dropped out of high school or otherwise didn’t complete their
education.
“We shouldn’t give up on these children,” he said.
