Say What?

This N&O article details a forum held at N.C. State in which “A group of Triangle academics pulled up research and data Wednesday as they urged the Wake County school board not to take the final vote to ditch its diversity-based student assignment policy next week.”

Indeed, the headline declares: Scholars say, keep schools diverse.

But later in the article is this puzzling passage:

The education scholars urged Wake County not to rush into system wide change without considering some of Wake’s strengths – such as specific approaches in some schools that help bridge the academic achievement gap of some minority students. The scholars also warned about potential problems if the changes increase the number of very high-poverty schools.

Kathleen Brown, head of the educational leadership area at the UNC School of Education, and the other academics who spoke Wednesday concede that the Wake system has significant problems under the diversity policy. Notably, there’s a persistent achievement gap between students from better-off families and those from lower-income and minority groups. (emphasis mine)

Huh?

If their approaches designed to “help bridge the academic achievement gap of some minority students” are touted as one of Wake County’s strengths, how can one of its “significant problems” be a “persistent achievement gap between students from better-off families and those from lower-income and minority groups”?

And isn’t the primary purpose of forced busing for diversity to narrow that achievement gap? Why would these “scholars” advocate for a policy that they readily admit has not achieved its goal?