You made a lot of great points here. I'll try to address them all as best as I can.

I think the numbers are the biggest piece of evidence we have when we discuss the success of SSD's integration policies. Go to the suburbs now and go to the private schools. Talk to people who have lived in the city for generations. They will tell you about experiences that sound very similar. There was widespread support for the district through the 1960s, and after busing started in the 1970s this support eroded. This had little to do with affordable housing in the 1970s. With Boeing's financial woes and the subsequent recession at that time, housing in the city was actually quite affordable. My parents as college students could buy a house near Green Lake, for example, without any help from my grandparents. My friends' parents and my parents' friends can tell you the same story. These were not wealthy people.

As far as I know, and in my life time and in the life time of my parents there were never schools downtown (Minor, Garfield, Washington, and the school-Hatzert?-across from the Urban league are close but not "downtown"). Nor has there been a large residential base downtown in recent memory so I don't know how this factors in to the argument. When were there ever a lot of families living downtown? A hundred years ago? (I think it would be great if there were a school downtown, but until recently there hasn't been the population to support it.)

And I know Garfield is a great school. I had friends who went there and they went to fabulous colleges and were brilliant, inquisitive people. Your wife should be proud to have worked there. It really is the jewel of the system. But I also know there is criticism that it suffers from a "school within a school" problem. I don't know what the solution is there. When I was at Leschi we had the same issue. The magnet kids hung out together and the kids from the neighborhood hung out together. Is this intergration? Not in my opinion. (And I have never questioned the quality of the SSD-I think the level of instruction is better than most.)

That is why I don't think the schools can solve this issue with assignments (however worked out) that have anything to do with race. In my experience, this just doesn't deal with the larger problem. Like-minded people want to associate with one another. Culturally similar people want to associate with one another. It is human nature. And it doesn't necessarily make someone a racist.

My comment about Leschi and my neighborhood Catholic school was actually just a superficial one. Leschi was a better academic environment and I missed its challenge and rigor when I transferred. The parents and the community at my Catholic school were more welcoming (and I'm not sure this had anything to do with expenditures) than they were at Leschi. My dad was one of the few white parents at Leschi and he has mentioned to me that he felt out of place and unwelcome when he visited. It was also a far drive and difficult to arrange regular visits. He had the opposite experience at my neighborhood Catholic school. My friends' parents invited my parents over for dinner, and I hung out with friends after school and walked home in the afternoon. Is it crazy to think these sorts of things are important?

You are right about the property taxes. The property tax rates are not as high in Seattle as compared to other parts of the country like Conn. and NJ., but that doesn't mean that property owners shouldn't have a say in how this money is used. Wealthy Seattle residents have peers in places like Falls Church, Short Hills, Greenwich, and Wellesley. Can you imagine if these parents were asked to send their kids to schools in Anacostia, or Bed-Stuy, or wherever? I'm not saying that wealthy families should have the final say, but they should have a say. Otherwise, the system turns in to the East Coast where wealthy white people go to private school and every else is left with a public system that has moments of greatness but is for the most part mediocre at the very best. I know private schools are expensive and I resent that I went to them for seven years. I shouldn't have had to. My parents thought it would be better for me to make friends and actually have time in the afternoon to hang out and be a kid. The only local option they had was a private school.

And now on to Bellevue...wow this is really turning in to a conversation! Of course not everyone can afford Bellevue. But people do work in Seattle and commute from more affordable towns/suburbs like Everett, Fife, and Maple Valley. The lines have changed over the years and at one time (1970s and 1980s) when the busing policy was going strong, these outlying areas were even more affordable. If the choice was to buy in Seattle and submit to the SSD or buy in one of these other areas, many families took the latter path. This movement, unfortunately called "white flight," forever changed the city's demographics. This led to the percentages that I mentioned in my first post. But for the original busing policy, the current policy would not have been in place because the city would have looked very different. (And I can't say that busing was the only reason people left, but it was the major contributing factor in the 1970s and 1980s.)

Now, Eastern Washington. I suggest you visit the lower Valley and the Tri-Cities area. As one of the largest agricultural regions in the country it has always seen a huge migrant work force. They have brought diversity in culture, experience, and economy. I love that part of our state and think it has rich traditions and amazing people. And yes, hard as it is to believe, it is diverse.

It is possible that I don't know all the "facts" but I have my experience. I have the experience of my neighbors, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, my parents' cousins, and on and on. These issues have impacted Seattle residents for decades, and we all have our stories. We also don't have the same history as other parts of the country, which is why I originally mentioned our African-American leaders, and our current governor and senators. I do believe that we look at character first whether we went to public school or private school, or a school that was 90% white or 60% black.

Are we really disagreeing? What is your perfect solution?