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and the Commission for facilitating tonight and many other nights to come. In both <br />school systems, school children learn that the State motto of North Carolina is to be <br />rather than to seem. This seems an appropriate place to begin to talk about flaws in the <br />funding of our two separate school systems. While it may seem that each school <br />system is equally and adequately funded, we need to look deeper to understand that <br />this simply is not the case. We may seem to have two separate and equal systems, but <br />in reality, we don't. To be sure, this is not by design. Those who promoted a Chapel <br />Hill district tax many years ago never intended for there to be any harm. Nevertheless, <br />the disparity exists. One school system's budget is negatively affected formula now in <br />place. The disparity is a problem of serious magnitude and one needing leadership <br />based on principle and fairness rather than expediency and politics. What I'd like to <br />see, and some of what we see from the County Commissioners is not so much a heated <br />public debate about the merger with all the misinformation, prejudgment, and territorial <br />protection that any talk of merger has and will foster. Rather, we first need to commit <br />ourselves, all of us who care about public education in both systems, to solve the <br />fundamental inequity. If we declare that as a community, as a County, as a society, we <br />stand for principles of fairness and equality for all our citizens, even the non-voting <br />students in our two systems, then we will be moving in the direction of creating an <br />important solution to a vexing problem. As a parent of children in the Orange County <br />schools, I can vouch for much that's good in that system. I can also vouch for many <br />unfunded needs and underserved students. Having said that, no solution in the funding <br />disparity should harm the quality of the existing Chapel Hill-Carrboro system. Much has <br />been made about changing the particular culture of perspective systems, much <br />hyperbole about how we'll all suffer. I've heard folks in Chapel Hill say they don't want <br />their kids to go to school with those kids in Orange County. And likewise, please, <br />similar kinds of stereotype and prejudice are heard from Orange County parents who'd <br />rather hold tightly to the status quo than change. Doesn't some of this resistance on <br />both sides sound familiar? Haven't we been here before in past to equalize access to <br />public education? As Commissioners, you are responsible to serve citizens of Orange <br />County equally, and that includes ensuring the children in this County have access to <br />equal educational resources regardless of the location of their house. We have no <br />option but to fix our flawed system. But if this County wants to be rather than seem <br />about the business of education and equality, we have no choice but to embrace <br />change -change that will in the end make all of our communities stronger, better <br />educated, and more diverse. Merger, perhaps, if it's necessary. But fixing the system, <br />fixing the flaw is a must. <br />Amy Levine: I'm Amy Levine, and I'd like to speak against merger. I have three <br />reasons. First of all, this is an expensive option for the residents of the County district. <br />Keith Cook outlined at the forum hosted by INFORM that the County schools could fund <br />their list of needs and priorities at about half the cost to taxpayers the merger would <br />dictate; and over a longer period of time, to further reduce the financial impact to County <br />residents. A special district tax for Orange County could be flexible in years when more <br />funds are needed, opening a new school, for example, it could be raised, and then it <br />could subsequently be lowered. My second reason -merger creates a larger <br />educational bureaucracy that would be less amenable to local citizen input than two <br />