Improving schools is now a racist act?

Originally posted by TheRedneck

The one thing that sets achievers apart from non-achievers is education.

I disagree achievers will find a way. Drug dealers are not dumb people and are high achievers with low education.

Poverty can exist alongside hope. The problem is when there is no hope for a future outside of poverty.

I disagree here too...its not the lack of hope it is apathy pure and simple.

People try when they have hope for a better future, and we have finally taken that away.

Inner city people just don't give a # plan and simple. It is all about what can I get for the least effort. If that effort equals some crappy apartment some food and enough left over to get drunk or high they are good with it.

Originally posted by TheRedneck
That's what has me up in arms over this... at least Alabama is trying to fix the problem by making schools accountable for bad results. But the Federal government is stepping up and declaring that they can't do that. We're stuck with the same old failing system... and we can't even try to fix it.

Why are the schools accountable for this?

Surely if evidence points to poverty being a major cause and schools just happen to be in a poor neighbourhood then we're just making those schools worse as learning environments. From what has been described of America, I'm not sure that schools have a huge amount of control over the quality of their students, and the good teachers may be leaving to avoid handling the stress?

It appears to me as if Alabama may well be redistributing the problem rather than fixing it? What happens when the schools get so bad that no one wants to be at them?

This is just genuine curiousity. Any links or informations would be appreciated.

reply to post by preezy120

This is where your argument begins to fall apart. You claim that white people are being forced to stay in failing schools. These remarks are inflamatory and incorrect based on the statistics.

If you will take time to watch the short video I linked, it is pretty explicit what the problem is. The problem is that Alabama has a new plan to get these failing schools to shape up, and at the heart of that plan is the ability of parents to move their children out of public schools which are failing. The problem is that Federal desegregation laws will not allow any students in the minority of a school to leave that school. It is not a black/white issue; it is a regulation issue, and a education issue.

You are right that these schools are predominately in poorer areas and predominately black. I already mentioned that back on page 1. What I am saying is that it should not matter if a child is black or white when it comes to choosing the best school for them. How in the world can you twist that into a racial issue? I am not looking at the color of skin; you are, and the Federal government is.

I have also explained that it is not simply poverty that is the root cause of these schools failing. In Alabama, the schools receive funding based in large part on the number of free and reduced lunches they offer. The schools in the poorest areas receive the most funding.

I would be just as upset over this if a predominately white school was failing and the black children were unable to change schools. No child should e forced to stay in a failing school, no child should be denied the best education possible, based on their skin color. Obviously you disagree with that statement, so I suppose we will simply have to agree to disagree.

Thank you for contributing.

TheRedneck

reply to post by Pinke

Why are the schools accountable for this?

Because it is the job of the schools to educate the youth.

Why would a car manufacturer be held responsible for producing a car which caught on fire due to a poor design?

Surely if evidence points to poverty being a major cause and schools just happen to be in a poor neighbourhood then we're just making those schools worse as learning environments. From what has been described of America, I'm not sure that schools have a huge amount of control over the quality of their students, and the good teachers may be leaving to avoid handling the stress?

That may be the case to some extent, but someone has to offer these children an education. If a school is moved to a prosperous neighborhood, another school is forced to have these same students.

I will agree that something must be done to bring discipline back into the school system, but that brings up the issue of parents demanding that their children can do no wrong even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Passing a grade in school today does not entail performing at a certain level; it entails attending the school for the required number of hours. Graduation does not entail a degree of competence in academics; it indicates a student has passed 12 grades (see above) and memorized enough of the answers on the standardized graduation exams to manage to pass them. Because of this, students are free to do pretty much whatever they want during school hours... picking on littler kids in the hall earns just as much credit as studying hard in the classroom. If a student is held accountable for actually learning something, parents get all bent out of shape, and it is just much easier to just pass everyone instead of fighting all day with irate parents.

In any other industry, teachers who allow this kind of behavior would be fired for neglect of duty... but we have something called "tenure" which means a teacher is basically guaranteed a job for life as long as the school exists. Here's an article describing tenure:

Tenure — and by extension the academic freedom it confers — at times becomes all-purpose non-conformist insurance. In 1999, six professors from various Virginia colleges and universities sued the state alleging that a ban on accessing pornography from state computers infringed on their academic freedom. Ridiculous, sure. But illustrative. Academic freedom is supposed to be about serious inquiry within a discipline, critics argue, not a blanket ability to do what one pleases in the name of scholarship.

Yet while jettisoning tenure has intuitive appeal, the proponents have some points, too: subtle or overt retaliation for academic or political views out of the mainstream does happen. Besides, good administrators can navigate around tenure to build effective academic departments. Good administration can also ensure that tenure is a meaningful bar — especially in a labor market where the supply of academics often far outstrips demand at universities.

Source: Time Magazine

It appears to me as if Alabama may well be redistributing the problem rather than fixing it? What happens when the schools get so bad that no one wants to be at them?

I see only two alternatives: keep the schools in the poor neighborhoods open to try and teach something... or simply restrict education to those above the poverty line. I do not like the latter.

The idea of this law is that failing schools will lose the money that is apparently being wasted, and their students will be free to move to another school. Each school serves a particular area, and everyone in that area is required to attend that school. Alabama tries to offset the poverty issue by proportioning funds based on the number of poor children attending the school... the more poor children, the more money they get. But if the schools are not performing, they could lose their students and so lose their funding, leading to tenured teachers losing their jobs because the jobs no longer exist... the only way they can lose their jobs.

That's the idea. It looks like it won't happen, though.

If you have another suggestion, I'm all ears.

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck


If they're going to do it,it should be equal for all. The problem is, schools are rarely "failing" because of the school itself or the teachers. The schools are failing because too many of the students are in home situations not conducive to them being successful in school. Plain and simple. Flip the best and worst schools 1st grade studennts for the duration of their schooling, and I think it is safe to say, the previously non-failing school will become the failing school and vice-versa.

Originally posted by polarwarrior
reply to post by TheRedneck

 

Maybe if these black schools weren't underfunded then the kids wouldn't want to leave them in the first place, seems to me like most of the kids affected are the poor black kids stuck there as they outnumber the few whites who are rich enough to leave.

edit on 18/6/13 by polarwarrior because: (no reason given)

Hmmm? Minority dominant, errr inner city schools, often have more funding per student then most "white schools".

www.westernjournalism.com...

Desegregation policies are nothing more then acts of genocide. About making "whiteys" know how it feels to be a minority, and making sure they don't know what it is like to only live amongst their own peoples. No amount of money will fix those sinking ships. Let's be real, I doubt the fact that "black schools are underfunded" is the reason why any Caucasian American with half a brain wouldn't want their kids to go to such schools.

It is one thing for adults to fight amongst themselves, by the anti-white genocidal maniacs are all cowards. Unless they are in a large group, they only prefer to target helpless children.

Originally posted by Shiloh7


It annoys me when we still put ourselves into separate boxes and wail 'my roots, my roots!' There comes a time when this attitude doesn't help anyone and in education we are in danger of loosing our best students.

It annoys me when people advocate in favor of genocide. Like it or not, all those "annoying peoples" have a right to exist. You on the other hand, do not have the right to advocate genocide. And expressing your sentiments, could very well lead to living conditions where it is "racist" to want to date and marry a member of your own ethnicity/race(and not date outside of your ethnicity/race). Thus, it can be concluded that what you advocate will lead to the genocide of peoples in part or in whole.

Interesting topic OP. This reminded me of an ongoing issue in Cleveland, MS where the government is forcing further desegregation. People think these issues are black and white but there is a gray area to it. If a black child wanted to attend a white school and was denied based on demographics or race then I would call that discrimination but if schools due to population tend to favor one race over another unintentionally I don't see this as being a racist issue.

Cleveland, MS - WSJ

I for one know from experience that messing with school districts can mess someone up. I moved a lot as a child and went to 11 elementary schools before 4th grade. After 4th grade things really changed for me and I managed to keep the same group of friends until 6th grade when lines were redrawn and I had to attend a school with almost no one I knew and then they redrew the lines again 2 years later forcing me to go to High school with people I did not know and I had to switch back. The bonds a child builds in school, the relations, these can be as crucial to a persons development as education but often goes overlooked.

This is what political correctness looks like.

First, like its been pointed out. There is only one human race. Please everyone stop calling white, black, asians races.

Caucasians(from Europe all the way to India) and Asians(Chinese, Koreans etc) have Neanderthal DNA and pure Africans usually have less or none. We are about 125,000 to few thousand years apart in evolution depending on who you are comparing. Instead of dying down I suspect they mixed into the Europeans and Asians. Since all of us can interbreed and the children(mixed) can as well we have no need to call for separate speciation.

People should have the right to decide where they send there kids. Give everyone a small tax voucher, this should either pay a public school or can go towards paying off private school. However, the public school system has to bring down everyone to the lowest common denominator. The inheritablity of IQ is at most a fuzzy science. Really everyone should be able to pass high school. Lower income families ( whites and minorities included) should have their kids performance monitored for benefits. We really need to change the culture where studies are neglected with African Americans. I saw lots of Africans at school pursuing hard majors like engineering, pure sciences (chemistry, physics, biology) but very few African Americans.

Originally posted by kimish
The schools are failing because the students are rowdy and are disrespectful to the teachers. Trust me, two of my friends are full time teachers in inner city schools. The children are worse in those city schools then in the county schools. Also, there are too many students per teacher for the teaching to be effective. ANd I'm not going to get into the standardized testing... In order for the schools to get better, things need to change at home ie. parents need to be more involved in their lives and the "culture" of learning isn't masculine or that learning is for pussies or that smart kids are push overs needs to stop.

edit on 18-6-2013 by kimish because: (no reason given)

I was in a streamed class like that. There were maybe 300 students in my year alone (school population normally 1200, but rose to 2100 due to the oil boom). The low ability classes just had students who would turn biro pens into blow-guns and fire rice, bits of paper, needles turned into darts at other students. In science class, one Jamaican kid would just run round the desks whenever the teacher tried to tell him off. The phrase "running around like a demented helicopter" comes to mind. There was a student from Glasgow who would just keep making stupid noises - he was a special needs transfer, so the teachers couldn't tell him off directly, so the school could only give the class blanket detention. One English class I was in, which was majority male, just had about everyone stomping their feet, banging desk lids and shouting "There's going to be a riot!". This was at the time of the football casuals.

It's a shame really - they didn't realize how educated their teachers were (university degrees in their field of study), or just how high a standard the exams were, or how safe the city was compared to others. They all ended up leaving at 16. One guy became a father at 16.

Originally posted by NihilistSanta
Interesting topic OP. This reminded me of an ongoing issue in Cleveland, MS where the government is forcing further desegregation. People think these issues are black and white but there is a gray area to it. If a black child wanted to attend a white school and was denied based on demographics or race then I would call that discrimination but if schools due to population tend to favor one race over another unintentionally I don't see this as being a racist issue.

Cleveland, MS - WSJ

I for one know from experience that messing with school districts can mess someone up. I moved a lot as a child and went to 11 elementary schools before 4th grade. After 4th grade things really changed for me and I managed to keep the same group of friends until 6th grade when lines were redrawn and I had to attend a school with almost no one I knew and then they redrew the lines again 2 years later forcing me to go to High school with people I did not know and I had to switch back. The bonds a child builds in school, the relations, these can be as crucial to a persons development as education but often goes overlooked.

I'll agree with that. One of the most confident outgoing girls in my primary school only lasted three days at secondary school because all of her street friends (those living nearest to home) had gone to a different school.
Just about all my street friends were moved to a different class in my primary years. In secondary school, no one in my first class lived close by.

reply to post by TheRedneck


"Desegregation was necessary at one time, especially in the South; there was so much anger and hatred left over from the Civil War aimed at blacks that it took Federal laws to ensure that everyone had a fair chance. But those days are gone, especially in Huntsville. I start UAH in the fall, and in the admissions office there is a world map with push pins in areas where students actively enrolled are from... and it is FULL of push pins! every country I can think of (and some I don't normally think of) is represented. If you walk through Huntsville on any day, you will see a mix of European, African, Carribean, Asian... it truly is a gigantic melting pot. Huntsville is home to Redstone Arsenal, NASA, the Space and Rocket Center, Boeing, Chrysler, Wyle Labs, McDonald Douglass, SCI, and quite a few other technological giants. It is not a backwoods rendition of the movie Deliverance, and it didn't grow to such success by limiting people on the basis of something as silly as race."

This section of your post is where I find discrepancies, in addition to your statement that children are being forced to stay in failing schools due to their race, which was stated in your original post. If you re-read my post, you will see that these are the sections with which I am concerned. Your claim that Huntsville is a gigantic melting pot and that segregation is no longer an issue is simply not correct and the demographic map that displays household income broken down by city area proves that is the case. Again, this is an issue that every city faces, and Huntsville is not alone when it comes to educational inadequancy and failure of schools to meet achievement goals in certain areas of the city. This is why I've highlighted that this is a socioeconomic issue and not a racial issue.

reply to post by preezy120


So does being poor make the kids bigger douche bags? I don't buy your theory. The trailor park kids at my school got descent grades. In lieu of that comment, I will refer you to my first few posts on this thread on page 1

reply to post by NihilistSanta

You hit the nail on the head with this! Too often the social education in school is ignored, and it is as important as readin', 'ritin', and 'rithmetic. That's why I sent my kids to public school... at the time I could have sent them to a private school had I wanted to.

But government doesn't think like that. To government, we are all just numbers, organic machines to be worked on. That's why all these regulations are so heinous, because kids need to be able to explore... within reason. Most kids get in trouble at least once or twice in their lives, because they are exploring their world. That doesn't make them bad kids, just makes them normal. When you start treating them as things instead of people, that's when you get kids who are way out of their social boundaries... and yes, this includes the kids who sneak guns into schools.

My definition of hell would be working as a medical doctor. I hate medicine! I am also not real fond of blood, since in my younger days it generally meant someone was hurt bad. If I had been pushed toward being a doctor, I imagine I would have rebelled a lot harder than I did, because I would have seen no hope of ever being happy and doing what I loved: engineering.

Yeah, I'm back to the hope... hope for a brighter future that comes from recognized accomplishment, appropriate positive and negative feedback, and a certain amount of self-reliance. Hope doesn't come from standardization, regulation, and denial of needs based on silly criteria. Those things kill any hope.

And that lack of hope is what dominates society in inner cities. No chance for anything bright in the future... you get to graduate with a worthless diploma because you still don't know anything, work in a menial job all your life that barely pays for food, live in a shabby rented apartment with a cranky landlord, and then either die young or suffer abject poverty when you're too old to work. Faced with that life, is it any wonder that people in these inner cities are rowdy and the area is crime-ridden?

The schools are the best source of inspiration for these kids... but in order to be an inspiration and to give that hope, the schools have to realize their role. They have to give the kids something more to hope for than just a possible job one day. They have to give them the chance to find their niche and excel in it, and they have to be recognized for their achievements by something tangible and valuable... heck, maybe just a "good job!" every now and then! It's worth more than a piece of paper that makes them look like a nerd.

Give them a chance to make friends, work together, cooperate together, and put down roots that will last a lifetime. Let them be respected in the eyes of their peers because they are a unique and special person with talents. Let them be proud of who they are. Don't tell them, "You're a skin color, so you have to do this."

TheRedneck

reply to post by kimish


You and I are arguing about two seperate but occassionally interelated issues: 1) I am arguing that the educational inadequacy in low resourced areas of cities is often defined by de facto racial boundaries and that those racial boundaries, as witnessed by the school information websites that were provided in my first post, preclude this from being a white student issue, as stated in the OP, since the majority of the students who are affected by each of the schools that were featured in the news report were located in northwest Huntsville- an area that is overwhelming popluated by black people and other minority populations, and 2) You are arguing that children in inner city schools are "douche bags" who act out and perpetuate the cycle of failure in those schools, and also that children who live in trailer park complexes, despite coming from families of lower means, can achieve good grades. These points were taken from your two posts on page 1: "The schools are failing because the students are rowdy and are disrespectful to the teachers." and, "The trailor park kids at my school got descent grades."

I think that you have misinterpreted my response; I am not arguing that being low resourced somehow predicates being or becoming a "douche bag kid" in school, or that children of low resourced families will necessarily perform poorly in school.

My argument is that the problem of failing schools is not a white/black issue- it is a socioeconomic issue that primarily affects schools located in the most impoverished areas of the city of Huntsville, where the most impoverished students and their families live, despite having received the most state/federal funding per student in those public schools to assist in putting a band-aid on an issue that extends back over the course of many generations. My original post sums up my sentiments on the origins of these educational inadequacies and is one that you and I can agree on: caring about school starts at home with the parents; it comes from self-esteem and pride instilled in the student base and a healthy respect for learning and educational achievement that begins with effective prenatal care and universal access to effective preprimary education. You also responded with something very similar and thoughtful on page 1.

reply to post by TheRedneck


It would be easier to just list what isn't considered racism.
Then again you wouldn't be able to post much...

reply to post by preezy120

preclude this from being a white student issue, as stated in the OP, since the majority of the students who are affected by each of the schools that were featured in the news report were located in northwest Huntsville- an area that is overwhelming popluated by black people and other minority populations

You misunderstand.

The new Alabama law does not specify who can change schools, as long as the school is failing. The issue is that anyone who is in a minority at a school, in this case white kids in a predominately black school, are not permitted to change schools due to the Federal desegregation laws. Black kids in a predominately black school can change with no problem; white kids cannot because it would more affect the ratio of black to white kids.

Black kids would be disadvantaged in predominately white schools; white kids are disadvantaged in predominately black schools.

TheRedneck

I was on fire after reading this post, until, i pulled a resource that was able to help me cool off a bit.

The Desegregation Laws do not apply to the NCLB.
Read the fine print again... All three options say that the receiving school must be WILLING to take the student.
Already, the students a private school would be willing to accept are either going to be super academics to help their scores, or super athletes to bring in more alumni funding.
They are passing the blame to the schools by making it their choice, who to accept. Get a tally on national private school race ratios, it's already bad.
No one in this country currently has the right to a private school education. It is a privialage.

I didnt have one, my sister did. The only difference, was that my mother was making more money once my sister entered her HS years.

Unfortunately the Desegregation law doesnt cover the segregation of privialged children and children born into not so wealthy homes. Nor do I know many foster children who have had an education that cost more than a penny. Also the 3500 is more-so intended to only cover commute, uniform, and other small expenses, than to cover the tuition, plus, I know plenty of white families who have too low of an income to cover 1/4 of a years tuition. With this data, I do not believe that we can consider race in this situation, anymore. Its just bad leadership.

I must put out there that it's possible that failing school vouchers are a drain on the schools that work hard to give a superior education. As opposed to giving SOME students a chance at a better education, like this law does, perhaps we should chage the standards of our instructers and theirs. This dreary, useless, sub par so called free public school system is wasted tax payers dollars, daily, and the education that cost a ton+ is segregating children still, although not by race. Some also might say that placing children outside of their socio-economical realm would cause more harm, than good. (That sounds a lot like something someone that belives "disclosure would bring chaos" would say)

At the end of the day, the entire education system needs to be turned on its head, to be disrupted and rebuilt. Adding more laws to a broken system makes things more complicated. We need a fresh start new skin with no bandaids needed. After all, these 'children' will be taking care of us some day, and inventing our gizmos. (And when I'm old and have difficulty reaching for the toilet paper, i dont want the electric toilet paper thrower to malfunction and toss the whole roll at me when its supposed to shoot single bursts of a 5 sheet piece, because I have high cholesterol, and High blood pressure, because I've been trained to eat processed GMO lard, and it might cause a stroke or worse.)

Anyway, the tax dollars need to be redistributed, and more focused on qulity education, rather than administration, or better...Delete the monetary system all together and base class, and economic status on skill and community philanthropy.

Thats my dime for the day. You guys are great. Have a great night, and keep an open mind.

reply to post by TheRedneck


Right. I understand conceptually why you are upset: white kids can't leave the failing inner city schools because they're white and their leaving would violate antiquated desegregation laws. The laws should not exist in 2013. All students should have the opportunity to receive a high quality education.

The point that I'd brought up in my first post was that the white kids from those schools are part of the reason that those schools are failing. Moving students from failing schools to schools with higher passing rates doesn't do anything to fix the problem; it simply spreads the problem around Huntsville.

In EWMS, where there are 443 total students (9 of which are white), only two truly equitable options exist: 1) ALL students should be allowed to leave the school to enroll in neighboring Huntsville schools that are not failing (effectively spreading those schools' problems throughout the city), or 2) ALL students should remain there at EWMS and the school should be fixed from within. A third option would be to allow students to leave the failing schools based on demographic percentages in Northwest Huntsville (with a population in NW Huntsville that is 80% black, for every 4 black kids that can pursue enrollment in a non-failing school, 1 white kid should be allowed to do so), but then you run into the issue of deciding on a selection process.

However, because none of these options can/will be seriously considered by the state board of education, and because only a percentage of students from those failing schools will be able to enroll in non-failing schools outside of northwest Huntsville due to size constraints and costs incurred for the unaccounted for influx of new students, it would be inequitable for the minority demographic (white kids) to be given priority to leave the failing schools. Plain and simple. I'm not saying that all students shouldn't have the option to leave; all students have the right to a high quality education. I AM saying that it is impossible for the remaining 12 non-failing Huntsville public schools to support a mass exodus of those 8 failing school refugees and because only a percentage can leave, it would be prejudicial to give white children preferrential treatment in a socioeconomically segregated area of the city that happens to be more than 80% black.