- Honesty
I think so.
Our school systems will once again become segregated and, like always, majority white schools will have better funding and have better opportunities. It liberates white guilt, I think. Which is good, but to think that an applicant to NYU who went to Cooley High School in Detroit will have the same chance for admission as some kid who graduated from Shaker Heights or Burbank is, of course, a fantasy. I know. I graduated from the Detroit Public Schools and had take loans to get supplementary classes at a community college even though I had a solid ACT score.
Yet most of you would stand in front of a podium and a tell a group of black students that they have the same opportunities as whites. Bullshit. It was bullshit after the Emancipation. It was bullshit after Reconstruction. It was bullshit after Brown. It’s still reeks of bullshit.
So yeah, while this ruling might not overturn Brown itself, it’ll overturn the spirit of Brown which I think is even more important than the case itself.
You never answered my question: What is reverse retribution?
- Honesty
That’s the “beauty” of the system.
You can put down whatever ethnicity you want to put down, or, you can even put “Other”, “Prefer not to Answer” or you can even leave it blank.
- Honesty
But very few school districts use racial quota systems like these, so the vast majority of schools in the US will be unaffected by whatever decision is handed down.
Maybe to some extent, although I think part of the reason that a kid from Cooley High is going to have a harder time getting into college than a kid from Shaker Heights or Burbank is due more to money than to race. Of course, there’s a link, and I’m not going to claim that racial equality exists. It obviously doesn’t.
And I don’t know what reverse retribution is.
What bothers me about this entire debate is that the proponents of “forced” integration seem to want to remove students from the poorer school districts to give them better opportunities for education, rather than finding ways to make ALL school districts on the same level in terms of education quality. There are some rural counties near where I live where integration-by-busing would not make a whole lot of difference in terms of the enhanced quality of education, since all of the school districts are similarly underfunded due to county- and region-wide economic depression.
While I agree that racial diversity is very beneficial to the school environment, that is not the sole factor at play here, as you have stated. Schools in rich areas tend to have better schools - which isn’t fair to students born outside of such areas. Really we shouldn’t even be talking about getting the kids the hell out of the ghetto because the school sucks - because the school shouldn’t suck in the first place. Something as essential and paramount as education shouldn’t be dominated by class struggle. Students shouldn’t have to choose which public school is the best for them to go to (except maybe in cases of alternative-curriculum schools which stress specific subjects, such as arts, science, etc.).
Well, what do you propose we tell them, then? That they’re screwed from the get-go and always will be? Institutional segregation is no longer an issue, which leaves only societal racism and classism - and that can only be combated if minorities are made to believe and fight for the fact that they DO have the same opportunities as everyone else, or at least that they should. Pessimism about the inequalities of society can inspire well-deserved rage, or it can inspire complete apathy, as in, well, why should I even bother?
No, I wouldn’t say any of that, nor am I the type of person who thinks institutional segregation is a great thing.
However, call me crazy, I don’t think the solution to the problems facing inner city schools (which predominantly affects blacks) is racist preferential treatment. FWIW, I think there are many schools in poor, rural districts throughout the country that likewise are drastically underfunded. Most of the students at those schools do not receive an adequate education, or at least an education sufficient enough to give them equal opportunities with students from richer school districts–and many of these students are white.
All indications to me are, that in 2007 America school quality is more a reflection of relative wealth of the local community, not racial makeup. Are a lot of predominantly black schools underfunded and of poor quality? Definitely. And, so are a lot of schools with a predominantly white make up.
The problem, in my opinion traces back to a few things:
-The majority of local school funding comes from local property taxes. Poorer communities made up of poor residents living in squalor do not collect significant property taxes because many of their residents being poor, don’t have a lot of real estate to tax.
-Teachers want jobs in nicer communities. If I graduate with a teaching degree, unless I’m motivated by an altruistic desire to promote educational values for underprivileged kids, I’m going to want to work in a school with nicer facilities, a nicer teacher’s lounge, nice housing near the school and et cetera.
-While I’m not entirely educated on how the system works, it’s my understanding that schools that have poor attendance, low standardized tests scores and et cetera actually are penalized financially by State and Federal government because of it. To me, it makes a lot more sense to divert more funding to schools that don’t perform, but that doesn’t seem to be the way the system works.
To alleviate these problems I’d suggest tying more school funding to different forms of taxation. Provide incentives for teachers graduating at the upper end of their class to draw them towards more needy schools. And, there needs to be more programs to divert funding to under performing schools and school systems.
There was an article in U.S. News and World Report a few years ago about how many minority students flunk out of college after their first or second semesters (I can’t recall the numbers–first year drop out rates are already relatively high, the article indicates it was significantly higher for minorities.) Which shows that affirmative action at the college level is like a band-aid applied to a wound that’s been allowed to fester and become infected. Changes need to be made at the K-12, and that should be the priority.
My experience with Brown is in terms of Special Education law. Brown does not only prevent racial segregation but any sort of segregation (at least of protected classes) and I gave the simplified version that I learned in SPED501 that if you are in a protected class and want to go to your local school, the district cannot force you to go to a segregated school without due process.
The question then is: does my right to a free and public education also apply to having it in my local school if I choose? Obviously not, since students in my district (LAUSD) get bussed all over when their local scool is over-crowded. But what if the decision is based on race? If that is not covered by Brown then I did indeed misspeak.
LAUSD has this program (called open enrollment). More than 33% (yes 1/3) of the schools in LAUSD are predominately (90% or more of student population) one ethnic group. Off the top of my head (I can find the article I wrote if you insist), over 50% were predominately two ethnicities. Take my own school - about 2700 students with about 53% Black, 47% Hispanic, and 7 (not 7% but 7 students) all other ethnic groups combined.
Brown does not say anything about any situation other than race as a determinant for what school you go to. It is limited solely to the forced segregation of students based upon racial classification. It does nothing else by itself.
Now, the rationale behind Brown has been applied to preclude a number of other education practices. One of the areas that eventually ended up affected by similar reasoning is the area of special education. But it should be noted here that the Supreme Court itself has never gone so far as to assert that education is a “fundamental right” to which everyone is entitled, such that infringing such a right results in strict scrutiny of the state action which creates the infringement. The main cases affecting special education were District Court cases (e.g.: Mills v. Washington, D.C. Board of Ed., PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania). Certain state courts also weighed in (I can’t recall the name, but I seem to recall a California Supreme Court case which dealt with bilingual education practices). But before the Supreme Court of the United States could address the issue of special education squarely, Congress put into place PL 94-142, which is currently re-enacted as IDEA. This ended the litigation because it established entitlement for those with disabilities.
But it must be re-emphasized here that Brown does not say any of the following:
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You are entitled to go to a neighborhood school, regardless of race.
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You cannot be discriminated against by the state’s education process for any reason not including race.
One of the things I established with my follow-up post (to which Honesty has NEVER yet replied 
) is that school choice alone is meaningless. It needs to be accompanied both by adequate funding to ensure that schools can actually compete for students and transport them as needed and by elimination of district boundaries drawn solely or primarily to exclude from the large urban system the privileged few of a wealthy enclave. In the absence of these two minimal requirements (and many other things; as usual, the devil is in the details, but this isn’t a debate on school choice), school choice as advocated by conservatives is just a cover for “let my kid go to the white school I want him/her to.”
Bump. I hate dropped debates…
It just means you’re the winner.
I apologize if you think I’ve dropped the debate. Perhaps I have. I just feel that I’ve highlighted the points in my argument and continuation would be futile.
You think race doesn’t exist and therefore the government shouldn’t use it as a factor for anything. I love the idea but it just doesn’t mesh with reality. If all diversity and affirmative action programs were outlawed tomorrow; the government would still be allowed to use and collect data on race; state legislatures will continue to use race to gerrymander voting districts in order to dilute minority votes; laws and policies that disproportionably (and deleteriously) affect minorities would remain intact; the quality of education kids receive remain a function of where the parents live.
I would actually support the phasing out Affirmative Action programs if the government were taking affirmative steps in addressing the aforementioned concerns. It would, at the very least, be clear to me that the United States was firm in its resolve in abolishing race from its vocabulary. But it’s not.
- Honesty