Posted on 06/23/2009 9:11:09 AM PDT by Mac from Cleveland
Henry Ramirez, meet Kyle Gosselin.
We thought you should be introduced, at least virtually, because you have some things in common. You're a couple of low-key, low-drama, low-maintenance 17-year-olds who have just navigated 11th grade at large public high schools. Both of you are planning to go to college. Both thinking about careers in medicine. Both willing to work hard (but not insanely hard). Both smart (but not gunning to be No. 1).
In the 20 or so miles that separate Jefferson High School from La Cañada High, in the miles between inner city and suburb, there exists a social chasm so deep as to seem unbridgeable. It is possible that, growing up in the same metropolitan area, you have never been in the same place at the same time.
Twenty miles, as we'll see, can be farther than 1,500.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“It is possible that, growing up in the same metropolitan area, you have never been in the same place at the same time.”
Wow, how astute. lol
I’ll bet they spend more per student in the inner city school than in the suburban school. The big difference is that the inner city school is filled with single parent kids from dysfunctional families on welfare. The big difference is that discipline is non-existent in the inner city school. The big difference is that teachers suffer burnout in the inner city school, and even if they are any good they can do little or nothing to educate the better students, because of all the noise from the hopeless ones.
I’ve known young people who have taught in such schools. Their intentions were good, but in the end it was hopeless. Few teachers can remain in such schools without retreating into their shells and basically giving up, staying on only because they need the money.
What’s with the LA Times today? What are they trying to be a bit fair for ONE Day?
Try bringing up vouchers and school choice and guess which party will send their NEA zealots to La Canada (or any other suburb) and whisper to the locals that their schools will be overrun with Mexicans and/or blacks if school choice passes.
I was pretty sure you’d be right about the spending—looked it up.
LA School District is about $9600 per pupil and La Canada (the suburb) is around $7750.
I think Camden NJ—hellhole of the Western World spends around 13k per student -one of the highest in the Northeast—and the results.....not so good, to put it mildly.
Their point is that one is the oppressor and the other the oppressed.
Waah waah, class warfare. I read the whole article thinking the author might have a point, but I was wrong. Could be much worse - the inner city kid could have been born in China or India or Africa...oh, but the other kid has a pool - no fair!!
If the parents don’t like the schools, why don’t they move to where the schools are better?
It is sad that all our schools can't be like this, but then, the whiners have to go somewhere...
Of the two schools, Jefferson High School probably has the richer musical legacy. Jesse Belvin, Arthur Lee Maye & the Crowns, and the Turks, who were popular during the 1950’s, all came out of Jefferson, as did Richard Berry, who in 1957 wrote and first performed “Louie, Louie,” now a garage-band standard. In 1945, Johnny Otis recorded a tribute to his alma mater entitled “Jeff High Stomp.”
Some do.
When enough do, those schools become bad as well.
Amazing what a coincidence it is....
; )
All the money in the world won’t guarantee good grades from an intelligent student who has been taught by the Democrats that he can’t possibly amount to much because The Man is to blame.
One of my grandchildren got into Boston Latin. Otherwise he would have been bussed into a cesspit in Boston, or his parents would have somehow had to send him to private school.
There used to be similar special public schools for bright kids in NYC. I haven’t kept up with it, but I think they have been pulled down and pretty well destroyed by affirmative action—although I’m not certain how it has worked out, since I lost track of it.
Louie Louie, me gotta go.
A fine little girl, she wait for me.
Me catch the ship across the sea.
I sailed the ship all alone.
I never think I'll make it home.
Louie Louie, me gotta go .
Three nights and days we sailed the sea.
Me think of girl constantly.
On the ship, I dream she there.
I smell the rose in her hair.
Louie Louie, me gotta go.
Me see Jamaican moon above.
It won't be long me see me love.
Me take her in my arms and then I tell her I never leave again.
Louie Louie, me gotta go."
(By Richard Berry. Copyright 1957-1963 by Limax Music Inc)
To each their own--I don't know if I'd call that a masterpiece. Anyway, I'd be happy if they learned to read, write, perform mathematical functions, and act in a civil manner.
Any visitor to your two schools can't help but notice that the La Cañada students, while hardly perfect, seem more focused, more driven to succeed than the average student at Jefferson. It's something that deeply frustrates Juan Flecha, the Jefferson principal. "They're such nice kids," he said of his pupils, adding: "They're so unmotivated."
Kids in the middle class areas will not destroy the building and the contents anywhere near at the rate of the gangs and stupids in the inner city.
The fools who burned down Watts are still compnaining because a major grocery chain will NOT go back into there.
No insurance company will issue a policy for anything there, either.
Actions have consequences——burn it down and never get it back.....
compnaining”
complaining....
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