(the self-abusive nick some kinda cry for help ?)
Posted on 08/09/2002 6:48:26 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
BOSTON (AP) - Almost 50 years after state-sponsored school segregation was outlawed, public schools are becoming increasingly divided by race, even as minority populations increase nationwide, according to a new report.
The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University found integration between whites and blacks to be decreasing or steady in all but a handful of the nation's largest school districts over the last 14 years.
The report's authors say the "resegregation" trend is a result of recent court rulings that dismantled race-based desegregation laws, and also reflects discouragement over stalled integration efforts.
"I think a lot of people think that nothing can be done, and the efforts have failed," said Chungmei Lee, a co-author of the report.
Lee said integration is crucial to improve education and prepare students to live in a diverse culture.
Attorney Chester Darling, who represents parents fighting a desegregation policy in Lynn, Mass., questioned the study's assumptions about diversity's value. He also said any new push to create school diversity must be driven by parents and not government.
"When you have a government involved in enforcing a particular form of diversity, then you have a government making decisions that are illegal," he said.
The report measured the changing "exposure index" between races in school districts with enrollments larger than 25,000. For instance, a black-white exposure index of 23 percent means the average black student attends a school where 23 percent of the students are white.
In a sample of 185 of the districts, black exposure to whites increased in only four of the districts between 1986 and 2000. Latino exposure to whites increased in only three districts. White isolation increased in 53 districts, the report said.
The study found resegregation to be the most rapid in Clayton County, Ga., where the average black student goes to a school that is 23.1 percent white, down from 68.7 percent white in 1986.
The 20 most rapidly resegregating school districts are concentrated in the South, with eight in Texas and three in Georgia.
But the most stable districts are also in the South, the report noted, in what it said might be a lingering effect of defunct integration plans that were once heavily concentrated in the South.
Lee said successful integration is simply a matter of balancing resources, which are often in short supply in the poor neighborhoods where many minorities live. The report recommends combining city and suburban school districts into one entity, joining various racial groups in the process.
Rich Kahlenberg of The Century Foundation, a New York-based think tank, said communities need to focus on income disparities if they want to legally desegregate.
"People are stuck in the old paradigm of race," he said. "But that's outmoded because we have some new legal realities to deal with."
Any black Dunbar graduate from the 40s or 50s could kick the ass of almost any white HS grad from 2002.
And what you may not realize is that you are a liberals dream-- a living breathing recruiting poster for Sharpton, Jackson, et al. As a conservative, I understand your views, but your current articulation of them makes you appear to be a neo-confederate neanderthal...
You dont have to agree with me but you do need to be cognizant of how the left loves to "spin" your words
Can't we make them integrate?
"Lee said integration is crucial to improve [re]education..."
(the self-abusive nick some kinda cry for help ?)
Mr Sharks shouldn't even be referring to pigmentation. He should be referring to "anti-achievement culture and mentality".
You see most black people were educated in Govt schools, watch TV news, listen to neo socialist wannabe revolutionaries stuck in the 60's [1860's LOL]... hence we are talking about almost two different languages and world views (its the ZIETSGEIST lol) Most of the time, many cant even objectively decode a liberal speech and think TAX CUTS are a plot ro re-institute slavery...
Schooling in this country has always been funded redistributively, and the Dept of Education budget of 100 billion is embllematic of that (the Dept did not exist 30 yrs ago). And I ask you, is education in this country overall better or worse, since then? I submit... worse
Standards, teaching methods , etc have degraded and all the extra funding does not alleviate or address this directly (the NEA is obstructionist, but theyre not the only problem).
But the most distressing thing of all is that the Statists (ie this article) are still pushing their agenda of more and more intervention and useless social engineering .The Nation magazine suggested once that Whites moving their kids out of poor school districts for "questionable " reasons, be prohibited from doing that. How's that for Idealism?
That extra money is spent on the latest IEA fad to raise the self-esteem of the bused in students. But they forgot to include the 3Rs. The school flunked the "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" test.
So now the parents have the choice to send their kids to the school closest to them, rather than be bused to that school with all those special programs and extra money. School staff is making parental choice as difficult as possible. The parents can only exercise their choice by filling out forms that beg for an attorney. The forms are only available for pick up during limited hours on limited days. A parent can't pick up a form for a friend. The forms must be returned at a specific time.
The local paper writes as if the complexity is reasonable.
The issue is quite complex, and for one outside of the South is quite difficult to truely understand and appreciate within its social and racial views and beliefs and traditions: not that I am comfortable or agree with all of them, but one must understand to appreciate the situation and offer a fair judgement of it. There is much in my state that grieves me, but much of it is very much out of my control or intervention, and I have no desire to force people to adopt to my ideals and views, nor can I solve the problems that cause disharmony and seperation. White Mississippi has done much, and ordealed much, and changed much: it is now largely up to our black brethern to finish the dream.
My wife has been the whitest white girl in many venues. She also is well-versed in African American literature and history.
Arithmetically balanced integration in the early years can be helpful. But it is no more essential to good race relations than junior high sex is to successful parenthood.
Is it diversity if we all have the same proportional experiences growing up?
Some social scientists thought the well paid Black employees would move to the NW suburbs close to their jobs. Employees had extremely generous relocation packages. Real Estate agents went to class on how to handle the needs of the Black buyer. But only a few moved. My area had an increase from 5% to 10% Black. It seems many well paid Blacks left Sears and Ameritech for jobs at employers still in the loop.
Hispanic surnames, however, are 55% of new HOMEOWNERS in my middle class suburb. Others, like my wife, are Hispanic without a Hispanic surname. These are upwardly mobile immigrants who typically entered illegally in the 80's and got papers in the 90's. The suburb next to me has a dramatic increase in South Asians from India, Pakistan, etc.
The demand has exceeded the supply, driving up home values (and my equity nicely). Crime has declined even while the 14-25 population has increased. The Republican vote has gone up. Hispanics are much better neighbors than the White trash they replaced. (Can I say that if I am White trash myself?)
Compared to Blacks in the city, a significant number of Blacks in my area are in mixed marriages and more typical of assimilation than maintaining a Black identity. They are concerned about property taxes and the same things as everyone else around here.
I can't speak about the South. In Illinois the Hispanic housing pattern is much more integrated than the Black. In the 60's and 70's I lived in Chcago's Hispanic Westown, which was never more than 33% Hispanic at its peak. In the last 10 years Hispanics have been moving to scattered suburbs. White yuppies, especially gays, are turning it into a different type of ghetto.
Catholic Hispanics prefer 3 of the 7 Catholic churches in the area, 2 of which have Spanish mass. Of those 30% go to English mass. (I encourage my ESL students to attend English mass.)
Protestant Hispanics are spread accross every denomination with many in the Assembly of God, Baptist and non-denominational Baptist like churches which are mostly white, and where many of the Blacks, Koreans, etc. also attend.
Hispanics can be Catholic and Protestant at the same time, to the horror of the White liberals who run the Catholic church, and who only want ecumenicism with upper-class Presbyterians, Methodist, etc and not with those snake handlers.
Bad. I'm open to any suggestions which will provide educational opportunity for those wishing it...and which also reduces the waste and idiocy which you describe.
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