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I stated: There is no evidence that mixing the races in the schools confers a positive benefit.

You replied: So you're advocating resegregation?

I am not advocating anything about Maine schools. I was simply making an observation, which I considered pertinent to the subject of this thread. There are many ways that the subject of school assignment can be approached, and rejecting one does not imply another.

Frankly, fixing the sociological mess that is afflicting American public education in many communities, would be no simple proposition. As a Constitutionalist, I believe that decisions pertaining to the criteria for school assignments, should be determined locally. As a believer in the family as the principal factor in both education and the continuity of Society, I would hope that local school districts try to make the local schools both congenial to the families in their district, and to the extent possible an extension of the home.

I do not believe that Maine ever had segregated schools to "resegregate," so your choice of words may be inappropriate. But my comment did not go to the idea of different races attending the same school. That need not be a problem--although in some cases it may involve problems. But my comment went to the deliberate attempt to engineer "racial diversity," not the incidental presence of diverse peoples in the same school. There is an essential difference.

In attending a diverse school, children need to learn tolerance, but they do not have to live with the implication that others are essential to their cultural development. They can progress within their own heritage, seeing their schooling as an extension--not a denial--of their family values, and learn to live and let live with others, at the same time. That is not the problem. The problem is in the idea that we need to be socially made over, which is implied by the notion that it is somehow wrong NOT to go to a racially diverse school.

There are other problems with diversity, and there may be some incidental benefits; but my comment was directed at the idea propounded by some on the Left, that deliberate mixing confers a positive benefit, and the implications of that notion.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site