This American Life about desegregation in schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
People on this forum love to say parents just need to invest in home reading and get involved with fundraising. But what happens when there are no books? How do you raise funds from people who have none to give? How do you get more parent involvement from people working 2-3 jobs just to pay rent?

Well, you can't expect that someone will raise your kid for you. If at home you don't instill that education a priority.. you can demand from the school all day long, but no one can make your kid succeed, no teacher, no amount of supplies, if you don't lead by example.

There are immigrants who work two jobs and have no money and yet their kids are aware that they must study to make it and failing is not an option for them.

Yet other kids fail and you don't even hold them accountable, it's the school's fault.

My white friend graduated from a majority black very bad school. He wanted to break from poverty and it was easy for him to be on top of class because nobody else was motivated. He got a scholarship to a decent college and now lives a middle class life with a great job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: To say it's not about race? Of course it's about race. Race intertwined with poverty and generations of black families being stuck with few ways out.

Of course, it's not about the race. I would be against a bus of failing white students just the same. If it was a bus of black honor students I'd welcome them with open arms.

Who wants to screw up their own school's rankings by adding a lot of failing students? No one. Who wants to add kids in their class that can't read at the grade level, fail at tests and have behavior problems? No one. Doesn't matter what color they are.

You are right. Lets just put all those failing little kids under one roof so they can be with their own kind. That way we can continue to have a permanent underclass, and your little kids wont bet tainted by their failure. Yes, that sounds like progress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
People on this forum love to say parents just need to invest in home reading and get involved with fundraising. But what happens when there are no books? How do you raise funds from people who have none to give? How do you get more parent involvement from people working 2-3 jobs just to pay rent?

Well, you can't expect that someone will raise your kid for you. If at home you don't instill that education a priority.. you can demand from the school all day long, but no one can make your kid succeed, no teacher, no amount of supplies, if you don't lead by example.

There are immigrants who work two jobs and have no money and yet their kids are aware that they must study to make it and failing is not an option for them.

Yet other kids fail and you don't even hold them accountable, it's the school's fault.

My white friend graduated from a majority black very bad school. He wanted to break from poverty and it was easy for him to be on top of class because nobody else was motivated. He got a scholarship to a decent college and now lives a middle class life with a great job.

Like I said, not everyone can be extraordinary enough to overcome odds stacked against them. The mother and daughter in the TAL episode are just one example of people who fought against a school board that fought to keep them in a failing school. The district that they left absolutely should be held accountable for leaving it in a fail state for 15 years. Nobody's asking a school to raise their kids, they're expecting it to provide an education.

[Anonymous]

What I see is a bunch of parents (not the honor student from TAL episode, that's an outlier) who failed their kids by not enforcing education at home who made their own school a failing one by failing tests and failing attendance.

Now these parents relinquish responsibility for the failure and demand that it's school's fault they didn't make their kids succeed.

And you want to fix this at the expense of my kid? My kid is supposed to be a crutch for your failing kid? I don't think so. Your success is your job and you have to work for it. No one owes you anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: To say it's not about race? Of course it's about race. Race intertwined with poverty and generations of black families being stuck with few ways out.

Of course, it's not about the race. I would be against a bus of failing white students just the same. If it was a bus of black honor students I'd welcome them with open arms.

Who wants to screw up their own school's rankings by adding a lot of failing students? No one. Who wants to add kids in their class that can't read at the grade level, fail at tests and have behavior problems? No one. Doesn't matter what color they are.

You are right. Lets just put all those failing little kids under one roof so they can be with their own kind. That way we can continue to have a permanent underclass, and your little kids wont bet tainted by their failure. Yes, that sounds like progress.

New Poster here. I don't think any students should be purposely segregated. However, I think forced busing of students is a horrible idea as evidenced by what happened in the 1970's. I think DC's model is a good one since there is a lot of school choice which helps integration.

As for failing students, I think most of them need a lot of remediation which should be done in separate classrooms IMHO since differentiation is a joke when the student abilities in one classroom are years apart. Unfortunately, not all students are academic powerhouses and this is why we need more vocational education.

[Anonymous]

18:03, did you listen to the episodes at all? This isn't about intentional segregation so much as the reality of segregation. WE DON'T HAVE TO TRY.

Data actually shows that, on average, differentiation helps all kids. There will always be kids on both sides of the bell curve, but for those in the middle, it is extremely effective and there will need to be remediation -- yes -- for the kids on each end. I don think anyone is saying that's off the table but it's also overstating things to say differentiation is "a joke."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I see is a bunch of parents (not the honor student from TAL episode, that's an outlier) who failed their kids by not enforcing education at home who made their own school a failing one by failing tests and failing attendance.

Now these parents relinquish responsibility for the failure and demand that it's school's fault they didn't make their kids succeed.

And you want to fix this at the expense of my kid? My kid is supposed to be a crutch for your failing kid? I don't think so. Your success is your job and you have to work for it. No one owes you anything.

I hope you're not a Christian. If so, you clearly missed "my brother's keeper" day at bible camp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I see is a bunch of parents (not the honor student from TAL episode, that's an outlier) who failed their kids by not enforcing education at home who made their own school a failing one by failing tests and failing attendance.

Now these parents relinquish responsibility for the failure and demand that it's school's fault they didn't make their kids succeed.

And you want to fix this at the expense of my kid? My kid is supposed to be a crutch for your failing kid? I don't think so. Your success is your job and you have to work for it. No one owes you anything.

Your kid will be fine, whether a poor kid sits next to them or whether they go to a crappy school. You're the parents of honor students, naturally.

If you do not understand the racism that is baked into most civic institutions in this country, maybe you should go back to school yourself and learn those pieces of our nation's history. I suspect that you do know this, though, and you just prefer to tell yourself that it's all about personal responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I see is a bunch of parents (not the honor student from TAL episode, that's an outlier) who failed their kids by not enforcing education at home who made their own school a failing one by failing tests and failing attendance.

Now these parents relinquish responsibility for the failure and demand that it's school's fault they didn't make their kids succeed.

And you want to fix this at the expense of my kid? My kid is supposed to be a crutch for your failing kid? I don't think so. Your success is your job and you have to work for it. No one owes you anything.

Your kid will be fine, whether a poor kid sits next to them or whether they go to a crappy school. You're the parents of honor students, naturally.

If you do not understand the racism that is baked into most civic institutions in this country, maybe you should go back to school yourself and learn those pieces of our nation's history. I suspect that you do know this, though, and you just prefer to tell yourself that it's all about personal responsibility.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New poster here

Here is the elephant in the room

Why do many Asian and African immigrants generally break the poverty cycle in one generation while other populations don't

It's not SES because most immigrants arrive at the bottom of the SES stack so they have to attend a "crappy" school with parents working crappy long jobs but somehow the students make it

This is not an elephant - this is just the narrative white folks use to keep their privileges intact. Half of you white folks need a white privilege workshop - STAT!

http://www.mtv.com/shows/white-people/white-people-full-episode/1736982/playlist/#id=1736982

daughter of african immigants here...grew up in housing project in a big city watching bunches of my neighbors kids fail wondering the exact same thing. it comes down to many little factors but the chief one imo is institutionalized racism. I assume we've all been slighted in the small hundreds of times with the racial perceptions of others, for white folks can't see that I am first generation and that my neighbors kids are descendants of slaves and the kids of the great migration. they just see were black and its all the same. but for me growing up without the shackles of that lowered expectation was a tupe of freedom. the persistent and pervasive racism, it could only psychically blight me in small ways. It didn't compound the generations of slights that must be felt by the african american community as a whole after generations of living poor, disrespected lives. living less than a generation past codified laws that made it a crime to use the same drinking fountain as a white person or having to sit behind some white person on public transport. or getting the shitty books or schools while white kids got first pick. how humiliating and degrading and stripping or all your humanity....
when immigrants get here they feel that pressure as well but they do not bear the scars of those hundreds of years of underclass status. It's just another injustice to get through, like the ones that my parents were fleeing back in their home country. another hurdle to jump, and they are free to jump. they do not feel encumbered by this immobility that seems to be yoked around the neck of the black lower class in america. so they leap, to better school and then better houses and then their kids keep moving on, just like me and my sibs did.
and yet...just the other day in my practice i am talking to a patient, a very sweet older white lady and doing some basic neurological testing and I ask her who the president is ....she says "oh it's that nigger", like it was on the tip of her tongue and she says it everyday, because she probably does. this is the pervasive, causal cancer that racism is in the US. it didnt stamp us out but it has been stomping on the dreams of others, quiet and poisonous for generations. try and ignore it, but it lives on...in its many subtle and direct ways.
one generation requires that freedom to leap which does not happen if the schools are all poor people who still don't feel like they merit the investment of resources their wealthier counterparts do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Your kid will be fine, whether a poor kid sits next to them or whether they go to a crappy school.

Right. My kid went to a school that we as a community made great and you now are going to change it to crappy because you were bused here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:18:03, did you listen to the episodes at all? This isn't about intentional segregation so much as the reality of segregation. WE DON'T HAVE TO TRY.

Data actually shows that, on average, differentiation helps all kids. There will always be kids on both sides of the bell curve, but for those in the middle, it is extremely effective and there will need to be remediation -- yes -- for the kids on each end. I don think anyone is saying that's off the table but it's also overstating things to say differentiation is "a joke."

I get it that segregation happens without trying, but it is not really segregation in the legal sense. A lot of folks, including white folks cannot afford to live in good school districts or in rich neighborhoods. That is simply a fact of demographics. I favor school choice as a remedy which DC has already.

As for differentiation, I think there is a need for differentiation in separate classrooms when students are functioning years apart. A teacher cannot effectively meet the needs of middle school students and high school functioning at a second grade level in a on grade level classroom IMO and DC schools sees quite a lot of teens functioning a very low levels. Also, academically advanced students are often unchallenged in regular classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New poster here

Here is the elephant in the room

Why do many Asian and African immigrants generally break the poverty cycle in one generation while other populations don't

It's not SES because most immigrants arrive at the bottom of the SES stack so they have to attend a "crappy" school with parents working crappy long jobs but somehow the students make it

This is not an elephant - this is just the narrative white folks use to keep their privileges intact. Half of you white folks need a white privilege workshop - STAT!

http://www.mtv.com/shows/white-people/white-people-full-episode/1736982/playlist/#id=1736982

daughter of african immigants here...grew up in housing project in a big city watching bunches of my neighbors kids fail wondering the exact same thing. it comes down to many little factors but the chief one imo is institutionalized racism. I assume we've all been slighted in the small hundreds of times with the racial perceptions of others, for white folks can't see that I am first generation and that my neighbors kids are descendants of slaves and the kids of the great migration. they just see were black and its all the same. but for me growing up without the shackles of that lowered expectation was a tupe of freedom. the persistent and pervasive racism, it could only psychically blight me in small ways. It didn't compound the generations of slights that must be felt by the african american community as a whole after generations of living poor, disrespected lives. living less than a generation past codified laws that made it a crime to use the same drinking fountain as a white person or having to sit behind some white person on public transport. or getting the shitty books or schools while white kids got first pick. how humiliating and degrading and stripping or all your humanity....
when immigrants get here they feel that pressure as well but they do not bear the scars of those hundreds of years of underclass status. It's just another injustice to get through, like the ones that my parents were fleeing back in their home country. another hurdle to jump, and they are free to jump. they do not feel encumbered by this immobility that seems to be yoked around the neck of the black lower class in america. so they leap, to better school and then better houses and then their kids keep moving on, just like me and my sibs did.
and yet...just the other day in my practice i am talking to a patient, a very sweet older white lady and doing some basic neurological testing and I ask her who the president is ....she says "oh it's that nigger", like it was on the tip of her tongue and she says it everyday, because she probably does. this is the pervasive, causal cancer that racism is in the US. it didnt stamp us out but it has been stomping on the dreams of others, quiet and poisonous for generations. try and ignore it, but it lives on...in its many subtle and direct ways.
one generation requires that freedom to leap which does not happen if the schools are all poor people who still don't feel like they merit the investment of resources their wealthier counterparts do.

Well said doctor!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
one generation requires that freedom to leap which does not happen if the schools are all poor people who still don't feel like they merit the investment of resources their wealthier counterparts do.

You know, there immigrants from Africa and middle East wasing up on the shore of Europe who would kill for the opportunities that you have, for the crappy books that you don't bother to read because they are not premium white kids books, for your free libraries, for your seat in a classroom that you often skip. Who wouldn't dream of dropping school.

If we bring a rural Chinese impoverished kid and put him in your place, he'll make all As. There are kids in India who started a school under a bridge because they feel education is their ticket out of slums.

And you sit here, entitled. And complain that you didn't get the best of everything and this is your excuse for failure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I see is a bunch of parents (not the honor student from TAL episode, that's an outlier) who failed their kids by not enforcing education at home who made their own school a failing one by failing tests and failing attendance.

Now these parents relinquish responsibility for the failure and demand that it's school's fault they didn't make their kids succeed.

And you want to fix this at the expense of my kid? My kid is supposed to be a crutch for your failing kid? I don't think so. Your success is your job and you have to work for it. No one owes you anything.

Your kid will be fine, whether a poor kid sits next to them or whether they go to a crappy school. You're the parents of honor students, naturally.

If you do not understand the racism that is baked into most civic institutions in this country, maybe you should go back to school yourself and learn those pieces of our nation's history. I suspect that you do know this, though, and you just prefer to tell yourself that it's all about personal responsibility.

+1

Yup