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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This isn't a failure of affirmative action, but of our education system as a whole.  Poor, URM kids go to crappy schools, which set them back from the very beginning.  If all American children went to comparatively high quality schools, I would bet money that URM would have higher representation and AA would not even be necessary.[/quote]

It's not entirely a school problem. The parents of these children also have a role here. There is only so much a school can do if the family / parent figures are not supporting the child. [/quote]
+1 schools are only reflective of the students (ergo, the parents) who attend them. You can try all you want, but teaching students who come from homes where education is an afterthought is HARD. [/quote]

The educational level of the parents is key.  The studies have shown an absolute absence of long-term (i.e., into high school) impact of programs like Head Start for underprivileged kids.  The children do better initially, but the effect goes away as soon as the program ends.  I say one study (from Harvard, I think?) that looked at a range of programs, and the only program that worked was one that had focused intervention into the homes of disadvantaged students beginning at a very early age, and continuing on through high school, with mentors assigned to individual students and their parents. The problem was that it is incredibly expensive and there simply isn't the manpower to implement it on any kind of scale. The studies on the "word gap" between underprivileged and middle class kids have been extensively covered. Pouring money into the schools isn't going to fix the problem, when so much of the work that goes into preparing a kid for academic success happens between birth and 5 years of age.  [/quote]

First pp here, and I knew someone would have these responses.  Obviously parents are the most important factor.  Obviously children from the most broken, messed up homes are going to have a harder time.

But largely I think this is a cop-out, or an excuse to ignore educational inequality.  "Oh, their parents aren't good enough, things will never get better."  There are also studies that show when you put URM kids in a middle class school with a bunch of middle class kids, their results improve.  There are so many schools in America that are either mediocre or grossly inadequate.  In other words, actual integration is the answer.  [/quote]
But then the limousine liberals scream and cry that they can't have their snowflakes around "FARMS kids" or "the ESOL kids" or that snowflake needs a "high achieving peer group" (or "but what about the property values!!!!!")  thus we get bubbles of racial and socioeconomic homogeneity like Bethesda and North Arlington. Go check out the MCPS or VA public schools board and you'll see what I mean.[/quote]

I can attest to this, sadly. Sometimes I wonder about the reaction of my supposedly progressives neighbors would be if there were mandatory bussing. I think it might be even more brutal than the 50s and 60s. [/quote]

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