Integration Ruined Schools

[randomguy13]

I go to a Minneapolis Public School, and I can safely say that there aren't that many schools with a 50% minority and 50% majority level. The schools are either 80% majority or 80% minority, and, in some schools, there are large disparities within the wings of the schools. There isn't really that much integration, especially in the super rich suburbs, where every school is 90% white, and 9% Indian. The schools with a lot of whites are normally the best performing, because their parents are incredibly rich, and the education taxes that they pay, go directly to the school in THEIR district, not a school in a poorer district, so the schools in richer districts get much better schooling, so the richer parents who want to get a better education for their child can go to one of the "better" schools. It's amazing that this guy even got to a sixth grade reading level- Michele Bachmann failed 6th Grade US History and still doesn't know how to look into a camera lens.

 

[GamezRule]

Integration never ruined schools. Bigotry ruined schools.

 

[Bill3000]

Er, for integration to ruin schools, they need to, you know, be integrated first.

 

[Disgustipated]

There's nothing wrong with integration. I went to an inner city high school, and I got a pretty good education (not as good as private school, but that's to be expected). The thing is even though whites were a minority at my school, it made no difference. I was in all the AP classes anyways. So while the regular or remedial classes were poor, the AP classes were very good and I got 5's on my AP exams. So they must have done something right.

 

[warpus]

You know, where I went to University there were way more asians (east asians and indians) than whites, and on average performance didn't seem to vary from race to race. There was also a black guy but I'm not sure how he did.

 

[Archbob]

^^

Your talking about two minorities who study and value school at least as much as whites.

 

[amadeus]

^^

Your talking about two minorities who study and value school at least as much as whites.

Well, for foreign students we're also talking about some of their best. China and India have a combined population of what, ten times that of the United States?

 

[stuge]

So, the schools haven't actually been integrated and there are big funding gaps between schools due to the property tax-based system?

Dammit black kids, stop ruining the white kids' education.

 

[warpus]

Well, for foreign students we're also talking about some of their best. China and India have a combined population of what, ten times that of the United States?

For some reason the distinction between home-grown minorities and foreign-born genius immigrants escaped me during the writing of my previous post.

 

[amadeus]

For some reason the distinction between home-grown minorities and foreign-born genius immigrants escaped me during the writing of my previous post.

I think similar conditions exist in those immigrant groups too, Asians who have taken initiative and tried to stake out a better life for themselves in our countries. It might be just my imagination, but I see a difference between those that have come here as migrants and those that are here as refugees from political turmoil in Laos, for example.

Not exactly.

 

[Cutlass]

In my county we're (sorta) going through the same thing. Ever since the 80s our school system has been evenly integrated (so, since our county is 30 percent black, each school is expected to have 30 percent of it's students to be black, and so on with other races, including wealth statuses). Recently though, some people have not been happy with it, not because they don't like integration, but because our schools also have to have an equal amount of wealthy/middle class/poor students, some students have to go to school across town, which means being on a bus 4 hours each day, so some people want to get rid of how even our schools are. That's not to say they want white-only schools and rich-only schools and hispanic-only schools, they just don't their kids to ride on the bus forever to keep up with demographics.

Anyway, it seems like the Minnesota guy is an idiot, and he seems like racist, but he may just be really stupid. I mean, he did graduate with a 6th grade reading ability (how the frack do you do that?).

A lot of that bus riding is because neighborhoods have been segregated by race and income. Here the way schools have been segregated by race is to segregate them by town and then every town control its own schools.

 

[downtown]

Bad speech.

The senator opposes busing, which as far as I know has never actually improved educational outcomes. Hopefully downtown or someone else with backgrounds in urban education programs can come in and enlighten us.

To be honest, I haven't really studied the education outcomes of busing programs. It seems a little moot to dwell upon it though because, like others have pointed out,

Funny. The schools were never actually integrated....

Well...most of them *did*, for a little while, but schools are almost as segregated now as they were in the 60s. Neighborhood changes are part of it, along with school boards who are less friendly to the idea of integration, and Court rulings that have weakened the state's ability to enforce it. A few school districts, like where I taught (Jefferson Parish, Louisiana) just never tried to comply with Brown v Board in the first place, and are still under Federal Oversight.

 

[Formaldehyde]

People are actually surprised there are overtly racist Republican legislators in Minnesota? What makes this particular example so interesting is that he is a chaplain who was a school principal and the former director of the local YMCA.

 

[Archbob]

I think similar conditions exist in those immigrant groups too, Asians who have taken initiative and tried to stake out a better life for themselves in our countries. It might be just my imagination, but I see a difference between those that have come here as migrants and those that are here as refugees from political turmoil in Laos, for example.

Not exactly.

It depends. If you look at a minority like the Hmong, you'll see vast improvements over just 25 years ago. Sure, they are quite in line with the East-Asians yet but I believe in another generation they will be. Overall the poverty rate among them is less than half of what it was when they came over and median income has doubled(even though its still low compared to east Asians). The refugee minorities that integrate well with mainstream American culture seems to do decently well. Its the ones that try to cling to themselves and only live in communities among themselves that tend to do poorly.

You can't really integrate those people either since they don't really want to be integrated.

 

[jtb1127]

States not be spending money to make schools more diverse because thats a waste of money. Poor 'ghetto' kids are more likely to ignore the education they are receiving and instead bring down non-'ghetto' kids. But saying integration is the problem is stupid. Educated minorities should be at the same schools as educated whites while uneducated minorities shouldn't. Instead they should focus on improving the quality of the 'ghetto' schools and not moving them to the better ones.

 

[Mango Elephant]

States not be spending money to make schools more diverse because thats a waste of money.

I disagree. You make schools diverse to bring ghetto kids up to the level of other kids, which makes them better workers, which makes them worth more, so little money would be lost, and the money that is lost would hardley be a waste.

Poor 'ghetto' kids are more likely to ignore the education they are receiving and instead bring down non-'ghetto' kids.

I don't buy that for a second. Even if ghetto kids aren't performing as well as non-ghetto, they're still way better off than if they went to a ghetto-school.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/e...&en=a1e558c9bcf29d27&ei=5094&partner=homepage

In Wake County, only 40 percent of black students in grades three through eight scored at grade level on state tests a decade ago. Last spring, 80 percent did. Hispanic students have made similar strides. Overall, 91 percent of students in those grades scored at grade level in the spring, up from 79 percent 10 years ago.

"Low-income students who have an opportunity to go to middle-class schools are surrounded by peers who have bigger dreams and who are more academically engaged," said Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation who has written about economic integration in schools. "They are surrounded by parents who are more likely to be active in the school. And they are taught by teachers who more likely are highly qualified than the teachers in low-income schools."

 

[Holycannoli]

I go to a Minneapolis Public School, and I can safely say that there aren't that many schools with a 50% minority and 50% majority level. The schools are either 80% majority or 80% minority, and, in some schools, there are large disparities within the wings of the schools. There isn't really that much integration, especially in the super rich suburbs, where every school is 90% white, and 9% Indian. The schools with a lot of whites are normally the best performing, because their parents are incredibly rich, and the education taxes that they pay, go directly to the school in THEIR district, not a school in a poorer district, so the schools in richer districts get much better schooling, so the richer parents who want to get a better education for their child can go to one of the "better" schools. It's amazing that this guy even got to a sixth grade reading level- Michele Bachmann failed 6th Grade US History and still doesn't know how to look into a camera lens.

It's not just about money. Adding more money to a failing urban school won't magically make the students perform better. The biggest issue is families. I can bet the rich white parents push their kids to do well and instill in them the value of education.

I've said this elsewhere, my sister-in-law left a poor urban school last year (a grade school, young kids) and her stories make you cringe. Half the kids don't have parents but are raised by a grandparent, some can't read or can barely read, some do whatever they want in class and don't listen to the teachers or administrators, and some have even said what prison they want to go to when they grow up.

There's a serious problem when it comes to poor urban schools, but it's not money. I can guarantee - GUARANTEE - that if you swapped the students in a rich white school with the students in a poor urban school, bussed every single one of them to the other school for an entire year, those urban students would not magically perform well. It's actually more likely that expensive equipment will be stolen or vandalized, or possibly the faculty quits. The rich kids would still perform decently in the poor school.

The problem isn't money, it's the attitude toward education that the students and their families have, if they even have families.

There's an experiment going on in Newark NJ where donors are giving millions of dollars to poor schools, and it won't amount to much. All the money in the world won't get these aspiring gang members to suddenly value education.

^^

Your talking about two minorities who study and value school at least as much as whites.

Pretty much what I said above. Students and families who value education will do well, and traditionally both those ethnic groups highly value education.

 

[jtb1127]

I disagree. You make schools diverse to bring ghetto kids up to the level of other kids, which makes them better workers, which makes them worth more, so little money would be lost, and the money that is lost would hardley be a waste.

I guess you're right but shouldn't money be used to improve the ghetto schools?

 

[Mango Elephant]

I think Holycannoli said it quite well.

 

[bhsup]

YOu guys make assumptions and jump on the "OMG RACIST" bandwagon. Cool, let's ignore other explanations. You want to see a disaster? Look at what the federal desegregation lawsuit did to the Kansas City school districts. Yeah man, awesome...woo.