Disintegration: We Shall Undercome

[jay-ell]

Hey, my corner of the world is on the Colbert Report!

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/371414/january-18-2011/the-word---disintegration

We all look like backwards, ignorant, racist idiots! Yay!

[Choop]

you say that like it's a new development. HEY-O

nah, association of this stance with the tea party kind of serves as a warning flag: "caution all, unfiltered insanity approaching." steve just applied a modicum of critical thinking and dissected the proposal in under two minutes, and anybody else who tries can do the same thing. it's pretty plain to me that the only backward ignorant racist idiot in that story is the jackhole with the microphone at the rally.

[jay-ell]

Well, the problem is, there are about 5 of them, and they've got a majority on the school board. So this thing could really happen. It's been in the works for months, and now it's starting to look like it's going to take an act of God to stop it.

I'm signed up to speak at the public hearing on Monday. I vowed when I had kids that I would not get involved in local politics until they were older, but holy CRAP this makes my blood BOIL.

[jaydub]

We shall come undone, someday...

[littlefallsmets]

This topic fills me with such anger that I should probably not post in it at length, lest I say something that is rash even for me.

So instead I'll just say that my heart goes with jay-elle on this one.

Go all "Field of Dreams" on their asses.

[Choop]

"jason do not have this argument with me"

*LOVE*

[jay-ell]

I'll repost the Facebook thread here, for the holdouts who refuse to go there. I'm signed up to speak at a public hearing about it on Monday, and hashing it out here with y'all might help me get my thoughts in order. I am interested in your thoughts, LFM.

AD: Did they actually say they were going to resegregate the schools? Or just end busing? Because, you know, up north we ended busing about 100 years ago.

JL: Jason, do not have this argument with me. I went to grade school in Ohio, I know what it's like, and I am RILED.

They're trying to end a program that would limit the number of children who qualify for free- and reduced-price-lunches to 40% of any given school. Without this program, which, yes, involves busing for a small minority of students, a handful of schools would house the vast majority of our poorest kids. It's not about racial diversity; it's about reducing the effect that our "pockets of poverty" have on our kids.

And, by the way, 94% of the parents in our county are "satisfied" to "very satisfied" with their kids' schools. This policy change is not the result of parent complaints; it's the result of a few lunatics who have decided to take something we already fixed and do their best to break it.

GKA: fight the power!

AD: I'm not arguing, I just think the term re-segregation is kind of inflammatory and probably (hopefully) not the intent. I agree that parents and communities should be able to have more input on school policy, including curriculum content and a major change like what you are talking about (which does, on it's face, sound like a little bit of "Send them poor kids back where they belong"). So I don't understand one thing - in the absolute poorest school in your district, how is it possible to limit the subsidized lunch proportion to 40% <without> distributing those kids among the other schools? This sounds like a move that will cause a bigger proportion at those schools in poorer areas of the district, not even things out.

This is reason number 123 why I send my children to Parochial Schools.

JD: We do redistribute students -- in some cases, we send poor students to rich neighborhoods, and in some cases, we send rich students to poor neighborhoods. You'd think sending rich kids to poor schools would make people mad, but actually, the parents are the ones that choose it! You see, we don't just randomly bus kids around -- we use an extensive program of "magnet schools" that offer benefits outside the standard curriculum to entice middle- and upper-class parents to put their kids on busses and send them into the city.

For example, one of our elementary schools is adjacent to a popular downtown children's museum; others offer more electives, foreign language immersion, or special concentrations. These schools are strategically located adjacent to some of the poorest neighborhoods (relatively speaking), and families who live outside the district for these schools can apply to send their kids to them (chosen by lottery). The kids who live nearby go by default; middle- and upper-class kids go by choice. You'd think parents would shy away from this, but they don't -- these schools have huge waiting lists and turn kids away every single year. And they retain high-quality teachers at much higher rates than schools with a higher concentration of poor and high-risk kids.

In addition to having diverse, well-funded schools, we also have a VERY high degree of parent choice. The kids in my neighborhood can choose from a nearby traditional-calendar school, a year-round calendar option, a school for gifted and talented kids, a creative arts and science program, an engineering magnet school, an active learning and technology program, and international baccalaureate accredited school, an international studies program, a Montessori school, the aforementioned museums magnet school, a leadership academy, and a Spanish immersion school -- and that's just at the elementary level! And these are all PUBLIC schools -- tuition-free.

BUT -- going back to "neighborhood schools" and dropping the "economic diversity" program endangers all these programs. Without diversity as a goal, magnet programs serve no purpose, which means they'll be dropped within a generation of students -- 12 years at most. Parent choice will suffer. Student performance will suffer. And ultimately, the local economy will suffer.

But hey, what do I care? I bought a house in the suburbs, so at least when my property values triple, I'll be able to afford to send my kids to private school!

[wombat]

Knowing nothing about this except what you have posted here, this seems like the obvious question: If the system of magnet school works so well and is so popular, why are you so sure that changing the school lunch rule will elimiinate this system? From your description, I don't understand your claim that "Without diversity as a goal, magnet programs serve no purpose." It seems quite obvious that they offer other benefits than economic diversity, in that they are offering different options that people clearly find attractive.

So your argument does not sound very strong to me. The school lunch rule obviously kickstarted the magnet school system, but now that everyone sees the benefits why won't it continue of its own momentum? I can see why "even if you don't care about poor kids, this will ruin what's great about the school system" might be a good kind of argument to make, since I am pretty sure there are people who really don't give a fuck about poor kids. But I'm not convinced by how you have presented it so far.

You also might want to learn a bit more about school systems in other cities before making that claim. EG if I understand correctly, they don't have neighborhood high schools in NYC anymore either, but do they have anything like this school lunch rule?

[miles]

Tea party-backed Republican school board members

What the fuck?

I mean, clearly a case of infiltration, bringing it down from the inside, but still. The fuck?

[jay-ell]

The argument for the return to "neighborhood schools" is predicated on the idea that parents don't want their children bussed out of district. Also, they're expensive. But you don't have to take my word for it:

Wake's magnet program has received accolades from around the country. More than a dozen magnet schools annually receive awards from Magnet Schools of America, a trade organization; the U.S. Department of Education has held them up as national role models, and educators from around the country come to see Wake's magnet programs.

But questions about the future of the magnet program have intensified since the school board voted last year to eliminate efforts to balance schools by socio-economic diversity in favor of neighborhood schools. For instance, some board members say it's fairer to offer more unique programs at non-magnet schools even if it means taking some offerings away from magnets....Some parents are urging the expansion of magnet programs into suburban areas that haven't previously had those coveted offerings. At the same time, school board members are balancing how to allow Southeast Raleigh children to go to schools in their communities without crippling the magnet schools, which are mostly located in inner-city Raleigh.

In other words, they want to move magnet schools out of the inner cities and into the wealthy suburbs, where there are already high concentrations of high-performing students. But in response to requests from parents to have a magnet program moved to an under-enrolled school in a wealthy North Raleigh neighborhood,

Tedesco, the school board member [and the ringleader of this clown circus], said it would be hard to add a new magnet program at York this fall in light of the budget crunch facing the school system. Magnet schools typically cost more because of additional staff and, depending on the program, additional supplies and staff training.

Regarding other school systems, I don't think NYC has neighborhood schools any more either, but last I heard, they were neither known for socioeconomic diversity, nor were they considered a model for success. Wake County topped the GreatSchools.com list of the best large school districts in the country last year, and our test scores and graduation rates have been getting attention from large school districts nationwide, and administrators routinely come visit to see how we administer our magnet program and learn from our effective, consistent, and diverse system of quality schools.

I grew up with neighborhood schools in Ohio, and I think I was in the fourth grade when the first Black family moved in to my suburb. We had computers in the classrooms in 1988, while the kids a few miles down the road actually had all their extracurriculars (music, art, sports -- everything) cut completely for a couple of years due to lack of funding. I've seen the discrepancies that can be caused by "neighborhood schools," and I don't want my kids to be on either side of that gap.

Raleigh City schools merged with Wake County to create our current system 35 years ago because the schools were horribly inequitable. I cannot understand why anybody would want to undo that now. 

What the fuck?

I mean, clearly a case of infiltration, bringing it down from the inside, but still. The fuck?

Yeah, especially since it was a midterm election in which only 11% of the population voted. The vast, vast majority of the parents in Wake County are unhappy about this -- when I signed up to speak on Monday at one of the 6 public hearings, I was speaker number 55. There are a lot of pissed off moms getting our panties in a twist.

[jay-ell]

Okay, okay. One more quote about magnet schools for Wombles and then I'll shut up and let someone else talk.

Worries about magnets

Anne Sherron, one of the community members on the committee, said the map picked by the committee was the best of the four choices because it would result in fewer students changing schools. But she said she has great reservations about the regional maps, particularly whether there will be enough seats for magnet students once thousands of neighborhood children return to downtown and Southeast Raleigh.

"To me, it feels like we're trying to fill one seat with two children," Sherron said.

Carolyn Morrison, a member of the board minority who appointed Sherron, shared her doubts. An analysis by The News & Observer found that more than half of about 10,000 students in the Southeast Raleigh/Enloe zone attend schools outside the area to support diversity and to open up seats in Southeast magnets.

"If we keep the magnets and the children that live in that area, where do we put them all?" Morrison said.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/09/01/658237_map-puts-kids-into-16-school-zones.html#ixzz1BXRqQxOJ

[littlefallsmets]

It just fuck*ng KILLS me that all these fuck*ng assholes who go ON AND ON AND ON about patriotism and community and how fuck*ng great America is, the right they fight for the most is to run away and secede from all types of Americans who aren't exactly like them.

They hate the actual idea of America more than fuck*ng Al-Queda, who generally hate America not ideologically but as a function of their own psychotic territoriality.

They don't like the idea of America at all, they just love "America" which is just the land they live on which must be awesome because they live there.

[rant about how pussying out of Reconstruction laid the groundwork for all this shit, both politically and in the collective subconscious, deleted]

All these fuck*ng jingo starrs and no Brian Epstein to tell them to shut the fuck up or they're joining Pete Best.

[miles]

All these fuck*ng jingo starrs and no Brian Epstein to tell them to shut the fuck up or they're joining Pete Best.

I don't know how well this works in this context, but it's fuck*ng brilliant. A can.

[wombat]

Yeah, especially since it was a midterm election in which only 11% of the population voted.

This sucks but you probably going to get like three minutes to talk, so I hope you don't waste any of your three minutes bringing it up. The people who got voted in in that election are going to think that's it's not their problem that most people didn't bother to come out and vote against them if they didn't like their positions.

Perhaps I misunderstood your opponents' position from your first post. It seemed like you said "they want to eliminate the school lunch rule, and as a side effect this will destroy magnets." But OK, from your excerpts it sounds more like their proposal is both to eliminate the school lunch rule and to de-emphasize or eliminate magnets on purpose, not by accident.

But I think my original point is still relevant: politics and the history of how the system originated aside, it seems like there are two issues here, diversity, and the fact that parents actually like the magnet school system because it provides a quality education. After all, it would be logically possible to have a system where kids went to farther-away schools because they wanted a particular kind of program even if every child in the district was a clone of every other.

Your opponents obviously don't give a fuck about socioeconomic diversity, so it might be useful to be clear on the distinction when arguing against them. I feel like there is no point in trying to convince this sort of person of the value of diversity, so you have to go at it the other way around - that rich people like the other aspects of system, that their children want to have these choices, and they don't want it fucked with even if preserving the system has the terribly unfortunate byproduct of actually being good for poor people too.

And by "rich people" I mean the kind of people who will make a fuss with lawyers and such and will vote the bastards out of office next time if they mess with it. How long is their term in office?


Edited for: wtf the board spell checker can't spell "relevant" correctly any more than I can, what is the use of that?

[littlefallsmets]

Or you could claim to have Obama's Yemeni birth certificate and that you'll trade it for a binding vote against having separate fountains for poor people.

And then when they open it up, it just says "SUCKER!"

And if you can have people sing the Precious Roy theme from Sifl and Ollie afterwards, you know, icing on the cake.

(In seriousness, I mostly agree with wombie, that these people won't listen to justice, they'll only listen to self-interest. Pointing out how badly this will reflect on the community in the press and in business and stuff would probably really hurt them all in the long run, especially the black marks it would put on them if they ever wanna move forward in politics and so on. Or... you know... less angrily than I was phrasing it.)