???

This is actually on heck of a complex topic. Not to diminish the end of legal segragation in any way, but there is no denying the the vast majority of schools in America can still be called "black schools" or "white schools." This is no longer absolute but it is still a little disturbing. Whether this is a results of past racism resulting in segragated communties, income level disparities, racism active now,etc. Is a tough question to answer...

I'm not quite sure what this question means, Jube. Are you asking if we feel our schools are still segregated or if we feel they should be segregated?

Is american schols BECOMING resegretted

Re-Segregated?? They are already segregated. Many schools have open enrollment so anyone can go to the "good" school.

Have you considered becoming a speech-writer for George W Bush? I'm still not sure what your question is. Becoming re-segregated??

The school that my son attends has open enrollment. This is a change, as in Texas, the general rule is that you must reside in the district of the school in order to attend. Due to the "Robin Hood" plan, whereby the "rich" districts get taxed (money is then sent to "poor" districts), the school district decided to open enrollment to anybody. This particular district had declining enrollment, so that was exacerbating the problem. Each new child saves the district $5,000 or so per child.

This is in a predominantly white, upper class neighborhood, so this new policy should help integrate the school.

Mark

I've always felt that school attendance should be based on districting only. I was opposed to bussing in order to enforce desegregation and I would oppose open enrollment for schools outside one's district of residence. For similar reasons, I would violently oppose any kind of voucher system. If a parent wants to send a child outside the public school system (within one's district or not) it should be entirely at their own expense. If all schools work to a similar standard - which should clearly be our goal - then there should be no question of subsidizing a voucher system - but, as far as I can make out, that is probably the subject of a different thread.

If our neighborhoods are integrated (which should be our aim), it follows that our schools will be as well - but I would no more support forcibly integrating a school than I would forcibly segregating a school. I'm still not sure if this addresses Juber's question, though.

Bill,

I was just giving an example of how the system in Texas might be inadvertently fostering integration. Frankly, I don't know the answer to his question. There may be an argument that with the "white-flight" to the suburbs, that whites are electing to segregate (or re-segregate). It is a big issue in Austin, Texas. There is a "Smart Growth" campaign afoot to create incentives for businesses to locate in the central business district (i.e. - downtown) along with new residential housing. The idea is to keep people in town by ensuring that the job market is close by. But the law of unintended consequences has risen (as it always does). Smart Growth, IMO, has destroyed the once unique character of downtown Austin. Chain businesses (Starbucks for instance) are now locating downtown and are putting local competitors out of business. Also, the new residents of downtown are now complaining about the noise from the clubs (Austin bills itself as the live music capital of the world). The liberals who carried the flag of Smart Growth are now alarmed at what is happening. I haven't heard any of the liberals admit publically that Smart Growth is the culprit.

Juber may be right. Many whites are moving to the Suburbs. Will the minorities follow? Some have. But the ratio of white/minority is changing all over.

Mark

I've never heard it called Smart Growth, but expensive condos are going up right and left in my city's downtown and stores and businesses are following. Too many cities let their downtowns fall into ruin and this is a way to prevent it.

As far as the residents complaining, that's the way people are. They move near an airport and then they want the airport to move.

Call me a Liberal

Madtown

Madtown,

This is a bit off topic, but another reason for Smart Growth in Austin is that the environmentalists are concerned about development in the Hill Country west of town. This is a contributing and recharge zone for the aquifer and there have been some brutal struggles over this during the past 10-15 years. Smart Growth is supposed to keep people from moving out into the country. It's a good idea in theory, but, Austin is very unique town and developing downtown has changed the ambience.

There are bumper stickers all over the place that say "Keep Austin Wierd." Well, IMO, Smart Growth is making Austin normal (whatever that is), much to the chagrin of the wierd advocates.

Mark

Remaining off topic (should we start another thread on this?), I would have to consider myself a "weird advocate". I hate Starbucks - and McDonalds and Red Lobster and Outback and Perkins and Krispy Kreme and Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and Arby's and Olive Garden and - well, name a franchise. Individually, okay - they're fine (especially Krispy Kreme), but I do feel that they are destroying the character of a lot of downtown areas, driving Mon 'n' Pop restaurants out of business (just as Home Depot and Loew's and so on are doing with hardware stores and so on and on).

Would anyone favor some kind of extension to monopoly legislation ior something that would, say, limit the number of franchises any company could open? Even if within geographically defined areas? If so, maybe reply in a new thread.

The phenomena of "integration" exists mostly because of massive government social engineering. How something such as "forced busing" was ever considered "constitutional" is an interesting story in its own right. I personally remember the Federal Government integrating our public schools here in Alabama at gunpoint, as they did in Arkansas, and they have quite a habit of doing that by the way here throughout history - "constititutionally" of course. Where are all these schools now, 40 years later? I do not support the absurdity of America's public education system either much less do I have any enthusiasm about perpetuating its existence with my tax dollars. I would feel nothing but immense sorrow for any child deported from the suburbs to some inner city concentration camp called a "school" to be immersed in multicultural indoctrination, gang violence, and drugs. Such a child is a victim of a government constructed ant farm, for human beings. I do not see why something called "integration" should be any "goal" of mine. The only evidence I have seen is that "integration" is just another liberal utopian failure that only results in the re-segregation of schools due to white flight and private schools. Thus parents pay twice, once to subsidize the incarceration of someone else's child in the Orwellian nightmare of America's Public Education system and second to give their children a decent public education. Either way, America loses.

Of course integrating the schools was constitutional. The fact that some people haven't gotten over it after more than 30 years is what's unbelievable. I suggest those folks find a nice little island somewhere so that they can live on their own...and enforce their borders however they see fit.

>>>Of course integrating the schools was constitutional.

Very interesting. You see I was under the impression that education at the time was a responsibility of the states. But go ahead anyway and quote the "14th Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution. We can then engage in a discussion regarding the origin of that legislation.

>>>The fact that some people haven't gotten over it after more than 30 years is what's unbelievable.

The fact that so many Americans are unfamiliar with the institution known as federalism, our original form of government, and something we used to call "state's rights" is amazing to me.

>>>I suggest those folks find a nice little island somewhere so that they can live on their own.

Our original system of government was a federation of such "little islands" that were known as "states." This however was changed at gunpoint.

>>>and enforce their borders however they see fit.

It is funny that you mention this since immigration used to be a state, and not a federal, responsibility. The Founders were wise men and knew what the consequences of centralization would be. Something tells me that my area would not currently being "enriched" with Spanish speaking Mexicans with a foreign way of life if immigration was still a state responsibility.

I think the civil war made a huge difference to how much states were trusted to go it on their own. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, actually. And if you don't mind trusting the individual states with your safety after 9/11 without any help from the federal government there is something wrong with you.

>>>I think the civil war made a huge difference to how much states were trusted to go it on their own.

There was never any "Civil War" in America in the 1860s. I am assuming you are referring to the War Between the States here.

>>>I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, actually.

Personally, I would have to disagree.

>>>And if you don't mind trusting the individual states with your safety after 9/11 without any help from the federal government there is something wrong with you.

What about 9/11? 9/11 was a consequent of the centralized U.S. Government and its outrageous foreign policy. In case you did not notice Saddam Hussein has no intention whatsoever of attacking Mobile Bay, much less invading the Mississippi Delta, or blowing up Birmingham, Alabama. If it were not for magazines, newspapers, television, and the internet it is doubtful whether most people in Alabama would even be aware of the existence of Saddam Hussein. The message of 9/11 was quite simple.

Yankee Go Home!

LOL...This is home. Get used to it.

>>>LOL...This is home. Get used to it.

Just whose home is it these days? We seem to let in just about anything - from John Lee Malvo to Mohammad Atta to Ramsi Youseff. It would appear to me to be a colony of the world rather than my home.

Hmmm...I would have to double check but wasn't Malvo born here and also served in our armed forces?

No that would be the other guy. Malvo was from Jamaicia and the other guy, I forgot the fellows name smuggled him in here. The INS caught him but let him go. Malvo murdered a woman in Montgomery, Alabama about 40 minutes away from me on his killing spree.

This guy gets it. Seriously, they're always trying to make immigrants and the resulting diversity that occurs from their immigration out to be so "enriching" and "beneficial to the community." Good riddance.



Danya, you already live on your "little island" in California. I would sooner die than live in that liberal pothole in the great road of America.

Of course schools should be integrated!!

I've got an idea, privitize schools, give vouchers, and vuala!

BringIt:The problem is that the quality of a private school is almost always directly proportional to the tuition. Therefore those who need quality education the most (those from poorly-educated households) recieve it the least.

To the larger issue: The states we relieved of much of their responsibility for education when they misused their authority in order to deprive large numbers of Americans of relatively equal (equality is in the real world, relative) public facilities. This was, I believe, accomplished through the 14th Amendment.

Turnea-

These vouchers can be used at any school, no child will be left behind. The more the school does to educate its students, the more students will enroll, the more money they get for maintainance, books, teacher salaries, etc. It forces accountability on teachers' parts.

I dont see how privatizing schools will solve our education problem. In fact, I believe it will only worsen it. Lets look at places where schools are private, Thailand, Indonesia, many parts of Africa.....How many of those people are literate? And all those places are third world countries. Only the rich can afford education and why is that OK and something to strive for?

Kim,

Did you read about vouchers?

You seemed to completely miss the concept. Please reread my post.

Do any of these 3rd world contried use vouchers? I don't think so.

Yes, I did read about vouchers. But if no child is going to be left behind with vouchers (and all kids will get them, and enough to cover an astronomical tuition at private institutions) why not just improve public schools instead? Since I assume, it would still be mandatory for kids to go to school (with the exception of those who choose homeschooling and those who arent in school for religous reasons)? Why mandate something for a private institution? Why not have public schools for all with a higher quality of education? (And Im not saying get rid of private schools, because if someone chooses to go there, let them.)

Well, with vouchers, districts won't be in place, and the schools that acheive the best scores get the most money. If you start throwing money at a public school that isn't acheiving sufficient scores, then you are rewarding teachers for not doing a good job. With vouchers, teachers must do a good job to get rewarded.

I dont think thats always true. I dont know much about the voucher system, but I was speaking to my old french teacher from high school, who got a new job at a more affluent public school. I asked what it was like, and she said it was mch nicer, because if she needed to buy something for class, they gave her the money. Whereas at my old high school they restricted everything. I dont think throwing money at schools is necessarily the right answer...I think actually giving money to schools not based on districts but through some other standard is the way to distribute money through schools. Other factors need to be taken into consideration...Im not sure exactly what though.

The only reason there is such a desire to privatize the public school system is because the integrated government schools have proven to be such an abyssmal catastrophic failure and will only deteriorate and degenerate to even lower level as the population changes - as it has in California already. This is totally the asisine fallacy of the liberal utopians and Bob Dylan generation who for god only knows what reason believe all humans and cultures are "equal" and interchangable units despite all evidence pointing to the fundamental inequality of populations, cultures, and even individuals. Public schools work just fine in Iceland and Japan and there is little complaining to be found there. To question the wisdom of "integration" which has proven to be nothing other than a total failure, which would have been laughed at for hundreds years of American history, is "racist" which is the greatest blasphemy of our age - exactly how witchcraft was in colonial times.

This is nothing more than the Cultural Marxism which is today known as Political Correctness which dominates our educational system. Basically, neo-Marxists have taken Marxist theory and applied it to races and cultures since it has been shown to be such a failure in economics. The theory starts out with the belief in innate cultural and racial equality. Cultures and Races are divided into "oppressors" or "bourgeosie" and the "oppressed" or "the proletarians" and all differences between them are explained in this manner - Social Lamarkism. It is the same old "Devil Theory" of differences recast in the modern world. As soon as the "oppressor" race, Racist White Americans, or the oppressor culture "Eurocentric Western Civilization" is eliminated utopia is achieved under the leadership of the vanguard oppressed class "minorities." To question the "enrichment" of "diversity of our strength" is the modern day equivilant of the questioning the wisdom of "workers of the world unite." The entire thing is nothing more than a charade, a game, for a financial plutocracy to enrich itself by using minorities or workers like they did in the Soviet Union.

Martin Luther King was the Lenin, more of a puppet actually, of the United States and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s was a neo-Marxist revolution in Western Culture. The USSA is a neo-Marxist state.

I was reading today about a ridiculous application of Cultural Marxism called "Lookism" and the people who believe in "Lookism" are "Lookists." LOL I will write more on this in a minute.