There is nothing more basic to human life than the family. The family goal is to protect their own and build a life together. The stronger the family, the greater the chance for successful communities and future prospects. Children, protected and nurtured by parents, define a family. Integral to family and life itself is the teaching of the young. The teaching of a child is as natural as mother's milk.
Smart and successful societies have recognized the need and value of good community schools. Repressive regimes have always valued the power of controlling education and the indoctrination of youth. Independence, prosperity and freedom require community responsibility for maintaining safe functioning schools. There is no better example of the capitulation of local responsibility and accountability to schools than in black urban areas.
Black schools are such a disaster because American Blacks do not take the initiative to solve their own community problems. They expect government to do it for them. Forty years of experience should be ample evidence that federal and state governments will never fix Black schools and education until American Blacks say that they have had enough and they decide to solve their own problems. The first step is for Blacks to have an honest dialog about why there are black schools in the first place.
That is simple. Whites do not want their children exposed to the crime, violence, drugs and hyper-black ghetto culture that is the current norm in Black America. Black American urban culture is a study in disfunction. If Black communities succomb to that culture, and most have, the consequences are that Whites vote with their feet and leave. That is not prejudice, it is common sense and reality.
The Supreme Court decision which restricts race based school enrollment is a good first step for personal freedom. American Blacks and their white liberal thought masters should be rejoicing. We shall see.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." ML King.
ReplyDeleteThe Supremes decision, although a step in the right direction (as you say), is still a very small step.
ReplyDeleteWhat's needed is the total prohibition of FED involvement in the public school system. The Dept. of Education must die before schools will improve. Bush doesn't want this, of course; education being a luxury for cheap laborers, don’t ya know!
I must really be something, as all the ladies here call me 'honey'. 'What would ja all like for breakfast, honey.' 'Now how is everything with you today, honey?' "You want those cigarettes in a soft pack or hard pack, honey.'
ReplyDeleteMy wife steered us up some road to nowhere the other day--all this country is very forested and it looks uninhabited from a distance, but you drive up in there, all of a sudden you are in the land of the nine fingered people, deliverance country. I can tell you, there are problems with education etc everywhere, it's not confined to any one group. These people can vote, which I find scary. But then the educated in San Francisco can vote too, so I shouldn't make light. They vote for Robert C. Byrd, who stated yesterday he's not leaving the senate long as he can stand, and maybe not then.
In some areas you will be driving along, along the Ohio River maybe, and some of the housing is not so good, then all of a sudden there will be some million dollar homes. Kind of odd in some areas how they are mixed together. I don't think they go in for zoning laws in a big way here. And the drivers are terrible--you are taking your life in your hands, on the freeway or the backroads. The local tv news last night was almost all fatality accidents. Also, the crooks aren't too bright. How dumb is it to walk into the convenience store with a knife, flee when the clerk puts up some resistance, and have your uncovered easily identified face broadcast all over creation a few minutes later?
Bob Evans of the restraunt chain died, and has been buried, you should all be aware of that. Big name around here, and it does seem he did some good things for folks.
I have not seen one field, well maybe one,of tobacco. When I was here 20 some years ago there was lots of tobacco. No subsidies now I think. The "Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco" barns are all empty. Rufus, it's King Corn here now, with some veggies around too, and a few soy beans. Take Care.
Lighning Bug I have observed, sitting on the porch at night, that the lightning bugs begin flying around at dusk low down by the lawn, and as the evening wears on a bit, they rise higher until they are up above the trees even, where they kind of flash like the warning lights on a jet plane. Hey, these bugs, which are beetles, would fit right in at Las Vegas, where everyone is flashing about, to attract mates. I think they are kinda neat and lovable, and I wish we had them in Idaho.
ReplyDeleteJuan Williams, writing in the NYTimes
ReplyDeleteBut the decision in Brown v. Board of Education that focused on outlawing segregated schools as unconstitutional is now out of step with American political and social realities.
Desegregation does not speak to dropout rates that hover near 50 percent for black and Hispanic high school students. It does not equip society to address the so-called achievement gap between black and white students that mocks Brown’s promise of equal educational opportunity.
And the fact is, during the last 20 years, with Brown in full force, America’s public schools have been growing more segregated — even as the nation has become more racially diverse. In 2001, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that the average white student attends a school that is 80 percent white, while 70 percent of black students attend schools where nearly two-thirds of students are black and Hispanic.
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In 1990, after months of interviews with Justice Thurgood Marshall, who had been the lead lawyer for the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund on the Brown case, I sat in his Supreme Court chambers with a final question. Almost 40 years later, was he satisfied with the outcome of the decision? Outside the courthouse, the failing Washington school system was hypersegregated, with more than 90 percent of its students black and Latino. Schools in the surrounding suburbs, meanwhile, were mostly white and producing some of the top students in the nation.
Had Mr. Marshall, the lawyer, made a mistake by insisting on racial integration instead of improvement in the quality of schools for black children?
His response was that seating black children next to white children in school had never been the point. It had been necessary only because all-white school boards were generously financing schools for white children while leaving black students in overcrowded, decrepit buildings with hand-me-down books and underpaid teachers. He had wanted black children to have the right to attend white schools as a point of leverage over the biased spending patterns of the segregationists who ran schools — both in the 17 states where racially separate schools were required by law and in other states where they were a matter of culture.
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Racial malice is no longer the primary motive in shaping inferior schools for minority children. Many failing big city schools today are operated by black superintendents and mostly black school boards.
And today the argument that school reform should provide equal opportunity for children, or prepare them to live in a pluralistic society, is spent. The winning argument is that better schools are needed for all children — black, white, brown and every other hue — in order to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy.
Dealing with racism and the bitter fruit of slavery and “separate but equal” legal segregation was at the heart of the court’s brave decision 53 years ago. With Brown officially relegated to the past, the challenge for brave leaders now is to deliver on the promise of a good education for every child.
Perhaps there is hope, if Mr Williams sentiment is a sign of the times
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