WaPo reports.
For contrast, read this New Yorker article by Dale Russakoff: "Schooled: Cory Booker, Chris Christie, and Mark Zuckerberg had a plan to reform Newark’s schools. They got an education." Excerpt:
... Ras Baraka [the principal of Central High School, a city councilman, and post-Booker mayoral candidate] held a press conference in front of Weequahic High School, denouncing the plan as “a dismantling of public education.… It needs to be halted.”...That mayoral election took place on May 13th. Baraka beat Jeffries:
In late January, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, spoke at a school-board meeting at First Avenue School in Newark. Five hundred people filled the auditorium; another three hundred and fifty listened in the cafeteria, and more than a hundred stood outside, demanding entry. Weingarten pledged the A.F.T.’s support “until this community gets its schools back,” and declared, “The nation is watching Newark.”...
Shavar Jeffries [lawprof and mayoral candidate] believes that the Newark backlash could have been avoided. Too often, he said, “education reform . . . comes across as colonial to people who’ve been here for decades. It’s very missionary, imposed, done to people rather than in coöperation with people.” Some reformers have told him that unions and machine politicians will always dominate turnout in school-board elections and thus control the public schools. He disagrees: “This is a democracy. A majority of people support these ideas. You have to build coalitions and educate and advocate.” As he put it to me at the outset of the reform initiative, “This remains the United States. At some time, you have to persuade people."
Was Ras Baraka’s win a referendum on Cory Booker?...
... Baraka and Booker are polar opposites. Booker is the Ivy-League and Oxford educated, suburban-bred son of IBM executives who brought a deracialized campaign persona, neoliberal policy proposals and tremendous national and international attention to the city. Baraka is the son of the late poet Amiri Baraka who brought his parents progressive, nationalist and activist sensibilities into formal politics. The only things these two men share are a common racial identification and birth year.
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42 comments:
I'm confused, and I feel stupid, but I don't understand how this works.
I thought charter schools could be somewhat selective in admissions, and impose certain standards, and if there are no alternatives, how can that function?
Meanwhile, the kids are still getting screwed.
You have to give New Orleans credit for trying. The best place to start reversing the damage is to provide a safe disciplined place for children to learn. That alone will help many children who would otherwise fall through the cracks. Whether this experiment will help the rest who are already severely damaged is still an opened question.
I would rather live in New Orleans than in Newark, that's for sure.
Too often, he said, “education reform . . . comes across as colonial to people who’ve been here for decades. It’s very missionary, imposed, done to people rather than in coöperation with people.”
Sure, but sometimes to effectuate educational reform you have to, like an umlaut, break a few eggs.
"I thought charter schools could be somewhat selective in admissions, and impose certain standards, and if there are no alternatives, how can that function?"
On that question, here's the most interesting paragraph in the WaPo article:
"White students disproportionately attend the best charter schools, while the worst are almost exclusively populated by African American students. Activists in New Orleans joined with others in Detroit and Newark last month to file a federal civil rights complaint, alleging that the city’s best-performing schools have admissions policies that exclude African American children. Those schools are overseen by the separate Orleans Parish School Board, and they don’t participate in OneApp, the city’s centralized school enrollment lottery."
So: 1. You just have charter schools that are really a catch-all for students who can't meet the standards of the good schools. 2. It's race-neutral on the surface, but underneath, arguably, it's a restoration of the old segregated system, separate and not really equal.
Educating children in Bismarck, ND is fairly straightforward. In New Orleans and Newark, it's really complicated.
"The only things these two men share are a common racial identification and birth year."
You'd have to be pretty naive, about the black experience, to think that's true.
Still, Baraka beat Jefferies - yeah!
Welcome to the future, people,...
I would like to see what the admissions polices are that exclude certain children. It could just be that there location makes it draw from middle class neighborhoods and, therefore, the test scores are reflective of their student population.
My children attend a charter school in Washington, DC that is available to any student in the city by lottery draw, which has made it overwhelmingly middle class in an overwhelmingly poor city and drawn accusations of cooking the books on the lottery as a result.
"It's race-neutral on the surface, but underneath, arguably, it's a restoration of the old segregated system, separate and not really equal."
We call that "colorblind racism" now:
Ask the conservatives why,...
I read the New Yorker article. Bad schools seem to be a self perpetuating mechanism.. The bad teachers and the administrators on padded payrolls will fight like hell to keep their jobs and so will their relatives. It's a dead tree that produces no fruit, but the termites are organized and have the most political clout........Baraka is, for whites, not a reassuring figure. Just once I'd like to see a black politician lose favor in the black community because he is too anti-white.
The Crack Emcee said...
You'd have to be pretty naive, about the black experience, to think that's true.
Crack is right. Most likely, they both benefited from Affirmative Action too.
*ducks*
Public Schools have become merely a money pot for Democrat Party constituent groups to tap for electioneering and political bribes.
They need to be closed in order to stop that from happening and to re-dedicate schools to the students and not the public employee Unions and one political party that relies on the wealth transfer of public school money to them via Union dues collection and campaign donations.
We have a 1st rate Military with no unions. That's the model we should be using for school employees.
There will be more general public support for a non-partisan public school system than the politically corrupted, one party rule Chicago Machine style one we currently have.
The story didn't have to be that long. In Newark unions win, reformers lose.
The only chance for voucher/ charter schools is to attract parents that want their kids to be educated. For the parents that don;t care, there s little or nothing that can be done.
Second, most poverty programs are welfare for middle class whites who pretend to care about the kids or the blacks.
Oh, and in California, Asians are now "white." See how that works ?
The Crack Emcee said...
"It's race-neutral on the surface, but underneath, arguably, it's a restoration of the old segregated system, separate and not really equal."
We call that "colorblind racism" now:
Ask the conservatives why,...
5/30/14, 9:49 AM
Spare us the bullshit. Liberals don't volunteer their kids for schools in the hood either.
On yeah, Newark, go for the guy who's going to roll back school reforms. It's worked out so well in NY and DC after all...
I would think the idea of having an all charter district is that teachers are ALL on one year contracts. By getting rid of all the public schools in the district, you can circumvent the AFT and NEA and their contracts.
Charters cannot be selective in admissions; most have to rely on a blind lottery system to get funding. This is the case with my daughter's charter. But you have to go fill out paperwork to get into the lottery, which means that only motivated parents will apply.
After reading the article, the problem with NO is that the Recovery School district (the one that is closing all its public schools) only took control of the worst performing schools after Katrina. So yes, the charters in its realm are going to be worse performing that those schools that got to stay in their regular school district because they were doing well.
But it is still true that anyone can apply to any of the charter schools, regardless of district. You just have to be motivated.
2. It's race-neutral on the surface, but underneath, arguably, it's a restoration of the old segregated system, separate and not really equal.
This supposition always assumes bad faith and racism on the part of white people causing low minority student performance, sans actual evidence.
Why is it that when a school is majority white students it "over performs" but when a school is majority black students it "underperforms", even under the guidance and instruction of good liberals and Democrats credentialed to teach school anywhere in the State.
Does a school in a majority black neighborhood have less "teaching mojo" than the majority white schools, which are accredited by the same oversight body?
"Racism" doesn't really account for learning disparities when all the schools and teachers are accredited to the same standard and governed by 60 years of Civil Rights laws and Affirmative Action.
Perhaps we need to examine certain communities and the parents that do not take their children's education seriously enough to make it happen and hold them accountable, instead of offering excuses.
A lot of us had illiterate peasant ancestors fresh off the boat, some of whom never learned English, that made sure their children get a basic education.
I was unaware than not wanting your child in a crappy school setting where he might be victimized by students in violent street gangs was "racism".
Or is that only when you are a white parent?
We have a 1st rate Military with no unions
You haven't been paying attention to any of the news about the VA, have you?
You want colonial? Fine, you get a school district that equals Nigeria's. How's that?
Sorun: why?
It's race-neutral on the surface, but underneath, arguably, it's a restoration of the old segregated system, separate and not really equal.
Exactly. The separatists don't want their kids going to school with "those people" but they want taxpayers to foot the bill.
Crack
And what is the reason to cheer the one candidate over the other? And what is rhis future you are welcoming us to? I am not sure you know the answer to either question. Do you?
Crack
And what is the reason to cheer the one candidate over the other? And what is rhis future you are welcoming us to? I am not sure you know the answer to either question. Do you?
I suspect the charter school admissions requirements vary by state. In New Hampshire they can't favor students based on academic or behavioral record, but they can choose based on area of interest. For example, we could have charter school dedicated to the performing arts, which could then favor people who had participated in their school band or school play.
"Baraka is the son of the late poet Amiri Baraka who brought his parents progressive, nationalist and activist sensibilities into formal politics."
"progressive, nationalist and activist sensibilities" is that something that if held by a white person would make that white person a ultra-racist supremacist?
I read the wiki article on Amiri Baraka.
Quote;
"Most American white men are trained to be fags. For this reason it is no wonder their faces are weak and blank.…The average ofay [white person] thinks of the black man as potentially raping every white lady in sight. Which is true, in the sense that the black man should want to rob the white man of everything he has. But for most whites the guilt of the robbery is the guilt of rape. That is, they know in their deepest hearts that they should be robbed, and the white woman understands that only in the rape sequence is she likely to get cleanly, viciously popped"
So the answer to my own question would be, YES!.
Quote from ms. Althouse;
"2. It's race-neutral on the surface, but underneath, arguably, it's a restoration of the old segregated system, separate and not really equal."
My interpretation, white children are property and a certain number of those children must be "nationalized" to make the system work, even if those children are placed under openly, but political correct, racists who loath them.
I have recently viewed a (christian) film "Raizing Izzie" a few times. I find it a wonderful film. It's about two white girls, sisters, who in the end are adopted by a black couple. What I find wonderful is that what happens in the film feels completely natural, not race based at all. Now this is only a film of course, but it's an indication of what is possible, and what no doubt happens at times despite the best efforts of the racists, whether it are the "Baraka"s or their white liberal racist worshipping (as long as it's pc-correct racism) enablers.
The tragedy is that pc-correct racists have the agenda.
To end, another quote from the wiki article on Amiri Baraka, just to illustrate the pecking order;
Quote from "Somebody Blew Up America?";
"Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away ..."
Ignorance is Bliss,
"Crack is right. Most likely, they both benefited from Affirmative Action too.
*ducks*"
Only you think that would be a bad thing.
It's weird how out of touch you guys are, with American values and what's REALLY going on, on the ground, as you discuss very-important-issues like Benghazi or whatever America's renowned apocalyptically paranoid cynics imagine the NSA is up to.
That's what your hearts are into - not whether the country works.
It's just a terrible tragedy no matter how you look at it,...
cubanbob,
"Spare us the bullshit. Liberals don't volunteer their kids for schools in the hood either."
Tsk, tsk - so defensive. Stop playing the victim. Liberals and conservatives weld too much power to be so insecure.
But thanks for making my argument - white PEOPLE are being racist - and white PEOPLE are playing the partisan liberal vs. conservative game, y'all think is so important to jack your jaws about, when the real issue is our CULTURE of white PEOPLE being racist.
Nobody cares if the liberals are more racist than the conservatives or by how much. We care that the perils of living with racists are addressed.
Focussing on white PEOPLE's political Hatfield Vs. McCoy bullshit, at the expense of the rest of your countrymen, is part of that.
You can't appear any more clueless,...,...
Crack: "That's what your hearts are into - not whether the country works."
If only blacks held more political power and were able to run things, then stuff would work out.
Like Detroit.
If you read about New Orleans it is evident that there are all sorts of choices available and that there is more busing than there ever was before. So all children in a given area are not trapped in bad schools.
But are children somehow being segregated, anyhow? In the old days segregation was the law. Now children can be and are sent all over New Orleans and Milwaukee but still some try to say that these cities are 'segregated.' 'Segregation' is a word they use used for shock value - "Our schools are more 'segregated' than ever before." These people have an agenda to which they want people to pay attention. But the general rule is that if you are always shouting, no one listens. So shouting "SEGREGATION" won't do anything for school reform. A concrete policy reform proposal would have more chance of being heard.
Blogger Drago said...
Crack: "That's what your hearts are into - not whether the country works."
If only blacks held more political power and were able to run things, then stuff would work out.
Like Detroit.
5/30/14, 1:30 PM
______________________________
Like Newark.
A bad city getting worse.
Drago,
"If only blacks held more political power and were able to run things, then stuff would work out.
Like Detroit."
Or Chicago, maybe?
Go on, Drago, try to tell the story of any major city in America without totally implicating whites and their racism, plus the government - local and federal - in the crime.
Humor me, you ol' revisionist history racist, you,...
try to tell the story of any major city in America without totally implicating whites and their racism
If the mayor's black, blame the governor.
If the governor's black, blame the president.
If the president's black, blame the governor again.
when the real issue is our CULTURE of white PEOPLE being racist.
No the real issue is the culture of Black people rejecting the traditional American values of family, hard work, self-sacrifice and independence, and embracing the failed culture of victimization, dependence on government handouts, and the rejection of "acting White".
Ann, but that means it really doesn't function. A charter school is just another type of public school, like magnet schools, and there is ample evidence that those can function. But when you look how they do function, they function because of selectivity.
But thinking you can "fix" a system by making it all charter has got to fail, because you can't exclude ANY student. Each student, by law, has to have a charter school to attend.
And then there's the other aspect of public schools, which provide very high level of services to children with severe impairments at a very high cost.
I don't know what the answer is, but public schools used to function pretty well (where they did) because teaching was an avocation, because student behavior was more tightly controlled by pitching kids out, and because handicapped students didn't use such high levels of services.
This idea seems like a shell game to me rather than reform.
There is no truth in Cracks mind. Everything can point to racism. Everything. If the color of your skin is white, you're a racist. If the color of your skin is black, you can never fail or be blamed for anything, because of racist white people.
He'll never learn. They can destroy Detroit after Detroit after Detroit. The Democrats can turn LA, Chicago, Newark, and all other cities, into more Detroits and still the Cracks of the world will blame white racism. Anyone by themselves.
Because who wants to look in the mirror and see the problem?
We have a 1st rate Military with no unions
You haven't been paying attention to any of the news about the VA, have you?
I don't know about him, but you sure haven't, madisonfella.
See, the Department of Veterans Affairs is not part of the military. It's an independent Cabinet department, operating under normal civil service rules, including unionization, just like HHS or Education. Any failures by the VA are failures of the usual Federal unionized civil service system.
madisonfella said...
We have a 1st rate Military with no unions
You haven't been paying attention to any of the news about the VA, have you?
I wouldn't classify the VA as Military. Government run? Oh yes. Militarily run? Oh no.
I got about a third of the way into the Newark school article and I had to stop. Everyone involved has absorbed the dogma that everyone is the same. That is demonstrably untrue. The nicest touch is Zuckerberg and his wife (so subtlety called Vietnamese/Chinese) figure they can save the poor black children of Newark. The two highest IQ groups on earth are Azchanazi Jews (Zuckerberg) and the Chinese trading diaspora (Chen). Why were her parents in the US? The Vietnamese kicked them out in the 1975 reunification...see East Timor, or Singapore for that matter.
The us is better for having the Zuckerberg/CChens around, but they have these fantasies about the educability of the children of Newark.
They got fleeced.
You haven't been paying attention to any of the news about the VA, have you?
The VA isn't a part of the US Military. They have an entirely separate Department and budget and is run and staffed entirely by civilians.
"Why is it that when a school is majority white students it "over performs" but when a school is majority black students it "underperforms", even under the guidance and instruction of good liberals and Democrats credentialed to teach school anywhere in the State."
A full standard deviation of IQ is not an easy handicap to overcome.
The VA isn't a part of the US Military. They have an entirely separate Department and budget and is run and staffed entirely by civilians.
And, as others have pointed out, they are unionized, which is why they have spent more time protecting their employees from accountability than actually doing their jobs and firing the incompetent ones. There is 40 million a year of the VA budget that is paid out for union activity and not taking care of Veterans. That is a criminal misuse of tax money.
Public Employee Unions are a money scam that targets taxpayers and they need to be put to an end.
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