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In Teabagistan Schools Will Be Segregated

Skeptic Ginger said:
I don't agree. I think the Tea Party radical fringe is the discussion. You are welcome to take the position the new school board members have legitimate ideas and the rationalization putting all the poor kids in a couple schools and out of the schools where the better off kids don't have to mingle with them is really in the poor kids best interest. I'd be interested in what you see in that idea.

But I see one aspect of the Tea Party movement, that of no social responsibility, poor people deserve it and it's their fault for not working hard enough, as the actual underlying issue here. The end result, IMO, is a worse outcome for all of us. All the costs you save removing social safety nets you pay out double in prison costs and increased health care costs because you ended preventative care for a large segment of the population.
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I can't speak for the tea-party. They are a large, amorphous group with diverse ideas and motivations. However, I don't agree with your allegation that one for their principles is no social responsibility. I think it is sad that so many have come to believe the only "social responsibility" any of us need have is forcing people to do things against their will. Social responsibility can come in many forms. I think the tea party (or at least that part of is that is sane and admirable) has as a value individual responsibility. I would argue that this is not just a code word for Randian objectivist style morals, but the idea that people can do things of their own free will to make the world a better place. In a way, i think the idea that government is the only means by which people can help other people really contributes to the lack of social responsiblity. People feel, "well I do my share by paying taxes". This form of "collectivist" responsiblity, in my opinion, is much less spiritually (I don't mean that in a religious sense) staisfying then individual responsibility. People working to improve their communities form meaningful connections with other. Hardly anyone pays their taxes or calls the cops and thinks, well, I've certainly made a positive difference in the world today.
 
This doesn't strike me as the Tea Party being patently racist so much as it strikes me as them not really thinking about what their campaign could be viewed as. The anti-government expansion mindset would be perfectly in line with being against a bussing policy, so it would make sense to try to get it sent out--all without thinking about how this opposition would look to the public.

As ziggurat said, an argument that this policy is classist rather than racist would be a much stronger argument, but even then, I don't think this opposition was the result of classism. Just a lack of PR.
 
Apropos of nothing . . .

My kids attend an elementary school < 1 mi. from a major state university in mid-sized city where the university is the biggest employer. Due to the rampant poverty among the local folks and the fact that all those international graduate students live below the poverty level too, the proportion of of students qualifying for free and reduced lunches has been as high as 95%. At last count, about 38 different native languages were spoken in the homes of these students.
 
AvalonXQ said:
I would disagree with your prediction here -- in my own anecdotal experience, many American blacks are very hostile toward black men marrying white women. That's the real danger of being a mixed-race couple in the U.S. -- there are probably enough racists in both cultures to make feel unwelcome almost anywhere.
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I wouldn't know. I'm not black. I've not had the same experience. I can only say it shocked me that in this day and age on the West coast someone my age would have the kind of bias my fire fighter neighbor had against his coworker, my tenant. And I know my tenants moved to a neighborhood they felt more comfortable in. And they've been in that neighborhood about 18 years now.

It wasn't economics that influenced what neighborhood they chose to live in.
 
BeAChooser said:
Skeptic Ginger, why is the predominately democratic controlled public education system such an abysmal failure? ....
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My son is a successful public school graduate. In this state where they give a state test to all school kids, the most closely associated predictor of a school's overall score is the percentage of kids in the school that qualify for free lunch. It suggests it is not the schools but poverty that is affecting the test outcomes.

Besides the income issue, overall, what I think is the problem in US schools is has to do with what our society values. We don't value teachers, science, and critical thinking nearly enough. If society valued those things more, you'd see more resources provided schools including better pay that would attract better teachers.
 
Ziggurat said:
And despite neither of those reasons having anything to do with race, you're still calling it racism.
....
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Oh for crying out loud. Read the OP article. Read the paragraphs I quoted. The first page of the article is all about racial segregation. It isn't something I made up.
 
Galteeth said:
I can't speak for the tea-party. They are a large, amorphous group with diverse ideas and motivations. However, I don't agree with your allegation that one for their principles is no social responsibility. I think it is sad that so many have come to believe the only "social responsibility" any of us need have is forcing people to do things against their will. Social responsibility can come in many forms. I think the tea party (or at least that part of is that is sane and admirable) has as a value individual responsibility. I would argue that this is not just a code word for Randian objectivist style morals, but the idea that people can do things of their own free will to make the world a better place. In a way, i think the idea that government is the only means by which people can help other people really contributes to the lack of social responsiblity. People feel, "well I do my share by paying taxes". This form of "collectivist" responsiblity, in my opinion, is much less spiritually (I don't mean that in a religious sense) staisfying then individual responsibility. People working to improve their communities form meaningful connections with other. Hardly anyone pays their taxes or calls the cops and thinks, well, I've certainly made a positive difference in the world today.
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I said Tea Party fringe and I was referring to Art Pope and the parents who supported the election of the particular school board members involved in this change in this school district. Did you look at the links I cited with information about Pope and his causes?

And while I don't think there is a cohesive Tea Party philosophy at this point, refusing to raise taxes on the rich while cutting social services left and right is kind of their main thing. I imagine many of them believe there is plenty of money but our politicians are just spending too much of it on things like Maplethorpe paintings. It is a fundamental difference in what I believe the actual facts to be.
 
"If we had a school that was, like, 80 percent high-poverty, the public would see the challenges, the need to make it successful," he said. "Right now, we have diluted the problem, so we can ignore it."
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Wait? What?!!!

Did that just basically say that because the problem has been at least partly fixed, they are going to undo the fix just so that people can see the problem?

Hunh?!!! :boggled:
 
BeAChooser said:
Less government and democrat/progressive/socialist involvement. :D
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So do you propose this by starting with massive spending cuts to the military, probably the largest & most expensive government program the U.S. has? That would be logically consistent with your position, it seems.

Oh, btw, our military is also the most obvious example of socialism in the U.S. :D
 
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MattusMaximus said:
Wait? What?!!!

Did that just basically say that because the problem has been at least partly fixed, they are going to undo the fix just so that people can see the problem?

Hunh?!!! :boggled:
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Almost. They're going to undo the policy which partially fixed the problems, at which point he's sure that someone will be spurred to go do something to fix it that won't involve godless liberal socialist buses.
 
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A Laughing Baby said:
This doesn't strike me as the Tea Party being patently racist so much as it strikes me as them not really thinking about what their campaign could be viewed as. The anti-government expansion mindset would be perfectly in line with being against a bussing policy, so it would make sense to try to get it sent out--all without thinking about how this opposition would look to the public.

As ziggurat said, an argument that this policy is classist rather than racist would be a much stronger argument, but even then, I don't think this opposition was the result of classism. Just a lack of PR.
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I said race was a factor, but for the record, I don't think it is the primary factor at all. As usual it was cherry picked from my post and treated as if that is all I said.

I do think there is a mentality of the parents involved here in viewing themselves as a separate group from "those people". Maybe no one noticed I used Barbara Bush's words there, "this is working out nicely for those people", when she saw displaced poor people living in the stadium in Texas.

What do we have here? In essence, we have some parents who want "those kids" out of their kids' schools. Or maybe they don't want their kids to have to go to the inner city school to access the special advanced science program that was established to create a magnet for a less desirable school. I'm not sure of the specifics but I don't believe "frequent school assignment changes" is something that Art Pope would pay millions to get new school board members elected to change. And the mere inconvenience of school assignment changes can hardly be called "social engineering".
 
quixotecoyote said:
Almost. They're going to undo the policy which partially fixed the problems, at which point he's sure that someone will be spurred to go do something to fix it that won't involve godless liberal socialist buses.
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Wow... and they expect that when things get worse that will make people happy?! I don't see those clowns getting re-elected anytime soon if that's the case. Too bad they'll wreck some of the local school districts before getting the boot.
 
quixotecoyote said:
Almost. They're going to undo the policy which partially fixed the problems, at which point he's sure that someone will be spurred to go do something to fix it that won't involve godless liberal socialist buses.
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In other words, the tea party is going to be responsible for a problem that will require the government to spend more money to fix.

How's that for fiscal responsibility?
 
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