Re: Kozol's op-ed piece

["GERALD BRACEY" <gbracey1@verizon.net>]

I think Kansas City's program was the opposite of what Kozol hopes for--his 
would be more to let inner city kids out than entice suburban kids back in.

KC was an object lesson in how NOT to spend money.  Most of a budget that 
almost quadrupled from 1985 to 1992 went to buy stuff or exotic programs. 
$6.4 million went for door-to-door transportation.  The schools offered 
courses in garment design, ceramics, violin, ballet, drama.  They even hired 
a former Russian Olympic fencing coach.  They built weight rooms, 
racquetball courts, six-lane indoor running tracks, olympic sized swimming 
pools.  There were problems with corruption, with seeing the schools as a 
jobs program, not an educational institution and dumping bad teachers.

See my Kappan research column, June, 1998.

JB
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Farruggio" <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Kozol's op-ed piece



Didn't Kansas City try to get around such
desegregation in the late 1970s by creating
magnet schools to draw middle class white kids
into the "in-between" neighborhoods?

Pete Farruggio



At 11:49 a.m. 12/07/2007, you wrote:
> I don't think sending relatively small numbers of blacks or latinos or poor 
> kids in general (no doubt the latter given Supreme Court rulings) across 
> lines if state pays a town the 'going rate' for those kids will raise much 
> concern. The key is 'relatively small numbers.' A huge metro interdistrict 
> system with massive transport that was mandated almost certainly would. 
> It'll be interesting to see what actually now transpires in Omaha, a 
> relatively small city, since supposedly some sort of major reorganization 
> on those lines is now in the planning stage (I don't know details).
>
> I thought it was one of Jonathan's less strong pieces, not so clear and 
> sharp as he often is.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "GERALD BRACEY" <gbracey1@verizon.net>
> To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
> Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 2:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [arn-l] Kozol's op-ed piece
>
>
> > This is perfectly consistent.  Kozol thinks the Shame of the Nation is 
> > segregation and looks for anyway to change it.  Sticking within a single 
> > school district won't do it.  Of course, cutting across district lines 
> > might cause riots and taxpayers revolts....
> >
> > JB
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Campbell" 
> > <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>
> > To: "ARN State" <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>; "ARN Main List" 
> > <arn-l@interversity.org>
> > Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 11:19 AM
> > Subject: [arn-l] Kozol's op-ed piece
> >
> >
> > Did anyone read this in the NY Times yesterday?? I'm still scratching
> > my head. Has Kozol been cozying up to Jay Greene? As if the answer to
> > the problems that Kozol exhaustively documents in book after book is to
> > play some bizarre shell game meets musical chairs. Ugghh.
> >
> > ---
> >
> > The New York Times
> > July 11, 2007
> > Op-Ed Contributor
> > Transferring Up
> > By JONATHAN KOZOL
> >
> > Byfield, Mass.
> >
> > LAST month's Supreme Court ruling on school integration came as a blow
> > to those who have been watching the gradual dismantling of Brown v.
> > Board of Education with despair.
> >
> > There is, however, some cause for hope. In his concurrence, Justice
> > Anthony Kennedy opened up a new avenue for educational justice by
> > contending that other methods of achieving integration - like revising
> > school attendance zones - are constitutionally permissible so long as
> > they do not sort and label individual children by race.
> >
> > Congress has an opportunity to take advantage of the opening created by
> > Justice Kennedy later this year when it reauthorizes the federal No
> > Child Left Behind Act. The law gives children the right to transfer
> > from a low-performing school to a high-performing school if the
> > low-performing school has failed to demonstrate adequate improvement
> > two years after being warned of its shortcomings.
> >
> > Unfortunately, the transfer provision has until now been a bust. Less
> > than 3 percent of eligible children have been able to transfer, in part
> > because of the scarcity of space in high-performing schools within most
> > urban districts. Although the law does not prohibit transfers between
> > urban and suburban schools, it offers no inducements to the states to
> > make this possible.
> >
> > Democrats in the Senate should therefore introduce an amendment to
> > authorize and make easier cross-district transfers - not on a
> > specifically race-conscious basis, but solely to fulfill the professed
> > intention of the law.
> >
> > There is obvious urgency to this. At present, black children are more
> > segregated in their public schools than at any time since 1968. In the
> > inner-city schools I visit, minority children typically represent 95
> > percent to 99 percent of class enrollment. Not surprisingly, minority
> > parents overwhelmingly support cross-district transfers. In the Boston
> > area, for instance, 16,000 children - nearly one-third of all minority
> > children in the city's schools - are on the waiting list to transfer.
> > (It is worth noting that of the children who participate in the Boston
> > transfer program, 95 percent graduate from high school and nearly 90
> > percent go on to higher education.)
> >
> > Senator Edward M. Kennedy, whose Education Committee will lead the way
> > in reauthorizing the education law, should develop an amendment to
> > promote cross-district transfers. The amendment should include the
> > following provisions:
> >
> > First, states should be required to ease transfers across district
> > lines for children now in chronically low-performing schools.
> >
> > Second, schools and districts must not be permitted to reject these
> > students so long as they have space available in existing classrooms,
> > which most suburban districts do.
> >
> > Third, states must pay the added costs incurred by the receiving
> > districts; they must not, however, compel hard-pressed urban schools to
> > reimburse their wealthier suburban counterparts.
> >
> > Fourth, states must pay for transportation.
> >
> > Fifth, in order to ease the burden on states, Congress should create a
> > federal fund to be used to underwrite some of the costs of complying
> > with the law.
> >
> > Sixth, Congress should enact specific fiscal penalties for states that
> > drag their heels or defy the terms of this amendment altogether.
> >
> > It would take considerable courage for Mr. Kennedy, who co-sponsored
> > the unsuccessful transfer provision in its present form, to support
> > this proposition. If he did, however, he could deal a mighty blow to
> > resurgent racial concentration - without introducing racial terminology
> > into the debate. For this opportunity, one that was perhaps bestowed
> > unintentionally, we have Justice Anthony Kennedy to thank.
> >
> > Jonathan Kozol is the author of the forthcoming "Letters to a Young
> > Teacher."
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > Unsubscribe ARN-L:
> > http://interversity.org/lists/arn-l/subscribe.html
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > ARN-L archives:
> > http://interversity.org/lists/arn-l/archives.html
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Unsubscribe ARN-L:
> http://interversity.org/lists/arn-l/subscribe.html