[ Date Prev][ Date Next][ Thread Prev][ Thread Next][ Date Index][ Thread Index]
Re: 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
Post a Message to arn-l:
|
