Re: Kozol's op-ed piece

[aburke5054@aol.com]

The Aspen Commission recommended requiring schools that make AYP to 
make space available to students wanting to transfer (if space is 
available).  These were in-district transfers, the Commission did not 
address "cross-district" transfers.

I support making choices available to parents and kids, but I think 
that Congressional action requiring "cross-district" transfers is a 
non-starter, not the least because it would in effect make Congress the 
National School Board.  It seems to me far better to really get going 
on improving schools that serve poor children and minority children 
than to think up more and more elaborate schemes for busing kids 
around.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:30 am
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.”



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