In a message dated 10/22/2003 3:21:34 AM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> The community school plan was not an attempt to separate the races. It was > an attempt to recover money for education that had futilely been spent on > transportation. The notion back when the courts imposed busing was that by > balancing populations in schools, the learning gap between races would > gradually disappear. That gap hasn’t improved at all. So, why not try > something else after decades of trying out what was, at best, a THEORY. > After all, what was busing REALLY about? The segregationists, the folks who opposed racial integration predicted that there would not be a significant reduction in the achievement gap because what happens in the classroom has very little effect on academic achievement independent of other factors, like home environment, genetic inheritance, African-American culture, etc. That was a theory proven wrong. Data on student achievement, collected and broken down by race, income, etc., showed that the gap was being closed in the 1970s and early 1980s. A blue ribbon panel picked by the Reagan-Bush administration issued a report in April 1983 entitled "A Nation at Risk," which raised the alarm about a "rising tide of mediocrity," i.e., the gap was being closed at the expense of the high achievers. However, that claim was not backed up with any evidence, and a subsequent review of educational data by the Sandia National Laboratories did not support that claim (the Sandia Report). Since the late 1980s the gap has been widened at the expense of the low achievers, the children who are being left behind and for whom G.W. Bush is shedding crocodile tears. However, the widening gap could not be due to the "liberal" education reforms initiated in the late 1960s and early 70s and abandoned during the 1980s. In a message dated 10/22/2003 7:26:47 AM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Sometimes we split hairs too microscopically. Not every angel on the head > of a pin is dancing. Anyone reading what Ron has written in his book, his bi- > weekly columns or his daily web log knows he continually says closing the gap > is the issue, not the person or the color of the person who is superintendent > (as earlier quotations by Doug bear testimony). And in the referenced web > log entry he doesn't advocate that the person has to be either White or Black. > No where does he either suggest or recommend that. Perhaps I am splitting hairs. However, I did not put words in Ron Edwards mouth. Edwards has clearly stated that closing the gap should be the issue, not the race of the superintendent. That position is consistent with the comment about the failure of a black superintendent to close the gap in the passage I quoted. I simply noted that the initial position staked out by Bill English stinks (that the next superintendent should be black). Maybe I am splitting hairs, but what Ron Edwards wrote can easily be interpreted to mean that Edwards sees nothing wrong with the initial position taken by Bill English and that English shouldn't have denied it and shouldn't have backed off of it. Hell, "whites do it all the time." SUPERINTENDENT VETTING Could one of the school board members give a detailed description of the pre-search community input process? I suspect the process selected by the board includes brainstorming sessions, then a narrowing down of options that is guided by the board, resulting in recommendations that will be pretty much ignored in the actual search process. October School board meeting If the board meeting was taped for a radio broadcast, why didn't the broadcast happen at the regularly scheduled time? And why did the board adjourn the board meeting and then convene a meeting without a radio and cable-TV audience to take public comments about subjects that are not on the "discussion agenda"? Why does the board edit some comments out of the cable TV broadcasts? Answer: Members of a parent advocacy group, the parents union, refused to say only nice things about the board members at the school board meetings. -Doug Mann, King Field Soon to publish a pamphlet entitled "Flight from Equality: School reform in the US since 1983 Mann for school board web site: http://educationright.tripod.com - REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
