In a message dated 10/22/2003 3:21:34 AM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:WM: The return to community schools was also predicated on the notion that kids who went to school together and lived near each other would bond into their own neighborhoods and be better embraced by their near neighbors as a result.
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.WM: At the same time, those other than the school board who defended Jennings' appointment did so on the basis that he was white. Even if the black superintendent did not close the learning gap, backing Jennings--a man without the background and only 21 months devoted to education, implies that his whiteness (I'd include maleness and middleclassness as well) somehow outweighs those glaring lacks. On another level, it is true that since A Nation at Risk, set the wheels in motion to erase the gains made in the sixties and seventies (a report so fraught with race and class bias as to be virtually unreadable), I don't feel confident in blaming school boards for the gap. However, it makes no difference, since the outcomes as a result of that report have had the effect of re-institutionalizing race and class bias that had slowly coming apart into the system of school governance.
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). ...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).
SUPERINTENDENT VETTINGWM: I think this is an unfair assessment. They will do the best they can to consider as many points as they can. They've been more than adequately warned that any choice has to have more consideration than the previous choice may have had. They will ignore Bill English's position and have been forced to set aside their own position. Whether they are so beset that they are unable to listen with their good ears remains to be seen, but I sure don't want to damn them ahead of the process. Those who objected got what they wanted, a more careful look at the situation of choosing a super.
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.
WizardMarks, Central ________________________________
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