I'd like to extend Mr. Gates observations to all schools. We need new models upon which to base our schools. The areas that first develop successful model (let's say St Paul) will over the next 10 to 20 years have an economic advantage over those areas that do not do so.
What Bill Gates could have said about our schools (but didn't), is that under today's credentialling system, Bill Gates couldn't be hired to teach Jr. High School math. Or phy ed for that matter. He isn't "qualified" since he never graduated.
Dennis Tester Mac-Groveland
Cleverly Arranging 1's And 0's Since 11110110000
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Schoenberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Dennis Tester" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: [StPaul] Neighborhood Schools
Contrary to Dennis's assertion, social engineering did not start with with Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954. It certainly went back to the time of John Dewey in the early 1900s when school bells and regimented classes were meant to train the inferior immigrant classes to be ready for regimented mind-numbing factory work. The managerial (boss) class of people were expected to go to private schools and recieve more individualized training, which could train one to think creatively. We still use that stifling regimental methodology today in our public schools. Has this lack of a modern school model in our public schools affected the quality of publics schools. Just ask Bill Gates, who complains in address the a conference of governers::
"American high schools are obsolete. By obsolete, I don't just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed and underfunded. ... By obsolete, I mean that our high schools - even when they are working exactly as designed - cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.
"Training the work force of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today's computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. ... Our high schools were designed 50 years ago to meet the needs of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st century, we will keep limiting - even ruining - the lives of millions of Americans every year."
I'd like to extend Mr. Gates observations to all schools. We need new models upon which to base our schools. The areas that first develop successful model (let's say St Paul) will over the next 10 to 20 years have an economic advantage over those areas that do not do so.
Mike Schoenberg MacGroveland
Dennis Tester wrote:
With all due respect to Jennifer Armstrong, who I'm sure is a bright and well-meaning lady, do you see what a convoluted mess we've created for ourselves because we chose to engage in social engineering, micromanaging and tickering in the name of ethnic diversity?
I trust Pat Harvey to get it right, not only because she's smart and experienced, but because she's my age (apologies to Ms. Harvey) and is old enough to remember when our enrollments were twice as large, yet our system was half as complicated, more effective, and at half the cost.
All of the problems that Jennifer is attempting to resolve are the result of cascading bad decisions, each designed to resolve the problem created by the previous bad decision.
1. Prior to 1954, the nation lived under Plessy v. Fergusen which ruled that it was possible to have separate and equal educational opportunities. In St. Paul then (as in now) there was defacto segregation because people choose where they want to live, and people gravitate to live near people like themselves. Neighborhood schools served an "attendance area" that roughly represented what we consider a "neighborhood" not unlike the church parishes did. This natural state of things did not have an adverse affect on education, witness the fact that I lived in a black neighborhood and attended the brand new, state-of-the-art Maxfield elementary school. In fact, my parents moved to the neighborhood so we could attend the "new school." (market forces strike again)
2. With the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education, separate yet equal was ruled illegal and city school boards were ordered to de-segregate their schools. Since they couldn't make people move out of their neighborhoods, they achieved racial balance by bussing kids from their neighborhoods to other schools in other neighborhoods. Parents had no choice and were forced to send their kids to the school designated by the school board.
3. Since most people had been happy with the old arrangement, many people (black and white) resented having to send their kids to schools outside of the neighborhood that they had chosen to live in, and reacted in different ways. Many whites moved to the suburbs where they at least regained the choice of where to send their kids to school. Others sent their kids to private or parochial schools. Those who couldn't afford to move or pay tuition were forced to live under the new circumstances.
4. For decades, the biggest job of the school board was to ensure that the racial make-up of each school met federal definitions of de-segregation and it was becoming harder and harder to do as whites left the system and the public schools were becoming increasingly majority minority.
5. In an effort to attract white students back to the city schools to alleviate the segregation that was now worse than it had ever been, "magnet schools" were invented, each offering a special program or incentive to get white kids to enroll in what were now, essentially minority majority schools. Bussing was provided to the white students make it even easier.
6. Since setting up magnet schools was so expensive, "open enrollment" was passed, removing the requirement that kids had to attend the school mandated by the school board.
All this could have been avoided if Plessy had not been overturned. Enlightened school boards could adopt programs that work in all the city schools, fund them all equally, and let the parents decide where to send their kids to school by deciding which neighborhood they'd like to live in, without regard to whether the school was good or bad. They'd all be staffed and funded equally and the only difference in performance between school A and school B would be the strength of the parents' commitment in that neighborhood. And the last time I looked, that didn't depend on what color you were.
But instead, now we spend $20 million a year on bussing, the schools are not equal in staffing or quality, they are defacto segregated anyway, and we have nice people like Ms. Armstrong trying to figure out how to fix the mess we're in. Way to go supreme court.
Dennis Tester Mac-Groveland
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