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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (45103)	5/18/2004 1:51:55 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793804

Reflections on Brown: A racial problem? Reform K-12 Blog Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, which eventually helped break down the color barrier in public education where it previously had been enforced by law. Today, many people are wondering about the racial gap that still exists in public education in America. It is a sad fact that in our cities, far too many largely-minority schools are simply not providing their students with the same level of service as suburban schools, many of which are largely white. But does this mean that Brown v. Board of Education has failed, or that there's a conspiracy afoot to keep children of color uneducated? Consider a few facts. In America's urban centers with the largest proportion of Black and Hispanic citizens, Blacks and Hispanics are very well ensconced in city leadership, including the mayor's office, city council and especially local representation to state legislatures. This trend is matched in these cities' school districts, where minorities hold significant positions from the Superintendent's office and school boards through the leadership ranks, such as regional superintendents, supervisors, and other levels of middle management. But it is in the schools themselves where the conspiracy theory falls apart. A significant percentage of predominantly-minority schools (where the percentage of white pupils is in the single digits if not zero) are run by principals and teachers of the same race as the kids. In some areas this trend extends to charter schools. For example, in Philadelphia a number of charter schools were created where the founding coalition came from a close-knit, all-black neighborhood, thus it is not uncommon today to see a school with not only a 100% black student body, but a 100% black staff, administration, and school board. And we're talking about schools of choice here! No, our current problem with urban education is not a racial problem, however it is often assumed to be. Thomas Sowell writes (emphasis ours): [B]oth the explicit language and the implicit assumptions of the Supreme Court in Brown depicted the answer to problems of blacks in general as being essentially the changing of white people. This was yet another line of reasoning that led straight into a blind alley. Today, there are all-black schools that succeed, all-black schools that fail, and racially mixed schools that do either. Neither race nor racial segregation can explain such things. But both can serve as distractions from the task of creating higher standards and harder work. Rather than point fingers at racial causes for our troubles at largely-minority schools, we think it makes far more sense to step back and look at the big picture. Sure, Brown has eradicated forced segregation by the powers-that-be. But that doesn't ensure a quality education where there are few avenues of choice and competition (which naturally occurs when parents can afford to choose private schools). Expose our embattled urban school systems to the irresistible forces of the free market, and watch truly effective schools rise to the surface. By these we mean schools which not only serve largely-minority student bodies, but have tremendous track records of success, such as the No Excuses schools or the KIPP academies, all of which thrive on a steady diet of high expectations in both behavior and academics. Of these schools Oliver Brown would be proud reformk12.com