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Racial Segregation in Schools the way Forward?
- Thread starter mpw
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I can't believe this crap is still being talked about and is still a problem. People should never be judged on the color of their skin and kids should not be segregated in schools based on that.
The only segregation that should take place is keeping the troubled kids in a different school. They need special attention and can be a distraction when mixed with kids who don't have social/learning dissabilities. If you went to a public school, you'll know what I mean.
The only segregation that should take place is keeping the troubled kids in a different school. They need special attention and can be a distraction when mixed with kids who don't have social/learning dissabilities. If you went to a public school, you'll know what I mean.
The problem comes in when a group of students fail and they just ~happen~ to be of a certain ethnicity....then what? Someone's gonna scream racism...More often than not, this does happen. Mainly it's socio-economic, but even that can follow lines of race. The best thing the education system could do would be to quit looking at race...for any reason.
not always. Trevor Philips is trying to understand why male afro/caribbean students do far worse educationally than other ethnic minorities - including female afro caribbeans. Shouting racism isn't the answer. In the UK most ethnic minority students (Asian, South East Asian) do far better than the "indigenous" population. They, in turn do better than afro caribbean males but not females. Studies have shown that mixed sex classes underperform compared to single sex, regardless of ethnicity, but in whatever situation afro caribbean boys are the worst off. Anything that can remedy that situation must be considered. Having said that, I think this isn't the way forward. The UK education system is in a complete mess and anything that will improve standards must be looked at. And not via the current way - lowering all the pass marks and praising how many kids have "excelled". Just my 2pcrazytom said:
Nickygoat said:
Heh, heh. Just don't adopt the US "Leave No Child Behind" shell game: a student fails, the school loses funding, the child gets passed to another school where they will more than likely fail again.
I think if the education system is going to be fixed, we cannot look at age or race. The way to educate would be to have 'levels' of each subject matter and do away with a grade level that is tied to age. Each child would be required to reach a certain level, but would also be allowed to quickly advance through levels that are easily learned. For example, there would be Levels 1-25 of math. A child would only be allowed to advance to the next Math level once they proved proficiency. In a 'Math 10' class, there could be children between the ages of 10 and 15. A child could be at math 10, history 5, art 25, reading 8...there'd be no stigma of holding the child back a grade if he/she missed in one subject...they'd only have to take that subject until they prove proficiency.
We need to make school more like the real world: how many times have you socially dealt with people that were all your age? (outside of school) I agree with Nickygoat in that we can't lower the standards to get a better passing rate...but with a multi-level system, the pitfall (to our politicians) is there's no real way to test a demographic of students to see how they're doing on the whole....it could only be individual achievement---to be overseen by the most important people: the parents.
your ideas are of course very well crazytom, and i agree with them, it would be the fair and balanced system that would actually work well. However, that would require a total overhaul of the education system as we know it, so it will never happen sadly education doesnt get the funding it needs as it is, and why am i going into education? i sometimes question that ....
PlaceofDis said:
It WOULD NOT require a total overhaul of the system. The only change to the current system would be a typical "sixth grade" math teacher would not be teaching math to just sixth grade aged students, but to a wide mix of ages. Don't get me wrong, there would have to be some changes, but I'd say that they'd be far from a total overhaul. On the other hand, it will never happen because government would lose power over the situation...power is never relinquished volutarily.
I applaud your going into education, PlaceofDis. My wife is a teacher (no, she didn't give me the independent-level idea, but I did run it by her...she told me that some charter schools are running with the idea.) and she has some very rough times and some success stories, too. I don't know of anyone who goes into education for the money--unless you're in a major (rich) suburb. Teachers are definitely on the front lines...they have to deal with ALL of the BS - from students, administration, and parents! Teachers deserve all the respect and get none of it. Students are beligerent, parents are obnoxious, and administration is uncaring....not all are, but the numbers are growing. In fact, at the local middle school, some PARENTS have orders to stay off of school grounds because they've physically threatened teachers and staff....
Sorry to rant....I'm done....
You're not?
Hold it - hold it - you mean the other 5 continents found the way onto the internet? And here I thought NA and SA were alone here. Now I really feel paranoid.
I actually think that this could work in larger schools where it's possible to offer *voluntary* enrollment in an All-Ethnicity-A math class, where the student, the counselor, and the parents all sign off that they believe the experiment might be good for the kid.
If it helps the kid to put his other tensions out of his mind for 45 minutes so he can actually focus on the task at hand, I'm all for it. So long as the student, the counselor, and the parents are all agreed on it.
Ideally, yes, none of us would even notice the skin tone of the person next to us. Unfortunately, it will take generations to get there. Each generation has to expose his kids to more than he was exposed to and needs to mask whatever prejudice he has as much as possible so that his kids are closer to the ideal. They then do the same for their kids. In terms of generations, we (U.S.'ers) aren't that far away from slavery and just got through civil rights. Color blindness will take at least a few more generations.
Until we get to that point, why not allow a high school kid and his parents the opportunity to request the most comfortable learning situation? As an experiment?
As for NCLB - don't get me started. Until it's mathematically possible to get every student above the 50th percentile (and for those not inclined toward math, that's physically impossible), all it's going to do is to continue to worsen the system. Sure sounds good in a speech, though, doesn't it? Remind me, again, when the federal government gained the right to interfere with education? Oh, that's right, as long as it's a bribe that schools can opt out of (if they don't need to pay their bills), the feds don't need the legal right.
Students should go to their neighborhood (or community) schools. Period. Bussing a student denies that student the right to get the full benefits of schooling and denies the neighborhood (or community) the full benefits that a school can provide. If we leveled out funding (no more property-tax-based funding) and kept kids at their local schools, poorer neighborhoods would have the school as a center of the community - a place for their kids to be able to do better - and even a place for adult ed to take root. Let's face it, in many of these areas, the school already has the best facilities and equipment in the area. Removing the school as a part of the community removes its resources from the community.
mpw said:
Hold it - hold it - you mean the other 5 continents found the way onto the internet? And here I thought NA and SA were alone here. Now I really feel paranoid.
I actually think that this could work in larger schools where it's possible to offer *voluntary* enrollment in an All-Ethnicity-A math class, where the student, the counselor, and the parents all sign off that they believe the experiment might be good for the kid.
If it helps the kid to put his other tensions out of his mind for 45 minutes so he can actually focus on the task at hand, I'm all for it. So long as the student, the counselor, and the parents are all agreed on it.
Ideally, yes, none of us would even notice the skin tone of the person next to us. Unfortunately, it will take generations to get there. Each generation has to expose his kids to more than he was exposed to and needs to mask whatever prejudice he has as much as possible so that his kids are closer to the ideal. They then do the same for their kids. In terms of generations, we (U.S.'ers) aren't that far away from slavery and just got through civil rights. Color blindness will take at least a few more generations.
Until we get to that point, why not allow a high school kid and his parents the opportunity to request the most comfortable learning situation? As an experiment?
As for NCLB - don't get me started. Until it's mathematically possible to get every student above the 50th percentile (and for those not inclined toward math, that's physically impossible), all it's going to do is to continue to worsen the system. Sure sounds good in a speech, though, doesn't it? Remind me, again, when the federal government gained the right to interfere with education? Oh, that's right, as long as it's a bribe that schools can opt out of (if they don't need to pay their bills), the feds don't need the legal right.
Students should go to their neighborhood (or community) schools. Period. Bussing a student denies that student the right to get the full benefits of schooling and denies the neighborhood (or community) the full benefits that a school can provide. If we leveled out funding (no more property-tax-based funding) and kept kids at their local schools, poorer neighborhoods would have the school as a center of the community - a place for their kids to be able to do better - and even a place for adult ed to take root. Let's face it, in many of these areas, the school already has the best facilities and equipment in the area. Removing the school as a part of the community removes its resources from the community.