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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Affirm.Action
Message-ID: <117200106@inmet>
Date: Mon, 22-Sep-86 10:23:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.117200106
Posted: Mon Sep 22 10:23:00 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Oct-86 07:14:42 EDT
References: <15643@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
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Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!janw    Sep 22 10:23:00 1986


[elg@usl.UUCP ]
A good article by Eric Green on educational discrimination -
good because it deals with reality, not party shibboleths.

>Let's face it, your typical inner city school has plaster falling off
>the ceilings onto the students, the walls are crumbling showing wooden
>laths, heat is by crude radiators, air conditioning is non-existent,
>the course offerings consist of Woodworking and Home Economics, the
>teachers are incompetent, apathetic and bored, and the kids carry
>switchblades tucked into their socks.  I know. I spent 7 months in
>such a school district, after we were re-zoned. And my family quickly
>moved to another school district, showing the lunacy of trying to
>rezone whites into schools that are unfit for human occupation. Whites
>generally can afford to move, while the blacks can't. In every city I
>have ever been in, the inner city schools were dumps, while the
>schools on the edge of the city where the affluent people live were
>gleaming and shiny, the teachers were very competent, courses like
>Calculus and Physics were taught, and things were in general much
>better educationally.

> And it's all possible because of your local school board.

>[White flight, in response to busing, described]

>And if anybody says "Well, it's not that they aren't getting the money
>and talent into the inner city schools, not this, and not that", well,
>I've only got one thing to say: you're disgusting. Because if it's not
>the schools, it's the students, and I absolutely refuse to believe
>that being poor and black makes you automatically stupid. That is the
>path that led to the rise of Hitler, elitism, attempts to breed "the
>superior race", etc.

That's all true - but you oughtn't to attack an opinion purely on
the  grounds  that it leads to undesirable consequences.  The ra-
cist explanation of success disparity is *untrue*.   West  Indian
immigrants  are as black as the American blacks, and, on arrival,
even poorer. They do much better, though -  because  they  aren't
locked into a no-win way of life.

>Actually, it makes sense. All the people with political pull live
>in  the  suburbs. Naturally, they want their kids to go to a good
>school.  So where does the  school  board  get  the  money  from?
>That's  right, from the schools that DON'T have the kids of poli-
>ticians in them...

All right, you've got me listening. What solutions do you
think are hopeful? Busing across the state? Allocating
school budgets from Washington, DC?

What do you think of Marva Collins? Of parochial schools?
Of school vouchers? Of free enterprise zones?

		Jan Wasilewsky