Mike, writing at the Big Stick, makes the argument that conservatives ought to support socio-economic integration as a strategy for producing better educational outcomes by poor students. His argument for this?
exposure to students from higher income backgrounds has a profound effect on achievement.
He continues, quoting a Democracy Now article:
And it’s not just money that matters; it’s the people in and around a school. Every school community has three sets of actors: children; teachers and administrators; and parents. Middle-class schools tend to provide positive, well-disciplined peer role models, good teachers, and an active parent volunteer community, which benefit all the students in a school. This is an important key feature of integration. In districts where busing creates more socio-economically integrated schools, parents from middle and upper class incomes become advocates not just for their own children but for their childrens’ low-income classmates.
This is where his analysis goes off the rails. Parental involvement is the single biggest determinant of what happens with a child's learning. I'm willing to bet money that poor kids attending more affluent schools are doing so because they have more engaged parents who took action to get them into those schools. For example, in the suburb where I live, there are a significant number of families living in subsidized housing (Section 8 recipients). Those families made conscious decisions to get housing in an area where the school system is better performing to give their kids a better chance. Those kids underperform the district, but it would not surprise me to learn that they outperform the public school city kids. Its not the exposure to kids with a higher socio-economic status, its the decisions parents make about where their kids go to school and how they support their academics at home that is the key. Socio-economic status is merely a proxy for parental engagement or the lack thereof and that's why its predictive. I don't for one second believe that the people who carried out the civil rights battles that resulted in busing for the purpose of integration were actually seeking integration as a goal. Those people were simply trying to bust black kids out of the educational ghetto and get them into the better equipped and resourced schools whites attended. They made the best arguments they could using the law to accomplish that result. You would find few blacks today who would argue for busing for integration purposes, racial or socio-economic, as a method for creating better educational outcomes. They simply want to get their kids into a better school. Integration was the proxy that got black kids into better resourced white school systems and people fought to maintain that rationale in order to maintain the access of black kids to those schools. Over time, the real purpose of the effort, getting a better education for black kids, has gotten lost.
The social engineering exercise proposed by this blogger focuses on the wrong issue. If you want to improve the quality of education poor children receive, improving the quality of the school they attend is the answer, not shuffling kids around based on their socio-economic status (a status which is variable and can be changed by any number of factors). Before we embark on wide scale social engineering based on socio-economic status, why don't we try getting the basic stuff right, like making sure schools and teachers are calling students to perform to high standards. Lets make sure kids in poor areas have outstanding school facilities. Let's make sure we have an educational system in which the incentives for school performance are properly aligned, as opposed to the current system where teachers fight against measurement based on student outcomes and accountability for parents has to be mediated through unresponsive school bureaucracies.
The conservative policy answer isn't social engineering. Charter schools is the superior conservative policy answer here, but its not pushed as it should be because the GOP, the party of conservatives, doesn't view the major political constituency that benefits from charters (blacks) as necessary or essential to their aspirations for governance.
Logging you in...
Kevin Myles 50p · 781 weeks ago
That sounds logical Aaron, but is simply is not true. While they were not interested in simple integration as the goal, they were NOT fighting for a mechanically enforced equity system either. They were asking and seeking answers to a much deeper question. You should really go back and read the actual decision in Brown V Board. You should particularly check out the reason the Topeka schools were chosen. They were selected specifically because the Black school was NOT inferior. In fact, Linda Brown, from the Brown family speaks on this subject frequently throughout the midwest...
I absolutely understand and respect your logic Aaron, but do you really believe that Separate but Equal is really the solution and that all of those who came before us, who worked and sacrificed for all those many years, had somehow just missed the point? - Their arguments have been preserved - we owe it to them to at least read them before we dismiss them...
5 or 6 years ago, I would have taken your position word for word. In fact, I was public in my stance that all we needed was equity... The more I read of Charles Hamilton Houston's work and writings... The more I became immersed in the arguments of Thurgood Marshall and others, the more I came to appreciate that they were looking at the issue through a much finer lens that I had. They spent decades pouring over this issue, and it caused me to reexamine my own beliefs...
A Political Season 53p · 781 weeks ago
Do you argue that the reverse is also true? That white children require the presence of non white children in order to be properly educated? If integration is required, how do you explain the success of an Englewood Urban Prep Academy in Chicago? A charter school that must take all comers that started with a bunch of kids who didn't even read to grade level.
The idea that integration is required for black students to achieve better educational outcomes is an idea I find repugnant and unacceptable. To argue that that is the case is a statement of inferiority. Are you arguing for the idea that a properly equipped school with competent and committed teachers can't educate black students unless they are educated alongside white students?
ConstructiveFeedback · 781 weeks ago
I agree with you on this one.
Those who fear that "Separate But Equal" will make a return need to ask themselves why they drove to take over the school administration and political seats in a given city that was turning majority Black or Hispanic.
There is no avoiding the point: Some people have Black Inferiority in their consciousness.
The fact of the matter is that the original "Separate But Equal" was a segregationist construct. Two schools in the same district are segregated by race. They are provided with a different amount of funding BASED ON RACE. This was discriminatory.
I do not see the same issue where there are two distinct school systems side by side and the per pupil funding amounts are different. In fact - the array of school systems in Metro Atlanta have some of the majority Black systems spending more per student than the majority White.
In today's world where a Black student can go into a majority White school system that spends less money and this district can graduate 92% of the Black students from high school - the educational culture of each respective system/school needs to be inspected.
If a school system falls below a minimum funding level then the state should step in and support the school up to this level.
At some point the people within the district who have control over the people who serve in their institutions need to make the tough choices that come along with the management of such an eco-system.
We have too many people with the consciousness that says that their shortfall as compared to others is a product of discrimination or "benign neglect". They are loathed to note that at times THEY are the practitioners of this neglect.
Kevin Myles 50p · 781 weeks ago
Aaron, we've had this discussion before and I can't believe that you actually think that is my position. It is an effective straw-man, but you know that I have been explicit in the very posts you've commented on in saying that black children do not need to be in the presence of whites in order to learn... HOWEVER, I have stated, and I maintain, that the argument is very old, and decades of research and social science have been complied, and IT IS A MISTAKE and distressingly arrogant of us (our generation - myself included) to make broad assumptions about cases we've never read, and make declarative statements about the premise and validity of arguments that we aren't even familiar with. THIS IS PARTICULARLY SHAMEFUL when you consider that many of the people who spent their youth and young adulthood sacrificing so that we could see this day ARE STILL HERE and we dismiss them, their words, their understanding, we don't read their work, we don't study what they've done, etc... As I said, the Brown foundation is still actively speaking about the case... but nevermind researching that... no, we'll just guess at what it was about and then explain why its no longer relevant.
Construct Feedback stated: The fact of the matter is that the original "Separate But Equal" was a segregationist construct. Two schools in the same district are segregated by race. They are provided with a different amount of funding BASED ON RACE. This was discriminatory.
I do not see the same issue where there are two distinct school systems side by side and the per pupil funding amounts are different.
You obviously haven't read the decisions or arguments either... The Topeka case was selected to be a part of the class action suit SPECIFICALLY because it was NOT inferior to the White school... Now, Why was that? I'll tell you this, it was definitely not because of any belief in the magic of association. Nobody believed or argued that blacks had to be in the presence of whites in order to learn. In fact, the first appearance of that <argument> was when it was surfaced as a straw-man argument by John Davis who was the attorney who argued for the continuance of segregation. It was JOHN DAVIS who mockingly claimed that some believed that blacks had to be in the presence of whites to learn, he then dispelled the notion as a postulate in his argument that well funded single race schools were a good thing and that we should CONTINUE the precedent set in Plessy v Fergussen. In a great ironic twist, the argument you are putting forth is the argument that was used to defend segregation in public accommodations (not just in the schools - the scope of Brown v board was bigger than that)
All of us right now live in school districts that are largely segregated. (I'm sure Indianapolis is no different). And these schools did not RE-segregate, they actually never really integrated. So ask yourself this question... Why do basically equal yet segregated schools with equal rates of per-pupil spending produce such abysmal results for our children, while charter schools (even when single race) are capable of producing such great results? Of course, the easy answer is to point to the parents but ask yourself again, why is it that you can take the very same black children who are UNSUCCESSFUL in well funded single race public schools, and they can be SUCCESSFUL in a charter program? (They don't get new parents when they change schools, but they achieve different results) Why is that?
There is 70 years of documented research to explain the phenomena; court cases, arguments, demonstrations, and social science... But hey, like Mr. Construct says... we're just a bunch of Negroes with black inferiority in our conscience... no need to read or research anything... You can just assume and pontificate... :)
There is a real philosophical argument to be had here, but it must be based on fact... You can't just argue against the position you've assigned me. A great starting point would be for you to check out the writings of Charles Hamilton Houston. He was perhaps one of the greatest legal minds the country has ever produced...
A Political Season 53p · 781 weeks ago
Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.
I read the above this way: racial segregation in public education is bad for black kids (not white kids), and particularly when it is sanctioned by law, because it imposes a social inferiority complex on black children. In the context of the times, I don't have any quarrel with this concept. However, there is no longer legally sanctioned segregation in our schools. Your reply to that seems in part to be that our schools were never desegregated to begin with, so we're still dealing with the inferiority imposed by segregation ( I have to guess at your position, because you are not plainly stating it).
So, this then becomes the basis for busing black and white students to schools for purposes of socio-economic integration (as Mike at Big Stick proposed) or racial integration? By doing so, we remove this stigma and thus yield better educational outcomes for black children?
A Political Season 53p · 781 weeks ago
Why does a segregated public charter school get better results than a segregated traditional public school? My answer to that would be that charter schools get better results because their incentives to perform as a school are properly aligned around the progress of the students. If a charter does not perform or is failing and does not take steps to improve, it will be shut down either because it loses enrollment or because its authorizer (if they are doing their job) shuts them down. Charter schools are organized around educating the kid first and foremost and their authorizers measure them by that standard. All responsibility for student outcomes at a charter rests with the charter and the decisions of its staff and board leadership.
In their charter, they specifically commit to produce certain student outcomes and they are directly accountable to parents and their authorizers to deliver on those commitments. Both the responsibility and the authority to deliver on their commitments lies directly in their hands and that accountability is not mediated through bureaucracies, teachers unions, superintendents or elected school boards. This is not true in the case of traditional public schools and this is why charters can produce the results they do.
Its one reason why I would argue that the NAACP should strenuously support the development of highly accountable charter school systems. Why on earth would you not?
So, coming back round to separate but equal, my argument is that poor performance in segregated urban public schools is not caused by the fact that they are segregated and therefore student achievement is suppressed under the weight of social stigma, but rather that the incentive for performance in traditional public schools is insufficiently tied to student achievement. In other words, teachers still get paid and schools stay open year after year whether the kids learn a damn thing or not. And unless you can move to a better school district or pay to send your kid to a private school that performs better, you're stuck with that traditional public school.
Thats not to say that the phenomena of stigma or the overarching issues of race in America don't play a role in the way in which black students see themselves and learn. However, I would argue vehemently that busing kids for purposes of integration is an unnecessary and ineffective solution to that problem. We would be far better served to radically reorganize the way in which we deliver education to our kids, meaning moving away from the traditional public school model and embracing a charter model, which delivers not only better educational benefits, but also economic benefits to the neighborhood in which a charter is located as well.
I mean, if I'm really being derisive, the argument for integration today (not yesterday) boils down to "black kids are not performing because their feelings are hurt by the prejudice they perceive in the fact that they don't attend integrated schools". Come on. Are you kidding me? To the extent that the effects of historical and current day racism present in society today is the problem, Colin Powell once said "you have to outperform racism". That's the issue here.
ConstructiveFeedback · 781 weeks ago
Brother - Surely you jest!!!
Why do you need someone to SPECIFICALLY SAY THIS rather than make note of their actions over time?
Did you not see the NAACP oppose the retirement of the "M2M" programs in Charlotte and Atlanta over the past 10 years?
I am very familiar with the Topeka case. I am also familiar with the arguments that are heard today regarding school funding between school districts.
Ironically the massive financial crisis that is hitting most states and local school systems is showing that "State Funding For All Schools To Insure Equality" is not the magic elixir that was imagined (as compared to property tax funding). The states are queuing up massive cuts just as the locals are.
The bottom line of my argument is that the vast majority of school systems that our people attend where there is a large concentration of us are controlled by "favorable people". In Philly, 30 years ago they were gunning to "Take Over The Schools" - placing people who "look like us and who care about our children's interests" into place.
Today they "WON" this struggle. Sadly the interests of our community have not advanced in regards to academics within the school system.
It is my opinion that we need a new dynamic with regards to tying the AGENDA of our people with the RESULTS that are obtained. Some people have no intention of being scrutinized per their results.
Kevin Myles 50p · 780 weeks ago
Alright Brother NOW we're talking!
First off, I DO support Charter schools - in fact I am a BIG supporter of charter schools and I have lobbied in our State Capitol to change our state law and make it easier for charters to get off the ground. I am not a supporter of vouchers - but that's a different animal altogether... (they are logical in abstract, but the math just doesn't work at scale)
Our positions are not nearly as far apart as you may have thought! We should talk bruh... this is a long and detailed conversation, but it would be interesting to follow it through... I'll message you my number on Facebook.
And Brother Construct: You are an enigma to me... Your writing seems to indicate that you are very intelligent: Intelligent enough even to understand the limitations of your own arguments. Which means one of two things: Either you do understand the limits of your arguments yet you make them anyway because they represent a personal or political view, OR you're just a guy with a decent vocabulary who doesn't always distinguish between fact and assumption... Either way - it is clear that you're passionate and I respect that... but you're fighting like a yellow belt...
ConstructiveFeedback · 780 weeks ago
If you don't mind - let me TELL YOU the frame of reference in m argument so you will no longer have to guess the code to my enigma machine.
You see - my fight is against those who popularly call themselves the "Black Establishment". It is my view that they have hijacked the interests of our community and have used them for ideological and political reasons exclusively.
You see brother Myles - in my real job I effectively "study people" as a means of doing process reengineering so that they might purchase the telecommunication solutions that my company peddles. Surprise, surprise - PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE, regardless of if they are operating in the context of a corporation, a non-profit civil rights group or a bunch of political operatives.
I choose to have the AUDACITY to apply MANAGEMENT SCIENCE to the antics of the people who PURPORT to have our community's permanent interests in mind. Management 101 says - Once you give a faction with a platform of ideas POWER over your resources - YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A TRANSPARENT MEANS OF MEASURING THEIR EFFECTIVENESS and thus allowing them to continue on toward more success or, REBUKE THEM, having them to turn in their keys to the executive wash room for they can speak for YOUR INTERESTS no more.
You see Brother Myles - I am of clear mind. I no longer allow the Black Establishment to PRETEND to be an unvarnished representative of our community's interests. They TOOK CONTROL OVER OUR EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. (Let me be clear - not just "Black", but more accurately the "Progressive Establishment" as part of the Democratic Party. Race is not the issue per se).
Fast forward several decades and we see results that are depressing. (ie: Chicago graduates only 52.9% of their students. 87% of which are Black and Hispanic).
Mr Myles we have a choice to make TO-DAMNED-DAY.
1) We see this unsavory set of results and continue to "fight harder" at doing what we do. We merely have not been fighting at the high enough rungs of government, this DESPITE having taken over the seats that we used to fight against 50 years ago.
2) We start to see that the forces that control the eco-system have the greatest impact upon our children. More than some unattainable national standard - we need to focus upon the PROXIMATE forces that bear down upon our children.
Mr Myles - Let's go back to HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT THEORY 101.
My argument is that such a resource is molded by the forces that bear down upon him as they act in accordance to some coherent plan. Unfortunately the powers that be have a RACISM CHASING orthodoxy which looks at points of INFERIOR RESOURCES that they have been granted as the reason for the unequal results. Their entire movement becomes one of "IF YOU WANT ME TO BE EQUAL then you need to supply us EQUALLY".
WHY did they take over the closed environment of the school system in the first place if they are focused on all that is EXTERNAL to this domain?
At some point Mr Myles you and others will need to see that the best thing that we can do for our communities is to insure that we have a granular set of management initiatives that are bearing down upon our young people, making them CONSCIOUS of their purpose in line with our interests with an overlay group that communicates BEST PRACTICES that have worked between each of these local groups.
We cannot allow the RACISM CHASING to continue. It begins to feed on itself.
If there was one group that I wish you could get to distinguish between FACT AND ASSUMPTION, Mr Myles it would be those with the POWER over our communities - for it is not me who has it.
My recent post Blacks In The Foster Care System Of New York City - The Facts
Kevin Myles 50p · 780 weeks ago
Before I "go there", let's take on a your main point...
you said: Unfortunately the powers that be have a RACISM CHASING orthodoxy which looks at points of INFERIOR RESOURCES that they have been granted as the reason for the unequal results. Their entire movement becomes one of "IF YOU WANT ME TO BE EQUAL then you need to supply us EQUALLY".
Wrong. You're co-mingling different discussions and arguments. Resource equity is a wholly separate argument than educational attainment. The argument for resource equity is NOT that "if you want us to be equal, then you must fund us equally". The Argument is "if you want to provide equal opportunities for children to succeed or fail on their own merit, then you must provide resource equity". That is a SYSTEM issue. Educational Attainment is largely a COMMUNITY issue. Increasing parental involvement, encouraging academic excellence, mentoring, providing enrichment activities, developing scholarships and the like are all planks in the Attainment issue, but BOTH are important. BOTH must be addressed, and neither negates the other.
Speaking personally, in my work here with the NAACP, we deal with both issues. We have a youth group with 86 children (and growing) from age 11 through 17 who are in our chess, leadership, debate, or oratory programs. Our older kids provide tutoring for the younger kids, and we provide them with various enrichment activities as well. AND we also tackle the system issues as well. -- it's important to always remember that despite the problems with the public school system - all of our children are not failing or struggling. And we need to advocate for those children also. If you have an excellent student at a poor school, they will still enter college behind their other classmates despite their abilities. So while we are concerned about changing the academic culture in our community which we seek to impact though our youth efforts, we are ALSO concerned with system disparities which are separate but important. We do not choose one argument or the other brother - we do both...
Now: To be candid brother, I think you are a snake-oil salesman... You rally against black pathology then routinely exhibit one of the most self-defeating pathologies of them all; Apathy.
You say your role is to Rebuke those in "power" and in the "establishment" and you state that you actually have no power. That is a cop-out and an excuse. We are ALL responsible for what we do, and what we choose NOT to do. We are NOT products of our environment, our environment is OUR PRODUCT. Our communities and our institutions are a reflection of our tolerances. If something needs to be changed, ORDINARY people get up and change it. Every single one of the organizations that you rebuke for their 'misuse of power' is actually made up of teachers, and bus drivers, and sales clerks, and parents, and pastors, and everyday people leading everyday lives who one day decided to talk less and do more. There is no mythical Power Ceremony, no one has been anointed, that's all a rhetorical construct.
If you're not doing anything but talking about what other people should have done or said, then you're like the person who doesn't register to vote but always wants to pontificate about politics.
You rebuke the "establishment" because their solutions are not effective... but YOUR solution to that and to the underlying problems is to talk smack on the internet? - Should you also be rebuked for your method's clear lack of effectiveness? Or are children now being better educated as a result of your "powerful blog pieces?"
Kevin Myles 50p · 780 weeks ago
Not to mention the real elephant in the room, and that is your flagrant use of straw-man arguments... I swear brother were it not for your constructs I don't think you'd have anything to talk about. Let's start with the "Black Establishment"... Tonight at 6pm, I'll be at the School Board meeting... I will almost CERTAINLY be the only black parent at the meeting, just as I was at the last one, and the one before that, and the one before that, and virtually every other one of them. I will not be there because I am a part of a "Black Establishment", or because I have been "given power", or because I "purport to have the interests of the community at heart" or any of the other devices you've used. I will be there because I am a parent with children in the school system, and their education is important enough to me to MAKE TIME to attend. I don't attend because I hold any position; if anything I was elected to this position BECAUSE I MAKE TIME TO ATTEND. I don't believe any of us are powerless. I think the myth of powerlessness is an excuse for our apathy. Too many of us don't care enough to do anything, so we justify our inaction by claiming that "we can't do anything". It makes no difference to me whether we blame all of our problems on white folks, on "the man", "the elites", the "black establishment", or the "boogeyman", it's the same phenomenon...
Sorry for ranting brother and I apologize for my tone, but you are more 'hat' than 'cattle'....
ConstructiveFeedback · 780 weeks ago
Apathy he says!!!
Mr Myles as I was driving by two notable crime scenes in Atlanta today I was talking to myself. (1st was the scene where the Atlanta police shot a 92 year old woman in a drug infested community. 2nd was the recent decapitation murder of a Black woman who was dumped in the weeds) Do you know what I said to myself?
I said the next person who makes an indictment against ME I am going to force them to get TWO Black men from this area of Vine City/Atlanta and have them to ask the same questions of THEM that they ask of ME.
* What have you done to help this community?
* Do you value the people within your own community, show how?
You see Mr Myles - YOU attempt to make RACIAL admonitions upon ME to "reach back" but for some reason you are unable to make these same requests of that EQUAL Black male in Vine City.
What you call "apathy" for my failure to be a universal advocate - I rebut you, making the case that we need DISTRIBUTED COMPETENCY. A community can only be as strong as what each ADULT works to build it in to.
Mr Myles - in short - take your TALENTED TENTH theory and blow it to hell. Along with the T.T. comes an "Inferior Bottom 35%" that is merely serviced and a "Pacified Middle 55%" who go with the flow.
Why do you fear having all Adults in our community be expected to rise up to do their part?
[quote]
Resource equity is a wholly separate argument than educational attainment.[/quote]
Brother Myles:
You keep conflating what is text book with what HAS BEEN combined for political cover.
While I do agree that there is a difference between resource equity and attainment - YOUR ORGANIZATION in particular has lead the charge in pushing the "IF/THEN" relationship between the two. "IF you want us to perform equally then give us the resources".
My main problem with the Progressive Establishment is that you all took POWER over the eco-system upon which these schools reside yet you failed to consider the ECONOMIC resources that are required to maintain the desired STANDARD OF LIVING. Once again - the universal buy in of all adults needs to be considered. Look past the pride in the portraits of the elected officials on the wall and make note of the our condition as a people within these places.
Favorable people now reside in the seats that your organization used to protest against.
My recent post Blacks In The Foster Care System Of New York City - The Facts
Kevin Myles 50p · 780 weeks ago
Alrightly then, let's play... (PT1)
Construct said: I said the next person who makes an indictment against ME I am going to force them to get TWO Black men from this area of Vine City/Atlanta and have them to ask the same questions of THEM that they ask of ME.
KM Reply: I would only note here that clearly others have come to the same conclusions as I have regarding your propensity to talk a good game without demonstrating the willingness to get involved and do something. You SHOULD ask them that same question, because it is a legitimate question, just make sure that after you ask it, you also answer it...
Construct: You see Mr Myles - YOU attempt to make RACIAL admonitions upon ME to "reach back" but for some reason you are unable to make these same requests of that EQUAL Black male in Vine City.
KM reply: WRONG. I acknowledge the fact that for whatever reason, everyone is not going to get involved. Many are apathetic, but the work still must be done. I don't walk around admonishing those who choose to do nothing, but I don't readily accept their counsel either... My criticism of you brother, is that you want to represent yourself as some champion of the downtrodden, when in reality, you're not willing to adjust your own personal schedule to work with the very people you claim to "fight" for...
Construct saysWhat you call "apathy" for my failure to be a universal advocate - I rebut you, making the case that we need DISTRIBUTED COMPETENCY. A community can only be as strong as what each ADULT works to build it in to.
KM reply Bravo! That was a very elegant excuse... So in Layman's terms, We need Everybody to get involved, and short of that, you are somehow absolved for your personal choice to do nothing.
Kevin Myles 50p · 780 weeks ago
Construct Constructed: Mr Myles - in short - take your TALENTED TENTH theory and blow it to hell. Along with the T.T. comes an "Inferior Bottom 35%" that is merely serviced and a "Pacified Middle 55%" who go with the flow.
KM replied: Here's the strawman... (I knew it was coming). You put forward a position that you are prepared to argue against and you claim that it represents the other person's opinion... That was a waste of keystrokes bruh... There is NO Talented Tenth, there are those who talk the talk, and those who walk the walk. I'm trying to encourage YOU to come out of the talkers camp.
Construct's Red Herring: Why do you fear having all Adults in our community be expected to rise up to do their part?
KM replies: I don't... in fact, I'd like to begin with you...
Construct claims: While I do agree that there is a difference between resource equity and attainment - YOUR ORGANIZATION in particular has lead the charge in pushing the "IF/THEN" relationship between the two. "IF you want us to perform equally then give us the resources".
KM Replies: Yet ANOTHER strawman... Here I am, a representative of said organization and one of its loudest voices on educational advocacy, I'm TELLING you what our position and argument is, and rather than deal with that and make your counter, you want to create a position for us and fight against your creation. Resource Equity and Educational Attainment are separate but related issues. The strategies are distinct and both battles are critically important. We don't subscribe to the belief that we should do "either/or", we subscribe to the belief that we should do "both/and". It probably hurts your feelings to admit you agree
Construct rambles on: My main problem with the Progressive Establishment is that you all took POWER over the eco-system upon which these schoo... [snip]
KM replies: You're a funny dude... Now we're in the Progressive Establishment... :) Did we graduate or were we demoted?
Silly Rabbit...
A Political Season 53p · 780 weeks ago
A Political Season 53p · 780 weeks ago
Brother CF, you got a lot to say and I actually think I'm beginning to warm to your crusade, but my challenge with you is that you've got to break down your language. If your target is black folk, you gotta bring your rhetoric to a more practical level. You are tight when you are concrete, but I find you really difficult to follow when you get conceptual. Train your fire more on the target, in this instance, "integration" as a strategy for producing greater educational outcomes for black kids (a strategy I personally think is bunk).
Kevin Myles 50p · 780 weeks ago
Just a little background; in 2003, after hearing reports on the low test scores and graduation rates of African American students within our district, we convened a series of Community Education forums. We brought in speakers and educators from around the country over a period of a couple years. From that effort, we assembled a community education task force. The group was made up of approximately 30 retired educators and administrators as well as the NAACP education committee. We met monthly for more than a year and produced our four point plan to increase educational outcomes and eliminate the academic achievement gap. Our plan was adopted by the district as the official plan for addressing the issue in 2005. Since that time, our graduation rates have continued to climb year after year. While many of the districts around the country are facing graduation rates at or around 50%, we now have a graduation rate well in excess of 80% district wide with the rate for African American girls now exceeding 90%
Now that’s not as salacious or sexy as a conversation about ‘who shot John’ or ‘who is fit to be a negro leader’, but those conversations while “common”, are not relevant to improving educational outcomes. This is not an abstraction, this is a matter of record. The system CAN be impacted, reforms ARE possible. Can I lay it all out in the comment section of a blog post? – NO - And trading mini sound (read:text) bites does the subject a disservice. But if you are really interested in having the conversation, I’ve shot you my number on FB. I'd be genuinely interested in hearing your ideas and suggestions. But If not—No harm, no foul... Blog on bruh…
ConstructiveFeedback · 780 weeks ago
In regards to you having forums in these places with poor educational outcomes - WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE INDIVIDUAL PARENTS?
If your goal is to make improvements in aggregate - What do you do to the INDIVIDUALS who are not pulling their weight yet who want to consume the HIGHER standard that they seek?
You see - I DO NOT have an "insatiable" set of points of scrutiny against you and your cause. My goal posts are not on wheels. Your success is in line with mine.
HOWEVER - the common goal for success does NOT cause me to fold my deck and jump on to your bandwagon. The biggest violation of management science at play today amongst our people is the notion that we need to all support the same METHODOLOGY to obtain our success. Instead we only need to support the same PERMANENT INTERESTS. The best practices will only be found if there is debate and scrutiny over the methdology.
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ConstructiveFeedback · 780 weeks ago
Straight up question for you:
1) What IF WHITE FOLKS and any other adversary of Black people (ie: corporations) that the NAACP constantly struggles against pulled back enough to show that their "assault" is clearly shown to not be the most prevailing force harming our people?
2) What IF in the vast majority of places where Black Americans live had "favorable people" in office?
3) What IF the policies that were in place were agreeable to the Black community?
Mr Myles with this as a back drop and YET AND STILL the members of the Black community CHOSE to retain their present engagement with reference to the Academic Resources that are provided to them in the eco-system within which they live - WILL THE FUNDAMENTAL DISPOSITION OF THE NAACP AND OTHER PROGRESSIVE GROUPS CHANGE?
(Here is the simplified question for my friend Aaron:
At what point do YOU accept that 'All that the rank and file members of the Black community have done has dutifully brought them to the point where they now reside'?)
Instead of taking a "They are oppressing/denying us" disposition you are forced to make note that the masses of people are not willing to implement the proper order and priorities necessary for them to obtain the standard that YOU (yes YOU) envision of them as it is EXTERNAL to their interests and consciousness.
I assume that you are a Christian man, Mr Myles. Have you ever heard of a Christian receiving SALVATION when he is not the primary agent of his own transformation?
Whether you agree with my amount of activism or not - the one thing that you can't remove from me is the fact that ABSENCE A SYSTEM THAT HAS THE PEOPLE TO BUY INTO THEIR OWN TRANSFORMATION you will only ever have a group of OUTSIDERS who show that they wish to "help" these who accept their label as "The Least of These" more than they wish to help themselves.
You, more often than not will be their trusted LEADER as you "speak for those who have been conditioned to think that THEY HAVE NO VOICE". Sadly that which has been inculcated within them will not be an ORGANIC sense of progression.
Mr Myles - I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY!!!!
My enemy is HATRED AND IGNORANCE.
At the same time I REFUSE to impress upon a GROWN - EQUAL HUMAN BEING beyond the point where I am made to be his consciousness.
IF this causes my people or my community to be "less than" I am no more responsible for "losing the game" than is the field goal kicker who missed on the last second play. Instead the AGGREGATE ACTIONS OF THE TEAM for the other 59 minutes and 58 seconds of the game is to blame for the results.
Are you willing to allow our community to settle at the point where their aggregate actions prescribe for them?
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