Apparently I'm not the first to think of this, though I did come up with the concept independently. Bill Pantele, the councilman Save Richmond loves to hate, informed me otherwise and of the Supreme Court ruling. I though I had come up with a truly original idea. Nevertheless regional cooperation shouldn't be an unattainable goal, simply because it is difficult. Sometime only difficult things are worth doing. A good idea is a good idea even if I didn't think of it first. Even if it has been previously attempted. Even if, especially if, it has not yet been achieved.
Why should there be a separate and unequal Richmond Public School system? Wasn't that ruled unconstitutional many years past. I'm not talking about busing. Busing is absurd and unproductive. It sends a loud and clear message, if you are black and in a black majority school, you cannot learn. If that isn't racism I don't know what is.
I believe in the seeming contradictory ideas that schools should be the province of their neighborhoods while at the same time believing that the city school system should be merged with the surrounding counties. First off, I believe in economy of scale. The city and the counties are one metropolitan area and to divide the tax base arbitrarily and permanently at it's current boundaries defies reason. The simplest solution is to assign all schools south of the river to Chesterfield and all schools north of the river to Henrico and reconstitute the school boards of both to include city voters. This would represent true integration. Simultaneously schools should be substantially defined by their neighborhoods. This would benefit both the students and their parents. Students would go to school close to home and not be pawns of social engineering. Parents would be able to visit schools, meet teachers and raise funds that would remain in their neighborhood. Neighborhoods would benefit from community pride and self determination. Local efforts to improve the neighborhood would be directly reflected in the neighborhood schools. This would invoke the Darwinian principal of the survival of the fittest. Successful neighborhoods would have successful schools. People would seek to move there. Unsuccessful neighborhoods would fail and copy the methods and practices of the successful ones. People would then seek to move there as well. Empowering people and giving them control over their destinies, what a concept. Instead we have the Federal Government increasingly dominating local education. Republicans are worse than Democrats, if that is possible. The two Bushes are responsible for the two worst pieces of legislation in modern American history, the ADA and the No Child Left Behind Act. Republicans outdoing Democrats, cats and dogs living together, what's next?
Giving people the ability to fail also gives them the freedom to succeed. Somehow that worked in the past and our parents and maybe even ourselves managed to get an education. Even in the bad old days of segregation, blacks took pride in their local schools, substandard though they were. There was an education ethic that produced the likes of Mary Bethune-Cookman, , Oliver Hill and Martin Luther King. Can anyone say that forced school integration has improved the education outcome for blacks. I am NOT for segregation and NEVER have been, but I don't believe categorizing children by race and distributing them proportionally will ever accomplish anything good. All it has done is reinforced the concept of racial identity, racial character and racial determinism, in short racism.
We have gone down a long sad road. As previously stated, more of the same gets us more of the same. What do we have to lose except the educational apartheid the is the Richmond Public School system.
6 comments:
Once again, your rhetoric gets in the way of your points.
Its one thing to advocate changing a corrupt system, its another to abolish Richmond public schools altogether, when some of them have won national awards for their outstanding education.
Sure, a regional approach would be favorable. Too bad the counties don't want it.
ADA is a national law now for good reason. If Richmonders don't want the Feds stepping in, they had better get off their high horses and make sure that every child has equal access to a quality education. You know, what Oliver Hill fought for.
In the end, it sounds like you are the one who is obsessed with race. Not RPS.
Once againg I violate my rule against anonymous comments because I know who anonymous is, none other than the notorious SB. Apparently he is ashamed to sign his posts. No doubt he is embarrased to be publicly known as a reader and commenter on this blog.
One sentence rebuttals and trite critiques don't contribute much to the conversation.
My "rhetoric"? That's a cheap was of classifying my entire post as bullshit.
I've got news for you. This entire country is obsessed with racial identity.
King said it best,"I have a dream that ... children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
That's my dream too. What's yours?
"This would invoke the Darwinian principal of the survival of the fittest. Successful neighborhoods would have successful schools. People would seek to move there. Unsuccessful neighborhoods would fail and copy the methods and practices of the successful ones. People would then seek to move there as well."
Where to begin. First I believe your heart is in the right place. You want the city to be stronger and to have a better school system. Lets start with the common ground.
So do I.
Now for a little history, then I will likely respond to your suggestions after doing some research. The comments below were made in a conversation with another National Board teacher in Mississippi. She had said that most teachers of color who were NB candidates that did not achieve did so for lack of writing skills.
Our school system is staffed mostly African-American women. Most of these hard working educators are excellent teachers. However, there is a general disinterest in furthering accomplished practice in our system because of this very issue, a lack of interest or facility at writing or scholarship. Of 17 NBCTs in our system of several thousand, approximately 1/3rd of them are African-American. Of those, two have gone on to administrative roles already and two more are on their way into leadership. So, when policymakers ask why we can't find highly accomplished professionals for hard to staff schools they are faced with one answer, history. Schools in Richmond were led down the dark path of Massive Resistance after Brown vs. Board. Community leaders refused to comply with as much of the law as possible.When, in 1970's schools were ordered to begin busing to meet integration laws, the upper middle class sent their kids to private schools.
Now Richmond schools pay the price for previous leaders trying to maintain segregation and for using education as a form of oppression. Its teachers, most of whom grew up in Richmond during the 1950s-1970's where dealt a bad hand from a stacked deck. All of the progress our school system has made has been due to the perseverance of these women.
When you look at the briefest of histories below it is a amazing to me to realize that I came to Richmond 3 years after the official end of segregation. In Fairfax county, where I grew up, segregation was taught as history, not current events.
From Wikipedia: For more info
Massive Resistance was a policy declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. on February 24, 1956 to unite other white politicians and leaders in Virginia in a campaign of new state laws and policies to prevent public school desegregation after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954.
The Richmond City Public Schools had attempted various schemes to avoid integration such as dual attendance zones and the "Freedom of Choice" Plan, but in 1970, District Court Judge Robert Merhige, Jr., ordered a desegregation busing scheme established to integrate the city schools.
Richmond City Schools then went through a series of attendance plans and magnet school programs. By 1986, Judge Merhige approved a system of essentially neighborhood schools, ending Virginia's legal struggles with segregation.
My first question is where does Darwin come to this?
For another perspective on racism check out my post on a lesson done in Idaho last week.
http://circle-time.blogspot.com/2008/01/mlk-lesson-gone-wrong-or-right.html
This is from the VDOE.
As you can see there has been continual improvement of 3rd grade reading scores in the city over the past 7 years.
Scores in the county have stayed pretty much the same. I wonder what the city's pass rate will be next year?
What is so bad about continuous improvement?
If you have trouble with the school system please be sure to be specific about what your reasons are for doing away with it.
Is it the budget, the school conditions, teacher working conditions? It couldn't be the test scores.
Grade 3 Grade 3 Grade 3 Grade 3 Grade 3 Grade 3
English Reading English Reading English Reading English Reading English Reading English Reading
Pass Rate Pass Rate Pass Rate Pass Rate Pass Rate Pass Rate
Division Division School School Low High 2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007
Number Name Number Name Grade Grade All Students All Students All Students All Students All Students All Students
123 Richmond City - Division Summary - - 54 61 63 76 78 76
Grade 3 Grade 3 Grade 3 Grade 3 Grade 3 Grade 3
English Reading English Reading English Reading English Reading English Reading English Reading
Pass Rate Pass Rate Pass Rate Pass Rate Pass Rate Pass Rate
Division Division School School Low High 2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007
Number Name Number Name Grade Grade All Students All Students All Students All Students All Students All Students
043 Henrico County - Division Summary - - 85 84 81 84 85 84
Hmm? Well I got what I asked for, but thanks.
I am aware of much of the history you described. I'm not sure how that applies here. My purpose was not to denigrate the hard work and accomplishments of the RPS. Some of it is the result of heroic effort.
I believe in equal educational opportunity. I also believe in empowering parents and neighborhoods to invest in their communities and their schools. I also believe in common sense. The archaic political structure Virginia imposes on its cities cripples their development and segregates them from their surrounding counties. There's just no good reason to have a separate school system for the City of Richmond. Many states have county wide school systems. I'm just for integrating Richmond into it's surrounding counties.
How does Darwin come into this. I thought I was clear, but forget about Darwin. The point was "Empowering people and giving them control over their destinies". No one cares more about the success of their schools than the parents and the surrounding communities. Another example of my "rhetoric" getting in the way of my point.
In response to your second comment please see my follow up post for specific reasons.
Abolish the RPS Part 2
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