Sunday, June 22, 2008

“Is it white flight? Some might want to create their own homogeneous population. You can’t ignore that that might be one of the possibilities,” Turner

Maybe a large and growing village wants to regain local control of its schools, like perhaps the Oak Creek School District or the Cudahy School District or the South Milwaukee School District...all east of I-94 in Milwaukee County.

http://www.journaltimes.com/articles/2008/06/22/local_news/doc485dd49a14f24741493504.txt

6 comments:

AvengingAngel said...

I posted this on the JT site, but, who knows, someone might find it "offensive".

What nonsense. Are there no black people living in Caledonia? Myself, and others like me, want secession because we are tired of RUSD stealing or tax dollars for NOTHING.

More and MORE money goes down the drain with NOTHING to show for it. The "white flight" is just a red herring put forth buy the agenda driven.

Blaming Bush is also a favorite of the idiotic left. When are you going to realize that it is incompetance coupled with the teacher's union that created and

Anonymous said...

"White flight" is playing the race card. All the school districts mentioned from SE Wisconsin has a high degree of diverse minority representation. The Angel is correct. It comes down to people in their own localities wanting to control their own expenses. After all, before there was a "Unified" School district, there was a patch work of smaller independent schools. You can drive around the area and see the names over the doors on the old schoolhouses that are still standing.

kkdither said...

I disagree gentlemen.

I don't think you can discount the "white flight" theory. In your mind, maybe it has more to do with money, incompetence, etc. (there certainly is that in RUSD) And that is great that you don't feel prejudiced or racist. However, there are many, many small minded people that race plays an issue. You can't ignore that. We as a society can't ignore that.

While I understand totally the want to protect your children and give them the very best, I worry that if the cream, the upper level students, are taken away from Unified, we will be left with much bigger problems that the city and surrounding communities will have to deal with. I think the focus should be to make all the schools better, not to run away from the poor urban problems and hide in the suburbs.

As a parent and someone who works in the schools, I made the choice to put my children through RUSD schools. My children benefited in so many ways that their college peers have not. They truly understand diversity and how to deal with all types of people. I think they will have an insight and more value to their community when finally entering the "real world."

Anonymous said...

Good morning KK.
Then you will have to include a degree of Black flight, Hispanic fligh and so on. There are families in those groups that are taking advantage of open enrollment and charter schools for the same reasons.
It isn't all the Shangrila in the suburb districts either. They get their share of fights drugs busts, bomb scares and brats that makes a teachers life miserable.

Nice hair.

educationreform said...

http://data.dpi.state.wi.us/data/graphshell.asp?Group=Race/Ethnicity&GraphFile=GROUPS&DETAIL=YES&CompareTo=PRIORYEARS&STYP=9&ORGLEVEL=DI&FULLKEY=01462003ZZZZ&DN=Racine&SN=Show+Schools

Bailers said...

KK,
Respectfully, the focus shouldn't be about the schools, it should be the kids. I know the two are connected, but the first statement is usually the schools need to be better for the kids. If the focus is on the kids, the fact that the schools may be loosing the best and brightest doesn't matter. In the long run, it may even be better.
There should be different tracks in schools, so the top performers are not restricted by the lower performers, and the kids that need the most help aren't forced to sit quietly for fear of being labled "dumb". At the high school level, every kid is put down the same path, when we all know that not every kid belongs in the college bound track. Someone who is going to be an electrician, carpenter, auto mechanic, etc, should not be forced to sit through 3 or 4 years of science, when a broad based class would do just as well. Conversely, I could have cared less about some of the extra classes that I was forced to take (gym primarily) but having more advanced courses would have been great. Different perspectives, different interests. Pretending, as schools do, that all kids are the same is counter-productive.

Diversity is not something that schools should be trying to teach. I will never understand where a central city kid is coming from, just as they wouldn't have understood me growing up in the west suburbs. Its a utopian fantasy to think the only way to really learn is to be surrounded by different perspectives and races, sexes, blah blah blah. I went to school in fairly homogenous settings, and don't seem to have too much problem today. But that is because my parents taught be to treat each person with respect, and my religon taught me to be sympathetic to the needs and desires of my fellow man.

BUT, I'll never understand womankind. Just ask my wife.