<p><a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/28/BAGQRQN0PE11.DTL[/url]”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/28/BAGQRQN0PE11.DTL</a></p>
<p>The court decided, by 5 to 4 (with Kennedy writing the important note), that race CAN be used as a factor in school choice. What is not clear is how they can do it, and can’t do so by the methods used in the two school districts.</p>
<p>I haven’t read the text of the decision, but news reports seem to say that the matter is just as muddled now as before the lawsuit was initiated. And whatever the decision, the Seattle Public School District was bound to confuse, alienate and depress all interested parties.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think Separate but Equal is the way forward for our country. Not.</p>
<p>Radical conservatives: The gift that keeps giving. (Heaven help us all.)</p>
<p>I liked this blogger’s assessment of it:
<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;
<p>Yes, mini, but the Court decided that race could not be the ONLY factor in school assignments. That’s the big difference from the status quo, which includes hundreds of schools within particular districts, which had heretofore used a straight racial-balance formula to achieve diversity. </p>
<p>I’m very conflicted about it. On the one hand, I think the 1.5 hr bus rides to distant schools are a little over the top. OTOH, it has historically made a huge difference in black achievement to be among white peers, and I can see many of the reasons for that. In fact, there are particular networks of charter site schools that promote minority matriculation to wealthier & less-minority boarding prep schools for precisely the reason of better exposure & an opportunity for better academics.</p>
<p>“Yes, mini, but the Court decided that race could not be the ONLY factor in school assignments.”</p>
<p>No, that simply is not true as a factual matter. Seattle School District had ALREADY decided that in putting the system into effect. Race was only one of several tiebreakers they were allowed to use.</p>
<p>The real question is whether we continue to accept as a society the core notion laid out in Brown v. Board of Ed., that “separate is inherently unequal”. The Court narrowly seems to say that continues to be the case; as a society, we are conflicted as to whether that “should” be the case; but as you suggest, factually it seems to be.</p>
<p>after hearing the attorney from Washington himself try and explain his motivations, I do believe they wanted to do away with Brown vs Education at its core, from his own wishwashy, gobblegock reasons</p>
<p>scary scary stuff</p>
<p>when asked if all white or all black schools would be okay with him if that was the result, he basically said, yes</p>
<p>this ruling is just one more thing that will embarrass us to the world</p>
<p>Let’s not go overboard: public schools are more segregated today than at any time since the early 1970s, and much more so everywhere but in the South. This is strictly an impact of increasing residential segregation, coupled with the growth of close-to-all-white private schools. We place an awfully great burden on schools to use our kids to redress a problem that the rest of us as adults, as a whole, refuse to admit, let alone redress.</p>
<p>what it has to do with is $$…and a justification for charter schools and federal funding for religious schools</p>
<p>mark my word, that will be the next step, with the overall plan to decimate public school $$</p>
<p>it is happening already, and this ruling will push things in that direction</p>
<p>Mini: Public schools are indeed more segregated that at any time in history, but is that a good reason to take away local or state tools which may attempt to change that? Ultimately, eliminating school district lines that start and stop at wealthier suburbs may be the only answer, but it will never in a million years be a broad solution.</p>
<p>Now we may be able to look forward to even more segregation - indeed possibly eliminating the only decent option many African American families have in their urban school district - that being entrance to the “better” but competitive magnet or charter school. We could end up with the very bad urban high schools all black, and the better magnet or charter schools all white. It’s all about resources, again.</p>
<p>Oh, you have no argument from me. Necessary, but far, very far, so far, from sufficient, and the arguments put forward by the opponents of desegregation to me indicate even more strongly how we need to beyond schools.</p>
<p>“We could end up with the very bad urban high schools all black, and the better magnet or charter schools all white.”</p>
<p>Like Los Angeles, you mean. In the Seattle case, the Court did not rule on magnet schools per se. It is theoretically possible to open up magnets ONLY in minority neighborhoods (there have been Florida districts that have done this, I think, with technology magnets) and attract white students to those schools.</p>
<p>We need to understand that in the Seattle case, the Supreme Court struck down a practice that had already been abandoned years ago.</p>
<p>Seattle’s best academic magnet HS is located in what was once the lowest income inner city neighborhood. Demographic changes have made the area much more upscale today with many of the poor moving south to the cheaper suburbs of Tukwila and Renton. Things change over time.</p>
<p>It will be a long time before the rich people start moving into our inner city. LOL In the meantime, the poor kids attend the most pathetic schools and it really makes me feel bad. As if they don’t have enough strikes against them…</p>
<p>It’s just troubling to me how many decisions lately are coming down 5-4, and it’s always the same 5 and the same 4. Especially some of the decisions lately, that have departed from precedent without a good reason or much explanation. (Not a comment on this case in particular, I am not that familiar with this one).</p>
<p>“We could end up with the very bad urban high schools all black, and the better magnet or charter schools all white. It’s all about resources, again.”</p>
<p>^^ depends on the population of the region, of course. Here’s what’s available in my region, in urban locales & low-rent suburbs:</p>
<p>(1) poorly performing schools which are almost entirely minority.</p>
<p>(2) only slightly better performing schools- a few of those being charters. However, note that the charter site schools, created as they are to serve particular populations (often), with particulars needs & preferences, are often quite ethnically homogeneous. They are either overwhelmingly African-American or overwhelmingly Latino. (Lately, I have not seen any balanced mixes of even these 2 groups.)</p>
<p>(3) highly performing charter schools which are decidedly different in structure & expectations than other charters & definitely than traditional site schools. It is actually quite refreshing to teach in these schools, because one can actually, well,…teach. Strong discipline, no nonsense, & no enabling of non-English languages within the classroom day/curriculum. Again, though, these schools, like #2 above, are often ethnically quite homogeneous. The performance in these schools is most like what a mid-level public school was in my day, consisting then of a middle class student body, consisting now (sometimes) of a slightly lower-SES student body. </p>
<h1>'s (1) through (3) above are obviously quite “segregated” via de facto economic segregation. Similarly, naturally, the heavily white & Asian high-rent suburbs are economically segregated.</h1>
<p>Want to know which school segment is the most integrated, actually? The public charter homeschool segment. This segment, while not perfect, attracts portions of all ethnic groups --including middle-class whites & Asians–who have not the funds for a private school alternative, who are fed up with the State’s priorities (& preference for administration over teaching), and/or do not have a local alternative such as #3 above. (Or are on a waiting list for such a #3)</p>
<p>Maybe it’s time to term limit the supreme court? As they rush to turn back history to 1950 where anybody of brown skin “knew” their place along with women… now we know why some of those justices held on as long as they could through this administration. </p>
<p>10 years-15 years max. then turn em out. Bong hits for Jesus? please. learn to laugh</p>
<p>I think John Roberts take on the issue was near perfect. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race”.</p>
<p>Isn’t it ironic that those who shout the loudest that they abhor discrimination are the same ones who are at the head of the line in demanding it?</p>
<p>You really think “separate but equal” wasn’t discrimination?</p>
<p>Sometime you should look into which schools got the new textbooks and which ones, the discards, or which students walked miles to school because the school bus was only for the other kids.</p>
<p>In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a “whites only” shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn’t sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn’t care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.whileseated.org/photo/003244.shtml[/url]”>http://www.whileseated.org/photo/003244.shtml</a></p>