tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post884920656828482037..comments2024-03-27T07:18:39.229-05:00Comments on In Medias Res: Goodbye to BusingUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-82678053630359469792008-02-14T12:45:00.000-06:002008-02-14T12:45:00.000-06:00John, thanks for that thoughtful, thorough comment...John, thanks for that thoughtful, thorough comment. The schools systems of American are so variable, and so overladen (and also often overburdened) with concerns and agendas both local and national and in between, that anything general about them is general. I appreciate the insight into Mobile's particular system very much.<BR/><BR/><I>The student population in the public schools, due to white flight into the well-established parochial school system and the Protestant-church schools that, not entirely coincidentally, started appearing just about the time desegregation orders began to be issued for Southern districts, is essentially homogeneous: around 70% African-American.</I><BR/><BR/>This is pretty much exactly what we observed, at least for elementary schools, when we lived in Starkville, MS, back in 2001-2002. The city was perhaps 1/3 African-American; yet when we enrolled Megan in kindergarten, we found out that a 90%-10% black-white ratio held for all their classes. It seems there were, throughout the county, numerous "Christian" academies that had been set up in the 60s and 70s, and these had been, for years, used as a refuge by white families used to get their kids out of the public school system. I doubt there was much if any actual racism left in their admission policies; lawsuits would have long since taken care of that. But the pattern had by then been locked in: alumni connections, grade expectations, and general social exclusiveness kept these Protestant schools overwhelmingly white, while the public schools in town oriented themselves to the needs of the black "majority."<BR/><BR/><I>I can't say this is true of all their peers, but my daughters' respective sets of friends are likewise desegregated--but also, given the emphasis on academics in the magnet schools, their friends and their friends' parents also (fortunately) happen to be decent people, period. Given that puberty looms on the horizon, Whew!, you know? Times being what they are for parents of children (girls in particular), friends' skin color becomes less relevant--which, of course, is as it should be anyway.</I><BR/><BR/>Yes, we've been thinking about this as Megan now heads into middle school, and the others come right along. I'm worried, slightly; by moving to the west side of Wichita, and finding a neighborhood where the elementary school, the middle school, and the high school are all in walking/bike riding distance, we seem to have unknowingly gotten ourselves in fairly homogeneous situation here. Not that it's like we live in Goddard or Maize or some other suburban paradise further west, but still, this is the whitest school district I think our kids have ever been in. I'm mostly happy that they're making the friends they are: friends that will, for the most part I think, be a help rather than a hindrance to us as we teach them what choices to make; everything else is less important right now. But still, it may be, especially as the end of busing here reverberates out and touches many other elements of Wichita life, that I'll find myself worrying about this issue more and more.Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-28337718989264972602008-02-14T06:53:00.000-06:002008-02-14T06:53:00.000-06:00The desegregation system in Mobile, AL, where my d...The desegregation system in Mobile, AL, where my daughters live (they, too are in the public school system, and for the same reasons you offer), is somewhat similar to Wichita's: for the elementary and middle-schoolers, students have the option of attending a neighborhood school or entering a lottery for the magnet schools; the magnet schools' populations are selected from those applicants based on a combination of race and gender proportions, and on a set percentage of spaces reserved for kids in what would ordinarily be that school's district. Continued enrollment in the magnet schools is tied to academic performance. Competition to get into the magnet schools is fierce--if not selected, parents will reapply for, in some cases, several years before either getting in or giving up, the schools are the best in the district, public or private or parochial, and are among the very best in the state. The high schools, meanwhile, are technically "neighborhood" schools, but the district map I saw once revealed that somebody on the school board has a rather gerrymandered sense of what a "neighborhood" looks like. So, yeah: there's de facto busing in Mobile.<BR/><BR/>When the Seattle and Louisville decisions came down, I too wondered how those decisions would affect Mobile's system. While I still lived there in the late '90s, the board petitioned and was granted permission to no longer be obligated by the courts to be mandated to desegregate its schools. But its current system, so far as I can tell, is so popular that the board continues it. And, truth be told, the student population in the public schools, due to white flight into the well-established parochial school system and the Protestant-church schools that, not entirely coincidentally, started appearing just about the time desegregation orders began to be issued for Southern districts, is essentially homogeneous: around 70% African-American.<BR/><BR/>Like you, I have profoundly mixed feelings about the means by which districts desegregate their schools but certainly do approve of the end, even as I rather nostalgically long for the "neighborhood school" system of my youth; likewise, my girls' mother and I approve of public schools, and my daughters (both in the magnet school program since kindergarten and currently in 7th and 5th grade) have been very well-served by this system--and not just academically. I can't say this is true of all their peers, but my daughters' respective sets of friends are likewise desegregated--but also, given the emphasis on academics in the magnet schools, their friends and their friends' parents also (fortunately) happen to be decent people, period. Given that puberty looms on the horizon, Whew!, you know? Times being what they are for parents of children (girls in particular), friends' skin color becomes less relevant--which, of course, is as it should be anyway.<BR/><BR/>Sorry for the long-windedness here. I just wanted to acknowledge that the institution of the Public School raises all sorts of questions about our vision of ourselves as a nation and society and so always will be a source of tensions between/among competing interests. So far as I can tell, though, in Mobile, at least--a city still very segregated socially--the schools have not been nearly the flashpoint that they have been in other cities, north and south, and students--and, I'd hope, on down the road a generation or two, the community--have been the direct beneficiaries of that calmness.John B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.com