HARRISON BERGERON Berkeley-style

[mallorys_camera]

Seems to me that Pol Pot and Mao Tse Tung already tried this interesting educational experiment a few years back.

Didn't work out so great for them.

Ya gotta enjoy the logic though. Get rid of the achievement gap by getting rid of achievement!

Comments

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

I smell a rat.

Suggesting that resources will be 'taken away' from white students and allocated to undeserving, intellectually inferior coloreds will of course create a huge backlash. They'll back off on this proposal, and when the dust settles no one will notice that science programs have been cut back across the board.

It cracks me up how sanctimonious people can get about "saaaving the childruuuuhn' from a glimpse of Janet Jackson's boob, but when it comes to spending a little money on their education, forget it.

Seems to me that Pol Pot and Mao Tse Tung already tried this interesting educational experiment a few years back.

When did this happen? I didn't know they even had any black people in Cambodia.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I don't see it as a black/white issue at all.

I see it as the decimation of an educational system. Gotta hand it to California! They've managed to turn one of the country's best public education systems into #50 with a bullet in less than 30 years!

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

California seems to me like kind of pilot project for ungovernability, but is their ed. system really number 50? Last I heard that dubious honor belonged to Mississippi (with Alabama, whose slogan should be "thank god for Mississippi," at 49). Of course, I haven't checked the ratings since Katrina.

Louisiana (#48 in 2005) is 'moving up,' supposedly due to a rash of charter schools post K. I do a lot of outreach stuff in the system and I can tell you from personal experience the the Orleans Parish public school system is a disgrace, with leaky roofs, non-functioning A/C, and students 'sharing' tattered, outdated textbooks. Children are not fools. Give them schools like that and they can see clear as beer piss that the adults in charge couldn't give a flying fuck about them or their education. Gang life and drug dealing looks pretty attractive next to that.

There's no mystery at all about why this is the case here. The OP Recovery School district is 98% black. When schools were desegregated here in the early 60s, white people decided they'd rather either flee the parish or put their kids in private schools rather than have them educated with n**gers, simple as that.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Actually I was parroting someone who may not have done their research when I dubbed California #50. Quick Google search makes me think it's holding on in the low forties. Its math scores are among the lowest in the nation -- only Mississippi and Alabama are worse. But maybe there are still a few kids who read. And really, who needs maht? If God had wanted you to know math, He wouldn't have given you all those fingers and toes to count with, right?

white people decided they'd rather either flee the parish or put their kids in private schools

Same thing is happening in California. It's a thorny issue from a parent's point of view. It was actually part of my decision to relocate. In New York the public schools are still pretty good because they teach to the Regents exams.

p.s.

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

Have you read Richard Perlstein's "Nixonland"? There's some wonderfully depressing secondary material on the decline of post-secondary education in CA in the last 30 years as well. It is now virtually impossible to get a ood university education in Cali, unless you're rich.

Re: p.s.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Have not read Nixonland but will add it to my list.

It is now virtually impossible to get a ood university education in Cali, unless you're rich.

I know. I put myself through UC Berkeley. Sometimes I had to work two jobs to do it. That would be impossible today.

My oldest kid got lucky and after going to a strange little college called Deep Springs -- look it up some time, I think it would fascinate you -- lucked out and won a full ride to Stanford. God knows, I'd never be able to send him there, not even if I sold both kidneys and my liver.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

But if you are taking the ethnic view of things, ya gotta love how the proposal reclassifies Asians as "white."

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Despite the pseudoleftie shenanigans of the proposal (which is horrid and being criticized all over the city), the comments section of that article is a nice 60% Klan rally. And they agree! Why educate the blacks...

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Couldn't make it through the comments section which I agree was flypaper for racist wingnuts.

But I am appalled by the proposal. And am glad to hear it's being criticized.