FadeTheButcher
09-06-2004, 02:59 AM
I will use this thread to respond to some of Lenny's false claims about desegregation/integration. So stay tuned.
:: Integration has nothing to do with DC schools. Most DC schools are all-Black, not integrated. You can't blame integration for school failure if the schools are not integrated. All of the schools in DC except a few are all-Black. Also, white parents don't "pull their kids out of integrated schools". I don't know where you get that idea.
Lenny seems to be manifestly in familiar with the history of public education in Washington, DC:
"Seeing the Warren court seize such powers, lower courts began to push the envelope. In 1967, U.S. District Judge J. Skelly Wright declared that D>C. public schools, though desegregated, were still denying equal opportunity by operating a "track system" that permitted brighter students to proceed at a faster pace. Wright order the track system abolished. Superintendent Carl Hansen resigned. By 1970, most white students were gone. Today, minority childen make up 96 percent of the student body and test scores are the lowest in the nation, though per-pupil spending is near the nation's highest."
Patrick Buchanan, Where the Right Went Wrong (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004), p.221
So D.C. schools were desegregated after all. Was that always the case?
"That the 14th Amendment did not outlaw segregation was obvious. That amendment was approved by a Congress that presided over the segregated schools of Washington, D.C. But the Warren Court, fed up with the torpor of the democratic process, decided to desgregated America -- by court order."
Ibid., p.215
:: Most DC schools have always been predominantly Black.
This is false. D.C. schools were predominantly white in the 1940s.
"Congressional regulations stipulated that school funds in the District should be allocated between the races according to the ration of black and white students, as reported in the most recent census. This method of allocation prevented gross inequity but failed to take account of a major trend.
For twenty years there had been a noticeable exodus of whites to nearby suburbs in Maryland and Virginia, and many whites who remained in the district sent their children to private schools. At the same time, a growing number of black families, many with school-age children moved into the District, and between 1930 and 1950 the proportion of black students in the public schools increased from 33 percent to 50 percent."
Raymond Wolters, The Burden of Brown: Thirty Years of School Desegregation (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984), p.10
:: The fact remains that DC schools are not integrated (since most are all Black), so blaming poor school performance on integration doesn't make sense.
And this changed, in large part caused by court ordered desegregation, hence the 'failure of integration':
"Why did many white students depart from the public schools white blacks moved into the District? The change in the capital's racial composition had begun two decades before the schools were desegregated, and similar changes were occuring in cities throughout the nation, including some that never experienced massive integration. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to conclude that desegregation was not a major factor in the shift. After the Bolling decision, the rate of white withdrawal from the public schools tripled. Between 1949 and 1953 white enrollments had declined by about 4,000 students; between 1954 and 1958, white enrollments had declined by almost 12,000 students. The District abandoned segregation, but white parents and students then abandoned the District (Table 1). The 500,000 blacks in the city included ten times as many school-age children as the 250,000 whites, Joseph Alsop noted in 1967. No such result "could conceivably have been produced in the normal course of events. It means, beyond question, that just about every white couple . . . has moved to the suburbs, at least as soon as it came time to send the children to school." Washington was on its way to becoming the nation's first predominantly black big-city school system. . .
. . . In retrospect, it is clear that desegregation in Washington was one phase in a chain of events that led finally to an almost all-black, resegregated public school system. This was not so evident in the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, and District officials mounted a spirited campaign to make desegregation a success. To head this effort they chose Carl F. Hansen, an experienced educator who combined administrative expertise with a deep and abiding commitment to desegregated education."
Ibid., pp.16-17
:: Half of them are falling apart! They are definitely underfunded compared to other schools in the country
This is nonsense. In fact, the Federal District has one of the highest rates of per pupil expenditures in the nation."
In 1996, New Jersey had the highest rate of per pupil expenditures, however, it did not participate in the NAEP tests. The District of Columbia had the second highest rate of per pupil expenditures and ranked last in NAEPs eigth grade math test. On the other hand, Iowa, Maine, North Dakota, and Minnesota had the highest NAEP scroes, but ranked twenty eighth, eighteenth, forty fourth, and twenty seventh, respectively, in terms of per pupil expenditures.
Bill Bennett, Index of Leading Cultural Indicators
:: Whites left DC for reasons unrelated to integration.
Raymond Wolters demonstrates otherwise in his study, cited above.
:: DC schools have always been majority Black. At one time there were more Whites than there are now, but most of them left because DC is a lousy place to live, not because of Integration.
This is false. D.C. schools were 47.6 percent white in 1951 and were majority white prior to court-ordered desegregation in the Federal District. Furthermore, desegregation had absolutely everything to do with why whites pulled their children out of D.C. public schools.
:: Integration has nothing to do with DC schools. Most DC schools are all-Black, not integrated. You can't blame integration for school failure if the schools are not integrated. All of the schools in DC except a few are all-Black. Also, white parents don't "pull their kids out of integrated schools". I don't know where you get that idea.
Lenny seems to be manifestly in familiar with the history of public education in Washington, DC:
"Seeing the Warren court seize such powers, lower courts began to push the envelope. In 1967, U.S. District Judge J. Skelly Wright declared that D>C. public schools, though desegregated, were still denying equal opportunity by operating a "track system" that permitted brighter students to proceed at a faster pace. Wright order the track system abolished. Superintendent Carl Hansen resigned. By 1970, most white students were gone. Today, minority childen make up 96 percent of the student body and test scores are the lowest in the nation, though per-pupil spending is near the nation's highest."
Patrick Buchanan, Where the Right Went Wrong (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004), p.221
So D.C. schools were desegregated after all. Was that always the case?
"That the 14th Amendment did not outlaw segregation was obvious. That amendment was approved by a Congress that presided over the segregated schools of Washington, D.C. But the Warren Court, fed up with the torpor of the democratic process, decided to desgregated America -- by court order."
Ibid., p.215
:: Most DC schools have always been predominantly Black.
This is false. D.C. schools were predominantly white in the 1940s.
"Congressional regulations stipulated that school funds in the District should be allocated between the races according to the ration of black and white students, as reported in the most recent census. This method of allocation prevented gross inequity but failed to take account of a major trend.
For twenty years there had been a noticeable exodus of whites to nearby suburbs in Maryland and Virginia, and many whites who remained in the district sent their children to private schools. At the same time, a growing number of black families, many with school-age children moved into the District, and between 1930 and 1950 the proportion of black students in the public schools increased from 33 percent to 50 percent."
Raymond Wolters, The Burden of Brown: Thirty Years of School Desegregation (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984), p.10
:: The fact remains that DC schools are not integrated (since most are all Black), so blaming poor school performance on integration doesn't make sense.
And this changed, in large part caused by court ordered desegregation, hence the 'failure of integration':
"Why did many white students depart from the public schools white blacks moved into the District? The change in the capital's racial composition had begun two decades before the schools were desegregated, and similar changes were occuring in cities throughout the nation, including some that never experienced massive integration. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to conclude that desegregation was not a major factor in the shift. After the Bolling decision, the rate of white withdrawal from the public schools tripled. Between 1949 and 1953 white enrollments had declined by about 4,000 students; between 1954 and 1958, white enrollments had declined by almost 12,000 students. The District abandoned segregation, but white parents and students then abandoned the District (Table 1). The 500,000 blacks in the city included ten times as many school-age children as the 250,000 whites, Joseph Alsop noted in 1967. No such result "could conceivably have been produced in the normal course of events. It means, beyond question, that just about every white couple . . . has moved to the suburbs, at least as soon as it came time to send the children to school." Washington was on its way to becoming the nation's first predominantly black big-city school system. . .
. . . In retrospect, it is clear that desegregation in Washington was one phase in a chain of events that led finally to an almost all-black, resegregated public school system. This was not so evident in the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, and District officials mounted a spirited campaign to make desegregation a success. To head this effort they chose Carl F. Hansen, an experienced educator who combined administrative expertise with a deep and abiding commitment to desegregated education."
Ibid., pp.16-17
:: Half of them are falling apart! They are definitely underfunded compared to other schools in the country
This is nonsense. In fact, the Federal District has one of the highest rates of per pupil expenditures in the nation."
In 1996, New Jersey had the highest rate of per pupil expenditures, however, it did not participate in the NAEP tests. The District of Columbia had the second highest rate of per pupil expenditures and ranked last in NAEPs eigth grade math test. On the other hand, Iowa, Maine, North Dakota, and Minnesota had the highest NAEP scroes, but ranked twenty eighth, eighteenth, forty fourth, and twenty seventh, respectively, in terms of per pupil expenditures.
Bill Bennett, Index of Leading Cultural Indicators
:: Whites left DC for reasons unrelated to integration.
Raymond Wolters demonstrates otherwise in his study, cited above.
:: DC schools have always been majority Black. At one time there were more Whites than there are now, but most of them left because DC is a lousy place to live, not because of Integration.
This is false. D.C. schools were 47.6 percent white in 1951 and were majority white prior to court-ordered desegregation in the Federal District. Furthermore, desegregation had absolutely everything to do with why whites pulled their children out of D.C. public schools.