We need to eliminate the welfare state we have become. If there is any arguement to keep them, then they should all be shifted to private organizations whre results are checked by the folks no longer on the dole rather than the other way around.
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2008, AND THEREAFTER
Black Education
"Hard Times at Douglass High," is an HBO documentary that aired last June. It captured much of the 2004-2005 school year at Baltimore's predominantly black Frederick Douglass High School. The tragedy is that what is seen in the documentary is typical of most predominantly black urban schools.
Douglass' students are four to five years below grade level. Most of its ninth-graders read at the third-, fourth- or fifth-grade levels. In 2006, only 24 percent of its students tested proficient in reading, in math just 11 percent, and that's an improvement over previous years. Only one student managed to score above 1,000 on the SAT and another student scored 440 out of 1,600. You get 400 points for just writing in your name. Out of its 1,100 students, 200 to 300 are absent each day. Many of those who do show up don't do so on time; they roam the hallways and leave the school during the day. Only one-half of the school's 500 incoming freshmen ninth-graders return for their sophomore year and far fewer remain for graduation
Sixty-six percent of the teachers are uncertified. Even if there were no certified teacher shortage, I doubt whether many teachers with attractive alternatives would want to teach at the school. Douglass High School is not a place for teachers with high expectations for their students. English teacher Mr. McDermott resigned in the middle of the school year saying, "Teaching becomes secondary, and discipline is the main thing that goes on. I don't feel like I'm making a difference anymore."
Cameras followed then-principal Isabelle Grant on her visit to the home of a chronically absent student. The student who reads at the fifth- or sixth-grade level is promised that if she attends school regularly she'll be promoted to the 11th grade. It is impossible to eliminate such a reading deficit in a semester. Teachers are pressured into passing failing students. The documentary showed that within a few days of graduation time the school went from having 138 eligible graduates to 200. Promoting and graduating students who haven't made the grade is nothing short of academic fraud.
Douglass High School teachers and staff appeared to be concerned and caring people, but the poor quality educational outcomes demonstrate that concern and caring is not enough. The virtually empty classrooms, filmed on back-to-school night, suggested little parental interest in their children's education. School day behavior demonstrated little student interest. Some students spent class time laughing, joking and tussling with one another. Others had their heads lying on their desks or appeared uninterested in the teacher's discussion. Many of those engaged in student-teacher exchange on academic topics showed very limited reasoning ability.
Frederick Douglass was founded in 1883 as the Colored High and Training School before it was renamed. It is one of the nation's oldest historically black high schools. It was a draw for Baltimore's brightest black students. Success stories among its alumni include Thurgood Marshall, Cab Calloway, as well as several judges, congressmen and civil rights leaders. I guarantee you that if Douglass High student test scores of that earlier era were available, they wouldn't show today's achievement gap. Also, a 1940s or '50s Douglass High graduate would find no comparison between student behavior during their school years and that shown in the documentary.
Politicians and the teaching establishment say more money, smaller classes and newer buildings are necessary for black academic excellence. At Frederick Douglass' founding, it didn't have the resources available today. If blacks can achieve at a time when there was far greater poverty, gross discrimination and fewer opportunities, what says blacks cannot achieve today? Whether we want to own up to it or not, the welfare state has done what Jim Crow, gross discrimination and poverty could not have done. It has contributed to the breakdown of the black family structure and has helped establish a set of values alien to traditional values of high moral standards, hard work and achievement.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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John Adams “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
RE: It's time to phase out the liberal 60's programs
Interesting article, and he does make a legitimate point or two. That said, if welfare is the cause for the breakdown in minority family life, I don't think telling them to 'tough it out' is going to fix anything. Having briefly spent time teaching such an environment (and plenty more teaching dirt poor white kids), I can safely say that smaller class sizes ARE the answer on the teaching end. The fewer the kids in the room, the less mob mentality they seem to get, an the harder they seem to work. Take a class with 26 kids in it that is absolutely wild, and send half out to work elsewhere, and all of the sudden, the troublemakers start to loose theirbelligerence, and the better students start to speak up.
I think if you REALLY want to change poverty stricken areas in this country, you do need to par down class sizes, and start creating an environment where you can actually teach, and the kids can learn without ridicule, ore worrying about submitting to group pressure. Get the kids into a position where they are receptive to a quality education, and the welfare problem solves itself in a generation or two.
RE: It's time to phase out the liberal 60's programs
Quote:
ORIGINAL: MagnumMan308
Interesting article, and he does make a legitimate point or two. That said, if welfare is the cause for the breakdown in minority family life, I don't think telling them to 'tough it out' is going to fix anything. Having briefly spent time teaching such an environment (and plenty more teaching dirt poor white kids), I can safely say that smaller class sizes ARE the answer on the teaching end. The fewer the kids in the room, the less mob mentality they seem to get, an the harder they seem to work. Take a class with 26 kids in it that is absolutely wild, and send half out to work elsewhere, and all of the sudden, the troublemakers start to loose theirbelligerence, and the better students start to speak up.
I think if you REALLY want to change poverty stricken areas in this country, you do need to par down class sizes, and start creating an environment where you can actually teach, and the kids can learn without ridicule, ore worrying about submitting to group pressure. Get the kids into a position where they are receptive to a quality education, and the welfare problem solves itself in a generation or two.
Just my .02
Please post where we rank in the rest of the world in regards to class size? I believe we already spend more per pupil and have some of the smallest class size amongst our peers yet we rank far below them in quality of education.
We plain and simple need school choice in the US. Let the ones who want to do good be grouped with each other. Those that want to cut up give them a shovel. Some of those who use that shovel will find a better way. The others, aren't our responsibility unless they scrw up. They get free room and board at the local jail.
__________________
John Adams “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
RE: It's time to phase out the liberal 60's programs
Quote:
[blockquote]quote:
Let the ones who want to do good be grouped with each other. [/blockquote]
Didn't you just post an article showing that's what we have today?
You just completely lost me once again. Please explain?
Magnum, wants to par good kids with bad kids in the hopes that the good would run off. That's not fair to the good kids or the teachers who want to make a difference.
__________________
John Adams “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
RE: It's time to phase out the liberal 60's programs
Quote:
You just completely lost me once again. Please explain?
Look at the school stats in that article... Now go look at Berkeley High or any other school that's in a rich or middle class area.
This is the 10th Amendment in action.
I'm messing with you a tad though. What's wrong with the school? How are poor countries turning out better students? Well, it's mainly due to the subject matter that gets taught or lack thereof. Why are the funds for schools so skewed that the better high schools have all the scholarships, AP credits, and cc connections to get college units in high school?
RE: It's time to phase out the liberal 60's programs
Personally, I think a high percentage of the cause of academic success is cultural. There are at least two, maybe more, dimensions to this cultural influence. The first dimension I'm thinking of is the expectations placed upon the students by their parents. If parents are engaged, know what academic success looks like, know what the grounds for academic success are, and set high but achievable academic expectations on their children -- backed by the threat of restricted privileges and close monitoring of progress -- low and behold, children do well academically. The second dimension I'm thinking of is the expectations not particularly of the parents but of the community. Asians, for example, as a community place high importance on academic performance and asian kids just expect to bust butt and excel in school.
If you follow the course Magnum is describing -- smaller class sizes -- I grant you will see improvement, but it isn't going to compare very favorably to what I describe above. I'm not sure smaller class sizes populated with children of high school graduates in the lower 50% of their high school graduating class who are working class poor is going to produce too many 2000+ SAT scores.
I'm not very positive about our success with public education in the US. It succeeds in some places; it fails miserably in others. Money doesn't seem to solve the problem.
This is not my expertise, but I would be interested in knowing what success other countries have and why. For example, does France do better? Do poor kids from poor rural families do substantially better, on average, than poor kids from poor rural families in the US? If so, what seems to be different?
At least part of our problem in the US is that some of our poor are so ignorant and backwards they have no concept of the value of education, the value of hard work, the value of differal of present pleasure for future good, even the notion of planning a long term strategy and executing it. They are barbarians. These are not moral qualities, so I am not insulting these people -- at least I am not intending to insult them -- but rather just characterizing them. I think that it is at least a little interesting that some of these barbarians seem to disparage and look down upon any behaviors or acts that would constitute a higher civilization, which is at least part of the cause of their academic problems.
RE: It's time to phase out the liberal 60's programs
Quote:
Personally, I think a high percentage of the cause of academic success is cultural. There are at least two, maybe more, dimensions to this cultural influence. The first dimension I'm thinking of is the expectations placed upon the students by their parents. If parents are engaged, know what academic success looks like, know what the grounds for academic success are, and set high but achievable academic expectations on their children -- backed by the threat of restricted privileges and close monitoring of progress -- low and behold, children do well academically. The second dimension I'm thinking of is the expectations not particularly of the parents but of the community. Asians, for example, as a community place high importance on academic performance and asian kids just expect to bust butt and excel in school.
Another thing to add...
IQ generally goes like Asians > Whites > Mexicans > Blacks
RE: It's time to phase out the liberal 60's programs
Quote:
ORIGINAL: Fieldmouse
Magnum, wants to par good kids with bad kids in the hopes that the good would run off. That's not fair to the good kids or the teachers who want to make a difference.
I don't recall saying that.
In my experience, it doesn't matter what the kids are like in a large group, put them in a smaller one, where the teacher stands more prominently, and all the sudden, billybaddass becomes a whole order of magnitude milder and meeker. Its hard to act out when you don't have a large group to back you up. Likewise, someone who develops the 'niche' of being the jerk in the crowd no longer has that calling when in a smaller group. In fact, all of the sudden, he stands out like a sore thumb, and his classmates will even start to call him out.
I think Honors classes are a positive thing, and I think our current school funding system is ok for the most part (rich school districts get alot more perks for their kids; so what, they're paying the taxes). BUT, I do think you could turn a good number of inner city, and even dirt poor country folk around with smaller, as in 15 kids, class sizes. In a room with that much supervision, and that little egging on and group pressure, it is hard to act out, and easy to go with the teachers flow, and get your work done.
RE: It's time to phase out the liberal 60's programs
Yep, many US school systems are struggling. Then the feds, lead by Kennedy and Junior Bush, had to get their long snoopy noses in the business of county educationwith their No Child LeftBehind law. NCLB does notimprove the standing of class members in the lower tier of the grading system. Rather,NCLBdrags the entire class down to the level of the worst student.
This crap started decades ago with the appointment of a "secretary of education" at the federal level.The feds need to stay the hell out of county school systems.
It's time to phase out the liberal 60's programs
