Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    Kate,
    
    I believe that much of what you see is side-effects of many things:
    poverty, lack of education, etc.  Minorties in poverty cannot afford
    schooling above rudimentary education and the school system they
    attend is less than desirable (after all, who's going to devote
    money to a district where the taxes are very low, when you have
    other, wealthier districts where the taxes are high?).  Without
    education, one is doomed to menial jobs for the most part, and menial
    pay.  
    
    There are other factors, but I think these two have a lot to do
    with crime rates, death rate, pregnancy rates, etc - it's a vicious
    circle that is hard to break out of.
    
    -kim (who is fortunate that altho she is a part of a minority, shecame
    from a middle class family.  It also probably helps that I look
    "white".)
    
    

    re : .1
    
    The problem with the education system (from an outsiders perspective)
    is that schools are funded at a local level.  This causes major
    disparities in the funding available.  If education was instead
    funded (fully or partially) at the state or federal level wouldn't
    that of itself lead to a more even distribution of education dollars?
    
    And if that is true, then how could you move to get the system changed
    (given that the people needing the change are the poor, uneducated,
    etc) and the funding where it's needed?
    
    I am of the opinion that education should be a right not a priviledge.

    This is delicate ground for me to tread, and I plead with the
    minorities addressed by the base note to forgive me for any misstep I
    might make out of ignorance.  Please believe me when I say my
    intentions are good.
    
    I agree that education is a major factor in turning around a system
    that appears to be broken in so many ways.  But in the late 60s and
    early 70s I was a participant in an educational system that ranked, by
    any measure, among the leaders.  It was a healthily integrated system,
    about 40% minority (and a nearly fair share of the teaching and
    administrative positions also filled by minorities), and the minority
    students were active and respected in all levels of student endeavors,
    educational and extracurricular.
    
    Yet---the students who were failing academically were
    disproportionately from the minority group.  As teachers we wrestled
    with this and its probable reasons and causes.  At the time drugs were
    beginning to be a problem, but in that district at that time they tended 
    to be a "white" problem due to their relative inavailability and high cost. 
    Only the wealthy students could get them.  The difference we could
    identify was the home environment.  Many (not all, by any means) of our 
    minority students came from homes where education wasn't valued and they 
    weren't encouraged to achieve or excell in their studies.
    
    This is not to say or to imply in any way that society does not owe
    minority students _quality_ education.  It is to say that access to
    education isn't necessarily the same as taking advantage of that
    access.  There has to be an attitude on the part of the student of "I'm
    going to learn this material, because it's valuable to me and to my
    future."  When that attitude is there, the quality of the education
    doesn't make as much of a difference, because such individuals will SEEK
    OUT the education rather than waiting for it to be handed to them. 
    When that attitude isn't there, even the most expensive and
    well-staffed schools fail.
    
    IMO, the hardest question is how can we engender this attitude in an
    environment that displays every minute of every day and night the lie
    that education is necessary to a decent life?  Where drug pushers and
    criminals live ostentatiously well while the dedicated and the honest
    have doors slammed in their faces?  How can we prove to that child who
    has to struggle to and from school through gang-ruled streets that
    attention to studies will win him or her a safe and honorable life at
    some point years in the future?
    
    I don't have the answers.  But my soul cries for these children every
    time I hear that another one has been killed by the guns or the drugs
    that rule too many minority neighborhoods.
    
    God(dess) help them, 'cause we sure aren't!
    Karen                      

    Part of that problem, Karen, is that the lack of appreciation for
    education is, at least in part, grounded in hard reality:  education
    doesn't buy a black person as much as it does a white.  It's only
    within your time and mine, in fact, that education has bought blacks
    *anything* in the white world.
    
    						=maggie

    
    It just makes me want to scream that, after probably 15 or 20 years of
    having black children from Boston come out to the town I grew up in for
    schooling (kindergarten through grade 8), the town is trying to squelch
    this program.  Probably partly because it costs some money - but I
    think even moreso that as the budget goes down, the school thinks to
    squeeze out the "different" children first - cut their benefits first -
    the black children who don't live in the town - the children who are special
    needs and need special education.
    
    Actually, it probably does more to educate the primarily-white children
    of this fairly-wealthy-fairly-haughty town that ethnic children are
    "the same as they are" than anything else that occurs during their
    formative years.  And this benefit probably even outweighs the
    pretty-good-quality education the black children get in return -
    although the people of this town would probably be quick to deny it. 
    They think they're doing these "poor children" such a magnanimous
    favor..... >:(.
    
    
    I wish we could some foresight out there - get some vision on how
    people need to learn about each other not just from adulthood, but from
    day one.  From childhood.  When they're minds are still open.  Before
    prejudices are formed.  
    
    -Jody
    

    Jody - What town is trying to dump METCO?  In Lexington, most people
    value it a good deal.  It is a town with somewhat more economic
    diversity and considerably more ethnic/racial diversity than many (we
    have something like 18 different native languages in our elementary
    schools.  Every friend my 1st grade son invited to his birthday party
    {all classmates} was asian, almost all from different countries).  But
    we have very few blacks, and this is scarcely improving.  So METCO is
    vital to our having schools integrated across the spectrum of American
    races (and actually, we don't manage that, either; I'm not aware of any
    native americans).
    
    But I have another observation perhaps relevant to the basenote.  After
    discussions nearby recently on last names of spouses and kids, I was
    browsing in our elementary school's family phone book, which has last
    names of kid and parent(s).  It is easy to spot the METCO kids, because
    of their Boston addresses.  And what was striking was that with no
    exception that I noticed (though I didn't go through every page), these
    youngsters lived with single mothers.  Now, the possible breakdown of
    the black family has been suggested as a problem since before Daniel
    Patrick Moynahan even heard of politics.  And this might even be taken
    as counter-argument; here are single black Roxbury/Dorchester mothers
    managing to get a first class education for their kids.  I'm not
    suggesting conclusions.  But the uniformity of this phenomenon was
    quite striking to me.
    
    				- Bruce

    FWIW, NH has the lowest percentage of state funding for schools in
    the US. I believe the level is under 10%. The next lowest % of state
    funding is around 37%. Based on CAT, SAT, and other testing results
    NH does a better job than most other states. Two points. More money
    is seldom the answer and neither is more of the money coming from the
    state.
    
    ~Cliff

    I don't really know if I should drag the town through the mud in public
    here.  My opinion and those of the townspeople obviously differ.....
    
    I would be glad to discuss it offline, though...
    
    -Jody

It all depends on where you live in NH.  I was lucky, our school district was 
"property rich", and had (at the time) one of the best schools in the state.

Henniker, the school district right next to ours, was not so lucky, their
high school was not accredited.

Lisa

    In re: .7
    
    Your favorable opinion of the typical N.H. school system is not
    universally shared.  It is true that N.H has low state taxes, but in
    consequence it also has the highest dependence on property taxes of any
    state, about the most regressive source of revenue one could find.
    
    			- Bruce
    

    In re: .7
    
    Also remember that a very small percentage of NH students actually take
    the SATs and continue on to college.  Only NH's best students take any
    entrance exams.
    
    Suzanne

 re: testing and NH's education

 Recently, the CAT tests were administered to all NH students in the (I think
it was) 2nd, 6th, and 10th grades. The results were well above the national
averages in all areas. There was a blurb about this in (I think) last night's
paper.

 I agree that the heavy reliance on property taxes is regressive. On the other
hand, is it better to have people from other states pay to educate our children?
By whose yardstick? 

 re: only the best in NH take the SAT's etc

 Could not the same be said for other states as well?

 The fact remains that results can be obtained without the traditional "spend
more money" approach that has become so firmly entrenched in our minds that
many people seem to resist any effort to impose fiscal responsibility upon
school budgets. 

 As far as "education should be a right" goes, I can only say this: the
_opportunity_ to obtain a solid education should be a right, but you cannot
force people who are unwilling to expend effort to learn. You can provide
a student with everything- except effort and willingness to learn. There is
no right to be educated. There is a right to be afforded the tools to be
educated.

 Our future prosperity depends on our ability to instill the will to learn and
the importance of proper education in young minds. Lacking that, all of the
money in the world will not matter a whit.

 The Doctah

    RE: .10 For the record I do not have a favorable opinion of the
    typical NH school. It's just that my opinion of NH schools is
    higher than that of many other states.
    
    RE: .11 The % of NH hampshire students that take the SAT is higher
    than the % in 40-45 other states. It runs about 50%. That's small?
    Also ALL NH students take the CAT in public schools. Some private
    schools still give others.
    
    RE: .12 I believe that it's 4th, 6th and 10th that take the CATs.
    
    ~Cliff

    .12 > is it better to have people from other states pay to educate our
    .12 > children?
    
    Who has suggested that?
    
    .12 > The fact remains that results can be obtained without the traditional
    .12 > "spend more money" approach that has become so firmly entrenched in 
    .12 > our minds that many people seem to resist any effort to impose fiscal
    .12 > responsibility upon school budgets. 
    
    Get serious.  The fiction that has become "firmly entrenched in our
    minds" is that we have been on an unconstrained spending spree with
    escalating taxes.  This is nonsense.  Take education, specifically.  In
    the US during the 1980s, spending on public education per $1000 of
    personal income declined from $46.48 to $44.20.  In Massachusetts it
    declined alarmingly from $47.85 to $35.98, 19% below the national
    average.  I'll bet it went way down in Nude Hampster, but I don't have
    data in front of me.  Or take the Taxachusetts myth.  Taxes as a
    proportion of income have been going *down*.  Combined state and local
    taxes in Mass. are now 42nd out of 50 states on this measure, down from
    35th a few years ago, and way below the national average.  N.H. has the
    dubious distinction of being 50th.  It's also about 50th in the quality
    of public services.  Even at the federal level, only regressive social
    security taxes have been going up, rather than down, and the only
    budget free of fiscal responsibility during the 80s was the Pentagon's.
    
    It is also very well established that many educational enrichment
    programs targeted at the disadvantaged are *extremely* cost effective. 
    For example, it is well documented that Head Start type pre-school
    programs pay back many times over in later decreases in social service
    costs for - and increases in income taxes from - those who go through
    them.  Any banker would kill to get the economic return these programs
    provide, disregarding social benefits entirely.
    
    			- Bruce

>    Who has suggested that?

 Where does the money come from to pay education in states with sales and
income taxes like Massachusetts? Some of it, believe it or not, comes from
out of staters.

>In
>    the US during the 1980s, spending on public education per $1000 of
>    personal income declined from $46.48 to $44.20.

 Bruce, if you are going to play statistical games, be aware that I know plenty.
You are fond of telling half the story, the half that supports your claims.
What an excellent politician you'd make! It's all well and good to talk about
a change in the amount per $1000 of personal income, but you fail to supply the
information about how much income has risen in the last decade. You also fail to
talk about the effect of declining school enrollments. You also refrain from
telling us what has happened to the cost per student. None of these things
back up your arguments; it's no mystery why you exclude them.

 If you want to rant and rave about how horrible things are in the state
of my residence, let's go to a more appropriate forum.

>Even at the federal level, only regressive social
>    security taxes have been going up, rather than down, and the only
>    budget free of fiscal responsibility during the 80s was the Pentagon's.

 Bruce, you know as well as I do that as a percentage of GNP, the pentagon
budget is a fraction of what it was in JFK's time, and fell steadily in the
80's. What does that prove? Not much, except that I am equally adept at
showing only the stats that supprt my claims as you. BFD.

 Have a good weekend (seriously)-

 The Doctah

    Bruce, Mark etc.
    
    if you want to discuss NH education and taxes please start another
    spin off note..
    
    Let is try and keep on the very valuable subject started in the
    base note.
    
    Thankyou
    
    Bonnie J
    =wn= comod
    

    RE:-1
    
    Thanks,
    Bonnie

    The Civil Rights Movement is now a hundred smaller ones. 
    'Civil rights' is a lot more than voting rights for Blacks.
    It's reproductive freedom, freedom to own firearms, freedom
    to wear or not wear seat belts, motorcycle helmets, freedom
    from compulsion in every area of our lives. There are a lot
    of small movements that could all be called 'civil rights'
    movements, but would rather concentrate on their own special
    interests.
    
    I'd have to say that the 'movement' now has 'freedom from
    government intrusion' as its primary goal, in a hundred forms.
    

    re:-1.
    
    In all do respect I didn't mean it in the generic sence. I meant
    the 60's and Martin Luther King. 
    
    Thanks,
    Kate
    

    One thing I have always wondered about when this issue comes up...
    Why is it that some minority groups have been able to over come
    the discriminatory education process and even excel to the point that
    colleges are trying to reduce their numbers that enroll in an attempt
    to "save" places for white students?  Is it their overall attitudes
    toward education? Toward repression? Many of these people are very
    recent immigrants who overcome the fact that English is a second
    language. They are being motivated to excel from somewhere.  

    Gail
    

    I think part of it is the number of role models they find, Gail.  Most
    of the groups who make it not only have an unbroken cultural history
    that values education but also find many members of their ethnic group
    here who make it once educated.
    
    							=maggie

    re .20
    
    I would offer the suggestion that many immigrants to this country
    place a HIGH (read; VERY high) value on education.  For example,
    if you've arrived from a poor, war-torn, chaotic country where
    education was skimpy at best, and are suddenly presented with the
    opportunity to become schooled in almost anything you desire, AND
    your culture places a high value on schooling, then you are likely
    to use the United State's school system to the best of your ability.
    
    Many of the people who are born here are far more jaded and blase
    about schooling - there are exceptions, but for the most part it
    would appear that "natural" citizen's haven't the value and intensity
    placed on education as many foreign cultures do (I'm thinking in
    particular of Asian immigrants).  I'm not sure if the precise wording
    would be "cultural conditioning" but that seems to fit.
    
    That's unfortunate for us because the number of foreign born students
    in schools leads to such easy prejudice ("Lookit!  *THEY'RE* taking
    over!").  I might offer that if the American society and predominant
    culture placed as high a value on education as some of the foreign
    cultures apparantly do, we as a country might be far better off.
    
    ---kim

    IMO, life in general for all of us has gotten harder.  The money we
    earn is worth less, the basic necessities cost more, many of us are
    working two jobs today to maintain a semblance of a standard of living. 
    
    Many who are old enough to have marched for Civil Rights (could it
    really be?) 20 years ago, today have to work much harder to maintain
    the same level of determination, of conviction that things will get
    better.  The (then) kids (today's adults) don't have the same
    conviction because they haven't seen the improvements that we saw.  The
    rate of improvement for a lot of us has slowed, and for some has lost
    ground.
     

    A few quickies.
        	
    	1) Immigrants don't need laws and legislation to guarantee their
    basic human rights.  Black Americans do.  A Polish immigrant, for
    example, comes to America and his/her most pressing needs are to learn
    English and to assimilate.  Black Americans, after 400 odd years,
    continue the uphill battle for basic human rights. 

    	2) Immigrants have not been coerced into coming to this country,
    they come as a result of their own free will.  They look forward with
    great anticipation to coming to the America the Free. Black Americans
    were forcibly brought to this country. Black Americans were slaves in
    this country, it has only been some 120-odd years since "emancipation."
    Black Americans know that America the Free is a farce. Expectations of
    what this mighty country can do for one is vastly different.

    	3)  History of antagonism between Black Americans and the "rest" of
    America is a lot longer, deeper and more bitter that the history of any
    antagonism between any group of immigrants and the "rest" of America. 
    
    Please try to accommodate those factors in your comparisons of Black
    Americans and immigrants. 

    This quote might be of interest here:

         We are in the middle of an extraordinary social
         experiment: the attempt to provide education for
         all members of a vast pluralistic society.  To have
         any prayer of success, we'll need many conceptual
         blessings:  A philosophy of language and literacy
         that affirms the diverse sorces of linguistic
         competence and deepens our understandings of the
         ways class and culture blind us to the richness of
         those sources.  A perspective on failure that lays
         open the logic of error.  An orientation toward the
         interaction of poverty and ability that undercuts
         simple polarities, that enables us to see
         simultaneously the constraints poverty places on
         the play of mind and the actual mind at play within
         these constraints.  We'll need a pedagogy that
         encourages us to step back and consider the threat
         of the standard classroom and that shows us, having
         stepped back, how to step forwrd to invite a
         student across the boundaries of that powerful room.
         Finally, we'll need a revised store of images of
         educational excellence, ones closer to egalitatian
         ideals--ones that embody the reward and turmoil of
         education in a democracy, that celebrates the
         plural, messy human reality of it.  At heart, we'll
         need a guiding set of principles that do not
         encourage us to retreat from, but move closer to,
         an understanding of the rich mix of speech and
         ritual and story that is America.

    An excerpt from   _Lives on the Boundary_  by Mike Rose,
    The Free Press, $24.95.  Paper (Penguin) $8.95.

    Reviewed in _The Nation_,  April 16, 1990,  pp 531-534.
    (excerpt copied w/o permission).

    

re: .24:
        	
    	1) Immigrants don't need laws and legislation to guarantee their
    basic human rights.  Black Americans do. 

Indeed, but I would suggest that many recent immigrants (especially
those from South-East Asia) are as much in need of legislation to
guarantee their basic human rights as Black Americans do.  Fortunately,
the "Civil Rights" laws are color-blind.

Martin.

    re .24
    
    >    	2) Immigrants have not been coerced into coming to this country,
    >they come as a result of their own free will.  They look forward with
    >great anticipation to coming to the America the Free. Black Americans
    >were forcibly brought to this country. 
    
    I don't see the correlation?  Do you mean to say that because of
    acts that happened to their ancestors Blacks are doomed to have nothing
    to look forward to in America? 
    
     >Expectations of
    >what this mighty country can do for one is vastly different.

    Maybe the recent immigrants are focusing on what they can offer
    the country (what a concept)

    Gail

re .26

Martin,

    It has always been illegal to murder an Irish immigrant or a Polish
    immigrant or an Irish immigrant.  It hasn't always been illegal to
    murder a black American.  Anti-lynching laws had to be made to protect
    specifically black American CITIZENS.  At the time those laws were
    being made, immigrants were still coming to America and reciving full
    protection under the regular law - thou shall not kill. 

    Imagine.  If this government had to legislate a special law to protect 
    the lives of South-East Asians, won't that say something about the
    "advantages" afforded and "value" of South-East Asians?  Imagine, a
    nation having to come up with "Civil Rights" laws to protect a certain
    sector of its *citizens*!  

    The "Civil Rights" laws are not color-blind. The "Civil Rights" laws
    are some of the more colorist laws on the book.  The "Civil Rights"
    laws were suppose to magically bring the Negro's human rights up to par
    with the rest of America.  Thank god South-East Asians and other
    immigrants of color don't have to go through the same things black
    Americans had to go through in order to experience some semblance of
    human rights! 


re .24

    I did not say, nor did I mean to say, blacks are doomed to have nothing
    to look forward to in America because of their history in this country. 
    I am saying that immigrants often have _great_ expectations. Black
    Americans have _different_ expectations having lived through what they
    they lived through.

    If you don't see a correlation between expectations and the subject at 
    hand, oh well...

>    Maybe the recent immigrants are focusing on what they can offer
>    the country (what a concept)

    With all due respect let the immigrants buy into the Kennedy 
    exploitative garbage if they want to. 

    I'm sure your ancestors came from somewhere else like the rest of all
    Americans.  What did *they* offer this country? What have *you* done
    for your country? 

    Another issue is that new immigrants are comming to American and
    leaving behind (hopefully) the situation that caused them to leave.
    Black Americans are living IN the situation that causes their problems.
    Immigrants are given a fresh start. Blacks are not. liesl

    
    	A Black African once did a report for a writing class comparing
    	the plight of Blacks, Italians, Irish to the US. He pointed out
    	that the Italians and Irish kept their culture and identity as
    	a group, while the blacks were not. It was a great report, and I
    	think I still have a copy somewhere.
    
    	Guy (grandson of an Italian immigrant)
    

re .0

>Whatever happened to the civil rights movement? Were there not laws
>passed to aid people of color in employment, housing and education?
     
"Justice for black people will not flow into society merely from court
decisions nor from fountains of political oratory. Nor will a few
token changes quell all the tempestuous yearnings of millions of
disadvantaged black people. White America must recognize that justice
for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the
structure of our society. The comfortable, the entrenched, the
privileged cannot continue to tremble at the prospect of change in the
status quo. 
    
"When millions of people have been cheated for centuries, restitution
is a costly process. Inferior education, poor housing, unemployment,
inadequate health care [*inferior education, housing, unemployment, 
still continue.  Inadequte health care continues.  Blacks are less 
likely than their white counterparts to have by-passes, for example.]
-- each is a bitter component of the oppression that has been our
heritage. Each will require billions of dollars to correct. Justice so
long defered has accumulated interest and its cost for this society
will be substantial in financial as well as human terms. This fact has
not been fully grasped, because most of the gains of the past decade
were obtained at bargain rates. The desegregation of public facilities
cost nothing; neither did the election and appointment of a few black
public officials." 
					_Dr. M.L. King

* - my words.