Not sure if anybody's even checking in here, but just in case, a few articles you might be interested in:
Dakota came across this story which details an interesting step (whether forward or backward is up for debate) to reorganize an urban school system in Omaha, Nebraska along strictly racial lines.
Sunday's Tribune had an update on the case of Shaquanda Cotton, a 14-year-old African American girl from Paris, Texas who was sentenced to up to 7 years in prison for shoving a teacher's aide (who was not injured) at her school. Cotton was recently released after a year in a youth prison, but her ordeal speaks to our discussions of zero tolerance and of the permanence of racism in U.S. society.
Also in Sunday's Trib, a brief sidebar on Newt Gingrich's recent ignorant comments on bilingual education:
WASHINGTON -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Saturday equated bilingual education with "the language of living in a ghetto" and mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.
"The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up" to vote, said Gingrich, who is considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He made the comments in a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women.
"We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," he said to cheers from the crowd of more than 100.
Finally, the Sun-Times reported last week on a new student loan program that is going to be piloted at 5 schools in Illinois. It's not an answer to all the problems you've voiced, but it sounds promising.
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That first article is pretty startling... I have not taken the time to read the others yet. I am reading about desegregation, integration, and educating black students right now for my EAF class and on my own. It's so sad to think how far we've come and how it seems to all be for nothing since segregation is happening again. I have been reading some of Lisa Delpit's ideas. She challenges certain instructional methods because they don't really seem to work for African American students (they seem to better benefit white students). I would, though, by no means use that as an argument FOR racially segregating school districts. I would, however, use that as an argument for teaching multiple educational approaches to our pre-service teachers. I know my literacy classes have only pushed "whole language" instruction, so who knows how I will be able to help non-white I will have. It also breaks my heart to see how things are going back to how they used to be because so many people fought so long and hard (and many gave their lives) to see change in the world. What are we teaching our youth if we put them into racially segregated schools? I would never want to send a message to my students or children that it's better to be in school with only kids that look like you and learn exactly the way you do. How can we expect them to be accepting of differences and other people and their differing cultures? How can we expect them to work together in the future to lead our country? How can we expect them to see everyone as equals? How can we expect them to learn from each other and about each other if we separate them based on their race?
This is indeed a great "shame of our nation."
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