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Date Posted: 15:52:13 07/17/03 Thu
Author: mt. Healthy Mountaineer
Subject: Affirmative Action
In reply to: Xanthor 's message, "Re: Been a while..." on 15:05:36 07/17/03 Thu

Like everyone has so far expressed, I am of mixed opinion on affirmative action. However, unlike everyone else, I have 7 years of teaching in experience in inner city schools (Indianapolis Public Schools #108 - Go Spartans!) where race relations was a daily issue, there being days in which I was the only white face in a room of 25 people and, on ocassion being accused of everything from wanting to re-enslave all blacks to hating the white kids (these charges were primarily the result of adolescent frustration, I would imagine).

There are multiple types of affirmative action. One is a strict quota. Another is the type I am all for - the kind that tells the college recruiter for Company X or Government Agency Z that they should make sure that they seek out all qualified applicants, expecially minorities and, if all things are equal in the application process (GPAs, work experience, etc) than throw it to the minority, especially if your organization is lilly white.

That is the kind that Bush advocates and not the kind the University of Michigan employs on their entrance criteria. if you don't know, they gave a +20 point bonus on a 100 point scale to minorities, regardless of circumstance - so Colin Powell's kids would get +20 even though he has all of the connections and I'm sure his kids have had a first rate education.

Throwing money at inner city schools is not going to solve the problem, although they usually do struggle do to a lower tax base and increased expenses that suburban schools do not face to the same degree, such as having to provide a police force, vastly enlarged pool of special education students, esp. the profoundly retarded and those with severe disabilites. Special education classes for those who are so disabled that they cannot possibly learn (unmeasurably low IQ) are not only required by Federal Law - they are also only 17% paid for by that same law and are incredibly expensive. My wife has substitute taught in classes like this and you are looking at salary and benefits for teachers and aids at the $100,000 + range for a class of 5 high school kids who have never spoken, must be spoon-fed by their teachers and soil themselves multiple time every day.

Even with that, the biggest struggle with urban schools is the fact that, for the most part, the students come from families in which education is not valued (see this review I did on a book that hit this subject - scroll down to the bottom and see the results of a poll click here.

If you show me a group of kids whose parents are educated and fully expect their kids to do well in school, I will show you a group of successful kids in school - no matter how bad their teachers are. The teachers I taught with in Indianapolis were the most dedicated, hardest working, and best teachers I've ever had the privelage to work with. But, when the AVERAGE IQ of your 8th graders is 88 (mildly mentally retarded on some scales) what can you do. Don't get me wrong - it is not because these kids are born this way. Rather, many of them are being raised in an intellectually deprived environment. Countless are being raised by single moms who are barely older than their own children and countless more and raised by grandmothers who are too tired to be as vigilent as they need to be.

In this type of environment, even the best students get short-changed on their education. I can understand why Michigan would want to let the best kids from the urban schools in - even when their scores don't justify it. It is assumed that they'll catch up with their white peers once they are in college. I wish someone would have provided information on the performance of these students who were given the 20 point bonus on their entrance scores. Can they hack it? Should they have went to another school instead? After all, Michigan has a great reputation and it really is hard to get in there.

So - to sum up my thoughts on race and education with all of its contradictions:

-inner city school test scores would not be helped by more money but,
-inner city schools are in desperate need of more money.
-inner city students are usually poor (not financially) students but,
-Some of the best students I ever had in 13 years of teaching were poor black kids from the inner city.
-I do not want race-based admissions but,
-I do want minorities to be recruited heavily for all positions for which they are qualified.

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Replies:

  • Affirmative Action -- mt. Healthy Mountaineer, 15:52:52 07/17/03 Thu
  • My thoughts -- mvd, 18:49:09 07/17/03 Thu
  • Re: Affirmative Action -- Telemachus, 02:25:37 07/18/03 Fri
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