Minneapolis Social Injustice and Related

[j44ke]

Parents just move and self segregate. I'll be honest and admit that is what I did with my children. I only cared about the educational opportunities for my kids and commute to work. (my wife hated boarding school when she was a child, so that ruled out that option) Your solution is not a solution. I actually think the magnet schools in NYC are a great thing.

You are still stuck with the teacher union in the city. This is part of the problem. How will you deal with the Yeshivas? These may be the worse of the lot but you run into a host of religious freedom issues.

I’m responding to the request for ideas of what can be done to decrease racism or to teach children that racism is bad. So not a solution but a part of the solution.

The goal would be to have public schools that were good enough that parents didn’t have to move to get into good school districts. They would all be good school districts. That actually might mean funding some underperforming schools more than better performing schools in order to raise the performance. You should be able to live in the neighborhood that you can afford and not decrease the chances of your children to receive a quality education.

I was speaking generally and not about a specific school system. NYC’s school system is horribly inequitable. I don’t know enough about the NYC teacher’s union to comment on it. There is no way Yeshiva’s should be public schools any more than Catholic schools or Christian schools should be public schools. Those are schools outside the mandate of public education so should be privately funded.

[e-RICHIE]

There is no way Yeshiva’s should be public schools any more than Catholic schools or Christian schools should be public schools. Those are schools outside the mandate of public education so should be privately funded.

To be clear, they are privately funded, right?

[vvv321]

I’m responding to the request for ideas of what can be done to decrease racism or to teach children that racism is bad. So not a solution but a part of the solution.

The goal would be to have public schools that were good enough that parents didn’t have to move to get into good school districts. They would all be good school districts. That actually might mean funding some underperforming schools more than better performing schools in order to raise the performance. You should be able to live in the neighborhood that you can afford and not decrease the chances of your children to receive a quality education.

I was speaking generally and not about a specific school system. NYC’s school system is horribly inequitable. I don’t know enough about the NYC teacher’s union to comment on it. There is no way Yeshiva’s should be public schools any more than Catholic schools or Christian schools should be public schools. Those are schools outside the mandate of public education so should be privately funded.

If anyone wants to learn more about what is being discussed here, here are two books on the matter:


The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America Paperback
by Richard Rothstein


The Color of Mind: Why the Origins of the Achievement Gap Matter for Justice
By Darby and Rury

[alexstar]

If you were to read Season of the Witch you'd have a good sense of what it was like. On the one hand magical, on the other horrific. But it was affordable.

I came here to say this. I wasn't around then - my parents left SF around 1977 to raise my brother and myself in the East Bay suburb of Concord - but it was a turbulent time, to put it mildly. "Season of the Witch" is a good primer.

[caleb]

Parents just move and self segregate. I'll be honest and admit that is what I did with my children. I only cared about the educational opportunities for my kids and commute to work. (my wife hated boarding school when she was a child, so that ruled out that option) Your solution is not a solution. I actually think the magnet schools in NYC are a great thing.

You are still stuck with the teacher union in the city. This is part of the problem. How will you deal with the Yeshivas? These may be the worse of the lot but you run into a host of religious freedom issues.

Minneapolis and surrounding districts used to bus, well into the 90s. It mostly worked, which is a serious part of why white parents hated it enough to put a stop to it. School integration (not only racially, but socioeconomically) is a paradigmatic collective action problem. The only way we're going to solve it is through state action.

Bring back bussing after we re-draw district lines at no smaller than the county level. Yeah, there are drawbacks to bussing, but we're currently looking at the alternative.

[GrantM]

wow. this is an incredible development in the situation.
If Derek Chauvin knew George Floyd as this coworker is suggesting,
it changes the context of this murder.

George Floyd and Derek Chauvin "bumped heads" while working at nightclub, former coworker says - CBS News



Floyd and Chauvin both worked security at a nightclub at the same time. Coworker David Pinney said the two men had a history.

"They bumped heads," Pinney said.

"How?" CBS News asked.

"It has a lot to do with Derek being extremely aggressive within the club with some of the patrons, which was an issue," Pinney explained.

The Floyd family says they believe what happened on May 25 was in part personal. Their lawyer has called for Chauvin to be charged with first-degree murder, "because we believe he knew who George Floyd was."

"Is there any doubt in your mind that Derek Chauvin knew George Floyd?" CBS News asked Pinney.

"No. He knew him," the coworker said.

"How well did he know him?" CBS News asked.

"I would say pretty well," Pinney replied.

[beeatnik]

I came here to say this. I wasn't around then - my parents left SF around 1977 to raise my brother and myself in the East Bay suburb of Concord - but it was a turbulent time, to put it mildly. "Season of the Witch" is a good primer.

Were your parents in SF in 1968? I wonder if they could conceive of spending 128K on a home. My aunt bought her house in a nice working class LA neighborhood in 1972 for 15K. Her mortgage was about $128/monthly and it was a burden for her well into the late 80s. In fact, she took in "boarders" for about 10 years.

[bigbill]

wow. this is an incredible development in the situation.
If Derek Chauvin knew George Floyd as this coworker is suggesting,
it changes the context of this murder.

George Floyd and Derek Chauvin "bumped heads" while working at nightclub, former coworker says - CBS News



Floyd and Chauvin both worked security at a nightclub at the same time. Coworker David Pinney said the two men had a history.

"They bumped heads," Pinney said.

"How?" CBS News asked.

"It has a lot to do with Derek being extremely aggressive within the club with some of the patrons, which was an issue," Pinney explained.

The Floyd family says they believe what happened on May 25 was in part personal. Their lawyer has called for Chauvin to be charged with first-degree murder, "because we believe he knew who George Floyd was."

"Is there any doubt in your mind that Derek Chauvin knew George Floyd?" CBS News asked Pinney.

"No. He knew him," the coworker said.

"How well did he know him?" CBS News asked.

"I would say pretty well," Pinney replied.

Makes the murder charge more likely to stick. Chauvin has an established pattern of violence and overreaction to situations. He absolutely murdered Floyd.

[marley]

To be clear, they are privately funded, right?

Yes and no - they all take some level of funding away from public schools - catholic schools included

NYC yeshivas collect more than $1M a year in public funds

[alexstar]

Were your parents in SF in 1968? I wonder if they could conceive of spending 128K on a home. My aunt bought her house in a nice working class LA neighborhood in 1972 for 15K. Her mortgage was about $128/monthly and it was a burden for her well into the late 80s. In fact, she took in "boarders" for about 10 years.

My father and grandparents were. They lived at 842 Prague Street in Crocker Amazon/Excelsior district, a nice part of a blue-collar neighborhood. I don't know what they paid in the early 60s but they sold it in the 80s for $181,000 and followed us to the East Bay. Now, 842 is "worth" around 1.3 mil... and the neighborhood hasn't changed a whole lot.

[j44ke]

To be clear, they are privately funded, right?

No, they, as well as other religious and secular private schools, get millions of dollars in public funds. The process is in some ways straightforward and in other ways through loopholes created for the purpose of funding private education through a "backdoor" by politicians looking for votes and financial support in return. Below is just a brief selection of articles about the situation. The difference between the yeshivas and the other private schools is that the yeshivas resist any sort of evaluation of their adherence to state education standards and requirements, and there is a lot of evidence that they are not meeting those requirements. The Hasidic communities also have king-maker voting power in NYC and areas of NYS.

NYC yeshivas collect more than $1M a year in public funds

Board accused of gutting public school funding in favor of private yeshivas | US news | The Guardian

Public funding of private-school security in New York City grows by millions - Chalkbeat New York

The whole system of public finance of religious and secular private education is astonishing. Betsy DeVos is just the most shameless pinnacle of the effort to suck public money out of public education into private education and for profit education businesses.

The Guardian article above is about a case in which my wife is lead attorney in her firm's pro-bono team effort with the ACLU, the NAACP and the disenfranchised (mostly minority) citizens of East Ramapo. The team won, and then won again on appeal. So now East Ramapo has to restructure their school board elections to a district-based rather than an at-large election, though they continue to fight the decisions.

[j44ke]

Yes and no - they all take some level of funding away from public schools - catholic schools included

NYC yeshivas collect more than $1M a year in public funds

Sorry Marley, I didn't see that you had already quoted that source.

[beeatnik]

The whole system of public finance of religious and secular private education is astonishing. Betsy DeVos is just the most shameless pinnacle of the effort to suck public money out of public education into private education and for profit education businesses.

The Guardian article above is about a case in which my wife is lead attorney in her firm's pro-bono team effort with the ACLU, the NAACP and the

Troubling stuff

What will passing School Choice legislation in California do?

Create an Education Savings Account for each school age child in every district across the state, upon the request of that child’s parents.

Fund the Education Savings Account with the amount the state designates each year per pupil for K-12 public education, currently about $12,000 at no additional cost to taxpayers.

Empower parents to use the funds in the Education Savings Account to enroll, pay tuition and/or other eligible education expenses for each child in any eligible school of their choice.

Allow any unused funds in the Education Savings Account at the end of the school year to be rolled over tax-free for future school years, and upon graduation from high school, allow any savings in the child’s account to be used for college and/or vocational education expenses.

Restrict the State from imposing any condition on the eligibility of any private school, college, or university to receive funds other than current accreditation and safety standards applicable to all private schools operating in California.

California School Choice

Education | California Catholic Conference

[j44ke]

School choice. That's the new term they came up after vouchers and neighborhood schools.

The funding of school districts based on property taxes payed by the homeowners in the district has been rejected as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. I think it is still in use. Arizona had been sued repeatedly for using this system while I lived there. I wouldn't be surprised if they still used it.

Also how was the figure $12,000 calculated? Private school in NYC costs several times that, so this $12,000 isn't going to allow poor kids go to Dalton School ($50,000+ per year.) How much does it cost to educate a kid per year at public school? How much additional funding are public schools getting to afford teacher and employee salaries, books, computers, etc.? My high school had 650 kids in it. That's $7.8 million for an annual budget at a high school. Is that how much it costs to run a high school per year?

Freely available public education is probably one of the best investments a community can make in quality of life. To use the current lingo, it raises herd immunity to ignorance. Unfortunately the return on investment for each student is 25 years down the road, not an annual annuity check, so no one benefits politically. And when you start talking about educating everyone, you are talking about educating minorities, which is why public education in this country is dovetailed to racism. It just keeps getting cleverly rebranded.

[e-RICHIE]

You guys are more well read on this stats than I am, but if there shouldn't be private schools for youngsters and teenagers, why allow them at all once above the 12th grade? Yeah, we're thread drifting here. Sorry, but. Oh, I've had bad and good and bad experiences with public and private schools. I didn't go to college.

[davids]

Private schools shouldn't be publicly funded.

And, by the way, why are at least ten United States military bases named after traitors to the United States?

[e-RICHIE]

Private schools shouldn't be publicly funded.

And, by the way, why are at least ten United States military bases named after traitors to the United States?

I looked up Peddie School (where I continue to send money regularly). They take no public funds.

My question extends to colleges though. Yale, Bard, Antioch, Reed, Carlton, Hamilton, Bates, RISD, Philadelphia College of the Arts, etc etc etc. These are private schools that don't get public funds, am I right? So, what private schools get public funds? It can't be only Yeshiva.

[GrantM]

So, what private schools get public funds?

For profit, yet tax exempt, institutions have all benefited from their status of not having to pay property taxes.
So all of them are getting public funds, if you consider that the public is effectively paying those taxes for them.

-g

[e-RICHIE]

For profit, yet tax exempt, institutions have all benefited from their status of not having to pay property taxes.
So all of them are getting public funds, if you consider that the public is effectively paying those taxes for them.

-g

We might lose each other here, esp because I don't know how much is saved by not paying the taxes versus what is offered in terms of education. But I am a believer in independent schools. On the other side, if every school was a state or municipally run entity, the government (local, county, whatever...) may have a say in what's taught, by whom, and how.

[j44ke]

You guys are more well read on this stats than I am, but if there shouldn't be private schools for youngsters and teenagers, why allow them at all once above the 12th grade? Yeah, we're thread drifting here. Sorry, but. Oh, I've had bad and good and bad experiences with public and private schools. I didn't go to college.

First I didn't say no private schools. I said that if we are truly dedicated to solving the problems of racism, we should reinvigorate our faith in public schools as a central element in that solution. And the best way to do that is to send your kids to public school and get involved in pressuring state and local government to increase funding for public education and to stop subsidizing private education completely. The goal should be that any kid who walks into a public school has the same resources as any other kid.

Private education is a luxury. Public education is a necessity.

And I am not arguing for a return to some halcyon period. I don't think we've ever equitably funded public education. And there have always been barriers to access. Similarly, as a country, we haven't ever been free of racism.

The question about secondary education is a good one. Originally if you didn't go to college, you went to work in a trade that would provide you with income and quality of life enough that you could afford to live. Or you went to work in a factory with the same results. Those kinds of jobs are not common enough now to provide the same opportunities. So that actually increases the demand for a quality public education, because if you want that same income potential and quality of life, you will need advanced study.

So states like NY have started offering programs that reduce or eliminate the costs of a college education for eligible state citizens at state institutions. In NY, the program is called the Excelsior Program. There are shortcomings to the program, but it is a step in the right direction. And with funding programs like this, getting a program in place, even if there are flaws, is really important. And the cost of most colleges is horrendous. College loan debt is real problem - see Elizabeth Warren and others on that.

But I still think that in order to make these programs valuable, you need students who had full benefit of a high quality primary school education. The funding of secondary education can't be a solution to underfunded public school systems - i.e. we lack the political will to fund public education equitably at the primary level so lets just give the reward of a subsidized secondary education to the truly committed who somehow made it out of the mediocre primary schools that we created. First get public education at the primary level funded equitably school to school, district to district, then work on getting these better educated students into college. They'll be significantly more successful in the long run.