[Rant Mode 'On']
This topic is personal to me since I am a new dad and I live in an area with a school system that I won't send me kid to (which I pay a fortune in taxes to support).
The majority of parents in my position move to a neighborhood they can barely afford and is far from their job; requiring a killer daily commute. The also endure years long waiting lists for private daycare / nursery schools.
My own parents did the same back in the late '60s. My Mom loved her home and the neighborhood, but my grade school age sister was being "enriched" daily by being beaten and robbed by a group of thugs. My Mom was able to get the attacks to stop for a while, by physically assaulting (lifting the thugs by their throats and slamming against the wall), when the useless principal walked out of her office for a moment. Multiple meetings with the principal and the thugs had been done by my Mom in hope of stopping the attacks. My Mom also had another kid on the way (me).
There was no school choice, private schools were basically Catholic or non-affordable, so my Dad bought a home (which my Mom hated... for good reasons), in a town with "good schools", paid killer property taxes, and did a four hour round trip commute five days a week.
The Cultural-Marxist Left has taken notice that with school choice / private schools and families making themselves mobile, there is still the crime being committed of children not experiencing diversity. Hence, the latest proposal detailed in The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/ar...on/560930/
And thus Scott-Railton’s idea was born: to take demographics of schools into account in college admissions—giving priority to applicants who attended schools with a certain threshold of low-income students (say, above 40 percent). In other words, admissions officers would look favorably on students who attended an economically integrated school, much as they do those who have had unusual travel experiences or outstanding extracurricular achievements.
In a nutshell, he argues, this idea would drive integration in three ways: It would create an incentive for middle class and wealthy parents to enroll their students in socioeconomically integrated schools, it would create countervailing considerations for white parents considering leaving currently integrated school districts, and it would provide an incentive for private schools to enroll more low-income students. Middle-class students would likely benefit more from Scott-Railton’s idea than low-income students, since his proposal doesn’t inherently change the financial barriers to attending college. But millions more would benefit from the increased K–12 integration, which decades of research show improves public schooling.
The diversity push is now being done on the charter schools in my area (also paid for by my tax $$$). Charter school admissions are done by lottery (the one I was interested in had over 1,000 applicants for less than 40 spots). The standards were kept and kids that couldn't keep up academically or were discipline problems were removed. In the end, you got a group of kids who were on the same page intelligence and discipline wise. These kids went on to magnet high schools and eventually onto STEM careers.
This however, the weeding out of the student body meant the resulting school demographics did not please the Progressive / SJW crowd. So the push is now to "diversify" the charters, which of course has resulted in issues like kids bringing in handguns to school (the resulting lock-down and evacuation were not covered by the press). There is no way to ensure equal outcomes without relaxing academic and disciplinary standards.
This topic is personal to me since I am a new dad and I live in an area with a school system that I won't send me kid to (which I pay a fortune in taxes to support).
The majority of parents in my position move to a neighborhood they can barely afford and is far from their job; requiring a killer daily commute. The also endure years long waiting lists for private daycare / nursery schools.
My own parents did the same back in the late '60s. My Mom loved her home and the neighborhood, but my grade school age sister was being "enriched" daily by being beaten and robbed by a group of thugs. My Mom was able to get the attacks to stop for a while, by physically assaulting (lifting the thugs by their throats and slamming against the wall), when the useless principal walked out of her office for a moment. Multiple meetings with the principal and the thugs had been done by my Mom in hope of stopping the attacks. My Mom also had another kid on the way (me).
There was no school choice, private schools were basically Catholic or non-affordable, so my Dad bought a home (which my Mom hated... for good reasons), in a town with "good schools", paid killer property taxes, and did a four hour round trip commute five days a week.
The Cultural-Marxist Left has taken notice that with school choice / private schools and families making themselves mobile, there is still the crime being committed of children not experiencing diversity. Hence, the latest proposal detailed in The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/ar...on/560930/
And thus Scott-Railton’s idea was born: to take demographics of schools into account in college admissions—giving priority to applicants who attended schools with a certain threshold of low-income students (say, above 40 percent). In other words, admissions officers would look favorably on students who attended an economically integrated school, much as they do those who have had unusual travel experiences or outstanding extracurricular achievements.
In a nutshell, he argues, this idea would drive integration in three ways: It would create an incentive for middle class and wealthy parents to enroll their students in socioeconomically integrated schools, it would create countervailing considerations for white parents considering leaving currently integrated school districts, and it would provide an incentive for private schools to enroll more low-income students. Middle-class students would likely benefit more from Scott-Railton’s idea than low-income students, since his proposal doesn’t inherently change the financial barriers to attending college. But millions more would benefit from the increased K–12 integration, which decades of research show improves public schooling.
The diversity push is now being done on the charter schools in my area (also paid for by my tax $$$). Charter school admissions are done by lottery (the one I was interested in had over 1,000 applicants for less than 40 spots). The standards were kept and kids that couldn't keep up academically or were discipline problems were removed. In the end, you got a group of kids who were on the same page intelligence and discipline wise. These kids went on to magnet high schools and eventually onto STEM careers.
This however, the weeding out of the student body meant the resulting school demographics did not please the Progressive / SJW crowd. So the push is now to "diversify" the charters, which of course has resulted in issues like kids bringing in handguns to school (the resulting lock-down and evacuation were not covered by the press). There is no way to ensure equal outcomes without relaxing academic and disciplinary standards.
