White flight of teachers resegregating South

page A2 of the Boston Globe / AP ^ | 1/13/2003 | Chad Roedemeier

[rface]

ECATUR, Ga. - Jason Johnston took a job at mostly black Midway Elementary School in hopes he could make a difference with the children who needed him most.

But Johnston, one of only a handful of white teachers at the school, decided to leave after less than a year, disillusioned by pupils who struggled, parents who weren't involved, and the pressure to meet state achievement standards.

[caprock]

But Johnston, one of only a handful of white teachers at the school, decided to leave after less than a year, disillusioned by pupils who struggled, parents who weren't involved, and the pressure to meet state achievement standards.

From observing my wife's long public school involvement in Texas and California as both a volunteer and a certified teacher, the often overlooked factor in the success of a local public school system is PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT.

Even out here in whacked-out California, our experience with the local schools has been quite positive greatly due to the involvement of the parents. We do live in an area predominantly comprised of professionals who value their children's education enough to remain involved.

The local and state bureaucracies only have direct control over the teachers, the curriculum, and the educational standards. How will school districts with uninvolved/missing parents attain adequate support from the home front?

[Puppage]

Ooooo, I wonder when the left will call the teachers who leave...racists?

[AFPS]

When I was 14 I had to switch from a almost all-white school to an almost all-black school. There were only 7 white people in my class of 32. This 10th grade class was reading at a 1st grade level. And they were EXTREMELY racist towards me. Weapons, drugs, and fights were the norm. This was 16 years ago! I did not stay there, I feared for my life. My best friend was beaten up because she was the ONLY white chear-leader. Why would a teacher want to be there either? Racism was ALWAYS the black students against the whites there. But no one ever got in trouble for it.

[valkyrieanne]

Is part of the 'nuance' and 'cultural difference' a culture of not studying hard and feeling victimized by "white expectations of learning?"

[johnb838]

If blacks get to have proportional representation in every walk of life then I don't want to see 1 black over 14% in any walk of life either. I think they are WAY overrepresented and since many of them are undereducated or just plain stupid it has a lot to do with the devolution of american society.

[johnb838]

Same thing happened to me. In 1970.

[MattinNJ]

My point is that if it weren't for the white man, there still wouldn't be a civilization.

Exactly. The other week I was watching "In the Heartland" with John Kascich (sp?) on the Fox News Channel. He was interviewing the first Native American to be in space. I couldn't help but wonder how many thousands of years would have passed before the Apaches or Comanches developed their own space program if the white man had never came to North America(if ever?). Then I had to wonder if that made me a rascist or a realist.

[MattinNJ]

I bet "Bring your dad to school day" is a bust there too.

Tweeeet. 15 yards for unsporstmanlike conduct.

[Cable225]

I wonder how many black teachers want to leave the black schools?

Funny how that was my exact thought as I read the article. I'd be curious to see what the "black-flight" statistics are for schools like these. I find it hard to believe that black teachers, with an equal equity stake in their education aren't leaving as soon as the opportunities arise.

Of course, with that story you don't get to imply that white teachers are racist. You might just have to talk about the problems in inner-city schools.

[oldcomputerguy]

"but wonder how many thousands of years would have passed before the Apaches or Comanches developed their own space program if the white man had never came to North America(if ever?)."

They would likely never have done it but primarily because of their culture. I believe Indians and Blacks are adapative cultures while Whites are interventionist cultures.

Adaptive cultures use things as they find them and see no reason to change while interventions cultures bend things to their will, their sense of order. I believe this is the reason that Africa has gone nowhere in thousands of years and never will go anywhere period. It is also why interventionist cultures see adaptive peoples as free loaders and non-participants.

Until enough interbreeding takes place to implant the interventionist seed in everyone, things will remain as they are. Eventually however after some natural cataclysm, the adaptive cultures will most likely be the ultimate survivors...unfortunately.

[MattinNJ]

Eventually however after some natural cataclysm, the adaptive cultures will most likely be the ultimate survivors...unfortunately.While I think Western Civilization faces some dark days, we will always win in the end. Thats why the Greeks beat the Persian Hordes, Alexander ran up and down Asia, and why Europe colonized Africa (and the reverse could never be true).

[Sonny M]

I live in NYC, and several of my friends teach. They gripe that they don't so much as blame the students as they do the parents, and there own union (they do this quietly lest they be punished by the almight union nazi's) and administration. One of my friends did admit that his school wound almost getting in trouble by a sort of resegregation plan (not intentional). Basically they came up with an advanced class, and the class was something like almost all oriental, with a couple of white kids, and 2 black kids who were immigrants (and no, they did not like being called african american, they found the term arrogant and insulting to them). They had to break it up when some parents who had never been involved before, and never showed up complained that it was a segregated setting, the principal simply dropped the program within a week.

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

In a strictly military sense, the nations that currently reflect Western Civ could very likely take the field against all comers, if it came to that. But Western Civ is rotting from within - welfare statism, feminized vs masculinized culture, low birth rate, etc... Unless these trends reverse (and I cannot imagine that they will), then Western Civ will go down in the annals as yet another civilization that came and went. For a long time, there will remain groups and individuals remaining from the civ that will reflect her ideals and values, but the civ will eventually cease to be an identifiable force on the world scene.

[MrB]

Yep, one of Larry Elder's "Ten things you can't say in America"

[JMP]

There has been a trend toward making teacher pay increases contingent upon testing scores of the student population. The very fact that Blacks score consistently below Whites in every type of intelligence testing (an average of 15 points) means that a teacher at a predominately Black school will be punished for behavior that he/she can not influence. If everything else was even, this alone could cause White teacher flight. Unfortuneatly all other things are not equal. I suppose that would explain why even paying a premium for teachers to remain at predominately Black schools is insufficent to retain them. Things will not get better because both the White and Black establishment refuses honesty in these regards. Too bad.

[msru]

Similar story here. My second cousin told me she taught middle school for a year in a Richmond VA city school. At the end of the school year, she said she thought her middle name was mother-f**ker.