Does the end of the Wake County school system's socioeconomic diversity policy mean that economic affirmative action programs are also in doubt?
That's the question raised today in a Wall Street Journal blog column by Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. In the column, Brown writes that the Wake fight raises questions about public support for using economics in "sensitive matters such as college admission and hiring and public contracting."
"We’ll see what happens, but there has been no major wave sweeping the country implementing 'economic diversity' plans, and what is happening in Wake County is not a good omen for those who had hoped it would become more popular," Brown writes.
Much of Brown's column is his synopsis about what's happened in Wake. Some of his characterizations might be questioned by people around here.
Brown writes that it was "famously liberal bastions" like Cambridge, Mass. that adopted socioeconomic school diversity policies.
"The largest of the districts to do so was Wake County, one of the more liberal areas in a conservative state," Brown writes.
Brown describes the fight in Wake as being a face-off being "mostly transplanted northerners" and those who "are disproportionally longtime residents of the area, many of them African-Americans, who see the move as a way to return to segregated schools."
Comments
He didn't mention, did
Wed, 08/25/2010 - 19:05 — wireless200He didn't mention, did he, that based on the data, that maybe it's been tough going for the policy as it's a failure as compared with districts in NC... but on the upside at least his blog post is one more cite for the N&Os "nationally recognized" moniker list.
He didn't mention, did
Wed, 08/25/2010 - 19:05 — wireless200He didn't mention, did he, that based on the data, that maybe it's been tough going for the policy as it's a failure as compared with districts in NC... but on the upside at least his blog post is one more cite for the N&Os "nationally recognized" moniker list.
OK, so apparently this
Wed, 08/25/2010 - 12:12 — willynillyOK, so apparently this "diversity" thing, which used to be called neighborhood schools, is NOT a very big practice. Now it was used in Mass. in a smaller school system, but since it is not as big (the system) , not as fast a growth scale, not as diverse etc etc. we cannot compare it to the WCPSS. So all of this stuff on the BLOG of "REEMS" of research (yes, it's not spelled correctly but I am quoting) that syas this is THE way to go......obviously has no foundation in fact. As I asked in several strands, IF there is a non-biased report (from either "side") that shows this mixing thing works let's see it. And having ties to one side or the other includes educational institutions. I mean a study from a bipartisan group.
Excellent Point
Wed, 08/25/2010 - 13:46 — Bob_SconceBecause Wake was rather unique in its former assignment policies, any study that purported to show a connection between student performance and F&R ratio in their classrooms was necesarily based on results in districts that did not have those policies. So, despite GSIW's claims, that research does *not* show that Wake's former policy worked. At most, it showed that ED students in districts that DIDN'T bus did better when they were mixed in with a much larger number of non-ED students than they did when they were in a school composed nearly entirely of ED students.
But, that's not really a surprise -- those situations happen when, for example, a bunch of middle-class parents are laid off, or when there's a community with an average family income a bit above the F&R cut-off. ED students in those situations are likely to be qualitatively different than ED students in schools from communities where the average family income is quite a bit below the F&R cut-off.
Even if studies try to "control" for these factors, they can't adequately, because the only truly relevant students are poor students who are involuntarily bussed to a remote school. And, there just aren't very many such students.
And, all that's just another way of answering "If all these studies say that the diversity policy should have been a success, why did it fail so badly?"
Wait, I thought only
Wed, 08/25/2010 - 10:40 — JoeTarheelWait, I thought only "southerners were the racists"? Isn't that what these same Yankee morons have always implied when referencing the South?
Apparently, racism is not just a 'Southern thang" after all.
Margiotta: the "new southern racist"
x
Wed, 08/25/2010 - 10:41 — JoeTarheel;klj;kl;dii/@$%$%%^^