School choice and test scores

[kj]

Cbelt, are you trying to say getting good grades and being a good person aren't the same thing? ;-) kj.

[davester]

cbelt3 wrote:
There is a reason that most educational institutions were attached to religious organizations throughout the last millennium.

That's a pretty broad generalization, and I suspect that it is not true for much of the world.

[kanesa]

swampy wrote: He's now "sponsoring" two black students and bringing them to school.

Just out of curiosity, why did you say "black students"? Would you have said white students if they had been Caucasian? Does this make the grandfather special because the students are black? There are just as many disadvantaged white students as there are hispanic, black, asian or whatever.

I just get a little bristly when someone always has to point out the black person.

I just think you could have left the "black" out of your sentence. JMHO

[swampy]

Kanesa

The story here is really about Gramps and how far he's come in his life. He is white. He was born and raised in a share cropper family in Georgia. He admits his association with the KKK years ago. He's the kind of guy that you liberals love to write off as dumb cracker, racist, red neck or other such pejoratives. He serves as an inspiration to all of us and through his mentoring of these two "lost" black children offers testimony to how far we have come regarding racial prejudice.

If all that bothers you then it's your problem, not mine.

[kj]

>>There are just as many disadvantaged white students as there are hispanic, black, asian or whatever.

Why did you mention hispanic, black, asian? I don't even know what that is. I guess I'm colorblind ;-) Seriously though, why is it o.k. for some people to notice diversity, and not others? Is it because some can handle the truth, and others can't? How can you celebrate diversity without noticing it? kj.

[Ted King]

kanesa wrote:
[quote=swampy]He's now "sponsoring" two black students and bringing them to school.

Just out of curiosity, why did you say "black students"? Would you have said white students if they had been Caucasian? Does this make the grandfather special because the students are black? There are just as many disadvantaged white students as there are hispanic, black, asian or whatever.

I just get a little bristly when someone always has to point out the black person.

I just think you could have left the "black" out of your sentence. JMHO

I understand kanesa's sensitivity to this. To me, a question about whether or not a comment is gratuitous (i.e., in a negative way) with respect to referencing racial "identity" revolves around whether or not the reference provides germane information within the context of the issue at hand. Swampy did make note of immigrants earlier in the paragraph. But to the larger question - student academic success - it's not clear why immigrants and blacks were specifically referenced, but there is a general correlation (with lots of exceptions) between low income status and lower student academic success, and between lower parental stress on education and low income status, and as a lasting consequence of past discrimination based on race, a general correlation (with lots of exceptions) between being low income and belonging to some racial groups. So, perhaps Swampy was working off an unstated inference related to that. I'm inclined to say that Swampy's use of "black" in this context wasn't necessarily gratuitous, and, if I divine her intentions correctly, was probably not negatively gratuitous even if it was a bit gratuitous.

Edit: Oops, my wife interrupted my writing of this post with a wifi problem that I needed to fix, so I left for awhile and then finished it and posted it. Then I saw that Swampy had responded in the meantime. I figure I'll leave my comments the way they are, though I imagine I wouldn't have written this the way I did if I had read Swampy's reply beforehand.

[kanesa]

swampy wrote:
Kanesa

The story here is really about Gramps and how far he's come in his life. He is white. He was born and raised in a share cropper family in Georgia. He admits his association with the KKK years ago. He's the kind of guy that you liberals love to write off as dumb cracker, racist, red neck or other such pejoratives. He serves as an inspiration to all of us and through his mentoring of these two "lost" black children offers testimony to how far we have come regarding racial prejudice.

If all that bothers you then it's your problem, not mine.

You did not elaborate about Gramps initially. Maybe if you had included all the above information, I would not have questioned your use of "black".

kj wrote:
>>There are just as many disadvantaged white students as there are hispanic, black, asian or whatever.

Why did you mention hispanic, black, asian? I don't even know what that is. I guess I'm colorblind ;-) Seriously though, why is it o.k. for some people to notice diversity, and not others? Is it because some can handle the truth, and others can't? How can you celebrate diversity without noticing it? kj.

I have no idea what you are saying. I am so glad you are color-blind. You would not have said "black students" then because you see no color.

Ted King wrote:
I understand kanesa's sensitivity to this. To me, a question about whether or not a comment is gratuitous (i.e., in a negative way) with respect to referencing racial "identity" revolves around whether or not the reference provides germane information within the context of the issue at hand.

Thanks, Ted, for understanding what I was saying. Like I said, if swampy had included all the information, I probably wouldn't have said anything.

swampy, I hope you were not including me in your "you liberals" comment.

[mattkime]

>>He's the kind of guy that you liberals love to write off as dumb cracker, racist, red neck or other such pejoratives.

Actually we like to save our pejoratives for people who like to make sweeping generalizations.

[OWC Jamie]

about old people

[Gutenberg]

The thing about Gramps is just another SwampStory, an anecdote woven from gossamer and air to prove a conservative point. Ronald Reagan was a master of the genre.