gjohnson5 said:
Here we go again with this Kansas City issue.
We've talked about this before and I still dont agree with your conclusion.
Beliefs are like diets , you have to stick with it in order to see results.
Read the article, it outlines what the district did perfectly... The liberals got every single detail they wanted for the district, got to spend money freely for 15+ years... and still by grade 12 black kids were 5 years behind in standardized testing (I think it was reading they quoted). I know, I was there... I went to a magnet school in KC. I got taken in a cab from the suburbs every day of the week to Central.
My observations coming from a school over 90% non-white...
1. Very few 2 parent families came to parent teacher conferences
2. I was the only person in my class who didn't get free breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack
3. Several of my minority friends had a real problem riding the school bus but were brought to school by their older brothers or grandparents more than parents
4. I got to go on several trips to far places in the country for free.
5. I had the highest ITBS score in the district in 8th grade.
There's some anecdotal evidence... and I've already quoted the empirical evidence. My mom went to all the school board meetings as a teacher representative, she taught in one of the magnet schools.
Dood, there's no denying this. I was there, my mom was too. She made 43k as a teacher in 1995 with 2 masters degrees. The program failed miserably.
Most of the teachers I had in middle school were PhD candidates from other countries. The district brought in people from all over the world to give these kids a better chance. They didn't appreciate it or take it. Over half the schools were 90% minority students or more.
The KC school district spent more per student than any other district in the US during that time period... still failed miserably.