American racism (spin off from French riots thread)
in Epiphanies
This discussion was created from comments split from: Difficult not to have some sympathy for the rioters in France.
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What's often elided in discussions like this is that violence isn't just the consequence of oppression, it's the tool of oppression. Most comments on the matter seem to go something along the lines of "non-state actors need to stop committing non-state violence immediately and then maybe sometime in the indefinite future we might consider to begin to contemplate thinking about possibly slightly reducing state-sponsored violence". No one ever reverses the order and suggests that the government should stop killing its citizens before the rioting stops.
Locating, identifying and "solving" racism and the multiple issues causing, related to, and stemming from it seems to me at times hopeless, especially when "government" gets involved.
Here in NH, we are cursed with a state education commissioner (Frank Edelblut) who has singlehandedly (though with strong support from our esteemed (hack-cough-gasp) governor, Chris Sununu) wrecked not just any attempt to achieve racial and/or economic equality in public k-12 education, but also seems hellbent on destroying public education itself.
Installed in 2017, he and Sununu pushed through an initiative which allows parents to send kids to private and/or religious schools with substantial financial support from the state. By contrast, merely bussing kids out of poor neighborhoods with struggling schools to better-resourced suburban schools is for amateurs.
What a genius move: poor parents dependent on public assistance and/or public transport would be left with only local public schools as an option for their kids, ensuring a constituency too exhausted and stressed out just trying to make the ends come together to bitch.
A second effect of this bit of legerdemain was to hollow out the teaching force for these now "less-desirable" schools. I was a teacher for 30 years (though at the college level, so maybe I don't count), and I can tell you it's lots more fun to teach energetic, bright, engaged students than it is to teach students too hungry, tired, and stressed to devote much attention to learning.
Middle-and-higher-income voters in this vast-majority sheet-white state went for this program big-time. It's as though a White Call went out the minute any small town (most of the state, in other words) abruptly acquired one single non-English-speaking refugee family or a Black family: Help!! Our culture, our way of life is under attack! There are Strangers in our midst!! Circle the wagons!!!
Meanwhile, low-income residents -- esp. those dependent on school busses and public transport to get kids to school and themselves to jobs got left in the dust. Purely by happenstance, cough-cough-cough, guess where underfed, stressed-out, non-white schoolkids mostly end up? I know you'll be shocked to discover the answer for yourself.
Don't get me started on related facts: it costs as much to run a school bus to pick up 4-5 kids as it takes to pick up a bus full. It costs as much to pay a third-grade teacher to instruct 12 students as it costs to have her teach a full class. At the high school level, you can't just cut courses willy-nilly if those courses make the difference between job or college eligibility and non-eligibility. And on it goes.
As long as New Hampshire insists on funding non-public schools with public money, diminishing resources to actual public schools, public education in this state will continue to decline.
You can guess some of the reasons, but the link to racism comes because the final straw was persistent bullying of her son by other kids who belong to a minority group who only are allowed into the school (being way outside the catchment area) for social reasons. You will just have to take my word for the fact that the bullying is real, the people know and the school response totally inadequate.
I do actually know that bullies come in all shapes and sizes, and another person I know well, had to withdraw her son for a fairly prestigious local private school due to bullying. But when you are making decisions for your children you look at the situation you are actually in. And it is very tough for parents to put the burden of social fairness issues onto their children, which is why it is quite common for Lefties in the UK to send their kids to elite schools.
A less racist factor is the crap they are expected in eat if they have the school meals which have to be seen to be believed. Like sausage roll and slice of pizza a load of crisps and sugary biscuits (not a square inch of anything green) and to add insult to injury there are multiple restrictions on the food people can being in, in case anybody in the school could possibly have an allergy. The presumption is, I suppose, that there is no such thing as an allergy to shite. But bullying is the main issue.
Can you at least appreciate why some people pay up. Nobody wants to part with cash for something which should be free. But what should be free is quality education, and that's not on offer. Contrary to your instance there is no direct aid. School fees are no longer tax deductible.
Later he said he was told if he were driving in America and broke down it would be dangerous for him to go up to a nearby house to ask for help. I had to admit while it might be dangerous for even me, I would more likely be able to do it safer than him because of the color of my skin.
He has never had "The Talk" which Black American parents have to give to their children.
@Ohher is in the US I believe - the situation and tax codes may be quite different there.
We do not generally close threads for lack of use. Some will come back to life later, and this way we let people choose.
Gwai
Epiphanies Host
As to the topic: NH state law now requires (among other things) that the state deliver an "adequate" education to its young. No definition of "adequate" (AFAIK) exists. A lawsuit against the state re: state ed funding (aka Claremont) exists and has been open for lo these many years with zero forward movement toward resolution since the current commissioner of ed was appointed. He (Frank Edelblut) has championed (with support from the current governor, Chris Sununu) this wholesale misappropriation (from my POV) of taxpayer funding for education.
But mainly, I thought that the general issue of taking children out of state and into private education was still relevant. I'll think about a thread, and stay away from this one.
@Anteater, I agree: taking children out of state and into private education IS relevant. It's also sometimes absolutely necessary and in the best interests not only of an individual child, but also for the class / school / local education authority into which that kid would otherwise be schooled. The problem, though, is the peculiarly American 'all-or-nothing' approach to virtually everything including education.
Ensuring that kids get a decent public (in US terms, this means publicly-funded by taxpayers) education means pleasing taxpayers. So the first problem is this: convincing taxpayer Smith that it's a great idea for her little math-whiz Susie to attend third grade (about age 8) alongside little out-of-control Johnny, also 8 and diagnosed with a severe behavioral disorder, who spends most of his time screaming, fighting, pushing, running and wreaking havoc while his aide (if any) tries to keep him from destroying the room.
Yes, that's an extreme and rare example. Not, however, nearly rare enough.
Back in the Bad Old Days (pre-1975), kids with even comparatively non-severe disabilities were often shut out of school altogether. Use a wheelchair? Schools have stairs; tough luck, kid. Slow at catching on? Sorry, kid; we're not set up for that. Whiz kid? That's nice; let's see if we can bore that out of you before you make too much trouble. You're a typical average run-of-the-mill kid? Great; sit down, shut up, and we'll give you the basics.
Now, nearly 50 years on, we have a hybrid system that tries to accommodate everybody from Johnny to Suzie and ends up, AFAIKS, doing damn-all for anybody including the ordinary run-of-the-mill kid.
The theory behind accommodating kids with disabilities in so-called "regular ed" sounds great on paper. It also works well for many kids. But accommodating those at the extreme edges of any range -- behavioral, physical, intellectual -- requires extreme measures and this can be disruptive.
In my last few years of teaching (at college, not in public school), two efforts were afoot to include students with disabilities in my freshman composition course. In one case, the young man was non-verbal. In the first class, he and his aide sat in the front of the room, where he murmured (sometimes loudly), scribbled, drooled, banged on his desk with his hands, attempted repeatedly to leave his seat, hummed, barked, moved his head and upper body around distracting-and ed-ly.
Did this guy have a right to attempt an education? Sure. But wouldn't a course in English Composition be of more benefit to someone who had, by age 20, acquired at least a few words in the relevant language?
Did he have a right to interrupt his instructor, distract other students who are paying out-of-pocket for this course, and interfere with instruction? No.
We need something far more nuanced than this all-or-nothing approach. We also need a funding system that doesn't require taxpayers to fund unreachable goals.
He certainly deserved a teacher who knew more about his condition and was interested in teaching him.
(ETA split & edited for clarity, Doublethink, Admin)
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(ETA split & edited for clarity, Doublethink, Admin)
https://www.bristolautismsupport.org/why-being-nonverbal-doesnt-mean-being-non-capable/
That piece has some good links to non speaking bloggers and writers and a list of further reading. It's the first one that came to hand as I'm pushed for time but it looks useful.
It's all very well offering the truism that behaviour is communication or disruptive behaviour is a response to an unmet need, but it's rarely clear what is being communicated or what need is unmet, or how best to respond in either case. And sometimes the need is for (e.g.) not being surrounded by 30 noisy schoolchildren in which case there is bugger all the teacher can do about it.
Inclusion is absolutely the right approach to education but it comes with a resource cost attached to it which is rarely met in full, and often not even in part.
He would get so frustrated with the class. He is not intellectually challenged. Rather he is quite advanced.
His parents fought long and hard to get him mainstreamed in a regular class. Their insurance paid for a special assistant to help him adjust to a class with general population kids. At on time this was five days a week. Now they are paring the assistant services back because he has made good transitions.
He still goes to regular therapy on a weekly basis.
Just recently, he asked his science teacher if he could do a project using a 3D printer. The teacher was very pleased. She said kids at his age level normally are not interested in 3D printing yet.