In 1976, I was in 7th grade, which is when Chapter 220 busing was implemented in Milwaukee. I lived in a predominantly white neighborhood in a fairly good school district (at the time). PART of that program involved busing low income African Americans students from the inner city to predominantly white middle class schools. The OTHER part was busing white middle class students to the low income inner city schools. The OTHER part of the program is always excluded from any discussion when analyzing the problems and effects of desegregation. The only thing you hear about is white flight, but the white flight wasn’t because the students who were coming into the school were black, it was because parents didn’t want their children bused across the city to the inner city failing schools. I was not on the list to be bused across town so we stayed where we were.
I agree that working and living around people with different backgrounds may improve race relations. I made some pretty good friends (as much as you can when you live in different parts of the city). However forcing anyone to integrate was and is a bad idea.
The teachers and school at large was completely ill-equipped to handle the problems that came along with a very large portion of the students coming from the tough streets of the inner city. It wasn’t because of their race, it was because of where they grew up.
Obviously I have sympathy for anyone who lives in those conditions. Nobody deserves to live in that environment. But how naive is it to think you can change the entire composition of a school, adding a ton of street wise tough kids, drugs and violence, without being prepared. There were fights in the classroom, teachers beaten up, students stabbed in the parking lot, etc., etc.
It took years to end it but Milwaukee Public Schools have still not recovered from Chapter 220.
I was in the same situation as a sixth grader in Orlando, when the city was being dragged kicking and screaming into education equality. My parents didn't object to black kids bused to our schools, but they didn't want me (and later, my brother) bussed to the crap schools on the other side of town - and Mom knew what they were like because she and Dad were friendly with a middle class black couple in town, and Lyla had told her what the black schools were like.
In retrospect, Mom's & her best friend's position was a bit naive, but they couldn't have realized at the time that educationally impoverished black kids would never have cut it at my school (which, being a school in the South, wasn't superlative even for white kids) but yeah, they would have gotten bullied out the door I think. I don't remember my classmates being particularly racist but our 'hoods were so white literally the only black people they saw were garbagemen.
Mom's radical solution was, "Integrate the neighbourhoods first." Yeah, that went over like a turd in a punch bowl ;)
At this point, education has gotten so bad in America I think the problem isn't, "How to give black kids a good education" but "how to give American kids a good education". Are they even learning anything worthwhile anymore or is it all CRT, howtuhgotrans, how to give a blowjob, etc.?
I'd be curious to know how many white local politicians & policy makers kids got bused to the inner city schools and weren't bullied, assimilated into that culture, made friends or made any positive difference.
In 1976, I was in 7th grade, which is when Chapter 220 busing was implemented in Milwaukee. I lived in a predominantly white neighborhood in a fairly good school district (at the time). PART of that program involved busing low income African Americans students from the inner city to predominantly white middle class schools. The OTHER part was busing white middle class students to the low income inner city schools. The OTHER part of the program is always excluded from any discussion when analyzing the problems and effects of desegregation. The only thing you hear about is white flight, but the white flight wasn’t because the students who were coming into the school were black, it was because parents didn’t want their children bused across the city to the inner city failing schools. I was not on the list to be bused across town so we stayed where we were.
I agree that working and living around people with different backgrounds may improve race relations. I made some pretty good friends (as much as you can when you live in different parts of the city). However forcing anyone to integrate was and is a bad idea.
The teachers and school at large was completely ill-equipped to handle the problems that came along with a very large portion of the students coming from the tough streets of the inner city. It wasn’t because of their race, it was because of where they grew up.
Obviously I have sympathy for anyone who lives in those conditions. Nobody deserves to live in that environment. But how naive is it to think you can change the entire composition of a school, adding a ton of street wise tough kids, drugs and violence, without being prepared. There were fights in the classroom, teachers beaten up, students stabbed in the parking lot, etc., etc.
It took years to end it but Milwaukee Public Schools have still not recovered from Chapter 220.
I was in the same situation as a sixth grader in Orlando, when the city was being dragged kicking and screaming into education equality. My parents didn't object to black kids bused to our schools, but they didn't want me (and later, my brother) bussed to the crap schools on the other side of town - and Mom knew what they were like because she and Dad were friendly with a middle class black couple in town, and Lyla had told her what the black schools were like.
In retrospect, Mom's & her best friend's position was a bit naive, but they couldn't have realized at the time that educationally impoverished black kids would never have cut it at my school (which, being a school in the South, wasn't superlative even for white kids) but yeah, they would have gotten bullied out the door I think. I don't remember my classmates being particularly racist but our 'hoods were so white literally the only black people they saw were garbagemen.
Mom's radical solution was, "Integrate the neighbourhoods first." Yeah, that went over like a turd in a punch bowl ;)
At this point, education has gotten so bad in America I think the problem isn't, "How to give black kids a good education" but "how to give American kids a good education". Are they even learning anything worthwhile anymore or is it all CRT, howtuhgotrans, how to give a blowjob, etc.?
I'd be curious to know how many white local politicians & policy makers kids got bused to the inner city schools and weren't bullied, assimilated into that culture, made friends or made any positive difference.