Comments | gaijinrx_78: Melting Pot

gaijinrx_78

Melting Pot

Dec 18, 2009 16:08

These are quotes taken from a University of Minnesota by a "race, culture, class and gender task force" who studies multiculturalism and is basically pushing cultural sensitivity training for teachers, which for the most part I think is a good idea. I don't really like these quotes though (which are all taken from other sources) or agree with the ( Read more... )

Comments 2

melanonymous December 21 2009, 21:45:38 UTC

Holy cow... Wow. Some of those quotes were pretty close to asinine. I agree that the OPPORTUNITY should be the same. The whole hyphenated American terms bug me too. Unless you really just CAME from that country and are now and American, you're just an American. And it drives me nuts that collages have quotas they have to fill. It really should be merit based, not skin-color based.

Problems also exist because school districts don't use the money they DO have effectively. Every election here, we hear all about how we need a new tax to raise money for schools, only to later hear about principals buying a new stove for the teacher's lounge and yet qualifying for Title 1 status. Then there's the perfectly usable computers, desks, office furniture, etc. that just get THROWN OUT. They don't even try to sell them to recoup their costs, and yet they want more money from tax payers.

It's annoying, to say the least.

anonymous December 22 2009, 16:47:20 UTC

Considering the fact that Washington DC schools outspend everyone in the country by a huge amount and are almost entirely students "of color", I think the money thing can be argued. In Texas, the "Robin Hood" plan took money from the more wealthy schools to give it to the poorer school districts. This was money raised in each school district through property taxes. The state's portion of public education has shrunk to less than 40% and the rest is made up by local taxpayers. There is a constitutional provision stating that there cannot be a statewide property tax, but they got to take our money directly from the district and send it away anyway. The state needs to step up and pay a larger portion of the bill. Water sinks to its lowest level and they are dragging down the top school districts. The state needs to push up from the bottom instead. The state should provide funds for what they consider to be an acceptable education and let school districts supplement from there. Also, I think it is interesting that this study is ( ... )