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Racial Segregation/Integration

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Posts

  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    hippofant wrote: »
    You and hippofant 's string of bad examples are again missing this distinction.
    hippofant wrote: »
    It's unethical because using people as means is unethical.

    Perhaps a dialectic will help clarify this:

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people to go there and it will be solved.

    Q:Well what if they don't want to go there?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Q:What if they are willing to move away or pay money to not go?
    A: Make sure they can't avoid going in anyway.


    Do the answers seem particularly moral to you?

    Once it isn't about sufficient funding, or great teachers or newer faculties, but is about using the students, people, as a means. You are talking about a morally different action than something like 'decoupling school funds from property taxes'.

    So, basically you're opposed to modern society? Because:

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people pay taxes so we can fix it.

    Q: Well what if they don't want to pay taxes?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Or

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people buy auto insurance.

    Q: Well what if they don't want to buy auto insurance?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Or

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people stop pooping in the streets.

    Q: Well what if they don't want to stop pooping in the streets?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Or any number of similar measures. There is a cost to living in a society, payment extracted in the form of behaviour that is disallowed/mandated. We sacrifice for the greater good as part of the social contract. We can dispute what sacrifices should be made in exchange for what, but blanket opposition to any and all sacrifices as unethical is :question:


    You are changing the sentence and thus changing the structure.

    The issue is that the students, people, are the means. Not their money. Not a behavior you want stopped. Them, their physical persons.


    If you want a modern state example that is comparable I can think of one-- conscription. Because that is what this is. Forcing them to go to be used personally to achieve an end of the state.

    I really didn't think the idea that people should be treated as an end unto themselves not a means, was really an idea that would be so anathema to this forum-- I'm certainly not going full Kant categorical imperative here. But like I said in my initial post on this tangent, I think this thread is very okay with a level of utilitarianism utilizing a certain groups of people, that it certainly wouldn't be with others. I expect individual autonomy would suddenly be way more sacred in a discussion on abortion for example.

    Well, first, I don't think Kant goes and draws a line in the sand with people's physical bodies as opposed to people's spiritual beings, that the categorical imperative applies to physical location but not metaphysical action. I don't know that he looks at the state and says that it can't coerce you to be in a particular location, but it can coerce you to perform particular actions, that it's not okay for the military to order you go to a particular location but it is okay for the military to order you to fire a Hellfire drone at a particular location, so long as you were free to do it from wherever you wanted.

    Second, if we're talking about the education system as is, the idea that a child citizen can only receive this particular service (education) at this particular location for whatever reason doesn't seem morally egregious on its face. The same applies for all sorts of public and private services. The post office mandates that I pick up my parcel from this location and not that location. Veterans' Affairs send a veteran to this hospital and not that hospital. Hospitals say you get surgery in this room and not that room. The government says I vote in this district and not that district. My employer says I have to work in this building and not that building. Immigrants are required to stay in the country for X years or be deported. Drivers are required to drive on the right side of streets and not the left sides. Protesters are required to protest here/not protest there or be arrested. We are, all the time, eminently coerced into doing things and being in places that we would not prefer; capitalist economies are explicitly about using people to produce stuff and denying people quality of living if they refuse to produce useful stuff; what exactly is it about this particular coercion that you object to?


    I really don't understand what physical locality has to do with anything, other than being an easy delineator to declare. Say we didn't have physical schools and instead had online schools - then is it okay to force kids to attend a particular school or not, because now they don't have to physically be in one building or another?

    Edit to add: Is racial segregation/integration really about physical collocation, or is that just one/the primary manifestation thereof?

    Okay I guess we are starting and square fucking one here.

    Say you want to build low income housing.

    Housing cost money to build so you levy a tax.

    The end is building the housing . The means is the tax.

    But, say you don't want to levy a tax. Instead you decide to use force 500 trades people to build the housing.

    In this second case the means is the trades people. So while in both cases the government forces people to do things they'd rather not do, in only one are they using the persons themselves as the means.

    So when people want to force, kids from good schools to go to bad schools, not because it's the best school for them, or because it's the nearest school or even whatever other random geographic or burocratic reason. But because by having them attend there, they can achieve some other goal, they are using the kids as means to the end (that goal).

    Now maybe you are fine with that, with people being used by the state against their wishes to achieve a greater good, again conscription is arguably the most historically common example of the state doing this.

    But I think the underpinnings of what that suggested solution to this problem is shouldn't be just hand waved away.

    Those students aren't being treated as people, they are being used as tools.

    There's a difference with being "fine with it" and being "not fine with any thing like it", and we are very much fine with things like it, and so I find your ipso facto unethical argument unconvincing. We're used as a means all the time. We're "labour", a "workforce", "human resources," and we generate GDP and productivity. If I refuse to be a productive worker, then I suffer the consequences of poverty and homelessness. How is that ethically distinct from refusing to go to the school assigned to me, and then being uneducated, illiterate, poor, and homeless? (It is legally distinct, but ethically?) Actors other than ourselves are allowed to impose conditions on us that say, "Do X, or suffer Y consequences." In fact, laws that require children to receive schooling at all would trigger your tripwire: how dare the state force children to receive education, so as to produce productive workers that contribute to the economy?

    Kant, in particular, allows for this in his political, not ethical, philosophy. From this primer (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-social-political/):
    The very existence of a state might seem to some as a limitation of freedom, since a state possesses power to control the external freedom of individual citizens through force. This is the basic claim of anarchism. Kant holds in contrast that the state is not an impediment to freedom but is the means for freedom. State action that is a hindrance to freedom can, when properly directed, support and maintain freedom if the state action is aimed at hindering actions that themselves would hinder the freedom of others. Given a subject’s action that would limit the freedom of another subject, the state may hinder the first subject to defend the second by “hindering a hindrance to freedom”. Such state coercion is compatible with the maximal freedom demanded in the principle of right because it does not reduce freedom but instead provides the necessary background conditions needed to secure freedom. The amount of freedom lost by the first subject through direct state coercion is equal to the amount gained by the second subject through lifting the hindrance to actions. State action sustains the maximal amount of freedom consistent with identical freedom for all without reducing it.

    And indeed, this part of Kant's philosophy, or at least this interpretation of it, would actually support forcible school desegregation, if it could be justified as increasing the overall level of freedom in society. (I don't recall Kant being this explicitly utilitarian in his writing itself personally, but Kant's a pain and a half to read.) I think a wide range of arguments could be made that forcible school desegregation, depending on how it's implemented, would be "hindering a hindrance to freedom," which is racism.*


    Now, it might not be effective, as @Frankiedarling argues. And this particular infringement on freedom may indeed be a bridge too far, as @Cambiata puts it. But imo, that argument needs to actually be assembled and presented, rather than just being assumed as obvious.


    (For the record, I should also state that I don't think your positions are particularly unusual and probably do reflect at least a large proportion of public sentiment on this issue, and I also haven't heard anybody present an effective argument on how to counter this public sentiment. I am unable to tell if you're engaged in devil's advocacy or sincerely hold these beliefs, whether I'm engaged in a political argument or a philosophical one here... because, well, we have had conscription before.)


    * (I also think an argument could be made that school desegregation isn't not using the children as a means, but rather treating children as an ends, because it also makes the students less racist and we want a citizenry which is less racist, but that's not the motivation behind this particular branch of the discussion, so....)

    hippofant on
  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    If you can come up with no better argument against a universal good to society other than, "I'm uncomfortable about it", then forgive me if I say that still sounds like a hell of a good deal for everyone. Including you.

    Please actually read what I'm saying. We agree that integration is a universal good to our society. What I disagree with is how you intend to accomplish this.

    And yes, I'm uncomfortable ceding more and more control to the government. How do you find this option, while faced with a Trump administration and the possibility of more like this, a Good Fucking Thing?? I argued this for years here during the Obama adminsitration that the powers and freedoms we cede to the government dont just belong to the governments we like, they belong to... well... people like Trump. And you call me a raving lunatic for being uncomfortable iwth that?

    Yes, it sounds like lunacy, because we're not talking about adding any power that hasn't been there since public schools have existed. If we lived in an alternate universe where public school did not already exist, and we were making an argument that public funded school should start existing, only then would your argument make any sense. Luckily we are not in that situation. Instead we're in a situation where, for all of our lifetimes, for all of the lifetimes of anyone currently living, the government has dictated that our taxes pay for public education, and that parents are required to have their children go to public education unless they choose an alternative like private school or home schooling, and that the government shall dictate which school students are allowed to go to. Given that all that already exists, what do you think Trump is going to do? Most likely his appointees is going to do something more to your taste, to be honest: they're likely going to try to make vouchers a thing, allowing parents to gut the public school system. So yay for parent's choice becoming more important than universal social good. You're dream will blossom under a Trump presidency.

    My argument makes plenty of sense if you simply stop assuming that just because we do A that B is also fine. I absolutely do not understand your flippancy towards this. "Oh ya, we everything's the same except we completely removed your ability to decide where your child is educated." Like... no. That's a huge deal. To a lot of people. For good reasons. You either do not understand how big this can be to a parent or you do, and you just don't mind bulldozing anyone or anything that gets in the way of your program.

    I don't know what Trump's going to do, and I really wish that we'd ceded less power to the government over the decades because he'd have less power and ability to wreck shit if we had.

    Frankiedarling on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    The only choice you have right now in terms of what public school your child goes to is where you live. And "good schools" drive up property values because there's a high demand for them. Which locks out poor/minority kids. (Also racist housing policy)

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    hippofant wrote: »
    hippofant wrote: »
    You and hippofant 's string of bad examples are again missing this distinction.
    hippofant wrote: »
    It's unethical because using people as means is unethical.

    Perhaps a dialectic will help clarify this:

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people to go there and it will be solved.

    Q:Well what if they don't want to go there?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Q:What if they are willing to move away or pay money to not go?
    A: Make sure they can't avoid going in anyway.


    Do the answers seem particularly moral to you?

    Once it isn't about sufficient funding, or great teachers or newer faculties, but is about using the students, people, as a means. You are talking about a morally different action than something like 'decoupling school funds from property taxes'.

    So, basically you're opposed to modern society? Because:

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people pay taxes so we can fix it.

    Q: Well what if they don't want to pay taxes?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Or

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people buy auto insurance.

    Q: Well what if they don't want to buy auto insurance?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Or

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people stop pooping in the streets.

    Q: Well what if they don't want to stop pooping in the streets?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Or any number of similar measures. There is a cost to living in a society, payment extracted in the form of behaviour that is disallowed/mandated. We sacrifice for the greater good as part of the social contract. We can dispute what sacrifices should be made in exchange for what, but blanket opposition to any and all sacrifices as unethical is :question:


    You are changing the sentence and thus changing the structure.

    The issue is that the students, people, are the means. Not their money. Not a behavior you want stopped. Them, their physical persons.


    If you want a modern state example that is comparable I can think of one-- conscription. Because that is what this is. Forcing them to go to be used personally to achieve an end of the state.

    I really didn't think the idea that people should be treated as an end unto themselves not a means, was really an idea that would be so anathema to this forum-- I'm certainly not going full Kant categorical imperative here. But like I said in my initial post on this tangent, I think this thread is very okay with a level of utilitarianism utilizing a certain groups of people, that it certainly wouldn't be with others. I expect individual autonomy would suddenly be way more sacred in a discussion on abortion for example.

    Well, first, I don't think Kant goes and draws a line in the sand with people's physical bodies as opposed to people's spiritual beings, that the categorical imperative applies to physical location but not metaphysical action. I don't know that he looks at the state and says that it can't coerce you to be in a particular location, but it can coerce you to perform particular actions, that it's not okay for the military to order you go to a particular location but it is okay for the military to order you to fire a Hellfire drone at a particular location, so long as you were free to do it from wherever you wanted.

    Second, if we're talking about the education system as is, the idea that a child citizen can only receive this particular service (education) at this particular location for whatever reason doesn't seem morally egregious on its face. The same applies for all sorts of public and private services. The post office mandates that I pick up my parcel from this location and not that location. Veterans' Affairs send a veteran to this hospital and not that hospital. Hospitals say you get surgery in this room and not that room. The government says I vote in this district and not that district. My employer says I have to work in this building and not that building. Immigrants are required to stay in the country for X years or be deported. Drivers are required to drive on the right side of streets and not the left sides. Protesters are required to protest here/not protest there or be arrested. We are, all the time, eminently coerced into doing things and being in places that we would not prefer; capitalist economies are explicitly about using people to produce stuff and denying people quality of living if they refuse to produce useful stuff; what exactly is it about this particular coercion that you object to?


    I really don't understand what physical locality has to do with anything, other than being an easy delineator to declare. Say we didn't have physical schools and instead had online schools - then is it okay to force kids to attend a particular school or not, because now they don't have to physically be in one building or another?

    Edit to add: Is racial segregation/integration really about physical collocation, or is that just one/the primary manifestation thereof?

    Okay I guess we are starting and square fucking one here.

    Say you want to build low income housing.

    Housing cost money to build so you levy a tax.

    The end is building the housing . The means is the tax.

    But, say you don't want to levy a tax. Instead you decide to use force 500 trades people to build the housing.

    In this second case the means is the trades people. So while in both cases the government forces people to do things they'd rather not do, in only one are they using the persons themselves as the means.

    So when people want to force, kids from good schools to go to bad schools, not because it's the best school for them, or because it's the nearest school or even whatever other random geographic or burocratic reason. But because by having them attend there, they can achieve some other goal, they are using the kids as means to the end (that goal).

    Now maybe you are fine with that, with people being used by the state against their wishes to achieve a greater good, again conscription is arguably the most historically common example of the state doing this.

    But I think the underpinnings of what that suggested solution to this problem is shouldn't be just hand waved away.

    Those students aren't being treated as people, they are being used as tools.

    There's a difference with being "fine with it" and being "not fine with any thing like it", and we are very much fine with things like it, and so I find your ipso facto unethical argument unconvincing. We're used as a means all the time. We're "labour", a "workforce", "human resources," and we generate GDP and productivity. If I refuse to be a productive worker, then I suffer the consequences of poverty and homelessness. How is that ethically distinct from refusing to go to the school assigned to me, and then being uneducated, illiterate, poor, and homeless? (It is legally distinct, but ethically?) Actors other than ourselves are allowed to impose conditions on us that say, "Do X, or suffer Y consequences." In fact, laws that require children to receive schooling at all would trigger your tripwire: how dare the state force children to receive education, so as to produce productive workers that contribute to the economy?

    Kant, in particular, allows for this in his political, not ethical, philosophy. From this primer (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-social-political/):
    The very existence of a state might seem to some as a limitation of freedom, since a state possesses power to control the external freedom of individual citizens through force. This is the basic claim of anarchism. Kant holds in contrast that the state is not an impediment to freedom but is the means for freedom. State action that is a hindrance to freedom can, when properly directed, support and maintain freedom if the state action is aimed at hindering actions that themselves would hinder the freedom of others. Given a subject’s action that would limit the freedom of another subject, the state may hinder the first subject to defend the second by “hindering a hindrance to freedom”. Such state coercion is compatible with the maximal freedom demanded in the principle of right because it does not reduce freedom but instead provides the necessary background conditions needed to secure freedom. The amount of freedom lost by the first subject through direct state coercion is equal to the amount gained by the second subject through lifting the hindrance to actions. State action sustains the maximal amount of freedom consistent with identical freedom for all without reducing it.

    And indeed, this part of Kant's philosophy, or at least this interpretation of it, would actually support forcible school desegregation, if it could be justified as increasing the overall level of freedom in society. (I don't recall Kant being this explicitly utilitarian in his writing itself personally, but Kant's a pain and a half to read.) I think a wide range of arguments could be made that forcible school desegregation, depending on how it's implemented, would be "hindering a hindrance to freedom," which is racism.*


    Now, it might not be effective, as @Frankiedarling argues. And this particular infringement on freedom may indeed be a bridge too far, as @Cambiata puts it. But imo, that argument needs to actually be assembled and presented, rather than just being assumed as obvious.


    (For the record, I should also state that I don't think your positions are particularly unusual and probably do reflect at least a large proportion of public sentiment on this issue, and I also haven't heard anybody present an effective argument on how to counter this public sentiment. I am unable to tell if you're engaged in devil's advocacy or sincerely hold these beliefs, whether I'm engaged in a political argument or a philosophical one here... because, well, we have had conscription before.)


    * (I also think an argument could be made that school desegregation isn't not using the children as a means, but rather treating children as an ends, because it also makes the students less racist and we want a citizenry which is less racist, but that's not the motivation behind this particular branch of the discussion, so....)

    In regards to me, I don't think there's any way of comprehensively proving that it will or will not be a bridge too far. Without presenting arguments for or against, I think that it is far too easy to sink this proposal simply because of what it entails (removing parental control by government mandate). Thus far people have engaged with my personal position on the matter and not with how such a proposal might in itself be received.

    In that way it is much like reparations, in that you can argue both for and against them extensively but that entire debate dances around the fact that actually enacting reparations is practically impossible. So it becomes more of a feel-good argument than anything else.


  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    If you can come up with no better argument against a universal good to society other than, "I'm uncomfortable about it", then forgive me if I say that still sounds like a hell of a good deal for everyone. Including you.

    Please actually read what I'm saying. We agree that integration is a universal good to our society. What I disagree with is how you intend to accomplish this.

    And yes, I'm uncomfortable ceding more and more control to the government. How do you find this option, while faced with a Trump administration and the possibility of more like this, a Good Fucking Thing?? I argued this for years here during the Obama adminsitration that the powers and freedoms we cede to the government dont just belong to the governments we like, they belong to... well... people like Trump. And you call me a raving lunatic for being uncomfortable iwth that?

    Yes, it sounds like lunacy, because we're not talking about adding any power that hasn't been there since public schools have existed. If we lived in an alternate universe where public school did not already exist, and we were making an argument that public funded school should start existing, only then would your argument make any sense. Luckily we are not in that situation. Instead we're in a situation where, for all of our lifetimes, for all of the lifetimes of anyone currently living, the government has dictated that our taxes pay for public education, and that parents are required to have their children go to public education unless they choose an alternative like private school or home schooling, and that the government shall dictate which school students are allowed to go to. Given that all that already exists, what do you think Trump is going to do? Most likely his appointees is going to do something more to your taste, to be honest: they're likely going to try to make vouchers a thing, allowing parents to gut the public school system. So yay for parent's choice becoming more important than universal social good. You're dream will blossom under a Trump presidency.

    My argument makes plenty of sense if you simply stop assuming that just because we do A that B is also fine. I absolutely do not understand your flippancy towards this. "Oh ya, we everything's the same except we completely removed your ability to decide where your child is educated." Like... no. That's a huge deal. To a lot of people. For good reasons. You either do not understand how big this can be to a parent or you do, and you just don't mind bulldozing anyone or anything that gets in the way of your program.

    I don't know what Trump's going to do, and I really wish that we'd ceded less power to the government over the decades because he'd have less power and ability to wreck shit if we had.

    Because it's not "if A is OK, B should be OK." Instead it's, "If A is already OK, then we'll do A." And you're acting like A is something completely different than what we already have when... it's exactly the same? You have continually failed to explain how it's different. Once again: We already tell parents where they are allowed to send their children and where they are not. I posted this earlier in the thread, but clearly you didn't listen to it. I suggest listening to act 1 only:

    https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with

    In act 1, a parent tries, in vain, to get her straight-A daughter into a school that will give her an actual education. She fails, because our school system does not work that way and has never worked that way. Her daughter can only go to the schools in her district, unless she pays tuition to those other schools, and she can't afford the tuition. She only succeeds finally when an obscure state law comes into play and allows her daughter to be bussed. It's a compelling story, believe me when I say you won't be bored.

    What we want is something to counter-act the problem discussed in the story. And you're saying it's wrong because, what? It's forcing good on people? I don't really understand your argument because you have not sketched it out in any manner, you've just kept talking about how this is authoritarianism and not bothered to actually explain what makes you believe that.

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    The only choice you have right now in terms of what public school your child goes to is where you live. And "good schools" drive up property values because there's a high demand for them. Which locks out poor/minority kids. (Also racist housing policy)

    If this is the only choice than why do we feel a government mandate is necessary? Unless we are considering forcibly moving families it seems somewhat illogical.

  • HakkekageHakkekage Space Whore Academy summa cum laudeRegistered User regular
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    We ran into epic backlash the first time, in the 60s. When a lot more people thought it was ok to say certain racial epithets in public, when lynching were still common, when desegregation lead to direct and open violence. It still worked and made things substantially better. Have we, as a people, actually not progressed since then? Are you saying we've actually regressed to the point that it's undoable? Nonsense.
    Feral wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Schools themselves are government-run facilities that they force people to go against their will.

    And this is a step further. People don't like government interference. People do and will fight it. You can't argue "we already tell people what to do in cases X and Y so what's the big deal if we add A, B, C and D too?" Well you can, but you'll run up against heavy resistance.

    Kind of like when we abolished slavery.

    Yes, every progressive step the United States has made to correct the festering wound that is systemic racism has been vociferously opposed by "people." Some of those people are consciously bigoted. Others aren't, but just wish it wasn't so damn inconvenient..

    Look at me playing my tiniest violin.

    It doesnt matter how much you want to fight racism or how good your intentions are, you're going to have a hell of a time selling "the government wants to remove and restrict your rights as parents", because that's how it's going to be presented. And the worst part is they wouldnt even have to lie, that's what it is. You just find it acceptable because it's in service of a cause you fervently beleive in. I have my opinions on the desire to solve all problems with the federal government stepping in and smashing everything, but this isn't even relevant because your proposal is DOA.

    Also, if you want to pretend there's no conversation to be had about government legislating all aspects of life... well that's certainly a thing, but that's quite the ideology and quite a thing to hear while we have a Trump administration lol.

    EDIT: The government taking away choice from citizens is not a thing that should be undertaken lightly. That you see no problem with it is concerning to me. That you dont understand why parents might feel outraged at losing the choice of how to care for their children is just plain confusing.

    Again, you're taking a case where the government already fucking tells parents what to do in regards to their children and then saying "because you have to go to A instead of B, that's a bridge too far and it's complete regulation of every aspect of life!" And you and tinwhiskers sound hysterical when you try to turn it into that. It's not a huge difference. It's not a legislation of every part of life (guess what, you would still be able homeschool or send kids to private schools just exactly as you have always been able to do).

    It's not inherently immoral. It's not a huge, different step that what we're already doing. It's not regulating every aspect of life (lols). It's not monitors in your home so the government can make sure you're not saying anything against Big Brother. It's not forcing you to live in a neighborhood you don't want to live in. It's saying, "in this one, already wholly government regulated arena, we're going to make government administration of the system a little more fair than it's been." It's like if we finally make redistricting done by a fully non-partisan council instead of the current ultra-partisan methods that take place in most states - it's like if we did that and suddenly you came over here shouting, "whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not get CRAZY with government regulation!" It would make no sense, it would sound like the ravings of a lunatic. That's how you sound about desegregation.

    Yes, the government already tells parents what to do in regards to your children. And increasing what the government can tell parents to do in regards to their children should be something well-considered and not just "well, we already do A so let's just to X Y and Z as well same dif!"

    But apparently this is raving lunatic talk.

    Government interference and mandates should not be considered default. The default is freedom, and the government interferes and restricts those freedoms in specific ways and for specific reasons. If we're throwing words around, you seem like the raving lunatic who sees no problem with just handing the government more and more control over our lives and choices.

    And you're still bypassing the more pressing problem, which is that your solution is pie-in-the-sky fantasy because the sell is nonexistant. I guess you can get angry forever about your impossible solutions but that hardly seems productive. Because, again, how on earth does this proposal not get instantly (and, sadly, truthfully) spun as "the government wants to take away your choices in how you raise your children"?

    Against the generally advanced principle that ANY interference by the government is an aberration of the gloriously free state of nature: Judicial standards for identifying the acceptability of government coercion over its interest in preserving individual freedoms already exist. They help define what interferences and mandates are legally acceptable when challenged (i.e. violations of due process or equal protection). These reviews are not just limited to cases where laws explicitly discriminate on the basis of some officially identified class like race, sex, national origin, etc, though these standards of review are often most associated with landmark cases in those arenas. Rational Basis and Compelling Interest tests, alongside varying levels of scrutiny for levels of discrimination deserving of intense review, allow justices--and regular people at large, should we choose to consider them--to apply a relatively consistent framework of evaluating the validity of government justifications for its various laws, all of which, aside from some inconsequential building name, involve first, second or third order influence on people's actions. The non-pragmatic aberration here is your advancement of the general principle that ALL and ANY actions by a government with prohibitions on certain behaviors should not be the default, as the prevailing reality is that almost any government law in theory compels citizens to do things it would not normally do in service of some rational or compelling goal that outweighs the burden of diminished freedom imposed on a given individual.

    That is NOT to say an actual proposed increase in governmental interference should not be treated with appropriate skepticism on the basis that it would violate our colloquial understanding of the government's rational or compelling interest to achieve a stated goal (not a judicial standard, which can get fairly abstract and lead to some bad binding decisions). However again to flatly state that ANY government action that might have an impact on people's choices, because an increase in government mandate is tyrannical aberration and not the default, is laughable on its face.

    Now, abstract philosophy and ethical justification aside, you also take for granted that the PR spin on the anticipated opposition by parents as an unjustified violation of their freedom as proof that the larger goals of a directly racially mindful solution to segregation does not outweigh the costs of that diminished freedom. Simply because parents will view it as an unjustified intrusion into their authorities as guardians of their offspring does not make it so. We have already, as it happens, determined as a society that education of our collective children is a basic imperative to which parental obstruction is subordinated, and we are merely arguing over degrees. Parental authority is not absolute--it is why they must send their children to school or provide a basic standard of education at all, why they cannot send children to work in factories and garnish their wages, no matter how beleaguered their circumstances. Expanding the definition of necessary education to include a social experience of ANY DIVERSITY AT ALL is what we're really arguing over, not the fact that parents must do things they may not want to do--they are already doing that.

    3DS: 2165 - 6538 - 3417
    NNID: Hakkekage
  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    If you can come up with no better argument against a universal good to society other than, "I'm uncomfortable about it", then forgive me if I say that still sounds like a hell of a good deal for everyone. Including you.

    Please actually read what I'm saying. We agree that integration is a universal good to our society. What I disagree with is how you intend to accomplish this.

    And yes, I'm uncomfortable ceding more and more control to the government. How do you find this option, while faced with a Trump administration and the possibility of more like this, a Good Fucking Thing?? I argued this for years here during the Obama adminsitration that the powers and freedoms we cede to the government dont just belong to the governments we like, they belong to... well... people like Trump. And you call me a raving lunatic for being uncomfortable iwth that?

    Yes, it sounds like lunacy, because we're not talking about adding any power that hasn't been there since public schools have existed. If we lived in an alternate universe where public school did not already exist, and we were making an argument that public funded school should start existing, only then would your argument make any sense. Luckily we are not in that situation. Instead we're in a situation where, for all of our lifetimes, for all of the lifetimes of anyone currently living, the government has dictated that our taxes pay for public education, and that parents are required to have their children go to public education unless they choose an alternative like private school or home schooling, and that the government shall dictate which school students are allowed to go to. Given that all that already exists, what do you think Trump is going to do? Most likely his appointees is going to do something more to your taste, to be honest: they're likely going to try to make vouchers a thing, allowing parents to gut the public school system. So yay for parent's choice becoming more important than universal social good. You're dream will blossom under a Trump presidency.

    My argument makes plenty of sense if you simply stop assuming that just because we do A that B is also fine. I absolutely do not understand your flippancy towards this. "Oh ya, we everything's the same except we completely removed your ability to decide where your child is educated." Like... no. That's a huge deal. To a lot of people. For good reasons. You either do not understand how big this can be to a parent or you do, and you just don't mind bulldozing anyone or anything that gets in the way of your program.

    I don't know what Trump's going to do, and I really wish that we'd ceded less power to the government over the decades because he'd have less power and ability to wreck shit if we had.

    Because it's not "if A is OK, B should be OK." Instead it's, "If A is already OK, then we'll do A." And you're acting like A is something completely different than what we already have when... it's exactly the same? You have continually failed to explain how it's different. Once again: We already tell parents where they are allowed to send their children and where they are not. I posted this earlier in the thread, but clearly you didn't listen to it. I suggest listening to act 1 only:

    https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with

    In act 1, a parent tries, in vain, to get her straight-A daughter into a school that will give her an actual education. She fails, because our school system does not work that way and has never worked that way. Her daughter can only go to the schools in her district, unless she pays tuition to those other schools, and she can't afford the tuition. She only succeeds finally when an obscure state law comes into play and allows her daughter to be bussed. It's a compelling story, believe me when I say you won't be bored.

    What we want is something to counter-act the problem discussed in the story. And you're saying it's wrong because, what? It's forcing good on people? I don't really understand your argument because you have not sketched it out in any manner, you've just kept talking about how this is authoritarianism and not bothered to actually explain what makes you believe that.

    If you think there is no difference, then your argument for a government mandate falls flat. You are asking for something that has not yet been done and want the government to enforce it. You sink your own argument, you can't ask for something you don't have and claim it is something you already have.

    And to a great extent, yes, I disagree with forcing "good" on people. That's a dangerous road. We should be careful and fully aware in what we are doing when strip liberties from people. You seem to be acutely aware of this when it concerns your pet groups and causes.

    I'll listen to that when I can :)

  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    The only choice you have right now in terms of what public school your child goes to is where you live. And "good schools" drive up property values because there's a high demand for them. Which locks out poor/minority kids. (Also racist housing policy)

    If this is the only choice than why do we feel a government mandate is necessary? Unless we are considering forcibly moving families it seems somewhat illogical.

    Because the government has a compelling interest to reduce ethnic and racial tensions in society.

    Effects:

    1) Many kids who are not currently receiving a good education will get into schools that already have the infrastructure necessary to be good schools.
    2) All kids will be exposed to people not like them, which we have seen reduces the influence of racial and ethnic bias.
    3) Parents of kids who go to worse off schools will be invested in improving them. Whereas now they inevitably blame the corrupt local governments. I may be projecting slightly because I'm from Michigan. But Detroit's schools are more like prisons that house the kids for 8 hours a day than actual learning environments. The rest of the state doesn't give a shit because it's all the government of Detroit's fault.
    4) Yes, some kids will end up in worse schools. But ideally it should cause an evening out of resource distribution as suddenly the system will be interested in those schools.
    5) Parents who fled cities to (mostly white) enclaves in suburbia for the better schools will in fact protest. I care less about this than the social good from reducing racial tension.

    Secondary thing is we need to recruit more non-white teachers. Non-white kids do better with teachers that they have a shared experience with. But while ~50% of students today are non-white, just 15% of teachers are.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    If you can come up with no better argument against a universal good to society other than, "I'm uncomfortable about it", then forgive me if I say that still sounds like a hell of a good deal for everyone. Including you.

    Please actually read what I'm saying. We agree that integration is a universal good to our society. What I disagree with is how you intend to accomplish this.

    And yes, I'm uncomfortable ceding more and more control to the government. How do you find this option, while faced with a Trump administration and the possibility of more like this, a Good Fucking Thing?? I argued this for years here during the Obama adminsitration that the powers and freedoms we cede to the government dont just belong to the governments we like, they belong to... well... people like Trump. And you call me a raving lunatic for being uncomfortable iwth that?

    Yes, it sounds like lunacy, because we're not talking about adding any power that hasn't been there since public schools have existed. If we lived in an alternate universe where public school did not already exist, and we were making an argument that public funded school should start existing, only then would your argument make any sense. Luckily we are not in that situation. Instead we're in a situation where, for all of our lifetimes, for all of the lifetimes of anyone currently living, the government has dictated that our taxes pay for public education, and that parents are required to have their children go to public education unless they choose an alternative like private school or home schooling, and that the government shall dictate which school students are allowed to go to. Given that all that already exists, what do you think Trump is going to do? Most likely his appointees is going to do something more to your taste, to be honest: they're likely going to try to make vouchers a thing, allowing parents to gut the public school system. So yay for parent's choice becoming more important than universal social good. You're dream will blossom under a Trump presidency.

    My argument makes plenty of sense if you simply stop assuming that just because we do A that B is also fine. I absolutely do not understand your flippancy towards this. "Oh ya, we everything's the same except we completely removed your ability to decide where your child is educated." Like... no. That's a huge deal. To a lot of people. For good reasons. You either do not understand how big this can be to a parent or you do, and you just don't mind bulldozing anyone or anything that gets in the way of your program.

    I don't know what Trump's going to do, and I really wish that we'd ceded less power to the government over the decades because he'd have less power and ability to wreck shit if we had.

    Because it's not "if A is OK, B should be OK." Instead it's, "If A is already OK, then we'll do A." And you're acting like A is something completely different than what we already have when... it's exactly the same? You have continually failed to explain how it's different. Once again: We already tell parents where they are allowed to send their children and where they are not. I posted this earlier in the thread, but clearly you didn't listen to it. I suggest listening to act 1 only:

    https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with

    In act 1, a parent tries, in vain, to get her straight-A daughter into a school that will give her an actual education. She fails, because our school system does not work that way and has never worked that way. Her daughter can only go to the schools in her district, unless she pays tuition to those other schools, and she can't afford the tuition. She only succeeds finally when an obscure state law comes into play and allows her daughter to be bussed. It's a compelling story, believe me when I say you won't be bored.

    What we want is something to counter-act the problem discussed in the story. And you're saying it's wrong because, what? It's forcing good on people? I don't really understand your argument because you have not sketched it out in any manner, you've just kept talking about how this is authoritarianism and not bothered to actually explain what makes you believe that.

    If you think there is no difference, then your argument for a government mandate falls flat. You are asking for something that has not yet been done and want the government to enforce it. You sink your own argument, you can't ask for something you don't have and claim it is something you already have.

    And to a great extent, yes, I disagree with forcing "good" on people. That's a dangerous road. We should be careful and fully aware in what we are doing when strip liberties from people. You seem to be acutely aware of this when it concerns your pet groups and causes.

    I'll listen to that when I can :)

    I don't disagree with you, but it seems fallacious to refer to "sending your children to the school you want" as a liberty, because, as we've established, many people are explicitly denied this liberty regularly, and the people who are talking about forcible school integration are explicitly discussing how to restore this liberty to all - or at least render its loss insignificant.

    I mean, that's the core problem here, right? That we can't extend this liberty to all freely and fully, because doing so implicitly puts these liberties in conflict with each other (due to physical limitations on enrollments in schools and the financial costs of education), and so, in the current state, we've eliminated this conflict by converting this liberty into a privilege attached to wealth and geographical mobility.

    (Of course, rich parents who will be stripped of this privilege in an effort to grant liberty to all will nevertheless howl at this loss of "liberty".)

    hippofant on
  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    Hakkekage wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    We ran into epic backlash the first time, in the 60s. When a lot more people thought it was ok to say certain racial epithets in public, when lynching were still common, when desegregation lead to direct and open violence. It still worked and made things substantially better. Have we, as a people, actually not progressed since then? Are you saying we've actually regressed to the point that it's undoable? Nonsense.
    Feral wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Schools themselves are government-run facilities that they force people to go against their will.

    And this is a step further. People don't like government interference. People do and will fight it. You can't argue "we already tell people what to do in cases X and Y so what's the big deal if we add A, B, C and D too?" Well you can, but you'll run up against heavy resistance.

    Kind of like when we abolished slavery.

    Yes, every progressive step the United States has made to correct the festering wound that is systemic racism has been vociferously opposed by "people." Some of those people are consciously bigoted. Others aren't, but just wish it wasn't so damn inconvenient..

    Look at me playing my tiniest violin.

    It doesnt matter how much you want to fight racism or how good your intentions are, you're going to have a hell of a time selling "the government wants to remove and restrict your rights as parents", because that's how it's going to be presented. And the worst part is they wouldnt even have to lie, that's what it is. You just find it acceptable because it's in service of a cause you fervently beleive in. I have my opinions on the desire to solve all problems with the federal government stepping in and smashing everything, but this isn't even relevant because your proposal is DOA.

    Also, if you want to pretend there's no conversation to be had about government legislating all aspects of life... well that's certainly a thing, but that's quite the ideology and quite a thing to hear while we have a Trump administration lol.

    EDIT: The government taking away choice from citizens is not a thing that should be undertaken lightly. That you see no problem with it is concerning to me. That you dont understand why parents might feel outraged at losing the choice of how to care for their children is just plain confusing.

    Again, you're taking a case where the government already fucking tells parents what to do in regards to their children and then saying "because you have to go to A instead of B, that's a bridge too far and it's complete regulation of every aspect of life!" And you and tinwhiskers sound hysterical when you try to turn it into that. It's not a huge difference. It's not a legislation of every part of life (guess what, you would still be able homeschool or send kids to private schools just exactly as you have always been able to do).

    It's not inherently immoral. It's not a huge, different step that what we're already doing. It's not regulating every aspect of life (lols). It's not monitors in your home so the government can make sure you're not saying anything against Big Brother. It's not forcing you to live in a neighborhood you don't want to live in. It's saying, "in this one, already wholly government regulated arena, we're going to make government administration of the system a little more fair than it's been." It's like if we finally make redistricting done by a fully non-partisan council instead of the current ultra-partisan methods that take place in most states - it's like if we did that and suddenly you came over here shouting, "whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not get CRAZY with government regulation!" It would make no sense, it would sound like the ravings of a lunatic. That's how you sound about desegregation.

    Yes, the government already tells parents what to do in regards to your children. And increasing what the government can tell parents to do in regards to their children should be something well-considered and not just "well, we already do A so let's just to X Y and Z as well same dif!"

    But apparently this is raving lunatic talk.

    Government interference and mandates should not be considered default. The default is freedom, and the government interferes and restricts those freedoms in specific ways and for specific reasons. If we're throwing words around, you seem like the raving lunatic who sees no problem with just handing the government more and more control over our lives and choices.

    And you're still bypassing the more pressing problem, which is that your solution is pie-in-the-sky fantasy because the sell is nonexistant. I guess you can get angry forever about your impossible solutions but that hardly seems productive. Because, again, how on earth does this proposal not get instantly (and, sadly, truthfully) spun as "the government wants to take away your choices in how you raise your children"?

    Against the generally advanced principle that ANY interference by the government is an aberration of the gloriously free state of nature: Judicial standards for identifying the acceptability of government coercion over its interest in preserving individual freedoms already exist. They help define what interferences and mandates are legally acceptable when challenged (i.e. violations of due process or equal protection). These reviews are not just limited to cases where laws explicitly discriminate on the basis of some officially identified class like race, sex, national origin, etc, though these standards of review are often most associated with landmark cases in those arenas. Rational Basis and Compelling Interest tests, alongside varying levels of scrutiny for levels of discrimination deserving of intense review, allow justices--and regular people at large, should we choose to consider them--to apply a relatively consistent framework of evaluating the validity of government justifications for its various laws, all of which, aside from some inconsequential building name, involve first, second or third order influence on people's actions. The non-pragmatic aberration here is your advancement of the general principle that ALL and ANY actions by a government with prohibitions on certain behaviors should not be the default, as the prevailing reality is that almost any government law in theory compels citizens to do things it would not normally do in service of some rational or compelling goal that outweighs the burden of diminished freedom imposed on a given individual.

    That is NOT to say an actual proposed increase in governmental interference should not be treated with appropriate skepticism on the basis that it would violate our colloquial understanding of the government's rational or compelling interest to achieve a stated goal (not a judicial standard, which can get fairly abstract and lead to some bad binding decisions). However again to flatly state that ANY government action that might have an impact on people's choices, because an increase in government mandate is tyrannical aberration and not the default, is laughable on its face.

    Now, abstract philosophy and ethical justification aside, you also take for granted that the PR spin on the anticipated opposition by parents as an unjustified violation of their freedom as proof that the larger goals of a directly racially mindful solution to segregation does not outweigh the costs of that diminished freedom. Simply because parents will view it as an unjustified intrusion into their authorities as guardians of their offspring does not make it so. We have already, as it happens, determined as a society that education of our collective children is a basic imperative to which parental obstruction is subordinated, and we are merely arguing over degrees. Parental authority is not absolute--it is why they must send their children to school or provide a basic standard of education at all, why they cannot send children to work in factories and garnish their wages, no matter how beleaguered their circumstances. Expanding the definition of necessary education to include a social experience of ANY DIVERSITY AT ALL is what we're really arguing over, not the fact that parents must do things they may not want to do--they are already doing that.

    As to abstract philosophy and ethical justification, I absolutely see lack of government intrusion as the norm and government intrusion as something that can be and often is necessary, but should always be done with care and much thought. It is something that should be argued, not assumed. I don't believe this is a particularly radical or indefensible position in the slightest. A separate god damn thread on the subject would actually be quite fun if it avoided going into "lol liberatarians" as the last one of its ilk did.

    The PR spin... I dunno what to say. I see it as DOA. Parental authority is not absolute just as ALL of our rights are not absolute. But we guard them jealously, and most do not like to let go of their rights and freedoms without good cause. This may be said doubly so for parents regarding their children. You could ask 100 parents if in abstract they are for ceding their parental authority further to the government; I doubt you will find an answer you like. You may couch it any more reasonable terms but that is still what you are, at base, doing.

    That said, I understand that statement of mine is not a coherent argument. I don't actually have a way of proving how such a proposition would work out. I'm extremely skeptical of it, I feel people can and would attack it from multitudes of angles: from parents know best, to government restricting your freedoms, to government cares more about X than your kids, etc etc etc. You are absolutely free to disagree, I just think anyone who doesn't see the disaster in the making there is strangely optimistic.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    OremLK wrote: »
    The best solution to the housing part of this is to require developers to mix low and mid-income units in with their market rate units anytime they create any type of development, whether that be single family exurban tract homes or especially luxury apartments in dense urban neighborhoods. I am not in favor of entire housing projects dedicated entirely to affordable housing (see: Pruitt-Igoe.)

    There are two issues we're facing:

    1) This practice needs to be greatly expanded and cities need to stop letting developers buy their way out of including the units by paying into affordable housing funds to build dedicated projects elsewhere. Just make them put the units in the "good neighborhoods".

    2) MUCH MORE needs to be done to permit increased housing development in cities in general. Squash the NIMBYs, build build build, and include affordable housing mixed in every time you do. So many of the most expensive areas in the US have TONS of room to grow in residential density. San Francisco. Brooklyn. Boston.

    We are really terrible at urban development in the US, and racism is partly why, but it's partly the way our government is constructed and just plain momentum from decades of bad policy.

    Most terrible urban planning is because it's done at the local level where no one has the expertise, no one is generally watching and short-term monetary interests are more powerful then basically anything else because of the unstable nature of smaller low-level tax bases.

    Schools in general also suffer from low-level local control for vaguely similar reasons. Municipal-level government things are just generally not well administered on average and frequently have some fairly perverse incentives.

    Frankly, there's no reason for schooling to be controlled locally to begin with and a whole lot of reasons why it's a bad idea, like the various forces that lead to segregation we are discussing in this thread.

  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    The only choice you have right now in terms of what public school your child goes to is where you live. And "good schools" drive up property values because there's a high demand for them. Which locks out poor/minority kids. (Also racist housing policy)

    If this is the only choice than why do we feel a government mandate is necessary? Unless we are considering forcibly moving families it seems somewhat illogical.

    Because the government has a compelling interest to reduce ethnic and racial tensions in society.

    Effects:

    1) Many kids who are not currently receiving a good education will get into schools that already have the infrastructure necessary to be good schools.
    2) All kids will be exposed to people not like them, which we have seen reduces the influence of racial and ethnic bias.
    3) Parents of kids who go to worse off schools will be invested in improving them. Whereas now they inevitably blame the corrupt local governments. I may be projecting slightly because I'm from Michigan. But Detroit's schools are more like prisons that house the kids for 8 hours a day than actual learning environments. The rest of the state doesn't give a shit because it's all the government of Detroit's fault.
    4) Yes, some kids will end up in worse schools. But ideally it should cause an evening out of resource distribution as suddenly the system will be interested in those schools.
    5) Parents who fled cities to (mostly white) enclaves in suburbia for the better schools will in fact protest. I care less about this than the social good from reducing racial tension.

    Secondary thing is we need to recruit more non-white teachers. Non-white kids do better with teachers that they have a shared experience with. But while ~50% of students today are non-white, just 15% of teachers are.

    I wasn't asking why you think it's a good idea. I was trying to say, if they already don't have a choice (as was implied) then why the need for a government mandate? It's essentially the same argument as Cambiata, in that she rejects we are going from A to B and are in fact going from A to A.... which makes no sense to me in that if we are already at A (or, if parents already don't have a choice) than why the need for any government action?

    Frankiedarling on
  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    hippofant wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    If you can come up with no better argument against a universal good to society other than, "I'm uncomfortable about it", then forgive me if I say that still sounds like a hell of a good deal for everyone. Including you.

    Please actually read what I'm saying. We agree that integration is a universal good to our society. What I disagree with is how you intend to accomplish this.

    And yes, I'm uncomfortable ceding more and more control to the government. How do you find this option, while faced with a Trump administration and the possibility of more like this, a Good Fucking Thing?? I argued this for years here during the Obama adminsitration that the powers and freedoms we cede to the government dont just belong to the governments we like, they belong to... well... people like Trump. And you call me a raving lunatic for being uncomfortable iwth that?

    Yes, it sounds like lunacy, because we're not talking about adding any power that hasn't been there since public schools have existed. If we lived in an alternate universe where public school did not already exist, and we were making an argument that public funded school should start existing, only then would your argument make any sense. Luckily we are not in that situation. Instead we're in a situation where, for all of our lifetimes, for all of the lifetimes of anyone currently living, the government has dictated that our taxes pay for public education, and that parents are required to have their children go to public education unless they choose an alternative like private school or home schooling, and that the government shall dictate which school students are allowed to go to. Given that all that already exists, what do you think Trump is going to do? Most likely his appointees is going to do something more to your taste, to be honest: they're likely going to try to make vouchers a thing, allowing parents to gut the public school system. So yay for parent's choice becoming more important than universal social good. You're dream will blossom under a Trump presidency.

    My argument makes plenty of sense if you simply stop assuming that just because we do A that B is also fine. I absolutely do not understand your flippancy towards this. "Oh ya, we everything's the same except we completely removed your ability to decide where your child is educated." Like... no. That's a huge deal. To a lot of people. For good reasons. You either do not understand how big this can be to a parent or you do, and you just don't mind bulldozing anyone or anything that gets in the way of your program.

    I don't know what Trump's going to do, and I really wish that we'd ceded less power to the government over the decades because he'd have less power and ability to wreck shit if we had.

    Because it's not "if A is OK, B should be OK." Instead it's, "If A is already OK, then we'll do A." And you're acting like A is something completely different than what we already have when... it's exactly the same? You have continually failed to explain how it's different. Once again: We already tell parents where they are allowed to send their children and where they are not. I posted this earlier in the thread, but clearly you didn't listen to it. I suggest listening to act 1 only:

    https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with

    In act 1, a parent tries, in vain, to get her straight-A daughter into a school that will give her an actual education. She fails, because our school system does not work that way and has never worked that way. Her daughter can only go to the schools in her district, unless she pays tuition to those other schools, and she can't afford the tuition. She only succeeds finally when an obscure state law comes into play and allows her daughter to be bussed. It's a compelling story, believe me when I say you won't be bored.

    What we want is something to counter-act the problem discussed in the story. And you're saying it's wrong because, what? It's forcing good on people? I don't really understand your argument because you have not sketched it out in any manner, you've just kept talking about how this is authoritarianism and not bothered to actually explain what makes you believe that.

    If you think there is no difference, then your argument for a government mandate falls flat. You are asking for something that has not yet been done and want the government to enforce it. You sink your own argument, you can't ask for something you don't have and claim it is something you already have.

    And to a great extent, yes, I disagree with forcing "good" on people. That's a dangerous road. We should be careful and fully aware in what we are doing when strip liberties from people. You seem to be acutely aware of this when it concerns your pet groups and causes.

    I'll listen to that when I can :)

    I don't disagree with you, but it seems fallacious to refer to "sending your children to the school you want" as a liberty, because, as we've established, many people are explicitly denied this liberty regularly, and the people who are talking about forcible school integration are explicitly discussing how to restore this liberty to all - or at least render its loss insignificant.

    I mean, that's the core problem here, right? That we can't extend this liberty to all freely and fully, because doing so implicitly puts these liberties in conflict with each other (due to physical limitations on enrollments in schools and the financial costs of education), and so, in the current state, we've eliminated this conflict by converting this liberty into a privilege attached to wealth and geographical mobility.

    (Of course, rich parents who will be stripped of this privilege in an effort to grant liberty to all will nevertheless howl at this loss of "liberty".)

    I absolutely see the problem, I'm just unsure of what the best way to go about it is. I'd like to go about it in a way that doesn't further curtail parental authority and give it to the federal government.

    Like, I'm at the age where most of my friends are married and have kids and... the kids are their world. I see how they agonize over what school at what age and etc etc etc. Their kids are everything to them and they want the best for them and this is a good thing, as much as a thing can be good. I am as much skeptical of the methods suggested as I am with the utter callousness and flippancy some seem to have for parents trying to take care of their kids the best they can. At a certain point you're just walking over people in search of the greater good, and while I accept that this must on occasion happen I am A: uncomfortable with how happy we seem to be to do that and B: unconvinced that this is the only way that it can be done.

  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    I'm not an expert on these things in the slightest, but what about incentives and soft deincentives? I've always found those to be preferable methods. For example, a city may not simply ban cars in the downtown core but they might gradually remove parking or raise the price of parking to the point that public transit becomes preferable. It leads people to the optimal choice as opposed to simply removing their choice. I'm not certain how it might be applied here, but I feel like there be less pushback and overall more progress from such an angle than the "just pass a law and now they don't have a choice" angle.

  • rockrngerrockrnger Registered User regular
    hippofant wrote: »
    You and @hippofant 's string of bad examples are again missing this distinction.
    hippofant wrote: »
    It's unethical because using people as means is unethical.

    Perhaps a dialectic will help clarify this:

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people to go there and it will be solved.

    Q:Well what if they don't want to go there?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Q:What if they are willing to move away or pay money to not go?
    A: Make sure they can't avoid going in anyway.


    Do the answers seem particularly moral to you?

    Once it isn't about sufficient funding, or great teachers or newer faculties, but is about using the students, people, as a means. You are talking about a morally different action than something like 'decoupling school funds from property taxes'.

    So, basically you're opposed to modern society? Because:

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people pay taxes so we can fix it.

    Q: Well what if they don't want to pay taxes?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Or

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people buy auto insurance.

    Q: Well what if they don't want to buy auto insurance?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Or

    Q: Here's a problem, how do you fix it?
    A: Have these people stop pooping in the streets.

    Q: Well what if they don't want to stop pooping in the streets?
    A: Well make sure they don't have a choice.

    Or any number of similar measures. There is a cost to living in a society, payment extracted in the form of behaviour that is disallowed/mandated. We sacrifice for the greater good as part of the social contract. We can dispute what sacrifices should be made in exchange for what, but blanket opposition to any and all sacrifices as unethical is :question:


    You are changing the sentence and thus changing the structure.

    The issue is that the students, people, are the means. Not their money. Not a behavior you want stopped. Them, their physical persons.


    If you want a modern state example that is comparable I can think of one-- conscription. Because that is what this is. Forcing them to go to be used personally to achieve an end of the state.

    I really didn't think the idea that people should be treated as an end unto themselves not a means, was really an idea that would be so anathema to this forum-- I'm certainly not going full Kant categorical imperative here. But like I said in my initial post on this tangent, I think this thread is very okay with a level of utilitarianism utilizing a certain groups of people, that it certainly wouldn't be with others. I expect individual autonomy would suddenly be way more sacred in a discussion on abortion for example.

    Well, first, I don't think Kant goes and draws a line in the sand with people's physical bodies as opposed to people's spiritual beings, that the categorical imperative applies to physical location but not metaphysical action. I don't know that he looks at the state and says that it can't coerce you to be in a particular location, but it can coerce you to perform particular actions, that it's not okay for the military to order you go to a particular location but it is okay for the military to order you to fire a Hellfire drone at a particular location, so long as you were free to do it from wherever you wanted.

    Second, if we're talking about the education system as is, the idea that a child citizen can only receive this particular service (education) at this particular location for whatever reason doesn't seem morally egregious on its face. The same applies for all sorts of public and private services. The post office mandates that I pick up my parcel from this location and not that location. Veterans' Affairs send a veteran to this hospital and not that hospital. Hospitals say you get surgery in this room and not that room. The government says I vote in this district and not that district. My employer says I have to work in this building and not that building. Immigrants are required to stay in the country for X years or be deported. Drivers are required to drive on the right side of streets and not the left sides. Protesters are required to protest here/not protest there or be arrested. We are, all the time, eminently coerced into doing things and being in places that we would not prefer; capitalist economies are explicitly about using people to produce stuff and denying people quality of living if they refuse to produce useful stuff; what exactly is it about this particular coercion that you object to?


    I really don't understand what physical locality has to do with anything, other than being an easy delineator to declare. Say we didn't have physical schools and instead had online schools - then is it okay to force kids to attend a particular school or not, because now they don't have to physically be in one building or another?

    Edit to add: Is racial segregation/integration really about physical collocation, or is that just one/the primary manifestation thereof?

    Okay I guess we are starting and square fucking one here.

    Say you want to build low income housing.

    Housing cost money to build so you levy a tax.

    The end is building the housing . The means is the tax.

    But, say you don't want to levy a tax. Instead you decide to use force 500 trades people to build the housing.

    In this second case the means is the trades people. So while in both cases the government forces people to do things they'd rather not do, in only one are they using the persons themselves as the means.

    So when people want to force, kids from good schools to go to bad schools, not because it's the best school for them, or because it's the nearest school or even whatever other random geographic or burocratic reason. But because by having them attend there, they can achieve some other goal, they are using the kids as means to the end (that goal).

    Now maybe you are fine with that, with people being used by the state against their wishes to achieve a greater good, again conscription is arguably the most historically common example of the state doing this.

    But I think the underpinnings of what that suggested solution to this problem is shouldn't be just hand waved away.

    Those students aren't being treated as people, they are being used as tools.
    First of all this hits the entirety of mandatory schooling. Everybody is already building the house we just want to change the rules of where you do it.

    Secondly, I don't see the reasoning that white kids get to have the state look after their interest but black kids going to the school that is best for them is immoral.

    Third, Black kids don't go to black schools and live in black neighborhoods because it is best for them or just because of chance. They go to segregated schools because of a 100 year old policy to keep them there. The national housing act of 1934 specifically set out to mark neighborhoods of "high risk" to not give federal loan protection and those are still our minority districts today. To put it bluntly there is nothing accidental about our current district placement

    Last, you still haven't made a disanalogy for the original brown decision or bit the bullet and declared it immoral.

  • rockrngerrockrnger Registered User regular
    hippofant wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    If you can come up with no better argument against a universal good to society other than, "I'm uncomfortable about it", then forgive me if I say that still sounds like a hell of a good deal for everyone. Including you.

    Please actually read what I'm saying. We agree that integration is a universal good to our society. What I disagree with is how you intend to accomplish this.

    And yes, I'm uncomfortable ceding more and more control to the government. How do you find this option, while faced with a Trump administration and the possibility of more like this, a Good Fucking Thing?? I argued this for years here during the Obama adminsitration that the powers and freedoms we cede to the government dont just belong to the governments we like, they belong to... well... people like Trump. And you call me a raving lunatic for being uncomfortable iwth that?

    Yes, it sounds like lunacy, because we're not talking about adding any power that hasn't been there since public schools have existed. If we lived in an alternate universe where public school did not already exist, and we were making an argument that public funded school should start existing, only then would your argument make any sense. Luckily we are not in that situation. Instead we're in a situation where, for all of our lifetimes, for all of the lifetimes of anyone currently living, the government has dictated that our taxes pay for public education, and that parents are required to have their children go to public education unless they choose an alternative like private school or home schooling, and that the government shall dictate which school students are allowed to go to. Given that all that already exists, what do you think Trump is going to do? Most likely his appointees is going to do something more to your taste, to be honest: they're likely going to try to make vouchers a thing, allowing parents to gut the public school system. So yay for parent's choice becoming more important than universal social good. You're dream will blossom under a Trump presidency.

    My argument makes plenty of sense if you simply stop assuming that just because we do A that B is also fine. I absolutely do not understand your flippancy towards this. "Oh ya, we everything's the same except we completely removed your ability to decide where your child is educated." Like... no. That's a huge deal. To a lot of people. For good reasons. You either do not understand how big this can be to a parent or you do, and you just don't mind bulldozing anyone or anything that gets in the way of your program.

    I don't know what Trump's going to do, and I really wish that we'd ceded less power to the government over the decades because he'd have less power and ability to wreck shit if we had.

    Because it's not "if A is OK, B should be OK." Instead it's, "If A is already OK, then we'll do A." And you're acting like A is something completely different than what we already have when... it's exactly the same? You have continually failed to explain how it's different. Once again: We already tell parents where they are allowed to send their children and where they are not. I posted this earlier in the thread, but clearly you didn't listen to it. I suggest listening to act 1 only:

    https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with

    In act 1, a parent tries, in vain, to get her straight-A daughter into a school that will give her an actual education. She fails, because our school system does not work that way and has never worked that way. Her daughter can only go to the schools in her district, unless she pays tuition to those other schools, and she can't afford the tuition. She only succeeds finally when an obscure state law comes into play and allows her daughter to be bussed. It's a compelling story, believe me when I say you won't be bored.

    What we want is something to counter-act the problem discussed in the story. And you're saying it's wrong because, what? It's forcing good on people? I don't really understand your argument because you have not sketched it out in any manner, you've just kept talking about how this is authoritarianism and not bothered to actually explain what makes you believe that.

    If you think there is no difference, then your argument for a government mandate falls flat. You are asking for something that has not yet been done and want the government to enforce it. You sink your own argument, you can't ask for something you don't have and claim it is something you already have.

    And to a great extent, yes, I disagree with forcing "good" on people. That's a dangerous road. We should be careful and fully aware in what we are doing when strip liberties from people. You seem to be acutely aware of this when it concerns your pet groups and causes.

    I'll listen to that when I can :)

    I don't disagree with you, but it seems fallacious to refer to "sending your children to the school you want" as a liberty, because, as we've established, many people are explicitly denied this liberty regularly, and the people who are talking about forcible school integration are explicitly discussing how to restore this liberty to all - or at least render its loss insignificant.

    I mean, that's the core problem here, right? That we can't extend this liberty to all freely and fully, because doing so implicitly puts these liberties in conflict with each other (due to physical limitations on enrollments in schools and the financial costs of education), and so, in the current state, we've eliminated this conflict by converting this liberty into a privilege attached to wealth and geographical mobility.

    (Of course, rich parents who will be stripped of this privilege in an effort to grant liberty to all will nevertheless howl at this loss of "liberty".)

    I absolutely see the problem, I'm just unsure of what the best way to go about it is. I'd like to go about it in a way that doesn't further curtail parental authority and give it to the federal government.

    Like, I'm at the age where most of my friends are married and have kids and... the kids are their world. I see how they agonize over what school at what age and etc etc etc. Their kids are everything to them and they want the best for them and this is a good thing, as much as a thing can be good. I am as much skeptical of the methods suggested as I am with the utter callousness and flippancy some seem to have for parents trying to take care of their kids the best they can. At a certain point you're just walking over people in search of the greater good, and while I accept that this must on occasion happen I am A: uncomfortable with how happy we seem to be to do that and B: unconvinced that this is the only way that it can be done.

    you would have a point if anyone was saying that white kids have to be hurt to help black kids. That is an interesting argument to have but here we have data that goes from 400 kids at one school to everyone that says white preformance is isn't changed with integration. Think about all the people who wanted it to fail last time (and this time) and even they can't find something other than radical skepticism.

    I should also point out that all of the points you have raised are the same as the ones the segregationist in the south made.

    https://youtu.be/L1rd6xfGg5s

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    edited December 2016
    The only choice you have right now in terms of what public school your child goes to is where you live. And "good schools" drive up property values because there's a high demand for them. Which locks out poor/minority kids. (Also racist housing policy)

    If this is the only choice than why do we feel a government mandate is necessary? Unless we are considering forcibly moving families it seems somewhat illogical.

    Because the government has a compelling interest to reduce ethnic and racial tensions in society.

    Effects:

    1) Many kids who are not currently receiving a good education will get into schools that already have the infrastructure necessary to be good schools.
    2) All kids will be exposed to people not like them, which we have seen reduces the influence of racial and ethnic bias.
    3) Parents of kids who go to worse off schools will be invested in improving them. Whereas now they inevitably blame the corrupt local governments. I may be projecting slightly because I'm from Michigan. But Detroit's schools are more like prisons that house the kids for 8 hours a day than actual learning environments. The rest of the state doesn't give a shit because it's all the government of Detroit's fault.
    4) Yes, some kids will end up in worse schools. But ideally it should cause an evening out of resource distribution as suddenly the system will be interested in those schools.
    5) Parents who fled cities to (mostly white) enclaves in suburbia for the better schools will in fact protest. I care less about this than the social good from reducing racial tension.

    Secondary thing is we need to recruit more non-white teachers. Non-white kids do better with teachers that they have a shared experience with. But while ~50% of students today are non-white, just 15% of teachers are.

    I wasn't asking why you think it's a good idea. I was trying to say, if they already don't have a choice (as was implied) then why the need for a government mandate? It's essentially the same argument as Cambiata, in that she rejects we are going from A to B and are in fact going from A to A.... which makes no sense to me in that if we are already at A (or, if parents already don't have a choice) than why the need for any government action?

    Because though government already has the right to tell you what school you may send your child to, they just currently use a different, and not very just, method for "randomization" ("let's base it on home location.") The current method fails at suffient racial and class mixing, so the method must be revised. The rights if the government remain the same throughout and no new governmental right is introduced.

    Let's go back to the redistricting example I introduced earlier. It's already the right of local governments to decide what redistricting maps look like, which in most states means the party in power gets it's own way every time. This has lead to a widespread problem of gerrymandering, practiced by both paries. A state government that recognizes the problem and wants to correct it for better justice could create a mandate that redistricting commitees must have on them 5 democrats, 5 republicans and 5 independents, and at least 3 from each party must agree on a map before it's ratified. This shows you something that requires a governmental mandate yet does not add any powers that the government does not already posess.

    Cambiata on
    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • rockrngerrockrnger Registered User regular
    Cambiata wrote: »
    The only choice you have right now in terms of what public school your child goes to is where you live. And "good schools" drive up property values because there's a high demand for them. Which locks out poor/minority kids. (Also racist housing policy)

    If this is the only choice than why do we feel a government mandate is necessary? Unless we are considering forcibly moving families it seems somewhat illogical.

    Because the government has a compelling interest to reduce ethnic and racial tensions in society.

    Effects:

    1) Many kids who are not currently receiving a good education will get into schools that already have the infrastructure necessary to be good schools.
    2) All kids will be exposed to people not like them, which we have seen reduces the influence of racial and ethnic bias.
    3) Parents of kids who go to worse off schools will be invested in improving them. Whereas now they inevitably blame the corrupt local governments. I may be projecting slightly because I'm from Michigan. But Detroit's schools are more like prisons that house the kids for 8 hours a day than actual learning environments. The rest of the state doesn't give a shit because it's all the government of Detroit's fault.
    4) Yes, some kids will end up in worse schools. But ideally it should cause an evening out of resource distribution as suddenly the system will be interested in those schools.
    5) Parents who fled cities to (mostly white) enclaves in suburbia for the better schools will in fact protest. I care less about this than the social good from reducing racial tension.

    Secondary thing is we need to recruit more non-white teachers. Non-white kids do better with teachers that they have a shared experience with. But while ~50% of students today are non-white, just 15% of teachers are.

    I wasn't asking why you think it's a good idea. I was trying to say, if they already don't have a choice (as was implied) then why the need for a government mandate? It's essentially the same argument as Cambiata, in that she rejects we are going from A to B and are in fact going from A to A.... which makes no sense to me in that if we are already at A (or, if parents already don't have a choice) than why the need for any government action?

    Because though government already has the right to tell you what school you may send your child to, they just currently use a different, and not very just, method for "randomization" ("let's base it on home location.") The current method fails at suffient racial and class mixing, so the method must be revised. The rights if the government remain the same throughout and no new governmental right is introduced.

    Let's go back to the redistricting example I introduced earlier. It's already the right of local governments to decide what redistricting maps look like, which in most states means the party in power gets it's own way every time. This has lead to a widespread problem of gerrymandering, practiced by both paries. A state government that recognizes the problem and wants to correct it for better justice could create a mandate that redistricting commitees must have on them 5 democrats, 5 republicans and 5 independents, and at least 3 from each party must agree on a map before it's ratified. This shows you something that requires a governmental mandate yet does not add any powers that the government does not already posess.

    Interestingly enough educational gerrymandering is also a thing.

    "Closest to your house" is 100 percent not how we do attendance zones.

  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    Perhaps the disagreement is this:

    -sending kids to go to school is primarily for the kid's benefit, to educate them personally, because society benefits from them being educated, is good
    -sending kids to different, possibly worse, schools because society benefits from integration, is bad

    But the second argument skips a few steps in order to claim that integration isn't primarily for the kid's benefit. Evidence shows that white students don't lose out in educational terms, but they do grow up less racist when they go to integrated schools. Society benefits from integration just as society benefits from education: because each individual has improved by the system.

    In the absence of evidence of impaired performance, it's clearly and obviously beneficial to each child to make sure that that child goes to a more diverse school, because racism is an anti-successful trait for individuals as well as societies.

    So just as with compulsory education, the kids are the means, but it's okay because they're the primary ends, too. If we can say "It's important that you go to school and learn math because that makes you a better, more successful person," we can say, "It's important that you go to an integrated school and learn that all people are created equal because that makes you a better, more successful person."

    ACsTqqK.jpg
  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Perhaps the disagreement is this:

    -sending kids to go to school is primarily for the kid's benefit, to educate them personally, because society benefits from them being educated, is good
    -sending kids to different, possibly worse, schools because society benefits from integration, is bad

    But the second argument skips a few steps in order to claim that integration isn't primarily for the kid's benefit. Evidence shows that white students don't lose out in educational terms, but they do grow up less racist when they go to integrated schools. Society benefits from integration just as society benefits from education: because each individual has improved by the system.

    In the absence of evidence of impaired performance, it's clearly and obviously beneficial to each child to make sure that that child goes to a more diverse school, because racism is an anti-successful trait for individuals as well as societies.

    So just as with compulsory education, the kids are the means, but it's okay because they're the primary ends, too. If we can say "It's important that you go to school and learn math because that makes you a better, more successful person," we can say, "It's important that you go to an integrated school and learn that all people are created equal because that makes you a better, more successful person."

    Tis actually a very good argument. If we have solid evidence that there is zero harm involved in educational outcomes, then I'd withdraw most of my objections. It seems odd to me that this would be the case, though, as some schools are clearly far superior to others and better run/staffed. It boggles the mind that this has no effect on the kids who go there--after all, isn't a big part of the complaint that some schools are under equipped and this harms the educational outcomes of kids who can't go anywhere else?

    Perhaps this could be bundled with a massive money influx to the school system? Might make the bitter pill of federal mandate easier to swallow.

    I'd still like to see options explored beyond "further remove parental choice".

  • TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Perhaps the disagreement is this:

    -sending kids to go to school is primarily for the kid's benefit, to educate them personally, because society benefits from them being educated, is good
    -sending kids to different, possibly worse, schools because society benefits from integration, is bad

    But the second argument skips a few steps in order to claim that integration isn't primarily for the kid's benefit. Evidence shows that white students don't lose out in educational terms, but they do grow up less racist when they go to integrated schools. Society benefits from integration just as society benefits from education: because each individual has improved by the system.

    In the absence of evidence of impaired performance, it's clearly and obviously beneficial to each child to make sure that that child goes to a more diverse school, because racism is an anti-successful trait for individuals as well as societies.

    So just as with compulsory education, the kids are the means, but it's okay because they're the primary ends, too. If we can say "It's important that you go to school and learn math because that makes you a better, more successful person," we can say, "It's important that you go to an integrated school and learn that all people are created equal because that makes you a better, more successful person."

    Tis actually a very good argument. If we have solid evidence that there is zero harm involved in educational outcomes, then I'd withdraw most of my objections. It seems odd to me that this would be the case, though, as some schools are clearly far superior to others and better run/staffed. It boggles the mind that this has no effect on the kids who go there--after all, isn't a big part of the complaint that some schools are under equipped and this harms the educational outcomes of kids who can't go anywhere else?

    Perhaps this could be bundled with a massive money influx to the school system? Might make the bitter pill of federal mandate easier to swallow.

    I'd still like to see options explored beyond "further remove parental choice".

    Try to reduce the impact of school choice would be a start. If all public schools had the same budget and parents could just sign up for any school they wanted, would it be that terrible?

  • rockrngerrockrnger Registered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Perhaps the disagreement is this:

    -sending kids to go to school is primarily for the kid's benefit, to educate them personally, because society benefits from them being educated, is good
    -sending kids to different, possibly worse, schools because society benefits from integration, is bad

    But the second argument skips a few steps in order to claim that integration isn't primarily for the kid's benefit. Evidence shows that white students don't lose out in educational terms, but they do grow up less racist when they go to integrated schools. Society benefits from integration just as society benefits from education: because each individual has improved by the system.

    In the absence of evidence of impaired performance, it's clearly and obviously beneficial to each child to make sure that that child goes to a more diverse school, because racism is an anti-successful trait for individuals as well as societies.

    So just as with compulsory education, the kids are the means, but it's okay because they're the primary ends, too. If we can say "It's important that you go to school and learn math because that makes you a better, more successful person," we can say, "It's important that you go to an integrated school and learn that all people are created equal because that makes you a better, more successful person."

    Tis actually a very good argument. If we have solid evidence that there is zero harm involved in educational outcomes, then I'd withdraw most of my objections. It seems odd to me that this would be the case, though, as some schools are clearly far superior to others and better run/staffed. It boggles the mind that this has no effect on the kids who go there--after all, isn't a big part of the complaint that some schools are under equipped and this harms the educational outcomes of kids who can't go anywhere else?

    Perhaps this could be bundled with a massive money influx to the school system? Might make the bitter pill of federal mandate easier to swallow.

    I'd still like to see options explored beyond "further remove parental choice".

    super solid.

    But it probably won't come at the federal level again. It's more something to work for at the local level.

    Federally, Charlotte was forcibly resegregated in the early 2000s.

  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    TryCatcher wrote: »
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Perhaps the disagreement is this:

    -sending kids to go to school is primarily for the kid's benefit, to educate them personally, because society benefits from them being educated, is good
    -sending kids to different, possibly worse, schools because society benefits from integration, is bad

    But the second argument skips a few steps in order to claim that integration isn't primarily for the kid's benefit. Evidence shows that white students don't lose out in educational terms, but they do grow up less racist when they go to integrated schools. Society benefits from integration just as society benefits from education: because each individual has improved by the system.

    In the absence of evidence of impaired performance, it's clearly and obviously beneficial to each child to make sure that that child goes to a more diverse school, because racism is an anti-successful trait for individuals as well as societies.

    So just as with compulsory education, the kids are the means, but it's okay because they're the primary ends, too. If we can say "It's important that you go to school and learn math because that makes you a better, more successful person," we can say, "It's important that you go to an integrated school and learn that all people are created equal because that makes you a better, more successful person."

    Tis actually a very good argument. If we have solid evidence that there is zero harm involved in educational outcomes, then I'd withdraw most of my objections. It seems odd to me that this would be the case, though, as some schools are clearly far superior to others and better run/staffed. It boggles the mind that this has no effect on the kids who go there--after all, isn't a big part of the complaint that some schools are under equipped and this harms the educational outcomes of kids who can't go anywhere else?

    Perhaps this could be bundled with a massive money influx to the school system? Might make the bitter pill of federal mandate easier to swallow.

    I'd still like to see options explored beyond "further remove parental choice".

    Try to reduce the impact of school choice would be a start. If all public schools had the same budget and parents could just sign up for any school they wanted, would it be that terrible?

    This would be ideal.
    rockrnger wrote: »
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Perhaps the disagreement is this:

    -sending kids to go to school is primarily for the kid's benefit, to educate them personally, because society benefits from them being educated, is good
    -sending kids to different, possibly worse, schools because society benefits from integration, is bad

    But the second argument skips a few steps in order to claim that integration isn't primarily for the kid's benefit. Evidence shows that white students don't lose out in educational terms, but they do grow up less racist when they go to integrated schools. Society benefits from integration just as society benefits from education: because each individual has improved by the system.

    In the absence of evidence of impaired performance, it's clearly and obviously beneficial to each child to make sure that that child goes to a more diverse school, because racism is an anti-successful trait for individuals as well as societies.

    So just as with compulsory education, the kids are the means, but it's okay because they're the primary ends, too. If we can say "It's important that you go to school and learn math because that makes you a better, more successful person," we can say, "It's important that you go to an integrated school and learn that all people are created equal because that makes you a better, more successful person."

    Tis actually a very good argument. If we have solid evidence that there is zero harm involved in educational outcomes, then I'd withdraw most of my objections. It seems odd to me that this would be the case, though, as some schools are clearly far superior to others and better run/staffed. It boggles the mind that this has no effect on the kids who go there--after all, isn't a big part of the complaint that some schools are under equipped and this harms the educational outcomes of kids who can't go anywhere else?

    Perhaps this could be bundled with a massive money influx to the school system? Might make the bitter pill of federal mandate easier to swallow.

    I'd still like to see options explored beyond "further remove parental choice".

    super solid.

    But it probably won't come at the federal level again. It's more something to work for at the local level.

    Federally, Charlotte was forcibly resegregated in the early 2000s.

    I'm not sure how to reconcile that super solid info with the vast gap of funding/staffing between schools.

  • rockrngerrockrnger Registered User regular
    rockrnger wrote: »
    rockrnger wrote: »

    That's kinda the whole point. Everybody's got an idea about why minority districts are failing but we know that sending them to other districts improves their performance without hurting anyone else's.
    Not one single students performance ever? That's been proven exhaustively?
    Couscous wrote: »
    Some percentage fleeing to private schools is not necessarily a big deal unless it is very high. There just needs to be a sufficient number of well off children remaining.

    So these together touch on something that I think doesn't get the examination it deserves when people talk about school bussing because morally it's significant.

    It's not the money spent on the students that's being pursued, because plenty of bad schools spend more money than much better performing schools.

    It's not the facilities or the teachers either. The entire ideas behind blending the students argues that's not the case. No one is arguing for vitamixing the teachers around, or replacing the teachers and administration at the bad schools. Or just building newer schools and thinking that will fix anything.

    No it's consistently the students that must be mixed. It's the students that are being used to create this change, and using people, especially minors, as means is generally considered unethical.

    There's an underlying acceptance of naked utilitarianism in this thread, but I strongly suspect that the love of that particular ethical framework ends as soon as it is not nominal white kids with rich parents getting used to maximize the aggregate utility. Special ed and ADA programs are pretty expensive after all.

    Not utility so much as pragmatism. We have thrown a lot of shit at this problem and that's the only thing that really stuck.

    As to proof first I will say I'm not a expert or anything so grains of salt.

    http://www.nber.org/digest/may11/w16664.html

    On average, children were in desegregated schools for five years, and each additional year that a black child was exposed to education in a desegregated school increased the probability of graduating by between 1.3 and 2.9 percent. For black men, spending time in desegregated schools as a child also reduced by 14.7 percent the probability of spending time in jail by age thirty.

    http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ruckerj/johnson_schooldesegregation_NBERw16664.pdf

    http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_197902_hawley.pdf
    according to available research,
    School desegregation almost never impeeds the academic propormance of whites and more often than not faclilitates the achievement of blacks.

    http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3442&context=lcp
    net effect of desegregation ol the academic achievement levels of nonwhites, in most studies, is positive and in others is at least neutral

    https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/1992/01/1992_bpeamicro_boozer.pdf
    Finally, in light of evidence that we presentedon the timing of school integration,we believe that the federal government's financia lincen- tives for school integration beginning in the mid-1960s were efficacious. Given the adverse consequences documented here and elsewhere of attending racially isolated schools, it may be wise for the federal government to renew its efforts to provide school districts with an incentive to maintain racially balanced schools.

    Here's some studies.

    Remember that a lot of "bad" schools actual spend more per student than "good" schools and the money ends up following the student.

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    edited December 2016
    I'm not sure how to reconcile that super solid info with the vast gap of funding/staffing between schools.

    Well, you seem to be under the impression that students are bussed from one poor school to another. That's not what happens. Students are bussed from an underfunded school to a funded one. Or when rich students are bussed from a funded school to an underfunded one, and their funding follows them. I recommend once again that you listen to that NPR story "The Problem We All Live With" that I've linked in the thread a couple of times. Questions like you're asking here are answered during that program, they give an example from both sides, one of poor minority students getting bussed to a rich white school, and one of rich white students getting bussed to a poor minority school. In the second example, students talk about how facilities and resources they never had before started showing up overnight.

    But yeah, the data is there. It's perfectly solid. The grades of white children don't go down, white children don't have increased incidents of violence or criminality or dropping out of school. White students stay the same, black children close the achievement gap. The only measurable downside is people's feathers get ruffled at the start. When I say people I don't just mean parents, all the students involved are made uncomfortable in the beginning. It's a successful solution but not an easy one. But even having the experience of being discomforted over a change and then getting over your discomfort is a helpful experience in becoming a successful adult.

    Cambiata on
    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    TryCatcher wrote: »
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Perhaps the disagreement is this:

    -sending kids to go to school is primarily for the kid's benefit, to educate them personally, because society benefits from them being educated, is good
    -sending kids to different, possibly worse, schools because society benefits from integration, is bad

    But the second argument skips a few steps in order to claim that integration isn't primarily for the kid's benefit. Evidence shows that white students don't lose out in educational terms, but they do grow up less racist when they go to integrated schools. Society benefits from integration just as society benefits from education: because each individual has improved by the system.

    In the absence of evidence of impaired performance, it's clearly and obviously beneficial to each child to make sure that that child goes to a more diverse school, because racism is an anti-successful trait for individuals as well as societies.

    So just as with compulsory education, the kids are the means, but it's okay because they're the primary ends, too. If we can say "It's important that you go to school and learn math because that makes you a better, more successful person," we can say, "It's important that you go to an integrated school and learn that all people are created equal because that makes you a better, more successful person."

    Tis actually a very good argument. If we have solid evidence that there is zero harm involved in educational outcomes, then I'd withdraw most of my objections. It seems odd to me that this would be the case, though, as some schools are clearly far superior to others and better run/staffed. It boggles the mind that this has no effect on the kids who go there--after all, isn't a big part of the complaint that some schools are under equipped and this harms the educational outcomes of kids who can't go anywhere else?

    Perhaps this could be bundled with a massive money influx to the school system? Might make the bitter pill of federal mandate easier to swallow.

    I'd still like to see options explored beyond "further remove parental choice".

    Try to reduce the impact of school choice would be a start. If all public schools had the same budget and parents could just sign up for any school they wanted, would it be that terrible?

    Yes. You would wind up right where we are now.

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  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    Cambiata wrote: »
    I'm not sure how to reconcile that super solid info with the vast gap of funding/staffing between schools.

    Well, you seem to be under the impression that students are bussed from one poor school to another. That's not what happens. Students are bussed from an underfunded school to a funded one. Or when rich students are bussed from a funded school to an underfunded one, and their funding follows them. I recommend once again that you listen to that NPR story "The Problem We All Live With" that I've linked in the thread a couple of times. Questions like you're asking here are answered during that program, they give an example from both sides, one of poor minority students getting bussed to a rich white school, and one of rich white students getting bussed to a poor minority school. In the second example, students talk about how facilities and resources they never had before started showing up overnight.

    But yeah, the data is there. It's perfectly solid. The grades of white children don't go down, white children don't have increased incidents of violence or criminality or dropping out of school. White students stay the same, black children close the achievement gap. The only measurable downside is people's feathers get ruffled at the start. When I say people I don't just mean parents, all the students involved are made uncomfortable in the beginning. It's a successful solution but not an easy one. But even having the experience of being discomforted over a change and then getting over your discomfort is a helpful experience in becoming a successful adult.

    I'm all for kids being exposed to new things, I'm with you there. I grew up overseas and I regret nothing of it.

    The rest I suppose I'll relent on. It really doesn't make sense to me, that performance and such is the same regardless of how good or bad the school, but if that is the data than... I suppose that's the data lol.

    I would still like a solution that doesn't involve ceding more parental rights to government but I suppose I can save that tangent for an actual thread on government control/rights.

  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Cambiata wrote: »
    I'm not sure how to reconcile that super solid info with the vast gap of funding/staffing between schools.

    Well, you seem to be under the impression that students are bussed from one poor school to another. That's not what happens. Students are bussed from an underfunded school to a funded one. Or when rich students are bussed from a funded school to an underfunded one, and their funding follows them. I recommend once again that you listen to that NPR story "The Problem We All Live With" that I've linked in the thread a couple of times. Questions like you're asking here are answered during that program, they give an example from both sides, one of poor minority students getting bussed to a rich white school, and one of rich white students getting bussed to a poor minority school. In the second example, students talk about how facilities and resources they never had before started showing up overnight.

    But yeah, the data is there. It's perfectly solid. The grades of white children don't go down, white children don't have increased incidents of violence or criminality or dropping out of school. White students stay the same, black children close the achievement gap. The only measurable downside is people's feathers get ruffled at the start. When I say people I don't just mean parents, all the students involved are made uncomfortable in the beginning. It's a successful solution but not an easy one. But even having the experience of being discomforted over a change and then getting over your discomfort is a helpful experience in becoming a successful adult.

    I'm all for kids being exposed to new things, I'm with you there. I grew up overseas and I regret nothing of it.

    The rest I suppose I'll relent on. It really doesn't make sense to me, that performance and such is the same regardless of how good or bad the school, but if that is the data than... I suppose that's the data lol.

    I would still like a solution that doesn't involve ceding more parental rights to government but I suppose I can save that tangent for an actual thread on government control/rights.

    I really don't get how it cedes anything, since the government already tells parents which school their kids will go to.

    Like, this can be mostly doneby just redrawing school districts can't it?

    Steam: Polaritie
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  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    TryCatcher wrote: »
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Perhaps the disagreement is this:

    -sending kids to go to school is primarily for the kid's benefit, to educate them personally, because society benefits from them being educated, is good
    -sending kids to different, possibly worse, schools because society benefits from integration, is bad

    But the second argument skips a few steps in order to claim that integration isn't primarily for the kid's benefit. Evidence shows that white students don't lose out in educational terms, but they do grow up less racist when they go to integrated schools. Society benefits from integration just as society benefits from education: because each individual has improved by the system.

    In the absence of evidence of impaired performance, it's clearly and obviously beneficial to each child to make sure that that child goes to a more diverse school, because racism is an anti-successful trait for individuals as well as societies.

    So just as with compulsory education, the kids are the means, but it's okay because they're the primary ends, too. If we can say "It's important that you go to school and learn math because that makes you a better, more successful person," we can say, "It's important that you go to an integrated school and learn that all people are created equal because that makes you a better, more successful person."

    Tis actually a very good argument. If we have solid evidence that there is zero harm involved in educational outcomes, then I'd withdraw most of my objections. It seems odd to me that this would be the case, though, as some schools are clearly far superior to others and better run/staffed. It boggles the mind that this has no effect on the kids who go there--after all, isn't a big part of the complaint that some schools are under equipped and this harms the educational outcomes of kids who can't go anywhere else?

    Perhaps this could be bundled with a massive money influx to the school system? Might make the bitter pill of federal mandate easier to swallow.

    I'd still like to see options explored beyond "further remove parental choice".

    Try to reduce the impact of school choice would be a start. If all public schools had the same budget and parents could just sign up for any school they wanted, would it be that terrible?

    Yes. You would wind up right where we are now.

    Can you explain how?

    ACsTqqK.jpg
  • TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    Yeah, kind of curious about that one. If the problem is underfunded schools, then school budget shouldn't be tied to property taxes in X area, it should be pooled at least on State level and equally distribuited to the schools.

  • FrankiedarlingFrankiedarling Registered User regular
    Polaritie wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    I'm not sure how to reconcile that super solid info with the vast gap of funding/staffing between schools.

    Well, you seem to be under the impression that students are bussed from one poor school to another. That's not what happens. Students are bussed from an underfunded school to a funded one. Or when rich students are bussed from a funded school to an underfunded one, and their funding follows them. I recommend once again that you listen to that NPR story "The Problem We All Live With" that I've linked in the thread a couple of times. Questions like you're asking here are answered during that program, they give an example from both sides, one of poor minority students getting bussed to a rich white school, and one of rich white students getting bussed to a poor minority school. In the second example, students talk about how facilities and resources they never had before started showing up overnight.

    But yeah, the data is there. It's perfectly solid. The grades of white children don't go down, white children don't have increased incidents of violence or criminality or dropping out of school. White students stay the same, black children close the achievement gap. The only measurable downside is people's feathers get ruffled at the start. When I say people I don't just mean parents, all the students involved are made uncomfortable in the beginning. It's a successful solution but not an easy one. But even having the experience of being discomforted over a change and then getting over your discomfort is a helpful experience in becoming a successful adult.

    I'm all for kids being exposed to new things, I'm with you there. I grew up overseas and I regret nothing of it.

    The rest I suppose I'll relent on. It really doesn't make sense to me, that performance and such is the same regardless of how good or bad the school, but if that is the data than... I suppose that's the data lol.

    I would still like a solution that doesn't involve ceding more parental rights to government but I suppose I can save that tangent for an actual thread on government control/rights.

    I really don't get how it cedes anything, since the government already tells parents which school their kids will go to.

    Like, this can be mostly doneby just redrawing school districts can't it?

    The government doesn't already do that. There's a plurality of areas that have multiple schools and I know parents who have carefully decided to enroll their kids in one over another.

    Or, in some cases, moved to get their kids in a better school.

  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    edited December 2016
    Underfunded schools are a problem. They are not the only problem.

    Remember that "separate but equal" is not acceptable, either, and not merely because segregation precludes equality.

    Even if all schools were funded in exactly the same by law, you'd still get significant racial clustering, leading to de facto segregation in places where racial tensions are high.

    That leads to stereotyping, stereotype threat, exacerbated racial tension, and reinforcement of implicit biases. We don't need perfectly representative diversity at every single school, but we can't allow massive voluntary segregation either.

    Feral on
    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    Astaereth wrote: »
    TryCatcher wrote: »
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Perhaps the disagreement is this:

    -sending kids to go to school is primarily for the kid's benefit, to educate them personally, because society benefits from them being educated, is good
    -sending kids to different, possibly worse, schools because society benefits from integration, is bad

    But the second argument skips a few steps in order to claim that integration isn't primarily for the kid's benefit. Evidence shows that white students don't lose out in educational terms, but they do grow up less racist when they go to integrated schools. Society benefits from integration just as society benefits from education: because each individual has improved by the system.

    In the absence of evidence of impaired performance, it's clearly and obviously beneficial to each child to make sure that that child goes to a more diverse school, because racism is an anti-successful trait for individuals as well as societies.

    So just as with compulsory education, the kids are the means, but it's okay because they're the primary ends, too. If we can say "It's important that you go to school and learn math because that makes you a better, more successful person," we can say, "It's important that you go to an integrated school and learn that all people are created equal because that makes you a better, more successful person."

    Tis actually a very good argument. If we have solid evidence that there is zero harm involved in educational outcomes, then I'd withdraw most of my objections. It seems odd to me that this would be the case, though, as some schools are clearly far superior to others and better run/staffed. It boggles the mind that this has no effect on the kids who go there--after all, isn't a big part of the complaint that some schools are under equipped and this harms the educational outcomes of kids who can't go anywhere else?

    Perhaps this could be bundled with a massive money influx to the school system? Might make the bitter pill of federal mandate easier to swallow.

    I'd still like to see options explored beyond "further remove parental choice".

    Try to reduce the impact of school choice would be a start. If all public schools had the same budget and parents could just sign up for any school they wanted, would it be that terrible?

    Yes. You would wind up right where we are now.

    Can you explain how?

    This might not be what AH is referring to, but the Toronto District School Board implemented that policy a while back, and it's really messing with the TDSB:

    Students sad Vaughan Road Academy to close
    Optional attendance is killing neighbourhood schools

    TLDR: The TDSB decided in 1999 to allow parents to opt to send their children to schools outside of their catchment area. The result: some schools at >100% capacity, other schools at <50% capacity, as parents have basically implemented their own NCLB by mob consensus based on perceived educational quality. Since schools are funded largely on a per-student basis, and the fixed costs of operating a school building don't change when enrollment is low, this creates a positive feedback loop, separating preferred schools from unpreferred schools. Under a budget crunch, the TDSB is forced to close some of these underpopulated schools, which is really screwing with poor parents who couldn't afford to send their kids to far-off schools outside their catchment area in the first place (due to a lack of awareness, inability to drive them, lack of transit access, part-time jobs, etc).


    (It's also really screwing with long-term urban planning, since now, nobody can figure out where to open/close schools.)

    hippofant on
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    rockrnger wrote: »
    @TychoCelchuuu

    I summon thee for moral guidance in troubled times.
    A good book on this topic is Anderson's The Imperative of Integration.

  • Mr KhanMr Khan Not Everyone WAHHHRegistered User regular
    At the moment i tend to have few objections to a policy deliberately designed to make bigoted whites uncomfortable, frankly, even if it had no other utility.

  • MortiousMortious The Nightmare Begins Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    I've never really thought about it, but my highschool was desegregated while I was attending it.

    And a couple of years later dechristianized (omg slipperly slope, they were right all along!)

    There was a funny episode from around that where one of the Universisties tried to drop all the English langauge version of their classes, and do everything in Afrikaans as a work around to the new Government policies.

    It didn't stick.

    Move to New Zealand
    It’s not a very important country most of the time
    http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    TryCatcher wrote: »
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Perhaps the disagreement is this:

    -sending kids to go to school is primarily for the kid's benefit, to educate them personally, because society benefits from them being educated, is good
    -sending kids to different, possibly worse, schools because society benefits from integration, is bad

    But the second argument skips a few steps in order to claim that integration isn't primarily for the kid's benefit. Evidence shows that white students don't lose out in educational terms, but they do grow up less racist when they go to integrated schools. Society benefits from integration just as society benefits from education: because each individual has improved by the system.

    In the absence of evidence of impaired performance, it's clearly and obviously beneficial to each child to make sure that that child goes to a more diverse school, because racism is an anti-successful trait for individuals as well as societies.

    So just as with compulsory education, the kids are the means, but it's okay because they're the primary ends, too. If we can say "It's important that you go to school and learn math because that makes you a better, more successful person," we can say, "It's important that you go to an integrated school and learn that all people are created equal because that makes you a better, more successful person."

    Tis actually a very good argument. If we have solid evidence that there is zero harm involved in educational outcomes, then I'd withdraw most of my objections. It seems odd to me that this would be the case, though, as some schools are clearly far superior to others and better run/staffed. It boggles the mind that this has no effect on the kids who go there--after all, isn't a big part of the complaint that some schools are under equipped and this harms the educational outcomes of kids who can't go anywhere else?

    Perhaps this could be bundled with a massive money influx to the school system? Might make the bitter pill of federal mandate easier to swallow.

    I'd still like to see options explored beyond "further remove parental choice".

    Try to reduce the impact of school choice would be a start. If all public schools had the same budget and parents could just sign up for any school they wanted, would it be that terrible?

    Yes. You would wind up right where we are now.

    Can you explain how?

    If parents could pick the school their child could attend, that would remove the incentive to fix the under-performing schools. Why fix a failing school, when Timmy could be sent to a successful one. Also the same budget won't work on a practical level, since a variety of things are going to impact costs (building age, building design, infrastructure, student population, geography). If people can't just send Timmy to the "good" school, they'll be more vested in trying to make the inadequate school adequate because most people really can't afford to move on a whim and from what I have heard from people that stay informed about school performance, it can change rather frequently. Also it'll be hard to have a fair budget for the failing schools if the well to do can stay out of them because they scream "those schools fucking suck, why are they getting comparable funding as my precious little one's outstanding school.

    On a racial level. This is no better than the voucher bullshit. The racists assholes will then send their kids to the school with the correct demographic and they'll find ways to be racist pieces of shit to the students that are the same color/ethnicit as them. Then you'll start hurling the excuse around that if those kids aren't happy with the environment, their parents do have the choice to send them elsewhere.

    Ideally, you'd want the money for schools to be collected by the state and given out in fair amounts (like I said you'll get differences, but the math should come out that about the same is spend on education, when not factoring in non-education related costs. That way all the bigoted, wealthy, white racists couldn't screw over minority areas and poor areas, by making use of their wealth to consolidate residences around one area. The other one would be going for a better teacher hiring process, we don't just need more minority teachers, we should be looking at using the teaching staff to introduce kids to individuals with different backgrounds. I also think having more field trips would help, it's not just more engaging, but it also gets them exposed to different experiences that will allow them to be better adults (assuming it's done correctly), the whole keep them in a building for 8 hours is terrible, if you have racist assholes running things because that's a ton of time those people get to indoctrinate the next generation into their shitty world views.

  • rockrngerrockrnger Registered User regular
    Mortious wrote: »
    I've never really thought about it, but my highschool was desegregated while I was attending it.

    And a couple of years later dechristianized (omg slipperly slope, they were right all along!)

    There was a funny episode from around that where one of the Universisties tried to drop all the English langauge version of their classes, and do everything in Afrikaans as a work around to the new Government policies.

    It didn't stick.

    South Africa is a whole different thing.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Economic_Empowerment

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