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posted by martyb on Monday August 22 2016, @08:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the those-who-can,-do dept.

Nikita Bush's career as a public school teacher came to an end when she faced the decision of how to educate her own children. Having been told for years that American public schools would eventually get better for black children, the number of African-American homeschooling parents like Ms. Bush has doubled in little over a decade.

As Patrick Jonsson of the Christian Science monitor reports, studies show all kinds of public school problems disproportionately affect black children, and many parents have decided to take matters into their own hands. Even single parents are forming co-ops to make it possible to educate their children together outside of the public school system.

What do you do when you feel the system is failing your child and their education?


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  • (Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:14AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:14AM (#391510)

    The obvious solution is segregation for all and integration for none. You want black schools, you want black neighborhoods, you want a black president. Well here it is. Segregate the country, so blacks live in black neighborhoods and blacks go to black schools and blacks vote for black presidents. Let's have an all-black legislature to represent black people, and another all-white legislature to represent white people. And a black president for black people, and a different white president for white people. Let's just divide everything and integrate nothing. Because That's What You Want.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @11:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @11:17AM (#391562)

      ... all-white legislature to represent white people... white president for white people.

      We've tried that already (for more than 200 years). I think we even had it in the Constitution.

      Stop talking about, thinking about and acting like "black Americans" are all the same, have all the same wants, all the same needs, and think & act as a collective. They don't any more than "white Americans".

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:32PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:32PM (#391605)

        Stop talking about, thinking about and acting like "black Americans" are all the same, have all the same wants, all the same needs, and think & act as a collective. They don't any more than "white Americans".

        As soon as all the Power Americans stop doing it to Black Americans then you'll have a point. Until then, addressing the problems that are systemically imposed on Black Americans is entirely reasonable because its the problem is the imposition, not the people.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:08PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:08PM (#391628)

          Are white people making black fathers abandon their children? Are white people making young black men shoot each other in numbers that make police shooting numbers laughable? Are white people making black women get pregnant and drop out of highschool?

          Maybe it's white people's fault for not teaching them how to take responsibly, but expecting responsibly from black people is racist somehow...

          My great grandfather immigrated here in 1909, I don't own blacks shit.

          • (Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 22 2016, @02:15PM

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @02:15PM (#391634) Journal

            "Are white people making black fathers abandon their children?"

            Let me surprise you with a "yes". Yes, white people have been depriving black families of their fathers for quite a long time now. We use two separate and distinct tools with which to do so.

            The corrupt prison for profit system, routinely sweeps up minor offenders, and even innocent young men, and sends them off to prison for years, or decades. It's tough to be a father when armed men take you away, and lock you in a cage. Do you think that YOU could be a good father under those conditions?

            The welfare system also deprives families of their fathers. Women can get fairly decent money from the state, if they don't have a man providing for them. If there is a working age person in the home who does not work, things get ugly. Welfare doesn't want to provide food and benefits to working age males who don't hold a job. They are prejudiced, in that respect. That working age male might do alright with welfare if he is a SINGLE PARENT, but mothers don't let fathers take their children away very often.

            So, yes. We punish black working age males by keeping them locked up, and we punish black families with a welfare system that rewards people for being single and dependent on the state.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:36PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:36PM (#391688)

              > Welfare doesn't want to provide food and benefits to working age males who don't hold a job. They are prejudiced, in that respect.

              They don't want to do that for working age females either.

              Seriously, there is literally no difference in the amount of welfare available to a custodial parent based on their gender.

              Where is the prejudice in that?

              • (Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 22 2016, @05:52PM

                by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @05:52PM (#391752) Journal

                Mothers almost invariably become the custodial parent. It just works that way. The courts will block a father from seeing his kids based on unsubstantiated rumors, but the mother has to be demonstrably crazy or dangerously violent before she is stripped of parental rights.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:28PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:28PM (#391781)

                  That may be true.

                  Yet it says absolutely nothing about welfare policies which are constrained by Title IX to be completely gender neutral.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:19PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:19PM (#391862)

                  And even if she is crazy or violent it's still an uphill battle for the man to get custody.

            • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 22 2016, @07:22PM

              by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @07:22PM (#391827)

              Those punishments are unfair, but the problem is practically no black kids have fathers. Out of wedlock at birth is 2 in 3 black kids and logically the number of black kids with a stable father figure is likely to only decrease over time as relationships "naturally" collapse over time. Figure maybe 1 in 10 black teen boys has a black man in their lives as a stable father figure? I think that a fair estimate and would take the over under on a bet. Surely it can't be over 3 in 10 mathematically yet a black kid having a father is not unheard of... my high functioning successful well educated tax paying black coworkers all seem to have healthy relationships with their fathers so it can't be much less than 1 in 10 (like it can't be less than 1 in a million or something). Its almost as if... as if ... as if teen boys need dads. Talk about being politically incorrect! Surely that can't be it. Feminism hates men so claiming anyone needs men for anything is being anti-woman.

              Anyway "we" do imprison 1 in every 15 black men... OK I'll agree that is an excellent excuse for 1 in 10 teen boys not to have a father in their day to day lives.

              Likewise the welfare system is not enrolling 100% of black kids. Lets say optimistically its "only" a quarter of them growing up on welfare. First of all I'm unsure why being on welfare magically makes it impossible for mom to have a relationship with a "fatherly figure" just can't go to church and make it official for financial reasons. There's plenty of legendary white couples who date for a decade before getting married. Plenty of poor white couples raising un-f-ed-up little white boys.

              Whatever anyway the point I'm making is maybe 90% of black teen boys don't have a dad when they need one, so they get Fed up to some level, and whitey is responsible for maybe a third of them being missing at absolute worst, probably less. And their excuse for the other 2/3 of sperm donors being unwilling to fulfill their fatherly responsibilities is ... is ... crickets? Anyone got an answer that isn't racist? Anything? Maybe because their culture sucks and is self-destructive, and until they admit it, their culture is going to circle the drain and no amount of "blame whitey" is going to improve their outcomes?

            • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:21AM

              by linkdude64 (5482) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:21AM (#391966)

              "The corrupt prison for profit system, routinely sweeps up minor offenders, and even innocent young men, and sends them off to prison for years, or decades. "

              You're right, all of those innocent children roaming free with a dozen arrests on their record for possession of illegal drugs/tresspassing/vandalism were never given a single chance to follow the law. You know as well as I do that minorities are given dozens of chances by a sympathetic court system.

              And don't give me the bullshit argument for drug arrests that pot "should be legal anyway" - it's the law, and even though I want to smoke pot sometimes, and want to run stop lights and stop signs sometimes, as a responsible person I choose not to. Plenty of high schoolers go straight home after school, don't go to parties, hang out with the wrong crowd, etc. People are responsible for their actions regardless of race. Parents are responsible for how safe and welcoming they make their homes for their children, regardless of race. Parents are responsible for how they teach and raise their children.

              "we punish black families with a welfare system that rewards people for being single and dependent on the state."

              This statement is so backward I don't even know where to begin. You think that giving lazy people money that is STOLEN from working people is a punishment for the lazy people???? Give me a fscking break!!! This is why reasonable people do not respect Left-Wing politics anymore!!!

              You think that giving people money for free removes their ability to choose a respectable lifestyle? How the hell does giving somebody money remove all of their responsibility for their own life's path?

              • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:07PM

                by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:07PM (#392158) Journal

                Drugs and trespassing should be hendled in the local community, with community service and restitution if applicable. vandalism comes in a lot of different styles and varieties. Broke a window? Make the dumbass pay for the window, AND do a week or two of community service. Burnt down a warehouse? Alright, this guy is a candidate for prison. Spray painted a wall, bridge, a tree, a park bench? Put him to work scrubbing his own mess, then keep him at it for another couple weeks in the neighborhood.

                Tell me, do you really think that, even if our prisons were perfect, a broken window, or a spray painted park bench, warrants a year in prison?

                Also, tell me - what do young men learn in prison? It's not like prisons are really aimed at rehabilitation. Prisoners have lots of idle time to swap lies, and learn another loser's methods of getting caught.

                Let's go to some effort and expense to keep dumb ass kids OUT OF PRISON! Kids are kids, they do stupid things. I did, I'll wager that you did. I never got caught doing the stupidest things, so I don't have a record. I'm "respectable", all because I don't have a prison record.

                A lot of those youngsters might become respectable, if only we can keep them OUT OF PRISON!

                Let me make that just as clear as I know how: petty criminals don't belong in prison. They belong in the community, working for the community.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:03PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:03PM (#391662)

            > Are white people making young black men shoot each other in numbers that make police shooting numbers laughable?

            You know, white people shoot each other [usuncut.com] in numbers that make police shootings laughable too.
            Where's your concern for white-on-white crime?
            Oh right, you don't care about crime, you just want a smokescreen to defend the abuse of state power.

        • (Score: 2) by Entropy on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:10AM

          by Entropy (4228) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:10AM (#391983)

          I refuse to accept the myth that black people can't be racist(because slavery) and somehow you want different rules to apply to black people, but only when it's your advantage. When it isn't your advantage it's racism, because slavery. Want to fix the issues black people often face? Look within.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:15AM (#391511)

    Previously it was yucks and accusations towards homeschoolers at being religious wackos, with some equating homeschooling tantamount to child abuse.

    Then there was the moralizing that those pulling their kids were essentially allowing civilization to burn for not taking a greater interest (*cough*higher taxes*cough*) in improving public schools, with not so subtle accusations of racism.

    Now we've come full circle.

    These must be obviously self-hating blacks.

    • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:22AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:22AM (#391513)

      Wait what. Racist Blacks? But, but, but, blacks can't be racist. That's just not possible.

      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:12AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:12AM (#391533)

        ... or is just daft.

        But, but, but, blacks can't be racist. That's just not possible.

        I've had the misfortune to encounter people who, being completely serious, state that black folk and other minorities cannot be racist. When pressed for details, they revealed that they are trying to redefine the dictionary definition of "racism [thefreedictionary.com]" to something like 'discrimination or prejudice based on race with power ' (making the hilarious assumption that the average white male USian has power in the current status quo).

        This is not the first time power-hungry forces have tried to literally changed the meaning of a word to be its opposite: just look at the modern use of "liberal" and how a new term needed to be coined to refer to its original meaning (i.e. classical liberal) of advocates for small, power-limited governments using representation.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:23PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:23PM (#391604)

          Seems like, of all people, you would be happy with this 'redefinition' of racism.
          You really sound like you are a frequent victim of false accusations of racism, am I right?
          You don't believe you have power, do you?
          Therefore this 'new' definition would automatically absolve you ever being an R-word.

          So, what's your problem with it then?

          • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:40PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:40PM (#391608)

            Let's put it like this, should the minority get to redefine words to suit their agenda?

            If you say no, I can introduce you to some whinny college students that can scream it at you until you apologize and agree. These kids don't know what real racism is, but they all want others to praise them as the next Rosa Parks.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:09PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:09PM (#391630)

              > Let's put it like this, should the minority get to redefine words to suit their agenda?

              It is a redefinition that suits YOUR agenda.
              You've never used your power to discriminate against someone, right?
              So this definition is your ideal definition.
              No whiny college students can ever scream the R-word at you again.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:49PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:49PM (#391616)

            You don't believe you have power, do you? Therefore this 'new' definition would automatically absolve you ever being an R-word. So, what's your problem with it then?

            I am not a fan of using lies to suit my agenda. Regardless of how the word changes in the future, the current usage of the word 'racist' by all but the deceptive is merely "discrimination or prejudice based on race". Being honest about trying to change the word's definition would lessen the emotional aspect of the word, thus all the dishonesty by some.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:16PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:16PM (#391635)

              > the current usage of the word 'racist' by all but the deceptive is merely "discrimination or prejudice based on race".

              Hold up there partner, hhhhhhold up!

              Did you say "discrimination?"

              Discrimination is the exercise of power. You can't discriminate against someone without applying power.
              It doesn't have to be a lot of power, its just the power to affect someone in some way.

              You just redefined racism to be exactly what these people are saying it is.
              Uh-oh!

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:23PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:23PM (#391736)

                It's as though we could remove the race of the person exercising power entirely. We would just need the skin color or presumed race of the people being discriminated against, even if that happens to be the same as the person using their power to discriminate.

                I'm not thinking of any good examples of people who are black discriminating against people who are white (mostly because I cannot think of any good examples of people who are white suffering racial discrimination—the power component would establish that this cannot be just some idiot shouting crap about how white people are scum somewhere), but it would still hold in that instance, correct?

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:16PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:16PM (#391768)

                Discrimination is the exercise of power. You can't discriminate against someone without applying power.

                Then black people can be racist as well, so it's a foolish and pointless nit to try to pick. The entire reason cited by people trying to change the meaning of the word 'racist' is to claim that black people and/or other minorities cannot be racist, which is as laughable as stating "2+2==5".

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:26PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:26PM (#391780)

                  Would you be pacified if the claim were changed to "black people can not be effective racists" ?

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:03PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:03PM (#391816)

                    No - deceptive people trying to redefine 'racism' are doing so to exploit the emotional component to push a race-based agenda.

                    A person of any race/skin color can be racist: discriminate or harbor prejudice based on race. Because of this, all reasons I've heard so far by people trying to redefine this term are based in malicious deception to try to introduce the insane idea that black/minorities cannot "discriminate or harbor prejudice based on race".

        • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:54PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:54PM (#391619)

          Anyone can be racist, but there is something to the "power" idea. Redefining racism is stupid and "power" is also the wrong word.

          Examples of what I mean:

          1. A black guy walks up to a white guy in the Yale yacht club and says, "You don't belong here, White Boy."

          2. A black guy walks up to a white guy in a rough inner city, with a black majority, and says, "You don't belong here, White Boy."

          Switch the race around and you'll notice some clear differences in effect:

          As written, ex.1 would probably be confusing or funny to the white guy. If the race was switched, then it would be interpreted that the white guy is trying to exert some "power" over the black guy that is derived from the historical discrimination of blacks.

          As written, ex.2 would probably be interpreted as threatening to the white guy. If the race was switched, then it would not be as threatening and possibly funny.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:47PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:47PM (#391693)

            So people who are black can only exercise power by being thugs. That might explain a lot.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday August 22 2016, @04:54PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @04:54PM (#391722) Journal

      Many home schoolers *ARE* "religious wackos". Others are seriously bothered by the educational standards of the schools. And this is often justified. I know some home schoolers, and the ones I know are serious intelligent people who want their children to have a decent education, and don't believe the school is providing one. But from the materials covered by stores that cater to home schoolers it's clear that many have a decidedly conservative religious stance, to put on it the most generous interpretation. Religious wacko would not be an unreasonable characterization.

      It's usually a mistake to take one particular behavior and to presume that everyone is doing it for the same reason.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:17AM (#391512)

    Black Entertainment obviously isn't meant for me, so I won't watch BET. I'll go watch White Entertainment, whatever the hell that is. WET oh yeah I like the sound of that.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:41AM (#391517)

      Ah crap, I think I might have to stop watching science fiction. Too many black people I'm not allowed to see. Killjoys is right out because of Hannah John-Kamen, Dark Matter is out because Roger Cross plays a major role (I'll miss him - I've always enjoyed seeing Roger Cross). Oh no I'm not allowed Mr. Robot, either, because of Craig Robinson and Joey Badass. Yep, gonna have to rearrange my whole TV viewing schedule now. Damn it, black folk, why you gotta ruin TV for me.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @10:57AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @10:57AM (#391552)

        I don't know about the shows you mentioned, but it's okay to watch them if the black characters are just racial stereotypes, like in that Ghostbusters rehash. That's classic old timey white entertainment right there.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:47AM (#391521)

    I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood

    As long as their children don't go to school together, apparently. Who could have predicted that 53 years later, racist black mothers would be shitting on MLK's dream.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday August 22 2016, @09:36AM

      by bradley13 (3053) on Monday August 22 2016, @09:36AM (#391537) Homepage Journal

      I really liked her concern that her kids aren't learning any African history in the schools. One might have thought they should learn American and European history, all the way back to the Greeks and Romans - that's the heritage of the country they live in.

      Chinese immigrants don't expect their kids to learn Chinese history, nor do Koreans, Italians, Irish, or any of the other immigrant groups expect school programs tailored to their particular heritage. So why does this woman think her kids should learn African history?

      --
      Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @10:24AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @10:24AM (#391544)

        I hope you're including Native American history in American history. That's the heritage of the land they live on. I enjoyed learning about Native American traditions in school, but if kids remember nothing else, it really helps to know where place names came from, because Native American names are everywhere.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by bradley13 on Monday August 22 2016, @11:04AM

          by bradley13 (3053) on Monday August 22 2016, @11:04AM (#391555) Homepage Journal

          I hope you're including Native American history in American history.

          Um, no. For better or for worse, the Native American cultures were conquered and destroyed. First by the Spanish, then by the British. The history of that destruction is certainly part of American history. However, the cultures and ideas of Native Americans played no role at all in the founding of the political entity that is the USA.

          You can see those facts in a number of possible ways. Fact is: a large part of human history involves one group of people conquering another. I remember reading an article about archeology in the Middle East: it's sometimes very difficult to decide whether or not to stop when you find a layer of ruins, or to keep digging to get at the layer underneath.

          --
          Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
          • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday August 22 2016, @11:50AM

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday August 22 2016, @11:50AM (#391571) Journal

            That's not correct. Benjamin Franklin and the Framers of the Constitution took a lot of inspiration from the Iroquois Confederacy, which they had had a lot of contact with.

            Goes to show you that it's always good to doublecheck before making an absolutist claim...

            --
            Washington DC delenda est.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:00PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:00PM (#391622)

              Glad someone mentioned this.
              It certainly was not included in any of my US History classes (probably not bradley13's either).

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:35PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:35PM (#391744)

                Although it was heavily glossed over, along with the details of most of the conflicts from the 18th to 21st centuries.

                We got a bit on the Iroquois Nation, most of which I have long since forgotten, and I think some mention of us selling guns to them to help destablize things. And that was it. Mind you the majority of teachers when I was in public education were quite conservative and pro-nationalist (it was pretty much a prereq to not getting fired from your job that you at least presented a conservative nationalist attitude to retain your job, or not get reassigned to a worse class/school.)

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:32PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:32PM (#391741)

              the cherokee had a similarly advanced government that was borrowed from by someone. can't recall the name of the cherokee's structure nor who borrowed from it, but you get the point.

          • (Score: 2) by Entropy on Monday August 22 2016, @11:58PM

            by Entropy (4228) on Monday August 22 2016, @11:58PM (#391938)

            Good point. We teach the successful, not the failure. Native American culture remains alive(hopefully) within their own cultural boundaries, but it's silly to teach it in public schools to a large degree. Same thing(though more profoundly) with African culture. They can teach that in Africa, if they choose..but even there it was the very definition of failed.

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 22 2016, @06:40PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @06:40PM (#391796)

          because Native American names are everywhere.

          Well, uh, they're kinda working on fixing that as fast as they can for the last couple decades. Someday we'll whitewash away the last Native American inspired sports team name, city name, get rid of the last museum diorama, why then we'll be able to pretend its been nothing but white folk here since creation.

          I live in a state with reservations, I donno if its at the state level or what but there is no small amount of Native American studies in history classes.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 22 2016, @04:38PM

        by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday August 22 2016, @04:38PM (#391711) Journal

        I really liked her concern that her kids aren't learning any African history in the schools. One might have thought they should learn American and European history, all the way back to the Greeks and Romans - that's the heritage of the country they live in.

        Funny -- my recollection of my public-school history education is a bit different. Yes, there was a major focus on American history (at least 3 years including middle school and high school) and one year focusing mostly on American civics. So out of 8 years of middle school and high school, the major focus was clearly on American history.

        But in middle school I also had a year focusing on history of the Americas, i.e., Canadian and Latin American history and geography. After that, I had a year that started us on ancient history (including Egypt and Mesopotamia, before getting into Greco-Roman history), and only later that year did we get to more "modern" European history.

        And then in high school I had a year that was explicitly NOT on American history -- where we revisited some ancient and European history before spreading out. There was quite a bit of Asian history that year too, as well as discussion of modern Asian culture. (I should note this was in a public high school that I believe had only TWO Asian students enrolled in it -- in all four grades -- when I was there.)

        Interestingly, as I look back on it, African history was the most neglected. I think we might have spent two weeks or so on it in that class with the Asian/European/etc. history mix. Maybe a bit more if you count ancient Egyptian, Carthaginian, etc. history. I actually remember reading our textbook's section on African history and culture on my own, because I found it kind of interesting, but we never talked about it much in class.

        Anyhow, I see your point that we shouldn't necessarily be tailoring our history curriculum to any particular group's "heritage," but I *do* feel it was helpful to me to get a sense of broader global history and culture while in school. And these days I actually wish we had spent MORE time on it -- in a global society as we now live in, I think it's a problem if students don't recognize the importance of understanding other cultures around the globe (which includes their history and traditions).

        Like it or not, as global communication on the internet grows further, the students of today should at least have some background to understand the people they are talking to around the world. And at least from my own public school experience, Africa was definitely the most neglected in terms of history and culture.

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday August 22 2016, @04:45PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @04:45PM (#391714) Journal

        I take it you've never heard about Chinese kids going to school after school to study the Chinese language? They often don't, but they often do, usually over their objections. I don't THINK these are all first generation kids, either, though admittedly the one I know of is. But there are enough of them to keep, and have kept, the school going for at least decades. Now this doesn't take too much, since IIUC it's run in a church basement, but it takes more than a few.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by mojo chan on Tuesday August 23 2016, @10:41AM

        by mojo chan (266) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @10:41AM (#392059)

        Your argument is that other people don't want their cultural heritage taught, so why should this one person think differently. And you are modded +5 "insightful" for this extremely weak logical fallacy.

        Is there a good reason why some African history should not be taught? It seems like actually some of it is, during things like Black History Month, although I get the impression that is mostly focused on slavery and civil rights. Still, just saying (incorrectly) that others don't want it is not a very good rebuttal.

        Also, Chinese people do teach Chinese history to their kids in my experience. One mother I know takes regular trips to China, with a group of other mothers and their children, to learn some history and culture.

        --
        const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday August 22 2016, @02:23PM

      by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Monday August 22 2016, @02:23PM (#391639) Journal

      Looks like we have a Department of Education common core shill here! That's odd. There is such a thing? Eh, who knew? Is this a workgroup or something in Correct the Record? Ok, I jest. You're probably not a shill….

      That's quite a leap to go from black people taking responsibility for their own betterment and doing what I, perhaps in my addled libertarian two-parent-of-whatever-gender family lunacy, have believed for a long time is the responsibility of co-ops of parents (if memory of reading TFA while it was still in the queue serves, is something only possible in Alabama?), educating their children. (If one wanted to fund such a co-op, I think they call them vouchers or something, but that's an entirely different debate whether such a thing should be funded with public monies or not.)

      Government schools are more prisons and indoctrination centers than educational establishments. I was still in high school when there were the first signs of things seriously starting to go off the rails. My high school bought some cattle gates and barricaded the student parking lot during school hours I think in my junior or sophomore year. They're making sure that kids are raised as cogs in prisons so they are comfortable living as cogs in prisons. While I can understand that perhaps government schools should exist and that they could be much, much better at the goal of education, as they exist these days, I would go so far as to call it child abuse and un-American to send one's children to a government indoctrination day camp.

      I suppose I could scale back the tinfoil hat rhetoric. It's probably just a tragedy of the commons combined with rampant anti-intellectualism come home to roost.

      Educating my kids is not something I would trust the American government with in a million years. Too many ways it can go wrong, and the consequences can be life-altering. Other countries seem to get it, but Americans are hopelessly lost, so their government by them, for them, is equally hopelessly lost. But I can't have kids so whatever.

      I, for one, salute these parents! Let them be an example of how to fight against and hopefully one day overcome generations and generations, centuries and centuries, of systematic, institutional oppression and of their human rights being trampled upon. I am certain it is not easy, but I believe they are fighting the good fight.

      Finally, this is not victimhood. Nobody is asking anybody to FEEL GUILTY. This is working towards a solution. This represents the principles of Kwanzaa in action. I don't see anything inherently FEEL GUILTY or threatening about this. In fact, I find it inspiring.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 22 2016, @07:33PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @07:33PM (#391831)

        I was still in high school when there were the first signs of things seriously starting to go off the rails. My high school bought some cattle gates and barricaded the student parking lot during school hours I think in my junior or sophomore year.

        I wonder if we're about the same age. For me it was when they replaced one of my best friend's grandma as hall monitor with two uniformed cops and started locking the school doors. And this was in a Very nice suburb, not the hood (there was no criminal activity to justify the cops). Figure the first Bush presidency era, before the first Gulf war, etc.

        The idea of school doors being locked is really weird to me. I suppose people who grew up in prison will not find prison to be unusual at all. I guess in the old days high school was very "salaried like" where you were expected to mostly show up and make your numbers, and now its very "call center like" where its basically a locked down zoo or prison. Very weird.

        My kids are getting to the age where they'll have to participate in that kind of foolishness, trying to figure out how to handle it. Send them to the local Catholic school? To a private school of some sort? I donno. I got a couple more years to think it thru.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday August 22 2016, @09:01AM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Monday August 22 2016, @09:01AM (#391527) Homepage Journal

    This has nothing to do with race, except that black kids tend to live where the worst schools are. US public schools generally suck; they sucked when I was in them 40 years ago, and they apparently suck worse today. If you care about your children's education, you either send them to private school, or you home school. The fact that they suck worse in the inner cities, well, that's part of a larger issue.

    Home schooling comes with lots of potential problems, but many of these are alleviated by getting into a coop. It spreads the load, a good coop will have parents with a variety of competencies, and it addresses the (entirely valid) concern about socialization.

    Back to the articles assertion of racism: "She has seen instances where middle-class black parents, whose extra social capital would normally enable them to advocate effectively for their children, have a harder time “unlocking those benefits” than most other folks. “You know, trying to get their children into the gifted programs, all kind of things like that – because when you’re not white all those things are challenging, I think, because of all the assumptions that are made,” she says."

    Somehow I have trouble believing that. From my (admittedly dated) knowledge of US public schools, there are two problems here: (1) Very few resources are devoted to programs for the gifted students (schools put more effort into educating the bottom 10% than the top 10%), and (2) too many parents are certain that their snowflake is gifted.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:11AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:11AM (#391532)

      Kids don't need to socialize these days, because by the time they grow up, everyone will have Facebook permanently implanted in their skulls. Facebook will decide who you will talk to and when, and you won't need to know anything about obsolete social graces, and you won't need to tolerate people who disagree with your views, because Facebook will make sure you only talk to people who are like you and who share your views. And if you're black, Facebook will make damn sure you never have to see a white face in your life.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Monday August 22 2016, @10:33AM

      by theluggage (1797) on Monday August 22 2016, @10:33AM (#391546)

      This has nothing to do with race, except that black kids tend to live where the worst schools are.

      If only it were that easy to disentangle race from other socio-economic factors. I mean, I fully agree with you that improving schools in poor areas for everyone is the best general policy (and selectively solving the problem for selected groups when white male kids ain't exactly topping the school performance league is just storing up worse problems), but that's very easy to say, very difficult to do. Ultimately, you're trying to change society, and race is very much part of society. If a poor area is 95% black, and the nearby affluent area 95% white you're not going to get far telling the inhabitants on either side of the tracks that it's "nothing to do with race" (but you do have to remember that the 5% on the poor side probably don't have places reserved at Harvard, either and, if left disaffected, are fertile ground for racism).

      Wouldn't it be nice if the world was a simple place with neat solutions to everything?

      Somehow I have trouble believing that.

      Really? The problem with anecdotal evidence is not that the anecdotes aren't true, it is that they may not be representative. I have no more difficultly believing that school district A discriminates against black kids in its gifted program than I have believing that school district B is "positively" discriminating for black kids, while district C would be over the moon if any black kids would even apply to their program. I'll also bet you the internet that the documentation for all of those gifted programs has 3 paragraphs on "equity and diversity" for every paragraph on what the program actually does. Words are easy. It only takes a few people out there at the coal face with their heads stuck in the 1950s to derail everything, and you won't weed them out with a 2-hour "diversity awareness" workshop (which will probably just entrench their views).

      The problem is that we are plagued with dogmatic narrative-following and adversarial language on both sides of the argument, and no practical & pragmatic action can ever be perfect enough satisfy both camps.

      ...and remember, correlation is neither proof nor disproof of causation, "evidence" may not be the plural of "anecdote" but "anecdote" is not a synonym for "lie".

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 22 2016, @01:33PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday August 22 2016, @01:33PM (#391606)

      US public schools generally suck; they sucked when I was in them 40 years ago, and they apparently suck worse today.

      It depends a lot on where you live.

      Where I was growing up, while the public schools definitely had their problems, my public high school was doing a much better job than their private counterparts by any reasonable measurement, including college admission, AP credit, vocational training, and English language training for recent refugees (mostly from Iraq and Bosnia back when I was attending). There are also public school systems that routinely send something like 20% of their graduating class to Ivy League schools. And public exam and magnet schools like Stuyvesant (in New York City) and Boston Latin that also do a top-notch job.

      In other areas, the public schools absolutely do suck and are barely managing to approximately reach the state- and federally-mandated minimums, with the dropout rates and failure rates and suspension numbers to prove it.

      Private schools have even more variation in quality: The top prep schools can afford to get the best teachers in the country (frequently with doctorates in their field), while the worst private schools are able to skimp on everything because they have much lower legal standards to meet.

      It's basically impossible to make a useful blanket judgment as to the quality of public versus private schools, because every single local district and most private schools are under completely separate management.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:13PM (#391668)

      This has nothing to do with race, except that black kids tend to live where the worst schools are.

      ....so it has a lot to do with race, then.

    • (Score: 1) by fraxinus-tree on Monday August 22 2016, @03:24PM

      by fraxinus-tree (5590) on Monday August 22 2016, @03:24PM (#391677)

      Schools generally suck these days, it is not only US and it is not only publicly-funded ones. At least, the picture here in post-soviet Bulgaria is not better. The school is a complex balance of education, indoctrination and socialization (and other things). The balance is long ago destroyed and it manifests by less and less correlation between education and quality of life. Well, Finland or Japan may be different, but they are just exceptions.

    • (Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Monday August 22 2016, @04:50PM

      by CirclesInSand (2899) on Monday August 22 2016, @04:50PM (#391718)

      This has nothing to do with race, except that black kids tend to live where the worst schools are.

      What evidence would be necessary to persuade you that the correlation between race and situation is not coincidental?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:34PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:34PM (#391742)

        I don't think bradley13's gone down the latest rabbit hole, but I just wanted to be inb4 "evolution doesn't stop below the neck."

        Found this interesting website [arguman.org] making sure I had that catchphrase correct. I see what they're trying to do there [arguman.org]. Maybe Soylent needs something like that?

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by garrulus on Monday August 22 2016, @09:07AM

    by garrulus (6051) on Monday August 22 2016, @09:07AM (#391531)

    by dumbing down white and yellow education to average IQ80,
    it's called common core.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by dltaylor on Monday August 22 2016, @09:26AM

    by dltaylor (4693) on Monday August 22 2016, @09:26AM (#391535)

    Public schools have limited budgets, often more limited by excessive "administratium" (far too many people claiming credit for this one). That often explains the difficulty getting any child into an enriched program, plus, too many parents are "so sure" that their child is, in some way, gifted, when that simply isn't true.

    I attended 24 different schools in elementary through high school; some very color blind, as in military dependent schools, and some blatantly racist, such as Enterprise, Alabama public schools. In all of those years though, the defining difference between those who succeeded and didn't wasn't the school, it was the parents. Whether due to their own developmental issues, lack of skills, lack of interest, lack of resources (and, in that case, WHY were they even having children?), a lot of parents fail their children. No talking with, reading to, encouraging, ... their children, so that they are handicapped before they even enter school. Given the history of the US, a great many of the failing parents, like it or not, are of significant African descent, and they are propagating the problem from generation to generation.

    The statistics about the benefits of home schooling, charter schools, ... are ALL crap, because they NEVER compare students with equivalent parental involvement between those cases and public school.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @11:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @11:18AM (#391563)

      The statistics about the benefits of home schooling, charter schools, ... are ALL crap, because they NEVER compare students with equivalent parental involvement between those cases and public school.

      That, too, is misleading as the amount of involvement required by home-schooling parents is much higher than that required by parents who shove their kids off on the public schools.

      It's still an idictment against the public schools that they produce such horrific results even after spending much more time with the kids than the (presumably) working parents do, particularly if you count time "wasted" sleeping.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday August 22 2016, @12:09PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday August 22 2016, @12:09PM (#391576) Journal

      I can't speak to the public schools in every city, but i can to those in NYC because i'm on a school board in brooklyn. NYC schools get plenty of money, multiples more per capita than other states do, yet they underperform the national average in test scores. Why? They are wasteful in the extreme because that money does not come from their own pockets, because they try to spend their way to better performance by spending money on a thousand magic bullets instead of working harder at teaching well, and because there is a great deal of entrenched corruption in the system, with private contractors sucking down sweetheart deals by the billions and keeping the gravy train rolling through kickbacks to the politicians. For example, the NYC Dept of Ed allocated $2 billion dollars more than a decade ago to build enough schools for a 10K shortfall of seats in my school district in Brooklyn alone. They built one school in that time with 1,000 seats. Where did the rest of the money go? Oh, and BTW that 1 school was in the rich white part of the district that needed it least.

      There is also institutionalized racism. Not overt, but institutionalized. The poor areas are allowed to remain poor and underperforming no matter how extremely engaged the parents are, because the parents don't have the political juice to get what they want. And so the deficit in performance keeps on rolling, with everyone, even well-intentioned people, clucking their tongues and saying, "poor dears."

       

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @12:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @12:45PM (#391592)

      Also military brat, and the best school I ever attended was in the ghetto.

      Reason- I actually applied myself so some teachers took an interest in me beyond the other twits causing problems.

      In the suburbs, I was just another face trying to get ahead. In San Berdo, I was a hunk of coal hoping to be a diamond.

      My parents were mostly absentee, so no great shakes there.

      Anyhoo, the point being beyond all the talk of money, parents, teachers and whatnot, I find it hard to believe anyone who doesn't try their best even in the most trying of circumstances won't make some headway towards a better life. Maybe it's culture, maybe it's just being terrified of never escaping a shithole, but at some point you have to take it upon yourself not to be a victim of circumstance.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:29PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:29PM (#391708)

      WHY were they even having children?

      In many cases it's due to a belief that you need numbers (population) to bring about political and culture change (to correct perceived political problems). The downside is that the technique often results in quantity instead of quality of children, per parenting, because parents are stretched thinner.

  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 22 2016, @10:42AM

    Or we could not be racist about it and run a s/black/poor/ig over the article.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 22 2016, @03:56PM

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday August 22 2016, @03:56PM (#391697) Journal

      Or we could not be racist about it and run a s/black/poor/ig over the article.

      Yes, many of the same problems face poor children and families regardless of race. But then you see things like this passage from TFA:

      A 2012 Center for American Progress report found that a 10-percentage point increase in students of color at a school correlates with a $75 per pupil decrease in funding. Data analyst David Mosenkis studied 500 Pennsylvania school districts in 2012 and found that, "At any given poverty level, districts that have a higher proportion of white students get substantially higher funding than districts that have more minority students.”

      Note: "At any given poverty level..."

      Of course, school funding isn't everything. But it's a notable marker that maybe something more than just poverty is going on here. And, frankly, a few years ago, I might have wholeheartedly agreed with you -- let's stop the discussion on race and recognize the challenges facing the poor in general. (And obviously I still think we need to work on confronting issues of poverty in general, regardless of race.)

      However, in recent years my eyes have been opened to the sheer amount of lingering racism within the U.S. The whole "Birther" controversy seemed to erupt from racist suspicions, but I assumed it was just a minority of wackos. But then how many times have we seen some racial issue come up and then a firestorm of bigots out themselves on Twitter or whatever? (And I'm not talking about trolls -- I'm talking about earnest "normal" people who suddenly find their blatant racist tweets showing up in news stories and end up closing their account in embarrassment.)

      And yet I still thought these people must just be outliers -- surely most Americans now want to welcome a "post-racial" society where we can stop the bigotry and stereotyping?

      And then I saw the rise of one of the most prominent xenophobic bigots to become a candidate for a major political party, and he has millions of supporters.

      Don't get me wrong -- I'm NOT claiming all Trump supporters are racists. What I do think is true is that most Trump supporters clearly are willing to "give a pass" to bigoted and racist folks around them, even willing to elect one as President. And I don't think it's active racism as much as concern about the economy and anxiety about the future, which leads them toward suspicion of "others" and racial resentment. But how many of these people similarly "give a pass" to their colleagues in the public school systems who make the occasional bigoted remark and may be part of continued institutional discrimination?

      By all means, let's help all poor folks too. But I don't think it's "racist" now to recognize there may still be particular problems facing some races when we have millions of people ready to elect a bigot who is willing to spew racist rhetoric as leader of the U.S.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:58PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:58PM (#391757)

        My mod points are getting thin so I'd like to give you a virtual +1 completely and utterly agree. I feel I'm in the same boat. A few years ago it seemed like racism was over, we (non-racists) had won, and some people who just wanted handouts needed to shut up. Then the sheer volume of idiots on the internet, in police forces, at political rallies, on national TV and radio, on the freaking streets shouting crap really made me pause and open my eyes.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 22 2016, @06:44PM

        I more or less agree. It's when the proposed solution is to discriminate in favor of someone based on their race that I have to call bullshit.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 22 2016, @06:56PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @06:56PM (#391811)

        And then I saw the rise of one of the most prominent xenophobic bigots to become a candidate for a major political party

        we have millions of people ready to elect a bigot who is willing to spew racist rhetoric as leader of the U.S.

        Oh Hillary isn't that bad. She's fashionably anti-white like most progressives but not unusually so. I think she has medical and mental and ethical issues that make her unfit to lead, but she's not a klansman (-woman, whatever)

        I mean she's no Trump, Trump's wife is a foreign immigrant and Trump is willing to have relationships with foreign countries like Russia or the middle east that extend beyond bombing and threats of bombing. She's messed up but she's not that bad.

        Don't get me wrong, I want her to lose, but that rhetoric is just the wrong path to use. Shes a bloodthirsty chickenhawk war criminal treasonous crooked establishment organized crime leader with mental and physical health issues that make her unfit to lead. But even I won't call her a Klansman.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 22 2016, @11:20AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @11:20AM (#391564) Journal

    The more intelligent people in this country have known for ages that the public schools suck watermelons through garden hoses. They sucked fifty years ago, and they've deteriorated since.

    As an aside, I can tell you WHY they just deteriorate: GOVERNMENT! Schools are supposed to be locally run, not run from Washington, or San Antonio, or Harrisburg, or wherever.

    But, anyway, we've known that the schools suck. Some black folks have figured that out, so it is necessarily a race issue? All I can say is, "WTF?"

    Home schooling is a tough way to go, in case you didn't know. It's a lot of work. Before you even begin, you've got several governmental hurdles to jump. Then, you've got to do YOUR OWN homework on each subject, before you can start teaching the kid. Then, you've got to keep up with it. There isn't some magic moment when you've got it all figured out, and the teacher's job gets done without any effort on your part. For each child you're teaching, you've made a commitment of twelve years of hard work on your own part.

    I respect anyone who makes such a commitment. MOST PARENTS can't even be bothered to help Junior with his math on the weekends.

    So, this particular mother wants black history as part of the curriculum? That's cool with me. She doesn't expect me or my kids to conform to her ideal curriculum - just her own kids. WTF is wrong with that? I have emphasized certain things in my own kid's education. That is a parent's prerogative, after all. I don't make her kids study military and/or naval history, she doesnt' make my kids learn black history. Imagine that - LOCAL CONTROL!!

    And, one advantage of all this local control, and parental prerogative is, my kid might figure out things that her kids can't, and at the same time, they have answers that my kids don't have. I see this as a "good thing". We don't need every kid in the country to memorize all the same data. We need kids capable of THINKING!!

    What's that old saying? When everyone thinks alike, no on is thinking much? That's the American education system. No one is really thinking about what education is all about.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 22 2016, @12:25PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @12:25PM (#391585)

      I mostly agree with or at least understand your position although with all due respect your specific examples of naval history and black history are not ideal examples.

      Traditionally the argument is made with these examples:

      1) Sex ed, kids are supposed to learn this stuff, now the debate is do the parents do a bad job of it, or the schools give an ultra PC and clinical explanation, or the priest just sticks it in the altar boy as OTJ training or whatever. Who should tell the kids about insert tab A into slot B is a raging emotional debate. Also see, drugs, including tobacco and ethanol.

      2) I find it completely unacceptable to launch young adults into the world with no idea of first aid or basic wilderness survival or ecology, and what works for my kids is the scouting programs, although the girl scouts is ... inadequate to put it nicely. My wife used to be a girl scout leader and I'd tease her that with respect to basic wilderness survival, the boy scouts require boys to memorize lists of what to do and what to carry and how to behave and how to start a fire in the woods, but the girl scouts merely learn how to put up a cookie stand and act cute until it lures in hungry cookie buying people to rescue them. Anyway my point is some/many parents get all out of whack about hating scouting, to the point of not wanting packs/troops associated with the school system, etc.

      3) Somewhat more controversial for the crowd here is creationism, you have to realize that none of that scientific stuff matters on a practical level to maybe 98% of the population and after you accept that bitter pill, the only remaining component of the debate is "should we show loyalty to the church we've been attending every sunday for decades?" and oddly enough people pretend to be surprised when the answer is "Yes!". Note that creationism is a fundie evangelical thing, I have a lot of Catholics in my extended family and at least the Catholics are totally not into creationism, at least as fundies understand it. Another slightly off topic novelty is I've been to Catholic churches and prosperity gospel churches and one has an average age of 75 and the other has an average age of 25 so you get one guess as to the "future of Christian thought".

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:15PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:15PM (#391633)

        A problem with the Boy Scouts is that they've discriminated against atheists and, if they continue to do so, should not receive any public money

        I agree that it would be great to have some wilderness training, perhaps PE classes could skip kick-ball lessons for a few days.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 22 2016, @02:56PM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday August 22 2016, @02:56PM (#391658) Journal

        Has it occurred to you that attitudes of "public schools suck watermelons" and "government is the problem, is to blame", and your lone wolf kind of thinking of doing education yourself and refusing to participate, contributes to the problems?

        1) Schools are not the ones ultimately responsible for why sex ed is so bad. That blame lies with society, with all the adults who are too squeamish, embarrassed, afraid, religiously moralistic, or whatever it is, to want to tell it all to the kids straight, and demand that schools not do so either.

        2) Nothing wrong with knowing some basic wilderness survival, but let's face it, that knowledge is really not that useful to most people. You say "none of that scientific stuff matters on a practical level", but wilderness survival knowledge does? WTF? As to why survival knowledge isn't too useful, it's that it is utterly impractical for any significant portion of humanity to adopt such a lifestyle. There is not enough wilderness left for that. There never was enough wilderness to support several billions on that lifestyle, we've long since had to move to and intensify farming. Why not instead teach children what the ag business is like? Teach kids how to grow a veggie garden? Wilderness survival is a fantasy, a romanticized version of stone age hunter-gatherer living made much easier with a few choice modern gadgets and a great deal of knowledge acquired through that much maligned tool, science. If I was serious about some wilderness survival, I sure as hell wouldn't bother fishing with a rod, line, and hook, I'd use a net. And, starting a fire by rubbing sticks together? Bull! Use a frigging lighter, at least the sparker, or matches, or sunlight through a magnifying glass. If "be prepared" means that among other things you ought to have a Swiss Army knife on your person, then why not also a few other tools such as the aforementioned fishing net and magnifying glass?

        3) Science does matter on a practical level. Science is our best tool for sorting out reality from dark fantasies inspired by fear and paranoia, so that innocent women are no longer accused of being witches, blamed for causing plagues or droughts or other mischief, and burned at the stake, virgins aren't thrown into volcanoes to appease mythical gods, and other uneducated and cruel follies. That some people can still buy into nonsense such as Falwell's ravings that 9/11 was divine punishment for being too tolerant of homosexuals, reinforces the importance of science education. We are completely surrounded by the fruits of our long quest to better understand the world, smart phones that use the electromagnetic spectrum for near instantaneous communication, engines and vehicles and roads that rapidly transport all manner of material vast distances and do all kinds of labor, but somehow people can overlook all that to wallow in silly fantasies about the paranormal, going for palm readings, psychics, astrology (Nancy Reagan *cough*), and of course, creationism.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:02PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:02PM (#391725)

          You're missing a few points.

          1) Sure, schools aren't the decision-makers on what sex education will look like. This is true. Who is? A government agency. You're really just proving his point that the government is successfully buggering schooling for everyone by trying not to offend anyone (and failing).

          2) Wilderness survival is about a lot more than roughing it out in Alaska with a beard your axe couldn't cut. It's about knowing how not to be stupid when your car stalled out down a dirt road in Arizona. It's about knowing whether the snake that just bit little Jimmy is venomous or not - and if so, what to do about it (if anything). It's about things like recognising and treating hypothermia in someone you've just pulled out of a river. These are real, practical concerns today, and the fact that they happen to overlap with general wilderness survival skills makes that a coherent skillset worth teaching.

          3) Sure, science matters. I'm all for that, both on a theoretical and a practical level, but for day-to-day decisions, I'd actually say that a foundational set of courses in philosophy might have more value. What the hell, get the philosophy of science in there as well, to help kids pick out hucksters.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:38PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:38PM (#391793)

            3) Sure, science matters. I'm all for that, both on a theoretical and a practical level, but for day-to-day decisions, I'd actually say that a foundational set of courses in philosophy might have more value. What the hell, get the philosophy of science in there as well, to help kids pick out hucksters.

            Not GP, and I'd agree that philosophy would also be a good thing, although the philosophy of science is science to a large degree.

            But I'd argue that on a day to day basis, science is more important. What kind of light bulbs are going to save you the most money? Should you leave that meat out on the counter or put it in the fridge? Should you store it in an air tight container? Should you get your kids vaccinated? Are flush toilets and fresh water really worth the expense? Should you buy property in Florida with the expectation it won't be flooded in a century? Which is better to use for birth control, condoms?, the pill? , the rhythm method? How about for STD's? Should you wear seat-belts regardless of the legality? Bike helmets? Motorcycle helmets? I could go on all day, but you get the idea.

            Science is so ingrained in our lives that we don't even think about it.

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 22 2016, @06:29PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @06:29PM (#391783)

          but wilderness survival knowledge does? WTF?

          Where I live, about ten months out of the year, "lost in a park" will kill you in a couple hours, days at most, if you're carefully unprepared enough. Or in an urban environment again most of the year you're in serious danger of heatstroke or hypothermia (often both the same day!).

          You might be confusing dramatized reality TV survival (Anything with survivor in the title, Bear Grylls, anything with a fixed blade knife, etc) shows with what the scouts actually work on, which is more along the lines of "don't fall thru the ice into the river" "don't stick hand into fire" "don't work hard and sweat until you faint and die when its hot out and you have no water" "stay dry and out of the wind when its cold out" etc.

          There's a pretty short list of things you don't go into the woods without, and established protocols for what to do when you get lost, none of which involve panic or any exotic gear (well, a safety whistle, map, and a compass aren't too exotic, and the implication is you're carrying the compass and map because you know how to use them... and WTF would you be doing in the woods without a map anyway?)

          Even if you never "go out" you can get stranded in a car in a blizzard if you push your luck, has happened to me. Given enough blankets in the car and a MRE or two its more annoying than a serious danger, although there are idiots who manage to get themselves killed every year.

          Science is our best tool for sorting out reality

          If you actually learn it. If you're a low performer and just ritually repeating stuff for the multiple guess test, you've learned nothing. There's unthinking repetition not much more thoughtful than a parrot bird, then there's training level learning, then actual education. If the school isn't going to do much beyond trivial pursuit (What year is Darwin's birthday, 800-something 1800-something or 1900-something?) then may as well skip it and stick to creationism. I'm not a fan of it personally but I see the appeal if poor enough education is a given.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:19PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:19PM (#391884)

            Who cares? What does any of that survival nonsense have to do with academics (not that schools care about education anyway)? The situations you describe are wildly improbable, so I'll take my chances. We don't need less time spent on other things for this.

            If you actually learn it. If you're a low performer and just ritually repeating stuff for the multiple guess test, you've learned nothing.

            This I agree with. This is what schooling is all about at the moment.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:55PM (#391620)

      So, what are you referencing when you mention San Antonio and Harrisburg? Seems out of place to just throw a couple cities in there without some context.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 22 2016, @02:02PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @02:02PM (#391623) Journal

        My bad - I meant the capitals of the respective states, and I screwed the pooch with San Antonio. I should have said Austin - the capital of the largest state in the country, and the largest school system. I just threw in another random state's capital, which you may have deduced if I got the first capital right.

        Hey, I really know better. Sorry.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:11PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:11PM (#391631)

          Ok, makes sense. Usually San Antonio gets ignored by the rest of the country unless someone is talking about the Spurs so I didn't make that connection. Austin being only the 4th largest city in Texas I guess it's possible to assume it's not the capital. Growing up in Texas I guess has given me the assumption that everyone knows Austin is the capital.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:04PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:04PM (#391727)

          Austin is not the capital of Alaska.

          Maybe if we divided Alaska into three equal parts, Texas would be.

    • (Score: 1) by Type44Q on Monday August 22 2016, @03:41PM

      by Type44Q (4347) on Monday August 22 2016, @03:41PM (#391690)

      suck watermelons through garden hoses

      Just to clarify, that's watermelon, not fried chicken, right? :p ;)

  • (Score: 1) by Type44Q on Monday August 22 2016, @01:03PM

    by Type44Q (4347) on Monday August 22 2016, @01:03PM (#391601)

    You dont need to be black; when we moved to a town where the public schools have the Ten Commandments hanging in the hallways and the teachers think that February 14th is known as "Valentimes Day," there was no fucking way those fat, stupid hicks were ejumakatin' our children...

    In any case, perhaps next we can have an article about how blacks (not just people but specifically black people) are fed up with SystemD and are jumping ship to BSD...

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 22 2016, @02:26PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @02:26PM (#391640) Journal

      Now you're being silly. I don't know anyone in real life who uses a *nix operating system, aside from industrial applications. So, I don't know any black people who use *nix.

      Don't even tell me about some black person you met on the intarwebs. Here, any of us can be whatever color we like. Ain't no white people, except for places like Stormfront, ain't no black people, no brown people. Maybe on Facebook you're still a member of a race, but not out here in the www - the wild wild west.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:46PM (#391692)

        I set next to a black Linux Syadmin at work, and know of several others in the building. If black was a higher percentage of the population here it likley would know more, which is why most of the admins here are Mexican or white.

      • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday August 22 2016, @06:18PM

        by dyingtolive (952) on Monday August 22 2016, @06:18PM (#391771)

        Black guy I worked with (before he went to work for the Fed Reserve) used Fedora on his home computer.

        Dad saw fit to make my entire family use flavors of Ubuntu derivatives. Mom dual boots so she can play The Sims, but I think that's about it.

        Not trying to be contrary, just offering a couple anecdotes.

        --
        Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
      • (Score: 2) by julian on Monday August 22 2016, @06:28PM

        by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @06:28PM (#391782)

        Being pedantic here, we're nerds talking about operating systems so you should expect that, but anyone using an Android phone is using a *nix OS; although it's such a denatured and restricted form that it barely counts in spirit.

        :-)

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 22 2016, @07:04PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @07:04PM (#391817)

      where the ... schools have the Ten Commandments hanging in the hallways

      Its interesting that when you replace the ... with "public" its supposed to be a national disgrace and the assumption is they're dumb as Fing rocks, but when you replace ... with "suburban white Catholic" its completely non-controversial the kids have slightly higher educational achievement and lower crime/failure rates (admittedly mostly by being private they can dump the real troublemakers into the public schools).

      I'm just saying that when you find a failing school, I'm pretty sure the root cause of the failure isn't "Thou shalt not kill" hanging up in the hallway.

      I'm not religious and wouldn't want to go there, which would suck if my tax dollars were paying for it, but I recognize they have their shit together, in general. I'm just saying the idea educational reform plan probably doesn't require a pogrom against Christians. Perfect? No, but that would be waaaaay down the list of things to worry about.

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 22 2016, @09:37PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday August 22 2016, @09:37PM (#391887)

        I attended Catholic school for a few years when I was young. They did not hang the ten commandments in the halls. They actually did a good job of keeping the religious BS out of stuff. They even taught us sex ed starting in 6th or 7th grade (7th I think). It's the nutty fundamentalist protestants who mix crazy religion with their education. Lots of non-Catholic people have historically sent their kids to Catholic schools because the education quality was very good and it was easy to ignore the religion component.

        I know some Catholics are pretty nutty (*cough* Santorum *cough*), but the churches I attended while growing up in the 80s (in white, upper-middle-class neighborhoods) seemed more like some kind of social club/obligation for people who didn't have very strong religious beliefs. And considering the families I saw all seemed to have 1 or 2 kids, it didn't seem like any of them paid much attention to the anti-contraception teachings.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:27AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:27AM (#391985)

      In any case, perhaps next we can have an article about how blacks (not just people but specifically black people) are fed up with SystemD and are jumping ship to BSD...

      Actually, I'm black (not joking), and I'm beginning to like systemd! The new mount wrapper in the next release is thrilling!
  • (Score: 1, Troll) by edkfuller on Monday August 22 2016, @01:48PM

    by edkfuller (6330) on Monday August 22 2016, @01:48PM (#391614)

    "studies show all kinds of public school problems disproportionately affect black children"

    Affect black children? Or are caused by black children?

    Let's ask some public school teachers (off the record of course).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:18PM (#391637)

      We all know the answer is black oppression and systematic racism and all white people.
      They are all ruining black America's freedoms.

  • (Score: 2) by Entropy on Monday August 22 2016, @10:37PM

    by Entropy (4228) on Monday August 22 2016, @10:37PM (#391903)

    "African-American children – especially boys – are disproportionately likely to be suspended or arrested."

    They are disproportionally likely to misbehave, probably because their parents are disproportionally likely parent poorly, like their parents before them. Instead of someone saying "You parent poorly, sorry about your luck." We continually blame other things, like the school they are a cancer to.

    If a black parent is truly the type to take their kid out of school, and have their resources and intelligence to homeschool them--They will probably do awesome. As much from the focused interest they will receive as being disassociated from losers. If it's some whiney attempt at "I want free stuff because slavery.", then they will fail in an epic fashion. There are many, many fine intelligent black people in this world: I can't imagine their stress at looking like the other ones.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @11:04PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @11:04PM (#391917)

      Hmmm, racist Entropy? It's all grey goo, from what I can see.