U.S. Courts respond to school busing with artful compromises similar to Bakke decision (1978) on medical school admission?

[bguy]

Okay, Mr. #1 Rhodesia fan, since it's clear at this point there's no racist policy from the 1970's you won't defend, I'm sending you back in time to 1973, before AH.com existed. Best of luck on your journey and say hi to Mr. Powell for all of us.

Is wanting your children to be able to attend local schools really a racist policy? There are plenty of non-racist reasons why people would favor local schools such as not wanting their children to have to spend an hour or more each day on a bus, enabling children to go to the same schools as their neighborhood friends, making it easier for both parents and children to attend afterschool practices and events (where busing services wouldn't exist), and having much more ability to influence the operation of the schools in the school district where you live, vote, and pay taxes.

Indeed a Gallup poll taken in 1971 found that even a plurality of African-Americans opposed cross-district busing.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Is wanting your children to be able to attend local schools really a racist policy? There are plenty of non-racist reasons why people would favor local schools such as not wanting their children to have to spend an hour or more each day on a bus, enabling children to go to the same schools as their neighborhood friends, making it easier for both parents and children to attend afterschool practices and events (where busing services wouldn't exist), and having much more ability to influence the operation of the schools in the school district where you live, vote, and pay taxes.

Indeed a Gallup poll taken in 1971 found that even a plurality of African-Americans opposed cross-district busing.

No, I can absolutely see why someone wouldn't want their kid to be bused across the district to a much worse school. I personally went to a high school 20 miles away and out of district instead of the majority-minority school whose district I lived in, not because of any animosity on the part of me or my parents, but because my local school was the literal worst in the state. At the same time, because of the unpopularity of local busing policies, opposition to busing was a very handy thing for segregationists to seize onto as a national policy and a lot of racists of various stripes waved that flag hard.

As usual, you should not examine one specific post with a microscope and should instead ask yourself why a British poster with a long history of supporting Rhodesia, complaining about "multiculturalism", etc, would have such a strong opinion about an American issue from 40 years ago.

 

[DougM]

For those outside the US keep a few things in mind.
1) the US is a Republic made up of independent states. We are losing this but that WAS the origin. In many ways the US Federal government started off more like the EU then say France or Whatever. It has over time evolved a more central controlling roll.
2) Many of our STATES are larger then many countries in Europe. So to have a state controlled anything can result in people living many hours from you having control of whatever it is you are talking about (schools in this case)
3) The US has always been more multi cultural/multi racial then most countries in Europe or Asia until vairly recently as Europe gains larger number of non natives. Note i am not saying this worked out well and it sure had issues but you could very easily live your whole live in an area with people that shared a racial/social/cultural background. And an Hour away would be a completely different Ethnic/culture etc, So not only were State wide institutes controlled from far it away it could very well be controlled by folks that have completly different views on how it should be ran. A city school district is much much different in 1960 then say a rural farmland district and has different needs. Ignoring different curriculums. Up in Northern Mi it was not unheard of to have lockers in schools (high schools or colleges) for long guns. Mostly so that the students could hunt in season in the way home as hunting used to supplement a lot of families food. In other places we had (and still have) different religious needs in schools, And so on and so forth
4) While i will not comment on non US governments, the reality in the US has been such that the. larger a government agency is the worse it is ran and the more money it wastes. And the less accountability it has. And understandably people are concerned about how their children are being educated. So they want closer oversite.

Now keep in mind that we have fedural regulations that have to be met and federal funds. We also have State funds and regulations. In my state a large oart of the funds are state level. We also have. county level (and in less popular areas the school district is often a county sized entity) My local district has my Township (about 30sq miles) the local City (about 6sq miles) and parts of or all of two neighboring townships (about another 30-40 sq miles) for a total area of about 60-75 square miles or more. Up were my parents had a summer place the kid down the street spent 1.5 HOURS in the morning on a bus and another hour and a half on the way home. So he was gone for 10 hours a day minimum. When was he supposed yo do home work chores and still have some fun and sleep? His schedule was get up eat catch a bus go to school return home, eat, do chores and homework and go to bed 5 days a weeks. With no time for anything else.

As for local taxes this started out simply enough. The locals if they wanted a school back a 130+ years ago would all chip in and build a one room school house and perhaps a house for the teacher. if the had a full time teacher from outside the district. often the teacher was a wife of a local farmer. The locals would provide shelter and wood (for heat and cooking) and the kids attended the school (when not needed on the farms) and did general maintenance.
Then as we got bigger or fancier it got to the point that it was easier to just give money instead of helping build and repair the schools (and this was often the way in Bigger cities yo start with) . So eventually this revolved into the locals voting in taxes to pay for the buildings. and maybe to suplement what the state was willing to pay. Then this evolved into paying a bit more for hiring teachers that may not be “needed” like shop or art or music teachers and slowly it turned into local districts that could afford it paying extra.
Not sure how this is radicaly different then say in England where you have government run schools that are open to everyone but a large part of the population that can afford it sends their kids to other presumably better schools. Or schools that fit the parents ”idea“ of how they want their children taught.
Now if you say try and pass a law saying all schools must only use state funds are you are doing is taking away higher finds from some areas, it is not going yo give any poor area more then it has now. And if you are not going yo get much higher taxes as the poor districts cant afford higher taxes and the wealthy districts will vote against it for multiple reasons starting with not wanting tofoot the bill for poorly run schools and other peoples kids and ending with the wealthy just sending their kids to privat school. (humm sounds much like parts of England). (note this may have changed in england my english friends and family have been out of school for a long time)
Also it is usually the larger districts that are in the worst shape and often they are the worst run. My big city near me at one tome had about 2x as many schools (and administrators and what have you) as other districts its size had. at least in part because no one could agree on what achools to close as the population of the city shrunk. Add in corruption of various levels and it was not just a mtter of not having money but was as much a matter of not running the district properly. So we see my point 4 above.

So this combinations of factors has led to our current situation. And frankly until we can fix the political mess, the corruption of larger government entities, the indifference if some folks and the and the economic realities that have so damaged our families we could toss all the money in the world at some of these districts and not fix anything. This is basically just the same oroblem we have with some cities or areas being poor and other being vetr wealthy and the rest falling somewhere in between.
I wish it was different but…

 

[EWHM]

Is wanting your children to be able to attend local schools really a racist policy? There are plenty of non-racist reasons why people would favor local schools such as not wanting their children to have to spend an hour or more each day on a bus, enabling children to go to the same schools as their neighborhood friends, making it easier for both parents and children to attend afterschool practices and events (where busing services wouldn't exist), and having much more ability to influence the operation of the schools in the school district where you live, vote, and pay taxes.

Indeed a Gallup poll taken in 1971 found that even a plurality of African-Americans opposed cross-district busing.

I was bussed as a kid across town taking somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes each way. It sucked, hardcore. It also dropped things like PTA participation down to nearly nothing. This was back in the late 70s/early 80s.

 

[Dancing Fool]

There were about a dozen students in the class. Several could legitimately called those who would benefit from special education. Most unfortunately were simply students who as a rule wouldn't even pretend to sit still and study for five minutes straight. Instead they mostly spent their days joined together yelling at the top of their lungs and cursing at any and everyone walking by outside and on the rare incident a substitute teacher would try to do some form of teaching they'd join together and spend a few hours screaming and cursing at them.

sounds just, God awful ! ! !

I’m most likely on the autism spectrum, and have sensory issues. And this type of situation would have been the 7th level of hell for me. And things like this are one reason I’m kind of glad I wasn’t diagnosed as child. At age 60, I’m still not diagnosed. And since there really aren’t resources to tap into, the only reason might be if I were a big-time screenwriter, for example [work with me on this one!], and then there’d be a benefit of raising awareness.

I’m going to guess that many of these loud, cursing kids were ADHD who certainly can be taught skills to regulate their moods and emotions, as well as skills to produce a lot of quality work in a number of different areas. For example, the astronaut Pete Conrad may have been ADHD.

It starts with having a teacher with the skills and energy, and probably good health as well.

Plus, a teaching assistant who gives a fuck. It’s sounds like yours had all the interest in her job as a banana slug. She should have been fired during the probationary period, which even with a bureaucratic union you’re able to do.

 

[dcharles]

It's ridiculous on it's face to say that kids going to "local schools only" isn't going to have racially disparate effects when the US had until quite recently, an official policy of minority ghettoization, popularly known as redlining.

 

[Father Maryland]

sounds just, God awful ! ! !

I’m most likely on the autism spectrum, and have sensory issues. And this type of situation would have been the 7th level of hell for me. And things like this are one reason I’m kind of glad I wasn’t diagnosed as child. At age 60, I’m still not diagnosed. And since there really aren’t resources to tap into, the only reason might be if I were a big-time screenwriter, for example [work with me on this one!], and then there’d be a benefit of raising awareness.

I’m going to guess that many of these loud, cursing kids were ADHD who certainly can be taught skills to regulate their moods and emotions, as well as skills to produce a lot of quality work in a number of different areas. For example, the astronaut Pete Conrad may have been ADHD.

It starts with having a teacher with the skills and energy, and probably good health as well.

Plus, a teaching assistant who gives a fuck. It’s sounds like yours had all the interest in her job as a banana slug. She should have been fired during the probationary period, which even with a bureaucratic union you’re able to do.

Yep on the spectrum and with sensory issues myself. I don't like too much loud noises, large crowds and so on. It was pretty hellish for me. Especially because a few of them had a hobby of besides shouting and cursing out the window all day of also actually doing the nails on the chalkboard pretty frequently.

I'm not a shrink but I have been around enough folks with various disorders and such to have a laymens appreciation. A few of the shouters probably did have some form of ADD. Most however were in all honesty just guys with disciplinary issues. Which was why they were sent to Special Ed. They were sent somewhere nobody would really care. Which made everything super fun. Getting called a "retard" by plenty of those outside of the class who prided themselves on "being normal" and in class dealing with the sort of folks who if adults would add a sound system to their car that would cause your teeth to shake a few hundred yards away.

In my experience you could mostly group special ed teachers into a handful of categories

1) Those who have fucked up or become somewhat disabled and couldn't get assigned to a "normal class" but due to Tenure or something like that the school was willing to let them run out the clock before retirement.
2) The poor fools who were generally fresh out of college and full of idealism about helping the disabled. Even then I utterly pitied this source. They'd come in with dreams but quickly find them nightmares. A combination of empathy leading to pain (since the students they really wanted to help by and large they couldn't no matter how hard they tried), beuracracy and concerned parents making virtually anything impossible (among other things just trying to keep the students having outbursts/temper tantrums at any given time from completely and utterly derailing the class for hours while what the teacher could do was extremely limited. Also having to deal with parents who similarly wanted the best for their kids but weren't able to face reality. Like say the parent of a kid with a severe intellectual disability/low functioning autism and being blind insisting at length that their child be taught brail (despite most blind people without massive intellectual disabilities not learning braile in the first place.) and so on. These sort of initially idealistic teachers have a extraordinarily high burn out rate. As in an average of over 90 percent of them quitting (either trying to become other teachers or frequently abandoning education as a whole) within 2 years. The ones that don't collapse generally end up stopping giving a shit and just wait out the clock. Back in college (despite making shit tons of bad decisions) whenever I met someone majoring in Special Ed I would generally make a impassioned plea for them to find something else. Because I knew first hand just what misery awaited them. It's a job someone needs to do but I had enough experience to realize that those students going forward with that career goal were basically facing a soul crushing future. I've seen it first hand. Teachers come in brimming with empathy and optism. Even a month later their practically choking on their own hopelessness.
3) The "I don't give a shit". Basically those who don't really care and try to do the bare minimum while trying not to care. Can't say I blame those types.

As to teaching assistants in special ed classes in my experience they are not actually their to assist in teaching. Instead their real job is pretty much trying to get the students undergoing a outburst/temperature out of the class while they cool down. More orderlies then TAs.

Of course my school systems special ed system was actually better then most.

Though regarding that TA in particular I did get a bit of revenge. We went on a class field trip to Patapsco state park (in Maryland. Not a particularly large one). I insisted on going on a walk and she had to come with. She was a city girl and found the whole thing terrifying. Kept asking where the wolves and grizzly bears were (in that area the largest predator would be a fox). A fairly short walk was pretty hilarious (she was terrified of being lost. Besides being next to the creek which we would obviously follow back we were also like less then 8 miles or so from suburban housing. A short jaunt through what might as well have been a city park made her think wolves were going to eat her.

Not entirely proud of that in hindsight.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

I think a good summary is to say that busing shouldn’t have been a national issue, that opposition to busing on the local level could be forgivable, but there’s no excuse for blanket opposition on the national level other than it being a popular racist cause. Conflating specific local issues with the national dialogue that existed at the time isn’t very helpful.

 

[Father Maryland]

It's ridiculous on it's face to say that kids going to "local schools only" isn't going to have racially disparate effects when the US had until quite recently, an official policy of minority ghettoization, popularly known as redlining.

The Maryland system to me seems better in some ways. Rather then a smaller school zone schools are organized on the county level. I grew up in a suburb that was strangely enough when founded in the 1960s was intentionally designed to be as diverse in terms of race/ethnicity/religion and so on as possible. One thing I liked was that the area had a bunch of interfaith centers. Basically different rooms in the same building would be used for different religions ceremonies. I had my Bar Mitzvah in a building that in the next room held Catholic (I think) masses, Islamic prayers, Budhist gatherings and so on.

Also randomly enough Frank Whittle died in my town.

 

[Dancing Fool]

The one thing I never understood in the USA is why schools are founded with local taxes!!!

Because it's a holdover from the early nineteenth century.

Just like Summer vacation itself is a holdover for when we were primarily an agricultural society!

And I remember reading the letters to a local newspaper during a teachers’ strike, and there was A LOT of resentment toward teachers for having the whole Summer off. Yes, just one data point, but I’m going to tentatively conclude that this is one of the big sticking points toward getting relatively high pay for teachers where it’s a competitive position, and not everyone who wants the job is able to get it.

 

[Jürgen]

No, I can absolutely see why someone wouldn't want their kid to be bused across the district to a much worse school. I personally went to a high school 20 miles away and out of district instead of the majority-minority school whose district I lived in, not because of any animosity on the part of me or my parents, but because my local school was the literal worst in the state. At the same time, because of the unpopularity of local busing policies, opposition to busing was a very handy thing for segregationists to seize onto as a national policy and a lot of racists of various stripes waved that flag hard.

As usual, you should not examine one specific post with a microscope and should instead ask yourself why a British poster with a long history of supporting Rhodesia, complaining about "multiculturalism", etc, would have such a strong opinion about an American issue from 40 years ago.

I see your point, but busing is in fact also an issue elsewhere and I would hate that we can’t discuss the issue in question. Case in point busing was in fact implemented some years ago in Denmark. Interesting it have not been very controversial and mostly a success, and there’s not really much complaining about it. Attempt be old center left government to implement busing on high school level on the other hand ended up much more controversial with a coalition of the urban right and the doves on the left joining against it, as the policies mostly targeted the richest and poorest high schools, and left the high school of the center left, rural right children alone (as they tends to middle income) as they were already integrated in case of the center left or were to far out in the country side for such police to be impossible in case of the rural right.

Why the policy was far more successful in case of elementary level was because the policy was very much a carrot policy to both minority and majority parents. It was found out when a class had more than 25% minority children, the majority children slowly moved to private school over the years and the class began to suffer under the amount of low resource children increased (in percentage), but if the class had less than 25% minority children the majority parents stayed in the class and with more high resource children the teacher had more time to spend on the children who struggled (among which minority children was over represented).

The high school policy on the other hand was a far more stick policy, which was possible because private high schools are very rare in Denmark.

 

[Father Maryland]

I was bussed as a kid across town taking somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes each way. It sucked, hardcore. It also dropped things like PTA participation down to nearly nothing. This was back in the late 70s/early 80s.

The reasons why are complicated but senior year of High School I ended up spending about 3 hours each way getting bussed to my school. I only lived an hour from the school but the bus had to pick up a few other people scattered to hell and back. I'd get on the bus at like 530 (sometimes six) in order to get to school when it opened at like 9 or 930.

Two worst bits were

A) I'm a pretty large guy (height alone I'm a little north of 6:2). The bus seats were so compact I literally couldnt sit normally with my feet on the ground. I had to sit with my kneeds pressed very firmly against like the top of the back of the next seat. The bus was mostly empty so I tried to lay across the isle onto the next seat over but was constantly yelled at about it for "safety reasons".

2) For some fucking reasons the driver insisted on blasting really shitty country music the entire way over bus speakers that sounds like someone stuck a fork in a garbage disposal. With one of the speakers right over my head. So basically spending about 5 or 6 hours a day in a really uncomfortable position of having my knees jammed tight above my head while having shitty music on shitty speakers blasted right into my ear.

And the safety thing was funny since if there was a accident I'm pretty sure I would have at least shattered both knee caps.

 

[Father Maryland]

The one thing I never understood in the USA is why schools are founded with local taxes!!! It should be, at least with state taxes so the every school in an state has equal founding. Even better if it is federal taxes.

Maryland has a somewhat better system. Namely instead of much smaller school districts things are organized and funded on a county level. So rather then a rich suburb funding a good school and a poor area funding a poor school you have a somewhat more equal funding and organizational system. Since the same county can include a suburb with a household income of say 150K or more and areas where the household income is a fraction of that.

 

[vl100butch]

Maryland has a somewhat better system. Namely instead of much smaller school districts things are organized and funded on a county level. So rather then a rich suburb funding a good school and a poor area funding a poor school you have a somewhat more equal funding and organizational system. Since the same county can include a suburb with a household income of say 150K or more and areas where the household income is a fraction of that.

I put my two daughters through the Frederick County, MD public school system, thankfully because of their dyslexia program in elementary school. Both of them got an education that I would have killed for, having gone through the hell of the Plaquemines Parish public schools in Louisiana, including being one of the white kids in the first year of integration. I basically had 11 years of elementary and secondary education. My parents moved me to a Catholic high school for my last two years, which was the best thing they ever did for me.

All this being said, I've witnessed the destruction of public school systems due to busing. I don't know how you could fix the underlying issues either.

 

[octaviuz]

Maryland has a somewhat better system. Namely instead of much smaller school districts things are organized and funded on a county level...

Yep, the key 70s court ruling on desegregation was Milliken, which restricted bussing across district boundaries. Despite the ongoing uproar after that point it essentially meant that desegregation was no longer a serious goal in K-12 education.
My AHC would have the goal of getting to county-wide or metropolitan school districts in all states.
As long as people live separately (not likely to change a lot) how could we at least assure that all the schools in a community have equal resources?

 

[Dancing Fool]

As long as people live separately (not likely to change a lot) how could we at least assure that all the schools in a community have equal resources?

Please ! ! !

It could have become the norm that all teachers in the same state get paid the same. Maybe with a housing allowance for those working in higher-cost urban areas, and this is a known concept in the corporate world [per diem, etc]. And I think in the military world as well.

Probably somewhat of an under-payment as compared to actual cost, and that might be the sweet spot to aim for. And if the net effect to make rural schools more attractive, that might actually be something very much needed and a net positive.

 

[Dancing Fool]

Yep on the spectrum and with sensory issues myself.

Sometimes the question comes up, Is there an animal model for the autism spectrum? And personally, I think there just might be . . .

 

[Teiresias]

I was bussed as a kid across town taking somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes each way. It sucked, hardcore. It also dropped things like PTA participation down to nearly nothing. This was back in the late 70s/early 80s.

Wouldn't it have been easier to bus the teachers rather than the students? Transporting a few dozen teachers seems like it would be less effort than hundreds of students (especially since many of the teachers would be able to drive and thus not reliant on public transport).

 

[DougM]

You still cant. get ar ounc the simple fact that as soon as you build a larger school districts you will end up with less money as people vote against taxes. A small district will get taxes passed to build a new highschool, but why would i vote additional taxes to pay for a high school a half hour from my house on the other side of the country?
So you are balancing the schools budgets but you are not getting better schools for everyone you are get worse schools for everyone. And you are not fixing the core issues which are lack of parental guidance and other factors that derive from the socio/economic issues in the poorer school districts.
If the kids belong to gangs or don't do homework because no one at home makes them (often because there is no one at home) or skip school or dont study or whatever else is the iss. that is not going to be changed by a bit more money.
You cant magically fix this issue with more money for the schools. You have to fix the problems outside the school so that the schools can do their jobs. You want yo fix the schools, fix the cities.

 

[jsb]

that is not going to be changed by a bit more money.
You cant magically fix this issue with more money for the schools. You have to fix the problems outside the school so that the schools can do their jobs. You want yo fix the schools, fix the cities.

I would question that as an outsider (none US) I just think waiting for the perfect solution means it will never get fixed? Going for say state level funding would probably decrease inequality and raise attainment significantly in the poor school districts? Even if you only close the grade gap to 80% from current 60% (numbers made up & picked from the air as example)....

(I dont think it's just cities it's also rural poor areas presumably & looking at maps of US data?)