GAPS AND SEGREGATION: Mayor de Blasio can't see the light!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2018

Part 3—Offers offensive remark:
Within the context of the New York City schools, what would a "citywide integration plan" actually look like?

We aren't entirely sure; in fact, we don't know at all. As we noted yesterday, a plan which magically produced perfect "racial balance" in every school would produce an outcome roughly like this, not adjusting for possible "upscale flight:"
Everyschool NYC:
White kids: 15 percent
Black kids: 27 percent
Hispanic kids: 41 percent
Asian-American kids: 16 percent

Low-income kids: 75 percent
Would that be helpful for lower-achieving kids? Let's save that question for later! But just in terms of the raw numbers, it might be hard to achieve that miracle cure, for reasons Elizabeth Harris outlined in this New York Times news report last week:
HARRIS (5/2/18): The proposal [to "make some middle schools more diverse"] came from the superintendent of District 3, a swath of Manhattan that includes the Upper West Side and a bit of southern Harlem. It incorporates families who live in expensive prewar apartment buildings, in shabby tenements and in a number of public housing complexes scattered throughout. While many districts in New York City have little racial diversity to speak of—in some districts, the vast majority of students are black, for example—District 3 is a mix. A little more than half the students are black or Hispanic, and about 40 percent of them are white or Asian.
In terms of so-called race, District 3 is substantially more diverse than most parts of the city.

As Harris noted, some school districts within the New York City Public Schools are almost entirely black. Then too, there's Staten Island, where 64 percent of the overall population was white as of the 2010 census.

Will the term "forced ferrying" come to replace the old demonic, "forced busing?" Probably not, but depending on one's ultimate goals, it seems there's only so much a "citywide integration plan" can expect to accomplish in New York, absent the ever-present goal of making us liberals feel good.

When Mara Gay wrote last Friday's essay on "desegregation," she mainly spoke in favor of a "desegregation" plan for the schools of District 3, where "about 40 percent" of the kids are of the desirable types. Based on Harris' report from two days before, an "integration plan" for District 3 could certainly result in schools where the basic numbers, school-by-school, looked better than they do today.

Whether those schools would help lower-achieving kids is another story, of course. We expect to examine such questions all next week.

That said, Gay said she wanted to cheer at the thought that District 3 schools might show more racial balance. She also suggested support for a "citywide" plan—and threw a fair amount of shade at someone who possibly doesn't.

That person is Mayor de Blasio, who is more typically parodied as a crackpot, ludicrous lefty.

This do Blasio is different! In the online version of Gay's essay, he's met with shade right in the headline: "Parents Do What the Mayor Hasn’t—Integrate Schools."

That headline smacks the mayor. In Gay's actual essay, the criticism starts in paragraph 10 (of 24), where de Blasio is unfavorably contrasted with one of those high-minded District 3 parents.

The parent favors what's "best for all our kids." The mayor just isn't on board:
GAY (5/4/18): Kristen Berger, vice president of the Upper West Side's parent and community advisory council, who has pushed hard for the [District 3] plan, said she was shocked when she realized how racially segregated her daughter's school district was. ''Frankly, I was kind of shamed by it,'' said Ms. Berger, who is white. ''Public school is a public good, so we need to do the best for all our kids.''

One person who hasn't fully come aboard is Mayor Bill de Blasio,
who has supported local integration efforts but whose citywide plan, released last year, is unambitious and entirely voluntary, allowing districts to opt in.
Perhaps we're showing a bit of cheek in our reading of that passage. Perhaps Gay only meant that de Blasio hasn't "fully come on board" with respect to the District 3 plan.

Whatever! At any rate, as Gay continues, she quotes de Blasio making a statement which the nation's indifferent pseudoliberals should take some time to consider. First, though, de Blasio won't even say The Word:
GAY (continuing directly): Mr. de Blasio refuses to use the word ''segregated'' to describe the city's schools. And while the Supreme Court ruled 64 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated schools are inherently unequal, the mayor says schools whose students are almost entirely black and Latino can provide a good education ''as long as the resources are there.''

''We should not mistake the question of diversification with the issue of quality,'' the mayor said during a lengthy phone conversation on the issue.
The mayor won't even use the word! Also, what the Supreme Court said! In Brown!

As Gay continues, she spends some time in a largely pointless debate about the worth of The Word. But by the end of her piece, she's backed the mayor onto the ropes, and she's pounding him fairly hard:
GAY: Mr. de Blasio said his administration would move faster toward a comprehensive citywide plan now that local efforts seemed to be working, but he said it would still be voluntary. ''Is everyone going to buy in? No,'' he said. ''We do not require everyone to buy in.''

The mayor also said the city's hands were largely tied with segregation in public elementary schools, which are largely zoned by neighborhood and more affected by residential segregation patterns. Busing, he said, ''absolutely poisoned the well'' in Boston in the 1970s, near where he grew up. ''I'm telling you, and I think history is on my side here, you do not want to create a series of conflicts here,'' he said.

Dennis Morgan, who serves on the Upper West Side parent-community council with Ms. Berger and is black, said Mr. de Blasio should step up.

''He's the mayor, it's his responsibility,'' Mr. Morgan said. ''He should be setting the rules that we're playing by.''

For now at least, it is people like Henry Zymeck who are showing the way.
Mr. Zymeck said he believed the momentum was on his side. ''I've done this a long time, I've seen a lot of controversial ideas that cause a big uproar at first,'' he said. ''But after a while, people start seeing the light.''

Maybe the mayor will. Maybe we all could.
Good lord! De Blasio's citywide integration plan would be voluntary—and he even played the busing card!

As Gay continues, a parent is quoted saying the mayor should "step up." As she ends her piece, Gay hopes he "sees the light."

Out of that mishegas came the headline which sits atop Gay's piece. For ourselves, we invite you to look again at the mayor's most awful and offensive remark, as recorded by Gay:

"[W]hile the Supreme Court ruled 64 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated schools are inherently unequal, the mayor says schools whose students are almost entirely black and Latino can provide a good education 'as long as the resources are there.' "

In truth, The Court's finding in Brown bore specific reference to the effects of schools which were legally segregated—schools which were all-white and all-black as a matter of law. That said, we'll only offer this thought:

Decent people had better hope that the mayor's statement is correct—that schools whose students are almost entirely black and Latino can provide a good education.

Decent people need to hope that the mayor is right. Tomorrow, we'll take you to Detroit—and to Laredo—to show you why we say that.

We'll fly you to little-visited ports. We'll even bring Scrooge along.

Tomorrow: Dickens' deeply indifferent uncle is taken to San Antone

33 comments:

  1. "...but whose citywide plan, released last year, is unambitious and entirely voluntary"

    Entirely voluntary? Horrors, horrors. The bastard should be sent, immediately, to a re-education camp, to be subjected to 7x24 high-volume Kumbaya and chanting of the Politics section of the NYT.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
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  2. In the 1930's Gershwin show, "Of Thee I Sing", when the President's wife gives birth, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court announces that the baby has no gender until the Supreme Court decides it. This is a joke, because everyone knows that legal power must bow to actual reality.

    Similarly, Gay writes, "...Supreme Court ruled 64 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated schools are inherently unequal." That's the law of the land. But whether segregated schools are truly worse is a matter of actual reality. I think Bob is going to argue that many factors are more significant than racial balance in determining whether a child receives a good education.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You should read some of the psychology studies upon which that ruling was based. It is not a matter of the quality of the school but of the comparison children inevitably make between themselves and others. They notice that white kids go to a different school and that white is privileged in their society and they put two and two together to recognize that they are being separated for a reason and that their status is not the same. THIS is the problem with segregation, that which makes it inherently unequal and inherently a bad experience for black children. The segregation underlines their second-class status in our society and teaches them that they are less than the white children who are educated at different schools because they will have different opportunities in life. So, you can provide all the nice teachers and spiffy maps and sports equipment you want but it won't erase the distinction that is made when kids are kept separate by law. How do we know this? Because empirical studies of children in such schools showed it using data.

      During WWII, Hitler dismantled the first-rate psychology program at his excellent university (and destroyed the universities themselves) and the professors fled, many to the USA. They found jobs in some of the historically black colleges where they trained first-rate black psychologists. Those psychologists were strongly interested in studying the effects of racial discrimination on children and they did the seminal work that laid the foundation upon which Brown v. Board of Education was decided. Because it cannot be someone's opinion that segregation is bad -- the research must be provided to support that opinion. And it was.

      So shut your face, David.

      Delete
    2. "I think Bob is going to argue that many factors are more significant than racial balance in determining whether a child receives a good education."

      Somerby never argues anything. He never tells us what he considers to be a good education. He won't come out and say that segregation is good or bad. He is only arguing that today's so-called segregated schools are not segregated in the way schools were back when segregation was total and a matter of law.

      You will wait a very long time before Somerby says anything about what he thinks schools should be like or how they should teach or what anyone should do about any problem, except Malala would have loved Trump and forgiven him.

      Delete
    3. @11:10...I thought this was a useful point, at least up until I got to "So shut your face, David". At that point I started to wonder whether Anonymous was trying to illuminate, or indulging in a tribal bonding ritual.

      Delete
    4. I think that's particularly appropriate since it's directed at David in Cal.

      Delete
    5. And what, if I may ask, is that "useful point" -- the long-winded drivel narrating the old tired liberal 'white privilege' bullshit?

      Delete
    6. Tim - what is it about being "David in Cal" that makes it "particularly appropriate"? I'm asking for clarification, because the best guess I can come up with right now is that you (and a group of similar-thinkers here) regularly disagree with him.

      Might a shorthand for that be, "He's not in the tribe"?

      Delete
    7. Mao - the specific useful point is the first paragraph (damage to self-esteem of black children from going to different, even if otherwise equal, schools).

      For myself, I'd characterize that as being different from arguments based on privilege, and, as yet, I am personally unsure as to how much weight to give it...but it did seem like an argument given in good faith and worth weighing in the balance.

      Until, for me, its force was seriously diminished by, "So shut your face, David".

      Delete
    8. For those of us interested in thinking more about how to argue with people who disagree with us, I found this interesting:

      http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/08/varieties-of-argumentative-experience/

      Delete
    9. How's it a 'different school'? It's a school, the school for neighborhood children.

      One would really have to engage in deepest sophistry, to the point of bringing Hitler into it, to turn this into "damage to self-esteem" -- or so it seems to me anyway.

      Delete
    10. Mao - If I understand Anon's comment correctly, schools are "different" if they are attended primarily by black (or white) kids.

      I do think that Anon's argument is very disheartening, in that it seems to suggest that black kids themselves devalue their educational experience solely on the basis of its being consumed by a largely black student body. However, if it's true, then we should consider it...and Anon claimed the existence of studies as a basis for his/her assertion. Of course, asserting the existence of studies is not the same as proof, so we may all bring different levels of skepticism to the claim.

      As an aside, I'm often puzzled by which assertions about black kids we liberals tend consider inside or outside the Overton window.

      Delete
    11. 11:10 AM writes:

      [QUOTE] You should read some of the psychology studies upon which that ruling was based. It is not a matter of the quality of the school but of the comparison children inevitably make between themselves and others. [END QUOTE]

      LINK

      LINK

      [QUOTE] As they deliberated on Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 case that eventually overturned “separate-but-equal” segregation in the United States, the Supreme Court Justices contemplated oral arguments and pored over case transcripts. But they also considered black and white baby dolls—unexpected weapons in the plaintiffs’ fight against racial discrimination.

      The dolls were part of a group of groundbreaking psychological experiments performed by Mamie and Kenneth Clark, a husband-and-wife team of African-American psychologists who devoted their life’s work to understanding and helping heal children’s racial biases. During the “doll tests,” as they’re now known, a majority of African-American children showed a preference for dolls with white skin instead of black ones—a consequence, the Clarks argued, of the pernicious effects of segregation.

      The Clarks’ work, and their testimony in the underlying cases that became Brown v. Board of Education, helped the Supreme Court justices and the nation understand some of the lingering effects of segregation on the very children it affected most.

      For the Clarks, the results showed the devastating effects of life in a society that was intolerant of African-Americans. Their experiment, which involved white- and brown-skinned dolls, was deceptively simple. (In a reflection of the racial biases of the time, the Clarks had to paint a white baby doll brown for the tests, since African-American dolls were not yet manufactured.) The children were asked to identify the diapered dolls in a number of ways: the one they wanted to play with, the one that looked “white,” “colored,” or “Negro,” the one that was “good” or “bad.” Finally, they were asked to identify the doll that looked most like them.

      All of the children tested were black, and all but one group attended segregated schools. Most of the children preferred the white doll to the African-American one. Some of the children would cry and run out of the room when asked to identify which doll looked like them. These results upset the Clarks so much that they delayed publishing their conclusions.

      Mamie Clark had connections to the growing legal struggle to overturn segregation—she had worked in the office of one of the lawyers who helped lay the foundation for Brown v. Board of Education. When the NAACP learned of the Clarks’ work, they asked them to participate in a case that would later be rolled into the class-action case that went to the Supreme Court. So Kenneth Clark headed to Clarendon County, South Carolina, to replicate his test with black children there. It was a terrifying experience, he recalled later, especially when his NAACP host was threatened in his presence.

      “But we had to test those children,” he recalled. “These children saw themselves as inferior and they accepted the inferiority as part of reality.”

      Thurgood Marshall was eager to use the Clarks’ work in the bigger class-action case that would become Brown v. Board of Education, but not everyone was convinced. Attorney Spotswood Robinson told an observer that it was “crazy and insulting to persuade a court of law with examples of crying children and dolls,” writes historian Martha Minow.

      continued...

      Delete
    12. ...continued

      [QUOTE] But the court didn’t think so. Kenneth Clark testified at three of the trials and helped write a summary of all five trials’ social science testimony that was used in the Supreme Court case. He told judges and juries that African-American children’s preference for white dolls represented psychological damage that was reinforced by segregation.

      “My opinion is that a fundamental effect of segregation is basic confusion in the individuals and their concepts about themselves conflicting in their self images,” he told the jury in the Briggs case. The sense of inferiority caused by segregation had real, lifelong consequences, he argued—consequences that started before children could even articulate any information about race.

      The Clarks’ work and testimony were part of a much broader case that combined five cases and covered nearly every aspect of school segregation—and some historians argue that the doll tests played a relatively insignificant part in the court’s decision. But echoes of the Clarks’ results ring through the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court justices. [END QUOTE]

      Chief Justice Earl Warren in writing the Opinion of the Court in Brown v. Board of Education concluded that:

      [QUOTE] ...Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.

      Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.

      We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.... [END QUOTE]

      Delete
    13. "Might a shorthand for that be, 'He's not in the tribe?'"

      Dunno. Does he wear pointy boots?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pydX4GXSyc

      Delete
    14. "what is it about being "David in Cal" that makes it "particularly appropriate"? "

      The next argument David makes in good faith, will be his first.

      Delete
  3. When Manhattan has such expensive housing that no one but professionals can afford to live there any more, how are 75% of the children in the public schools poor?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Due to Manhattan being a small borough with much less population than Queens or Brooklyn and not much more than the Bronx. Another factor is that many richer families send their kids to private schools. Somerby may also be manipulating the statistics and not counting aid provided by the city or state that is much more generous than when he is writing about education in other parts of the country or low income is double the poverty line or some other pertinent information. Like when he writes about students qualifing for school lunch programs he is quite pendantic and precise. Here he never really defines what qualifies as low income. Bob tends to be an unreliable narrator to try and make his point quite often.

      -C’est Moi

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    4. @ 7:55 & 7:58 - what CMike is left with without the block cites and the post-Stalin soviet sloganeering.

      Delete
    5. @ -C’est Moi

      I think 11:16 was referring to the fact that public schools are funded by property taxes. Which is an absurd and possibly "racist" way of acquiring such funding. It may be assumed (as I am now) that property taxes are very high in Manhattan, so the taxes paid to fund schools should be high as well, offsetting the low population.

      Having said that, I assume property taxes in Manhattan are intentionally very low. You know, to "attract business." Otherwise, the schools would be fully funded. Or rather, should be.

      Leroy


      Delete
    6. I misread you in my reply to C’est Moi, 11:16. Your post wasn't about public funding of schools, but about poverty itself. Apologies.

      Leroy

      Delete
  4. Lumping black and Latino students into a single category doesn't make them all the same. Pretending that if a school is largely black and Latino, its student body is homogenous is untrue.

    In Los Angeles, schools that are mostly minority include children from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds and racial groups. A school need not have many white children to be diverse (in the sense of different).

    It is racist, in my opinion, to assume that white children have some magical quality that automatically improves education for all others in their classes with them.

    ReplyDelete
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  6. Hillary's book 'What Happened' doesn't even mention NAFTA. Clueless.

    ReplyDelete
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