No surprises. The vote Monday night at the CCSD Board of Trustees meeting on charging rent to the new Charter School for Math and Science was 6 to 3 in favor of no rent. [See Charter School Vote Breaks Racially] Those voting "no" had already voiced their reasons at previous meetings; they had no new arguments, not even ones challenging Attorney-General McMaster's ruling that rent couldn't be charged.
Chutzpah? Gall? Nerve? Arrogance? Effrontery?
We could exhaust the thesaurus trying to grasp the attitude of Toya Hampton-Green, Ruth Jordan, and Hillery Douglas. The organizers of CSMS have shown considerable forbearance in not responding to the racist attacks hurled their way by these three, who purport to be defending the schoolchildren in District 20.
Ruth Jordan actually "said that [the] vote would show the district has a long way to go to ensuring fairness and equity in education," accusing the organizers of being a wealthy elite who no longer wish to pay private school tuition. What she refuses to acknowledge, thanks to her racist agenda, is that this school is the best step towards "fairness and equity in education" downtown in decades.
Here we have a school in District 20 (not Buist!) that will actually be integrated, and purposely so! Present sign-ups for the school show a population that is 46 % white and 42 % black. That must be what nettles Jordan so much.
Maybe we should call in civil rights leaders to protest the horrible injustice of CCSD's supporting a non-segregated charter school? After all, what other charter schools in CCSD claim a balanced population?
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
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4 comments:
"....what other charter schools in CCSD claim a balanced population?"
A more damning question might be to ask what CCSD managed magnet school can claim a balanced population?
Don't forget that CCSD promised that Buist would be 40% minority and they NEVER met those goals, even before the law suit that challenged its mandated racial quota. This charter school doesn't have a quota...only a well defined goal to give reasonable access to an excellent pubic education downtown.
The posted stats say 46% white and 42% black, do those stats reflect the stats of the Charleston County student population as well? Is Charleston 46% white and 42% black?
If those figures do not line up then I can see why people would be concerned about the equity of enrollment.
It's also now posted that 34% are eligible for free lunch; that has to be far, far less than Charleston County Public Schools. Given that over half the schools in the US are now Title I schools, I have to assume the free lunch rate is 50% if not higher.
Also, the other new posted stats regarding home schooled and private schooled students account for less than 8 African American students coming from those two populations (combined) and 37.3 white students from those two populations. So, what is the point of that?
Just trying to get a "factual" picture by using facts. Can anyone clarify the makeup of the local student population? Is it about 50-50?
CCSD's student population is roughly 52% Black, 44% White and 4% 'other'. That's compared to a total Charleston County population that is approximately 32% Black, 65% White and 2% 'other'.
Students reported as eligable for free or reduced price lunch (FRL) because of family income comprise very close to half the total student population which is about 41,000 students county-wide.
What these statistics don't tell you is that CCSD has concentrated (dumped?) most of the minority students and the vast majority of lower income students into the same schools while allowing other schools to reflect racial and income ratios that are more in line with the county's total population and not the highly skewed demographics of the public school system. That's why Charleston County has 36 out of 79 public schools that could only be described as racially segregated.
The numbers for schools and the surrounding community downtown are even more extreme. 48% of District 20's school age population is White; 52% is Black. Currently CCSD seems to be satisfied that 89% of District 20's school enrollment is Black and most of its schools have a recent history of cronic failure. If you remove CCSD's apartheid model school (Buist) from consideration, the figures approach 100%.
For your information: Buist has less than 22% Black student enrollment. Its student body also reflects more than 65% White and 13% 'other' among the rest of its enrollment. It has less than 10% of its students that qualify for FRL.
Hope that helps to paint the picture for you.
"Don't forget that CCSD promised that Buist would be 40% minority and they NEVER met those goals, even before the law suit that challenged its mandated racial quota."
Wow - so what you are saying is they should have skipped over white/or other children in line with a better number or better testing in order to fill a quota? Yeh, sure, that seems right.
Everyone has an equal opportunity to apply for Buist - if you get a good number and you pass the test - you're in. That seems far less discriminatory than requiring a quota. Why should one get a pass because of their skin color?
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