“It’s about segregation,” [the NAACP's Dot] Scott said. “That is germane to every move (the charter school) makes - to keep these kids separate." [See Friday's on-line P & C for School Board to Hear More About Lowcountry Tech.] Scott continues to whine that the Rivers building might be used by a charter school.
According to Scott, the Charter School for Math and Science (CSMS), the most heavily integrated school in CCSD's District 20 (downtown) is "really just a commie plot, you see, to get us internally." (That's what conspiracy-theorists sang when fluoride was introduced to the Charleston water supply.) Her comments reflect their paranoid philosophy. Truthfully, it's Scott who hopes to "keep these kids separate," for as long as the downtown schools are 98% black (or more), the NAACP will be in the driver's seat, and she will be the driver.
Peninsula residents both black and white agree that high-tech programs should exist. Many Burke supporters have asked for them at Burke High School for years and instead have been presented with programs such as the AP Academy. Lowcountry Tech High may or may not be the answer.
The saddest fact is that Scott erroneously assumes that a high-tech program would appeal only to black students and that CSMS's fully-integrated student body would be afraid to inhabit the same building with them.
How prejudiced is that?
Friday, August 14, 2009
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3 comments:
Dot Scott represents an organization desperately in search of a cause. Even the President of the United States endorsed charter schools in his State of the Union address. Just ignore her.
When this school makes academic strides, and most people are believing it will, what will she say then? There is a real feeling of enthusiasm among parents (African-American, caucasian, etc.)whose children attend the school. Furthermore, Dot Scott cannot deny a waiting list for this school which some say is still growing past the current estimate of 180. That represents a lot of parents showing up for a future CCSD board meeting.
And what does Dot Scott and the local NAACP group have to say about all the promises made to the Burke community by school district officials only see those promises broken by those same officials? Where is the AP Academy at Burke now? Like the A-Plus middle school program, it may have died a quiet death. Where are the tech courses that Burke was supposed to have and what happened to the medical careers training partnerships? Of course Dot Scott isn't interested in Burke's success when she can blame its failure on others. What does Dot Scott have to say about Burke's declining enrollment? (Burke now has 1,100 seats with less than 600 students.) Does she care why so many parents have pulled their students out of Burke? Could it be that CCSD has pulled so many academic programs and vocational course that Burke no longer has anything to offer downtown students? So why has the CCSD superintendent and Dot Scott's group ignored requests made by so many Burke parents and alumni in recent years to restore modern high tech academic and vocational training programs within that school?
It’s no accident that CCSD has made sure that despite the newly renovated and expanded Burke campus CCSD it is almost impossible for Burke students to receive legitimate vocational training which prepares students to take on anything more than low pay or unskilled jobs. It is also no accident that 100 years ago next year, vocational programs were being offered for the first time in South Carolina's history within a public high school...within a start up school which came to be Burke High School. Where is that legacy now? From what she's said so far, I can only conclude that Dot Scott knows little and cares even less.
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